|
Psalm 119:41-48
VAU
“Let thy mercies
come also unto me, O LORD, even thy salvation, according to thy
word. So shall I have wherewith to
answer him that reproacheth me: for I
trust in thy word. And take not the word
of truth utterly out of my mouth; for I have hoped in thy judgments. So shall I keep thy law continually for ever
and ever. And I
will walk at liberty: for I seek thy
precepts. I will speak of thy
testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed. And I will delight myself in thy commandments,
which I have loved. My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I
have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes.”
Introduction
Psalm
119, we have come to verse 41, and as we come there, there is a request that’s
put in front of the LORD by this Psalmist, who desires
to be witness of the LORD’s work in his life and of his
own relationship with the LORD. So the first three verses, 41, 42, and 43 are
a request that he puts before the LORD. And then from 44 to 48, kind of the results,
he promises in regards to that request. See he says “I shall keep thy law
continually for ever and ever.” (verse 44) “I shall
walk” “I shall speak” “I will
delight” “I will lift up unto the LORD” “I will meditate”. He says LORD, I need you to work in my
life, you’re the initiator, do these things, and these are the things LORD I have committed to do.’ So let’s read through these first 8 verses,
and then we’ll look at them together. “Let
thy mercies come also unto me, O LORD, even thy salvation, according to thy word. So shall I have wherewith to answer him that
reproacheth me: for I trust in thy
word. And take not the word of truth
utterly out of my mouth; for I have hoped in thy judgments. So shall I keep thy law continually for ever
and ever. And I
will walk at liberty: for I seek thy
precepts. I will speak of thy
testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed. And I will delight myself in thy
commandments, which I have loved. My
hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will
meditate in thy statutes.” (verses 41-48)
‘Let Your Salvation Come To Me LORD,
According To Your Word’
First
he calls out on the LORD, he says ‘Let your mercies,’ your
translation might say ‘tender love’ or ‘divine
love’, or it may say ‘Let thy salvation,’ the idea is ‘Let
your mercies, tender love, your divine love come to me LORD,’ “O LORD, Jehovah, even thy salvation, according to thy word.” That’s his concept of God’s mercy and loving
kindness, it’s God’s salvation, and it isn’t just any
salvation, it’s salvation “according to thy word.” And listen, that’s clear. You and I, the salvation we want to be a
witness of, that’s what he’s going to get to, is the salvation that’s according
to God’s Word. It’s not just ‘Hey, church is cool, Jesus is really
something, man, you’ve gotta come, we’re talking about Jesus.’ It is very specific that there is sin,
and sin is the problem in the human race. And the only answer for that sin is substitutionary atonement, someone
innocent has to pay the price and die in our place, or else we die for our own
sins. That individual was clearly
predicted throughout the Old Testament, before Jesus Christ [Yeshua haMeschiach
in Hebrew] came and fulfilled those prophecies. He walked in our shoes and in our skin, he died in our place, he bore
our sins, it says, upon the tree, the sin of mankind. He came there under the wrath of Almighty
God, and those sins were punished, he made atonement for us, he rose on the
third day, the evidence of the fact that the Father accepted all of that, he
ascended into heaven, and he’s coming soon for his Bride [that in essence is
the Gospel, which if accepted by an individual, brings salvation], and that’s
the Jesus that we believe in, and that’s the salvation we believe in [see http://www.unityinchrist.com/misc/WhatIsTheGospel%20.htm]. It’s salvation
according to the Word of God, it’s not a lot of other salvations that are out
there. Ah, we’re not waiting for our
space-brothers to come and take us, there’s lots of other stuff out there. No, this is salvation according to God’s
Word.
‘I Want To Be Able To Give An Answer To Him Who Reproaches Me—Out Of Your Word’
He
says, “So shall I have wherewith to
answer him that reproacheth me: for I
trust in thy word.” (verse 42) ‘I want
to be able to give an answer to him that reproaches me, who holds me in
contempt,’ or ‘the one who makes a mockery of me, for I
trust in your Word. LORD, let me have an answer from
your Word. I trust in your Word, let the
salvation that so tenderly works in my life be according to your Word, so that
I will have an answer to give.’ You know, it’s interesting, I was reading
through it, of course, I’m thinking of 1st Peter chapter 3, where it says there ‘Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, be ready always to give an
answer to every man [or woman] that asketh you a reason of the hope that lies
within you with meekness and fear.’ I’m sitting there, I’m studying, looking at this, and I have this
Smart-phone now, so it pings and it whistles, it needs to be careful, because I
haven’t yet accepted it, completely. It could still go, on one of those days,
and I could have Judy searching for a phone that does nothing but rings when
someone wants to talk to me, doesn’t do anything else, life is much
simpler. [My feelings exactly, so I
still haven’t bowed to buying one of those blasted things—I hate telephones
anyway.] But anyhow, it was a
blessing. Now look, this email from
another country from someone there who had gotten saved, he said “My pride was into intellectualism, and
education, and I didn’t want to hear anything, and I used to mock Christians,
and finally I walked into this Calvary Chapel and was sitting, and was
listening, and I heard him talk about the love of Jesus Christ and of the
Father, and tears began to flow, and I got saved, and I’ve been studying and
studying, because I want to be able to give an answer to every man that asks me
of the hope,” he goes right into the verse, you know, that I’m
studying. And I thought, ‘Alright, I like a Smart-phone right now.’ [laughter] You know, from another country, just this
request ‘Pastor Joe, just pray for me,’ I don’t know the person, just remarkable. So, the Psalmist says here, “Let
thy mercies come also unto me, O LORD, even thy salvation, according to thy word. So shall I have wherewith to answer him that
reproacheth me: for I trust in thy
word. And take not the word of truth
utterly out of my mouth; for I have hoped in thy judgments.” (verses 41-43) he’s completely aware of his humanity, he is completely aware that there is no
power, there is no word of truth in his mouth, but the LORD allows it to happen. And we have to be careful there
sometimes.
God’s Law Gives True Freedom
“Take not the
word of truth utterly out of my mouth; for I have hoped in thy judgments.” (verse 43) and then he says this, “So shall I keep
thy law for ever and ever.” (verse 44), ‘if you’ll do these things, let
me have your Word so I can give an answer, so shall I keep thy law,
continually, forever and ever.’ it speaks basically of the Old
Testament, the first five Books of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy). “And I
will walk at liberty: for I seek thy
precepts.” again, “I will speak of
thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed.” (verses 45-46) “I will delight” ‘I will lift up, I will meditate,’ he says, ‘LORD I’ll do these things.’ “I will delight in thy commandments, which I have loved.” (verse 47) Now the
profound thing is, that he gets into here, he says “I will keep your law forever and ever,” ‘I’ll keep your law forever and ever, and I will walk at liberty.’ We have the complete opposite idea of
that, you know, ‘If I’m going to keep the
Law, then I’m gonna live in bondage if I do that. If I’m gonna keep you Law,
I’m gonna be restricted, I’m gonna be tied down.’ We think that liberty is being able to do
whatever we want to do, that that is actually being free from law, that’s how
we perceive liberty, freedom [using this logic] is being able to do whatever we
want to do, outside of God’s Law. Well
you can ask any drunk that’s destroyed their family, or any druggy that’s
ruined their life and the lives of those around them, anybody whose given
themselves to immorality and destroyed a home, destroyed a family, you can ask
them what that kind of freedom produces. Ask them what it’s done for them. You know, the Psalmist says here, ‘I’m gonna keep your law forever and ever,
and because I’m gonna do that, I’m gonna walk at liberty.’ Now the Psalmist says ‘Your
Word, it’s like honey to me, it’s sweet to the taste.’ Jesus says “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, you’ll find rest for your
souls.” He says if you’ll yoke
yourself with me, isn’t that interesting, you’ll find rest. To be yoked with the yoke with Christ is to
find rest. James talks about looking
into the perfect law of liberty [and realize, when James wrote this there was
no New Testament, so the law he was referring to was the Torah, the Ten
Commandment law of God]. It says here if
we do that, we’ll be free, if we understand the Word of God and the Law of God,
and we let that govern our lives, we’ll find true freedom. Because the freedom we’re longing for is a
freedom that is within parameters, those parameters are God’s Word. We’re willing to accept that continually in
the natural. If you yield to the traffic
laws in Philadelphia, you can drive freely, you’re at liberty. If you yield to the laws of aerodynamics you
can fly, freely. If you work on a
high-rise building climbing around outside, if you yield to the law of gravity,
you can do that job safely. Here the
Psalmist is saying, ‘LORD, if you’ll do this, if you’ll
give me your Word, you’ll work in my heart, let the supernatural become part of
me, LORD I’ll keep your law forever and ever, and I’ll walk in liberty, LORD, it’ll be the thing that sets
me free, I’ll be able to walk before you in liberty,’ he says, “for I seek thy precepts.” (verse 45b) ‘I want to understand how to govern my
life.’ [see http://www.unityinchrist.com/whatisgrace/whatisgraceintro.htm]
“I Will Speak Of Thy Testimonies Also Before Kings And Will Not Be Ashamed”
“I will speak” ‘hey look, I’m not gonna be ashamed,’ “of thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed.” (verse 46) ‘I’m gonna give testimony, I’m, gonna talk
to people in the street, in the supermarket, wherever,’ “I will speak of
thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed.” (verse 46) If I
get called before the holipoloy, big shot, wherever it is, Jesus said, that we
should remember that if we’re called into that situation before a judge or a
ruler, to take no anxious thought, he says, because if you’re there genuinely,
in that very hour the Holy Spirit will give you the words you should say. And here the Psalmist says “I will speak of thy testimonies before
kings, and I will not be ashamed.” Again,
I remember going out with part of the Gram team, and they told us that every
world leader, starting from Winston Churchill, when they were alone with Billy
Graham had asked him about the return of Jesus Christ and Armageddon, whatever
they claimed their faith was, whatever they claimed they believed. Because these are people who had the
intelligence community dumping on them every day, and go to bed every night and
wonder if they’re gonna wake up in the same world the next morning. And when they were alone with him they would
ask those questions. Cathy and I were
out with one of his daughters, and she said, “You know my dad’s the same, when he goes to Washington he takes his
Bible and he talks about Jesus, that’s what he is, that’s what he does, he’s no
different from that wherever, it doesn’t matter what company he’s in, he has
his Bible and he talks about Jesus.” And
world rulers invite him, and they ask him to be there. It says here “I will speak of thy testimonies before kings, and will not be
ashamed.” (verse 46)
“I Will Meditate In Thy Statutes”
“And I will
delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved.” (verse 47) What do we delight in? “My
hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will
meditate in thy statutes.” (verse 48) Wonderful as we sing his Word here, with
hands raised. The idea is surrender, lifting up your hands, LORD, to your commandments, to your
will I’ll surrender to that. “I will also lift up my hands unto thy
commandments, which I have loved;” notice, “and I will meditate in thy statutes” that’s a wonderful thing to
undertake. What happens is, it comes to
us anyway, because as life goes on, when you’re a teenager, when you’re
younger, you may not have to meditate in his statutes, but as life goes on, it
wears you out, it wears you out. You
loose friends, you loose your health, you loose time, and of course you loose
your hair, you loose your eyesight, you loose your hearing, you loose your
teeth. It’s a kind of journey of
loss. But as it goes on, we do meditate
in his Word. Verses that we knew, that didn’t seem very powerful in our lives when we were
younger, when life wears us out, it runs us down, all of a sudden they have new
power, and they have new strength. The
same things we thought we were familiar with, all of sudden they’re screaming
at us off the page. And it’s a wonderful
thing. He says I’ll meditate in thy
statutes. And as he moves into these next
set of verses, let’s read them. And
again, the thought kind of continues.
Psalm 119:49-56
ZAIN
“Remember the
word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy
word hath quickened me. The proud have
had me greatly in derision: yet have I not declined from thy
law. I remember thy judgments of old, O
LORD,
and have comforted myself. Horror hath
taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law. Thy statutes have been my songs in the house
of my pilgrimage. I have remembered thy
name, O LORD,
in the night, and have kept thy law. This I had, because I kept thy precepts.” (verses 49-56)
“Remember The Word Unto
Thy Servant, Upon Which Thou Hast Caused Me To Hope”
He’s
gonna meditate here. ‘You
made me promises, you caused me to hope in your Word,
this is my comfort.’ Now he
moves into the next set of verses, verse 49 is a petition, he asks for
something, and in the rest of the verses is kind of his prayer. He’s asking for something in verse 49, and
look what he says, he says ‘LORD, there’s something I want you
to remember,’ and look down in verse 52, he says ‘I’ve remembered,’ and look down in
verse 55, ‘LORD, I’ve remembered.’ So he says ‘LORD, I need you to remember,’ he knows the LORD doesn’t forget, ‘It’s
not a problem LORD,’ he’s asking the LORD “to call to mind” in that
sense. He says ‘LORD, I remember, I keep things on
my heart.’ Verse
49, “Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to
hope.” Now there’s great confidence
when you can say that to him, and call yourself his servant. I wonder this evening in Iran as Saeed is in
the prison, how dear and how deep certain verses are to him that he is hoping
in, in the prison in Iran from being a believer. Franklin Graham sent an email today to keep
him in prayer because there are a number of ISIS members in the prison that
he’s in, in Iran, that no doubt would love to get
their hands on him. How different the
Word of God is in that kind of a circumstance, the same verses, the same verses. He
says “Remember the word unto thy
servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy
word hath quickened me.” (verses 49-50) ‘Thy Word has given me life, your Word is
my hope and my comfort, remember the promise you made to me LORD, and I find my comfort in
this, I have hoped in it LORD, I need you to do that for me
LORD.’ He’s
in one of those circumstances, he speaks here of derision, he speaks of horror,
he speaks of great difficulty. He’s
saying ‘LORD, in the middle of this,’ and look, childlike faith
again. Years ago I studied this, I heard
the story of this little boy, out of an unsaved family, was taken by some
Baptists, his neighbors, had taken him to church and Sunday school, and he was
there a few weeks, and he prayed and asked Christ into his heart, a little boy,
seven or eight years old, and he really got saved. And it was dramatic, and he started to love
the Word, he was reading the Word, and he read that Satan was the prince of
darkness, and he read it one night before he went to bed. His mom, who wasn’t a believer, turned out
the lights, and he thought, ‘Here I am in
the dark, he must be in here too, if he’s the prince of darkness. And my verse is John 3:16, Lord, I got saved,
you so loved me you gave your Son that I wouldn’t perish, would have
everlasting life,’ and he said ‘The
darkest place in my room was under the bed, that’s where he must be, must be
under my bed.’ So the story goes
that the little boy went and found John 3:16, and he put his finger on it, and
he pushed it under the bed and said “Here, read it for yourself!’ [loud laughter] I think the Lord loves that
kind of faith, you know. I think he
loves that kind of faith. A number of
years ago, in Germany, I went to Wartburg, to the castle where Martin Luther
translated the Greek New Testament into German, and just fascinating and
incredible of the genius. Oh ya, he had
some major things wrong in his eschatology, but a brilliant man. And the story goes, you go there to the study
where he did it, there’s an old porcelain heater in there, and on the floor
where he put his foot, it’s a backbone of a whale, a vertebra from a whale,
which is the kind of backbone this guy had, you know. And of course the story is, is that he sat in
there, he’s finishing up the translation, he took 18 different dialects in
German, and for every word he translated from the Greek to German, he picked
the most common word from all 18 dialects, and he created modern German in 11
weeks, from 18 different dialects in German. There was no TV, no I-phones to interrupt, there was nothing, he worked,
so as the story goes, as he’s finishing up, Satan appears in the study and says ‘Luther, you know, you’re a blasphemer,
you’re blasphful, you’re no good, you have wicked thoughts, you have doubts,
you’re a hypocrite,’ and he said ‘Wait
a minute,’ and he got a paper and pencil and started writing them down, ‘More?’ and as he wrote the list he kept
saying to the devil, ‘More, more?’ and he wrote this long list. And finally
he said the devil’s at it, and the devil said ‘That’s it.’ And he got out his pen, dipped the pen back
in the inkwell and he wrote of course at the bottom real big, Washed in the blood of the Lamb, and he took his inkwell and
threw it at the devil, and the devil disappeared and it splattered all over the
wall. So for a number of centuries there
was a big ink splat on the wall. But as
tourists would come through Wartburg they would all peel a piece of it off, now
there’s a big wall where everything is peeled off the wall there. [For a good article on Martin Luther, see https://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/beyond-today-magazine/martin-luther-the-unfinished-reformation] But ‘Cause me to trust in your Word, LORD, remember the word that you
have spoken to your servant, whether we’re a child or whether we’re a
brainiac,’ we still need the Lord to do these things in our lives, “Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to
hope.” ‘Upon which YOU have caused me to
hope, LORD, you’ve done this, LORD, you’ve done that.’ I remember graduating from High School in
1968, I didn’t have any hope, I didn’t have any hope [the Vietnam War was going
full tilt, and the draft board was probably looking for this young Joe Focht],
1968, the world was falling apart, Vietnam War was raging, three of my friends
that were a year ahead of me, they graduated in 1967 [when I did, went straight
into Submarine School, New London CT], were dead by the time I graduated, killed
in Vietnam. I remember in ’63, my dad
worked for the Naval Department, and the Cuban Missile Crisis had gone on, and
every night my dad would come home and turn on the TV, and I’d try to say
something and he’d go ‘Be quiet!’ You know what it’s like, it’s so serious, and
every night I had to sit there and try to figure out what it meant that
Khrushchev was putting missiles in Cuba, and whether we were all gonna die, I
was 13, I could tell by the way my dad looked, it wasn’t good, whatever was
going on, you know. [Want the full
story, from WWII to now, including the full scoop on the Cuban Missile Crisis?
it’s in http://www.unityinchrist.com/topical%20studies/America-ModernRomans1.htm] I remember graduating, thinking ‘Well what am I gonna do, am I going to work
30 years and retire in Florida, they’re going to blow the world up, what am I
going to do?’ And just the natural
place to go was LSD, that made everything seem a lot
better. I had no hope. I know, I know. I had no hope. Jesus Christ changed all of that, because I
met a living Saviour, not a religion, a Living Saviour, he’s alive, he’s coming
again, this whole show’s gonna close down. It may get horrible before we get out of here, but he’s coming, and
there is an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, it fades not away, it’s
beyond all of this, we’re all gonna be there together, we’re all going to be
there together [applause]. And he’s
caused us to hope in those things. A lot
of people think we are nuts. Some of us
have longer lists than others, we work harder at it.
“This Is My Comfort In My
Affliction: For Thy Word Hath Quickened
Me”
“Remember the
word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.” (verses 49-50) Now look, there are times in all of our lives
when affliction comes, no one is exempt. Christians suffer like unbelievers suffer, Christians get cancer like unbelievers
get cancer, Christians go through difficult things
like unbelievers go through difficult things. I just can’t imagine going through those things without the Lord. But there are times in our affliction when no
human voice matters. There is a place
when our heart is so broken and we are so confused, and we’re in something so
terrible, it seems incongruent with God’s love and his commitment to us, that
the only thing that can speak to us in those places is the Word of God, times
when no human voice or wisdom can bring hope or comfort. He says “Remember
the word unto thy servant, upon which YOU, LORD hast caused me to hope.” And he would never do that, to hang a carrot
out in front of us and to disillusion us, ‘You’ve caused me to hope in this.’ “This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.” (verse 50) Look, “The proud have had me greatly in
derision: yet have I not declined from thy law.” (verse 51) ‘they’ve mocked me, they’ve held me in derision, yet have I not declined
from thy law, I haven’t stepped away, I haven’t tried to soften things to make
everything hunky-dory with the unbelievers who were picking on me.’ “I remembered thy judgments of old, O LORD,
and have comforted myself.” (verse 52) ‘the Red Sea, everything you did
with Noah, what you’ve done in creation, what you’ve done with Jonah, I
remembered thy judgments of old, O LORD, and have comforted myself,
that you’re the same, I’ve held on.’
It’s A Scary World We Live In
Look, “Horror hath taken hold upon me because
of the wicked that forsake thy law.” (verse 53) and I know for all of us, look, “horror” your
translation might say, “discouragement,” it can be “despondency,” it can be
“brokenheartedness,” it speaks of complete discouragement, looking at the
unsaved world around us. And we look at
the Middle East tonight, we look at what’s happening in Iraq, and we see
Christians being slaughtered [by ISIS] because they’re Christians, little kids
getting their heads cut off. We see war
and innocent people being killed on both sides, and there’s a level of horror
around that, because I have grandkids [me too, my constant prayer is for the
salvation of their parents and them too], I have grandkids. If it’s time for me to go, I wasn’t planning
on staying anyway. I told Cathy, that’s
the only way you’ll ever see any real money, is if you get the insurance. She said “If
you die and leave me with all these kids I’ll kill ya.” [laughter] Doesn’t sound like much of a threat to me. And my kids are
walking with the Lord, they’re adults, and I trust if a gun was put to their
head and were told to deny Christ, they’d say “No thank you.” But my
grandkids, five, one on the way, my grandkids. There’s something that knaws at me when I think of the world that
they’re growing up in. “Horror hath taken hold upon me because of
the wicked that forsake thy law.” (verse 53)
“Thy Statutes Have Been My Songs In The House Of My Pilgrimage”
Wonderful,
he says this, “Thy statutes have been my
songs in the house of my pilgrimage.” (verse 54) He’s gone from affliction to singing, he’s gone from derision to singing. He’s gone from horror to singing, he says ‘In the middle of all of this, LORD, thy statutes have been my
songs in the house of my pilgrimage.’ He
remembers, we’re passing through, like Asaph in Psalm 73, ‘I saw the prosperity
of the wicked, I saw righteous people suffering, I struggled with it, I didn’t
know what to do, my feet had well nigh slipped, I went through all this,’ he said, ‘I can’t even talk to people of faith about it, because LORD, I’ll stumble your children,
if I talk about it, this is all buggin me and I haven’t said anything.’ He said, ‘Until I went into the house of the LORD, and then I remembered their
end, I went into the house of God and it brought everything back into
perspective of eternity,’ and he said, ‘I realized I was living like a brute beast, I had the wrong
perspective on everything.’ And
the Psalmist here says wonderfully, “Thy
statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.” And the statutes are again, comes from the
Hebrew root “to engrave” or “to cut,” it speaks of the things he’s decreed, or
the things he’s ordained [such as the Sabbath and Holy Days of Leviticus 23,
they are ordained, decreed as holy convocations. That’s an example of what statutes in God’s
Law are], and that they can be engraved upon our hearts. “Thy
statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.” The brevity of all this LORD,
you know, the brevity of life can be crushing without the Word of God, if you
don’t know the Lord. Look at people,
what they’re doing. They’re 50 years
old, they’re getting a pierced ear, they’re getting nipped and tucked, they’re
getting fat sucked out, they’re spending all this money to look better, it’s a
loosing battle, you’ll look great when you die. It don’t shorten anything up. Spend that money and have fun. Jon Courson said, people go to the gym, they
work out, they work out, they work out, helping them think it’s gonna help them
live longer, there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just physical exercise
profits for a little while, temporarily, but they say for each hour in the gym,
you live, I forget, like two or three extra hours, and he said the shame of it
is, early in your life, instead of going out and having fun and enjoying
yourself, you put all of those hours in the gym, and then you live all of those
hours at the end of your life when you’re broke down and decrepit you could buy
and go to heaven that you spent your time in the gym instead of enjoying life
when you were younger, you get to enjoy yourself and then get out early. Just a perspective, I guess. “Thy
statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.” (verse 54),
listen, how many of us go through a death of a loved one, go through some
terrible news from the doctor, we’re losing something incredible, and you come
to church, and you sing the same songs that you’ve sung before, only now
there’s tears rolling down your face. Now your eyes are closed and your hands are raised. The same words have more power than they ever
have before, and they are engraved on our hearts, those statutes become the
songs in the house of our pilgrimage. Psalm
42 says this, ‘Deep calleth unto deep, at the noise of thy
waterspouts, all thy waves and billows are gone over me,’ David says ‘I
can hardly breathe,’ ‘Yet the LORD will command his
lovingkindness in the day time and in the night his song shall be with me, and
my prayer unto the God of my life.’ ‘all
your waves, all your billows are gone over me LORD, in the daytime I sense your
lovingkindness, and at night your song shall be with me.’ Again, you think of, let me read a few from
Isaiah, that are wonderful, Isaiah says this, ‘The
ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion
with songs and everlasting joy above their heads, they shall obtain joy and
gladness. Sorrow and sighing shall flee
away.’ Again, Isaiah it says, ‘Therefore the redeemed of the LORD shall return with singing to
Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy, and
sorrow and mourning shall flee away.’ And you
think Paul in Acts chapter 16, and Silas, thrown down in the prison, and it
says they began to pray and sing praises to the Lord. And Paul’s not saying to Silas, ‘Wait till you see this, this is gonna blow
your mind after this chapter.’ Paul
never read it before. He doesn’t say ‘Don’t give me a hard time, just let’s sing
and the prison doors are going to open, you’ll see, it’ll blow your mind.’ He had no guarantees, same Lord was giving him songs in the night. I wonder about Saeed, what song might be in his heart, ‘On Christ the solid Rock I stand, all other
ground is sinking sand. It is well with
my soul…it is well, it is well with my soul.’ Affliction, derision, horror, and then he
said, ‘You know, thy statutes have been my song in the house of my
pilgrimage.’ “I have remembered thy
name, O LORD,
in the night, and have kept thy law.” (verse 55) ‘in the night, Jehovah God, the covenant God,’ “This
I had, because I kept thy precepts.” (verse 56) What did he have? The songs of the LORD, the thing that
was stirring in his heart. The
reason, “because I kept thy precepts.”
Psalm 119:57-64
CHETH
“Thou art my portion, O LORD: I have said that I would keep thy words. I entreated thy favour with my whole heart: be merciful unto me according to thy
word. I thought on my ways, and turned
my feet unto thy testimonies. I made
haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments. The bands of the wicked have robbed me: but I have not forgotten thy law. At
midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous
judgments. I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts. The earth, O LORD, is full of thy mercy: teach me thy statutes.” (verses 57-64)
“Thou Art My Portion, O LORD
Now,
in verse 57, he says, ‘LORD,’ looking up, in continuation of
the thought, he says ‘you are my portion, LORD, you yourself,’ he’s realizing that, and now
he’s gonna say this, well let’s read it. “Thou art my portion, O LORD: I have said that I would keep thy words. I entreated thy favour with my whole heart: be merciful unto me according to thy
word. I thought on my ways, and turned
my feet unto thy testimonies. I made
haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments. The bands of the wicked have robbed me: but I have not forgotten thy law. At
midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous
judgments. I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts.” What
a great bunch, “The earth, O LORD,
is full of thy mercy: teach me thy
statutes.” (verses 57-64) Now he begins by saying ‘LORD, you’re my portion,’ and then as you read through,
he says “I have said” “I entreated” “I thought” “I made haste” “I’ve not
forgotten” “I will rise” “I am a companion,” you read through and you see all
of these, and none of these things could happen without the Word of God. So, we come, ‘Oh, you go to Calvary, if you go there for counseling they’re just
going to tell you what the Bible says.’ And…what
do you want me to tell you, what GQ
magazine says, Rolling Stone Magazine says? Of course I’m going to tell you
what the Bible says, we’re gonna stand someday before the Lord, and he’s going
to say ‘Why didn’t you tell them what the Bible said?’ [I don’t want him saying that to me!] Well I understand we did, that’s all we
did. Your Word abides forever. It’s true here today, and it was true there
then, that’s what we’re gonna do. And
without God’s Word you’re not you’re not gonna be saying “I entreated” “I
thought” “I kept all of these things.” We have something to entreat him about, we have something to keep, we
have something to hold onto, we have something to sing, we have something to
make our own, we have something to quote promises, we have all of that in the Word. And again,
you know you look at this 119th Psalm, people say ‘Well this is the song about
the Word of God, 173 of the 176 verses mention the Word of God.’ I agree, it’s about the Word of God, but
it’s more about the God of the Word, because in all 176 verses it
mentions him. So it is about the Word of
God, and it is about the God of the Word. And after these first few verses, verses 1 through 5, it is a prayer, it
is a pouring out of the heart to the God of the Word, “Thou art my portion, O LORD: I have said that I would keep thy
words.” “Thou art my portion” Sadly, in my own life, some
days I get distracted, and my selfish happiness depends on some other thing,
getting to watch a pre-season game, getting go do something, getting to take a
nap, getting to, whatever, just sometimes, and you know, when difficult things
come in life, all of that goes away. We
remember ‘LORD, you’re my portion. This is a pilgrimage, everything else is
fading away, I can sing songs because I MET YOU, years ago, 1972, and when I
met you, you were alive and you were risen, and you changed everything. You are my portion.’ And I find this, look, Jesus would say to us
in John ‘He that hath my commandments and keepeth them’ this is what
the Psalmist is talking about, ‘he it is that loveth me. He that loveth me shall be loved of my
father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.’ You know, the reason we want to walk in the
Word, the reason we want to hold onto his promises, the reason we want to let
those things determine how we live, is because in them he will manifest himself
to us. So look, ‘You’re my portion,’ that
means to me there are some options we need to put away. ‘When I
get bummed I like to do this,’ but the Bible says you shouldn’t do
that. ‘When I have a hard time I want to do this,’ well the Bible says
you shouldn’t do that. There are some
options you need to put away. [and he’s
talking about sinful responses we have when we get really bummed or have a hard
time, say like when things really don’t go our way, or something really bad
happens, our response is to get drunk, which is against God’s Word, that is
what Pastor Joe is talking about, a sinful response to things going wrong.] There are some escape hatches you need to
block up with cider block and take down the exit sign, or the emergency exit
sign. ‘Well I don’t know, we’re having such a hard
time, maybe it wasn’t the Lord’s will for us to get married in the first
place.’ Block that exit, it’s not
Biblical, it doesn’t exist, you’re married to somebody, the Bible has something
to say about that. [If an unbelieving
spouse leaves, divorces you, Paul says in such
circumstances, you are free to remarry. But the unbelieving spouse must do the leaving. see http://www.unityinchrist.com/corinthians/cor7.htm] If he’s your portion, what’s more important,
your freedom, your temporary happiness, or is he your portion? Because I find, personally, in my life, when
I look back, there are times, courtship, ‘Oh
I want to get married, I want to get married,’ and after they get married
they think ‘I want to be single, I want
to be single, I want to be single.’ It’s easier to be single and want to be married than to be married and
want to be single. But the wonderful
thing about courtship to me is, it’s a time, if you’re sensitive, when the
presence of the Lord draws near, for believers. You’re waiting until you’re married to be sexually intimate, you’re
looking at his Word at things he has done for you. I remember thinking ‘Lord, if you give me, I’m thinking of my first wife, she’s the one I
still have,’ like I say, I’ve been married to three different women, but
all in one body, so it’s not a problem—the years do that. But I remember thinking ‘Lord, you say in Corinthians that if you get married you’re gonna give
yourself to the things of your wife in regards to, in contrast to some of the
things to the Lord. You know, Lord, if
this happens, it seems,’ and I’m thinking through this process, ‘that I’m going to have less time to spend
with you.’ And I remember an
overwhelming sense of his presence, and he said ‘Look, I’m gonna have you for eternity to myself, and right now you
need something tangible. And I am not so
selfish that I would keep that from you for a short period of time when I’m
gonna have you forever.’ And I think
sometimes in courtship, when we do it right, we do it the way we should, the presence of the Lord becomes very real. We realize, ‘Lord, you’re my portion.’ I think at birth, at birth, that is
first of all, it’s sci-fi if you’ve ever watched it,
it’s science fiction, but it’s miraculous, it’s genius, it’s incredible. And the presence of the Lord, he very often I
think, in the presence of birth, draws near. And you think, ‘Lord, this is
wonderful, never had a baby before, you, Lord, you’re my portion.’ And certainly at death, you know, the death
of a believer, the death of the saints, they’re precious in his sight. On this end, sometimes somebody is killed in
an accident, unexpected they’re gone, sometimes somebody suffers for a very
long time and then they’re gone. And the
difference is, you know, you go through that long process of suffering with someone
you love, and finally it comes to the point where you say ‘Lord, just take him,’ or ‘You
can go, go be with the Lord,’ and you go through that, and all of a sudden
it’s over, whatever measure of pain in losing that presence is, there’s still a
sense of, still some sense of ‘They’re
with you now Lord.’ When someone
dies unexpectedly, all of that travail is on the other side of it, because you
weren’t expecting it. It’s there on
either side, depending on how it happens. But in the middle of all of that is the One who rose from the dead, the
One who rose from the dead, the hope that we have because of the risen
One. And if our hearts are open, his
presence draws very near in those seasons in our lives. And the Psalmist is saying here, ‘LORD, you’re my portion, you are,
above all the other things, and there’s blessings and things that you give us
in life and all of those things, LORD, you are my portion.’ and “I have said that I would
keep thy words.” He’s intended, he’s
gonna do this, ‘this is what I’m gonna do.’ We read of Daniel, chapter 1, verse 8, and it says ‘Daniel purposed in his heart he
was going to keep the Word of the LORD.’ You
read in Daniel chapter 6, verse 3, sixty years later, it says ‘Daniel
was a man of an excellent spirit,’ he determines something when he was
13 or 14 years old, in regards to God, he purposed in his heart he was going to
keep the Word of the LORD and not yield to Babylon, and
sixty years later the Holy Spirit says ‘This was a man of an excellent spirit.’ We can make these decisions. ‘I have said, I’ve made a decision, I’m
going to keep your words, O LORD.’
Repent, For The Kingdom
Of God Is At Hand
“I entreated thy
favour with my whole heart: be merciful unto me according to thy word.” (verse 58) ‘I’ve made up my mind I’m gonna do this, LORD, I look to you, I’m asking for
your favour, and I’ve done that with my whole heart, so’ “Be merciful unto me according to thy word.” ‘Your Word tells me that you’re
merciful.’ Now look at this guys, as we go to verse 59, look what he says, “I thought on my ways, and turned my feet
unto thy testimonies.” “I thought”, that’s always a good start, you should always use the noggin, that’s a good thing. Look what he says though, “I thought on my ways, and turned my feet
unto thy testimonies.” The Hebrew
says, “turned back my feet” to what? “unto thy testimonies.” He’s admitting, ‘I was going in the wrong
direction. I was walking away, I was going where I shouldn’t have gone.’ Whatever the derision, threats that he talked
about as we moved through this, whatever he was calling to the LORD, ‘Let me be a witness, I won’t be
ashamed before kings,’ he says ‘Finally LORD, you’re my portion, and I’ve
entreated your favour, I asked for that LORD, and I thought on my ways, I
realized, I am so stupid, I can’t believe I’m doing this again, I said I was
done with it, I said I wasn’t going to do it anymore, I thought on my ways, and
I turned back, when I thought on my ways, and I turned back my feet, LORD, to your path, I was going
away, and I turned myself back, LORD, to your ways.’ Ezekiel says this, again, “When the wicked man turneth away from his
wickedness that he hath committed, and he doeth that which is lawful and right,
he shall save his soul alive, because he considereth and turneth away from all
of his transgressions that he hath committed, he shall surely live, he shall
not die.” And the Psalmist says, ‘I
thought on my ways, the way I was living, what I was doing, and I turned my
feet back to your testimonies.’ There isn’t anybody, because the next verse is going to say ‘Hey
look, I made haste, I didn’t delay.’ “I
made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments.” Is there anybody here tonight that has an
excuse? We have more light than the
Psalmist did when he wrote, we have the complete
picture of Jesus Christ. You know Jesus
said of John the Baptist that he was the greatest prophet that ever lived, “among
them that are born of women there has not arisen a greater than John,” Of all the men born of women in the
history of humanity, no one’s been greater than John, not Abraham, not Elijah,
not Jeremiah, not David, not Isaiah, not Pharaoh, not Nebuchadnezzar, not
Alexander the Great, not Cyrus, not Caesar, Jesus said of humankind in the
midst of all human history, this one here is the greatest to be born among
women. And it’s because he had a
message, ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.’ And God sees that call to repentance. Listen, we can get a rub on this in the wrong
way, and we can be bugged, because we hear people (religious whacko zealots)
screaming it and pointing the finger. Well I think we should be under conviction, don’t get me wrong. But if there’s some 13 year-old kid that
needs to get spanked in the corner, ‘Repent
you fornicator!’ they always show this guy on the news, I don’t know where he comes from, there must
be a whole bunch anyways out there, there’s always a bunch of them (these
religious whacko zealots), they’re out there. God says the greatest born among women was this one, and he said ‘Repent,
the Kingdom of God is at hand, religious hypocrites, turn away from your
religious hypocrisy, tax gatherers and sinners, turn away from
those things.’ He didn’t shut
the door on anybody. God Almighty said ‘that’s
the greatest voice that humankind has ever heard to date, it’s the voice
calling men and women back to me.’ And finally he could say, “Repent” and then, “Behold,
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” Here the Psalmist is saying, ‘Look,
I thought on my ways, and as I did, I was willing to be honest, LORD, I turned back, I was going away you.’ That is
repentance, metanoia, the changes of the mind, ‘my life is going away from you,
what I’m doing is vanity, it’s foolishness, it’s empty, it doesn’t mean
anything, and LORD I thought about all that, and
you know what LORD, I turned back to you, I
turned back LORD to your testimonies, I turned
back.’ “I
made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments.” (verse 60) ‘I made haste to do it.’ Look, I don’t know about you guys, I can be
one who procrastinates. Not all the
time, but at very important times, when I need a bit of great procrastination,
I know how to do that. But no one in
this room whose away from the Lord tonight, whose living in compromise, or
whose back at the same old stupid stuff, no one here tonight is withheld by
God’s will, because God puts someone in front of us that says ‘You
know, I’ve thought about my ways, my path was going away from him. I thought about it, and I turned back. And I made haste, I didn’t dillydally.’ Every prodigal that’s here tonight
can turn back and come right back to the Lord, his arms are open, we know
that. We know it better than the
Psalmist did, because Jesus gave us the complete picture.
“The Bands Of The Wicked Have Robbed Me”—What Does
That Mean?
“The bands of the
wicked have robbed me: but I have not forgotten thy law.” (verse 61) Look,
he says ‘the bands, or the snares of the wicked, the cords of the wicked, the
world we live in, temptations, things that people are handing me, the bands of
the wicked, they’ve robbed me, or surrounded me,’ literally ‘they’ve
coiled around me, but I have not forgotten thy law. I may be out there, I may be caught up in a mess, it may be all wrapped
around me, it might be wrapping a hose around my arm, the wicked have coiled
themselves around me, that may be going on, but in the middle, LORD, I have not forgotten thy
law.’ And he says this, “At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy
righteous judgments.” (verse 62) ‘your justice,’ he says, ‘You know LORD there’s this divine insomnia
that plagues me sometimes.’ And if you’re compromised or away from the
Lord tonight, and away from his love, the One who loved you and died for you, I
pray you get divine insomnia, I pray you don’t sleep until you get right,
because he’s waiting for you, he loves you. And because he loves you he can’t let you rest without him, he can’t let
you sleep, he can’t let you be happy. His divine love will make you miserable, and
I guarantee you this, he’s gonna win. It’s a wrestling match. When the
Trumpet blows and we all stand there, there’s only going to be one God, and it
ain’t you. He’s gonna win the wrestling
match. If he’s speaking to you tonight,
don’t let the devil tell you that his love isn’t real and you can’t come
back. He knew the day he saved you, you
were going to backslide, and he saved you anyway. [God knows the beginning from the end.] Because he knew on the cross 2,000 years ago
all your sins, past, present and future had been paid for. Is that an excuse for license, no that’s just carnality. But
it is a liberty that we have [I don’t necessarily believe that doctrinally
speaking, but this is a question about proper interpretation of law &
grace, which will be ironed out after the 2nd coming].
“At Midnight I Will Rise To Give Thee Thanks”
“The bands of the
wicked have robbed me: but I have not forgotten thy law.” ‘There’ve
been snares, they’ve been wrapped around me, and yet I have not forgotten your
law, in fact, at midnight’ understand, when it says midnight here, he doesn’t have a clock, what it means
is “in
the middle of the night.” That’s
just the way it was. And in this
culture, it was an agrarian culture, you got up early when the sun came up, you
worked all day in the field and the vineyards, with the flocks, whatever you
did, it started to get dark sometime around 7 O’Clock, everybody came home, you
ate, you were tired from working all day, after dinner everybody sat there and
looked at each other, it was dark outside, ‘Well
how was your day? You know, we were
together. Well ok. Honey, how was your day? Alright.’ You know, you do that for about 15 or 20
minutes, and everybody said ‘Good night,
I’m going to go to bed.’ Nobody
stayed up to watch Letterman, there was no cable, nobody stayed up to watch things all night long, it didn’t happen. I always do that. Sunday night after four services I am so
wired, I come home, and Cathy knows, ‘Don’t
talk to him. He’s talked to thousands of
people today, don’t talk to him.’ And I’m in another world. And
then I always wake up, I pass out there [in front of the TV], and always wake
up there, and then I stagger upstairs and fall in bed. None of that happened. When I was a kid, at midnight, black & white
TV, the national anthem played, and then the TV turned to white snow with a
hissing sound, all this static, and you just went to bed. I was always to bed by midnight, there was
nothing to do. He says here, “At midnight,” ‘in the middle of the night, LORD, sometimes you wake me up, and
I give thanks because of your righteous judgments, in the stillness of the
night, LORD, I slip to the side of my bed
on my knees sometimes. Sometimes you put
somebody on my heart to pray for, sometimes LORD, I’m just giving thanks.’ If you have insomnia, I encourage you, get on
your knees and pray, if you have insomnia, you’re up at 2 in the morning, can’t
sleep, read your Bible, you will pass out in 20 minutes. See what he wants to say to you. Then go back to bed. “At
midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous
judgments.” (verse 62)
“I Am A Companion Of All
Them That Fear Thee, And Of Them That Keep Thy Precepts”
And
then wonderfully he says, this person, and I hope you can say it tonight, “I am a companion of all them that fear
thee, and of them that keep thy precepts.” (verse 63) ‘LORD, I’m messing up, I’m doing
things wrong, I examined my steps, I was going the wrong way, LORD, I’m back, I made haste, I
don’t want to play games LORD, sometimes in the middle of
the night I’m up, I’m working this out, but I’m doing this,’ and this is what you need to
do, you need to come here, you need to come, Sundays, Monday nights, Tuesday
mornings, Wednesday nights, Friday nights with youth, you need to come, you
don’t listen to the devil telling you that you shouldn’t be here, you need to
come, you need to be here. Because this
person can say “I am a companion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy precepts.” (verse 63) That is where you want to
be. It says in Psalm 111, ‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,’ so you want to be around
people that fear his name, there’s wisdom there. It says in Proverbs 1, verse 7, ‘the fear of
the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.’ So you want to be around that. That’s a good thing to be around. God says in Jeremiah, chapter 2, verse 19, he says, ‘You’ve done this wicked thing, you’ve gone away, you’ve forsaken me,
and my fear is no longer in you, so your own backslidings are going to reprove
you, your own sin is going to correct you.’ ‘The evil thing you’ve done,’ he says, ‘is you’ve left off the fear of the LORD.’ And
it isn’t torturous fear, it’s just you want to be around people that
take God seriously, you want to be around people that take God seriously, ‘NO, I’m not snortin’ that line of Coke,
because Jesus is coming! And his Word
says he could come at any moment. No, I
ain’t gonna do that because he said he’s coming! NO, we’re not gonna do that, because Jesus
said he’s coming!’ It says ‘The
fear of the LORD is clean’ And it says if we expect his return, that it produces a purity, it’s a good
thing. And for you and
I, if you’re hanging around Christians, don’t get around the ones that say ‘I’m born-again,’ because we hear the
stories. Get around the ones that
are sold out for Jesus. Get around the
ones where you can see the fruit in their life. Get around the ones that have some fear of God in their lives. Get around the ones that are gonna be healthy
to be around. ‘As iron sharpens iron, so is a
man with the company that he keeps.’ And
for me, I love coming here. I love the
people that I get to serve with every day and work with. I love being around my kids. I get challenged by my kids once in a
while. I say ‘Wait a minute, I’m supposed to be saying that
to you, you’re not supposed to be saying that to me. I’m the pastor, who do you think you are, the
pastor’s kid?’ I love who I get to
be around. And I encourage you guys,
look, friends, strong friends, softy friends, salty friends. You want to be around Christian friends,
Allen Redpath used to say ‘Have some
tang,’ you want some tang in your Christian friends, you want some
saltiness, you want some reality in their lives, they’re good for you, they’re
good for you…you know what the Bible says, every joint, every ligament
supplies. You don’t want to come to
church? I think where in the world do we go from here? You know it says “The earth, O LORD,
is full of thy mercy: teach me thy
statutes.” (verse 64) Where are we going? All of this now, social drinking is like a
giant thing in the Church [greater Body of Christ, not Calvary Chapels] amongst
young people across the country. I don’t
understand. I got out of that, I got
saved and the Lord took me out of all of that, took me out of drugs, took me
out of alcohol, took me out of sexual sin, took me out of all of that, I got
liberated when I got saved, I got set free. Now I got these young guys telling me I’m a legalist. I’m thinking ‘I’m not a legalist! You’re
stupid!’ [loud laughter] I got set free from all that,
I’m not a legalist, I don’t want to be in bondage, I lived I bondage. You think it’s cool to drink, I drank more in
one night than you’re gonna do in all your social drinking for the next month,
I’d drink more in one night, and drugs, and I got set free from all of
that. [btw, the
Bible teaches extreme moderation for alcohol consumption, not total
abstinence. But
Calvary Chapels minister to those who are addicted to alcohol and drugs, so
they preach abstinence so their normal members who never had a problem with any
of that don’t stumble those in their midst who have genuinely been set free of
that bondage by the Lord. I for
one, having been a functional alcoholic who could have drank a Vodka-drinking-Russian
under the table, was set free from my addiction (it was an addiction, I
couldn’t quit on my own) by divine miracle, from the Lord. So I agree with Calvary Chapel’s policy on
alcohol for their members. But if one
follows the Bible’s strong cautions about extreme moderation in consumption,
that person will never become an alcoholic. I know personally how one becomes an alcoholic, there is a set pattern to it, which needs to be taught to all our youth.] Now what’s gonna happen as recreational
marijuana becomes legal? Are we gonna
see people here with shades on Sunday morning, rocking out to the worship, you
know? huh What are you gonna do, where’s
it gonna go? You know, I was out to
breakfast with Jim Cymbala last week, we’re friends, and he said “I’ve written a book about “Storm” and it’s
coming out this fall,” He said, “You wait and see, with the drinking in the
Church now,” he said, “with marijuana
becoming more and more legal.” He
said, “Within a couple years we’re gonna
see nominal denominational churches, their youth groups are going to be meeting
and smoking pot.” He said, “You wait and see.” Oh ya, that’s the world we’re living in. Get yourself friends with some tang, get
yourself some snarly, grizzly, sold out Christian
on fire friends to hang around with, they’re good for you. And you don’t want me smoking pot before I
preach to you, ‘Hey, it’s not a problem,
it’s legal now. What, I’m not allowed to
do it and you are? Cut me a break.’ Every joint, every ligament supplies, I am
dependent on you to walk the line and be healthy spiritually, so you can
challenge me if I need it. We are
dependent on one another. And the
Psalmist says here, ‘You know what? I’ve made
friends and I hang around with those who fear the LORD.’ And this is somebody whose saying ‘Look,
I’ve examined my ways, I was going the wrong way.’ If you’re here this evening backslidden and
prodigal, it says ‘Don’t delay, you can turn right back,’ he put this in his Word
for us, you can turn back to him tonight, you can ask his forgiveness afresh,
he will put his arms around you, he will establish you, he will give you songs
to sing, and make his statutes your songs in the house of your pilgrimage. You come here, you can sing about his freedom
and his love, it says ‘Whom he forgives the most ends up to be the
one who loves him the most.’ So
there is no restriction except in pride, in deception, in Satan, there is no
restriction in heaven [or the Kingdom of heaven], or in the Lord Jesus
Christ. The gate of grace is wide open
tonight. It may not always be, it is
now. So my encouragement to you is,
let’s have the musicians come, sing a last song, read ahead in Psalm 119, as we
worship, if you want to, and you’re led, you want to just come up here and
pray, I encourage you to do that. Say to
the person next to you, ‘some of this
stuff tonight was really hitting me between the eyes, would you pray for me?’ Don’t be afraid to do that. Let’s take some time, let’s pray for one
another. I really encourage you, if
you’re a prodigal and you’re at a distance from the Lord tonight, think about
your ways, turn back to him, don’t delay is what it says here. His arms are open. You come tonight, you come tonight. Talk to one of the pastors, come up afterward
and say ‘I want to pray,’ step back
into his loving arms. The entire price
has been paid at the cost of heaven… [transcript of a connective expository
sermon given on Psalm 119:41-64, given by Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of
Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19116]
related
links:
God’s
Law gives true freedom. See,
http://www.unityinchrist.com/whatisgrace/whatisgraceintro.htm
What
is the Gospel of Salvation? See,
http://www.unityinchrist.com/misc/WhatIsTheGospel%20.htm
|
