Would you turn in your Bibles to Psalm 32 again, Psalm 32, and we come almost to the end of this psalm. We're going to look tonight at verse 10 of this psalm, and hopefully next time look at the last verse here, here in Psalm 32. We read in verse 10, many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. Now I hope you have your Bibles open because I'm going to just very briefly and quickly put this back in context. I know many of you have been here as we've looked at these on the Tuesday nights when I've been here. But this is one of David's penitential Psalms. It was written after his sin with Bathsheba. but later than Psalm 51, which is his great penitential psalm, but this is also, in one sense, also a penitential psalm. But this is written after he has had time to reflect upon God's dealings with him. and God's kindness in giving him forgiveness. Now, he had to bear the consequences of that sin, and we've been looking at that, of course, on the Sunday mornings, Sundays when I have been here, as we have been looking at the life of David that followed this great event in recent times. But this psalm, as I say, is written later than that, after a time of reflection as he considers all these things and as he has grappled with his sinful nature. Because, of course, as I was in a meeting actually only the other day, where we were reminding ourselves of the fact that we come as believers and penitents and that even those of us who have been Christians for many years still need to come to ask the Lord to forgive us for our sins for day by day we do fall. We do not see perfection this side of eternity. We may be growing in grace, I trust we are. We, I trust, are getting more holy, more Christ-like, more God-like. but we still commit sins. And the older I get, the more I realize that and the more I see things that I never thought perhaps were sins when I was younger, but I'm now aware of things that I need to confess to God and ask for Him to deal with and to help me to overcome them as I continue to strive for that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Now we've seen that this psalm has six stanzas of two verses each, apart from verse five, which stands out on its own in a sense. It's a slightly longer verse in a sense, there's two bits there. It begins by speaking about the blessings of forgiveness when sin is confessed and forgiven in verses one and two. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. And then David remembers the days of his sin and the folly of not asking for forgiveness. in verses three and four. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long, through my groaning, my roaring, my sadness. For day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into drought of summer. Well, that was dreadful, but sin acknowledged, thirdly, and confessed and forgiven is immediately and completely and freely forgiven, verse five. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Wonderful. And then, fourthly, in the next two verses, six and seven, there are words of instruction. There is a sense in which David is talking to himself. Well, not quite to himself. He's talking from his own personal experience in verses one to five. But now he turns more generally to say to everyone, and here are words for the godly, for the people of God in time of trouble. What will sustain you? Those who are godly, well, verse six, they will pray to God. God is their hiding place. God is their refuge. God is their refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, as Psalm 40 tells us. And as the Psalm we read, Psalm 37, I'll come to that in a moment or two. I will quote some of that again in a moment or two. God is the hiding place of his people. He is their preserver. He keeps them safe. Even when things all seem to be falling around us, God still cares for his people and keeps us safe. And then, fifthly, we look last time at those verses eight and nine, and some say this is David speaking, some say this is God. First, particularly in verse eight, some say this is God speaking to David to instruct him. Well, I think there's a sense there's a bit of both in this. Of course, this is God's word, so God is speaking to us. But I think David is speaking, in a sense, he is, I hope you understand what I mean by this. David is speaking God's word to us. And he's saying, I've proved it, now I will instruct you and teach you in the way. God can teach you and instruct you, of course, and he does that. And I think there is a bit of both God speaking and, well, I'm sure, I don't mean to say a bit of God. Of course it's God speaking, of course, because this is God's holy word. But in a sense, David is taking these words and applying them to our own hearts, and we talked a little bit about that. Here is teaching, here is instruction. Here is guiding, here is understanding. Here is a reminder of what God does for his people as he cares for them and watches over them. I will instruct thee, teach thee in the way, I will guide thee with mine eye. That's what God does. So don't be like the horse or the mule, which doesn't have any understanding, but receive God's word. And so we come to this verse 10, which is the first verse of the final stanza. In one sense, verses 10 and 11 hang together, but I want to develop verse 10 a little bit more tonight, so we will do as we've done with some of the other verses. We'll just deal with verse 10 tonight, but they do link together. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart. So let's come particularly to verse 10. Here is my first heading. The alternative to trusting in the Lord. The alternative to trusting in the Lord. Well, that's the first phrase of verse 10. If we don't trust in the Lord, then many sorrows shall be to the wicked. Why? Because they don't trust in the Lord. Because they reject God's Word. They refuse to listen to God's Word. They willfully reject trusting in Him. Now, of course, some people are openly and obviously wicked. We hear about them sometimes. We hear about people like that, don't we, on the news, people who do dreadful things. But my friends, everyone who doesn't follow God is wicked. In fact, all of us are wicked in one sense, because we are made what we are because of God's grace. I'm sure I've said this here from this pulpit before, but you know, there are times when people come, particularly sometimes when I'm speaking in the open air, I don't do as much of that now as I used to. In fact, I do very little of it these days, although the other week we were doing a little bit of open air work, but generally speaking, I don't very often these days, but I've had people come to me and they say, well, of course, you know, only good people go to heaven. Do you know my friends, that is not what the Bible says. The Bible tells us that bad people go to heaven because they have been made good by the grace of God. We're all bad in heart because we're all sinners and we need to be saved from our sin, we need to be forgiven. God comes by his grace and takes bad people and makes them fit for heaven. That's a wonderful message, that's a glorious message. There are times, and again I know I've said this before but I can't help saying it again, there are times when I get so frustrated that people in the world don't understand this. This is a glorious, wonderful message of salvation and hope and glory. That the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son has come to this earth and died in our place and taken our sin and done that which brings us to God. That's wonderful. So why continue to be wicked, as it were? Why continue to be bad? Why not come to Christ and ask him to save you? Because this is the alternative to trusting in the Lord. Many sorrows, many griefs. All of us by nature are children of wrath and under the curse of condemnation, but to reject the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ is to tread the path to hell. Now often, the wicked seem to prosper, and evil seems to flourish. Now, I know this psalm isn't dealing with that in particular, but David does deal with, or the psalmist, does deal with that. David does, of course, in places. But in Psalm 73, which is actually a psalm of Asaph, he deals with it directly. The psalm begins with the conclusion that he came to, truly God is good to Israel, even to such are as of a clean heart. But as, and then he goes to say the situation that faced, as for me, my feet were almost gone, my steps had well night slipped, because he was envious when he saw the prosperity of the wicked. The wicked seemed to get away with it. My friends, they do in this life. but they're gonna have to stand before God one day. You know that, my friends. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. They're gonna have to stand before God, aren't they? And if their sin is not covered, if they're not covered by the precious blood of Christ, then they are, of all men, most miserable. And he goes on and he says how they set their mouth, they're corrupt, and they set their mouth against the heaven and their tongue walks through the earth. And they say, how does God know? God doesn't know what I'm doing. And is their knowledge in the most high? So what? Why should I care about God? My friends, that's what people do. Two weeks ago I was up in, was it two weeks or three weeks we were in Manchester? A few weeks ago we were up in Manchester back in my old church where I was a pastor before I, for the second time, retired. And on the Saturday we went out to do some tracting in the marketplace with a book table and to talking to people and we had some good conversations. I was able to give away three Bibles to different people. after having conversations with them about their souls, about their need of salvation. But one of the things that saddened me, and we talked about it actually, because one or two of us had had this kind of, you go to people and you hand a tract and they say, no, no, I'm all right, thank you. That seemed to be the answer that many of them gave for not taking a tract, for not taking a gospel leaflet. I'm all right, thank you. And we said to one another, isn't it tragic that these people keep saying, I'm all right? Because they're not all right. Without God, you are without hope in the world. And it was sad. And as I've told you before, this is not the way to evangelize. Sometimes I feel like getting people by the collar and shaking them and say, you idiot, don't you understand? This is a wonderful message of deliverance. Now that is not the way to evangelize as I've said before. But don't you feel frustrated that way sometimes when people just do not understand the wonder and glory of the grace of God? And this was the battle that Asaph had in Psalm 73. But then he comes to understand what is happening to them. He went into the sanctuary of God and understood their end. And then he says, then his heart was grieved for them. He was pricked in his reins because of the tragedy of these people who are going to a lost eternity. My friends, do we feel like that? And then he goes on to say, as he comes back to understand the wonder of the grace of God, whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that my desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Now in a sense, that's what David is saying here in this verse. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked. How sad that they are like that. He takes it up in Psalm 37, the psalm we read. Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou grievous against the work of iniquity, for they shall soon be cut down like grass and wither like green herbs. Trust in the Lord, don't be like them. Verse seven, rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not thyself because of him who prospers in his way. The ungodly seem to prosper. because of the man that bringeth wickedness to pass, cease from anger and forsake wrath, and so on. But you see, appearances are deceptive. The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. And even in this life, many sorrows come upon the wicked. It is so sad, isn't it? I was again talking with a group of fellow ministers earlier this week and we were discussing actually a very important book that's come out, a Christian book by a Christian book. We meet every now and again to discuss theology and these things and we were sharing that about how tragic it is that the ungodly do not understand, and that many sorrows come upon the wicked. And one of the men was saying about a man whom he had been talking to, and he was coming to the end of his life, this man, not the pastor, but the man he was talking to, and how the man was realizing that he was going to die, and he was in almost a blind panic because he couldn't face the reality of death. and how my friend the pastor was talking to him and seeking to help him to come to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and to be able to die in peace because he knew the Savior. My pastor friend was telling me that he didn't know whether the man did come to that when he finally died. It's very tragic when you have to deal with people like that and I've had to do that as a pastor on a number of occasions. When the last comes, all their hopes will turn to dust. There is nothing for the ungodly to comfort them at death if they do not know the living God and the Savior of mankind. You remember how Belshazzar comes to the end of his days and having rejected God's word, which God had written upon the wall by hand, and Daniel has interpreted those words, and we read in verse 30, in that night was Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, slain. How tragic, how tragic. or the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12, who pulled down his barns and built greater and said to himself, soul, you have much goods laid up for many years. Eat, drink, and be merry. And God says to him, you fool. Now my friends, I don't advise you to go around and call people fools. But in one sense they are, if they are without God and without hope. And Psalm 37 that we read goes on to speak of these things. For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be. Yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place and it shall not be, that's the wicked, but the meek shall inherit the earth and delight themselves in the abundance of peace. And there are more words in those words that we read, challenging, I hope, in that passage in Psalm 37. Spurgeon, Charles Haddon Spurgeon put it like this. I think this is typical Spurgeon. I don't know whether you know the kind of thing that he thought of. Anyway, he said this. The wicked have a hive of wasps around them, many sorrows. but we have a swarm of bees storing up honey for us. Well, that's typical Spurgeon. I don't know that I want a swarm of bees around me, but you know what he means. What he's doing is he's drawing the contrast there. So that's the first thing, that's the first thing. Why? The alternative to trusting in the Lord. Secondly, why is it good to trust the Lord? Why is it good to trust the Lord? Well, let me say three things as we look at this. And basically, this is what I'm going to say this evening. So two headings, all right? One heading, the alternative to trusting in the Lord. The second, Why is it good to trust the Lord? The second part of the verse, He that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass me about, us about. Firstly, under this, three things I say under this heading, because He is God, He made us. Who is this? He that trusteth in the Lord. And you will notice in our authorized version, it is in capital letters, L-O-R-D, it is Jehovah, Yahweh, that special name for God, the Lord God of hosts. That unique name that was never used of other God or idol or anything, and no Jew would ever dare even quote the name, because it was so revered, because it was the name of the living God. who is all-powerful and all-glorious, the great Creator God who gives life and breath to all things. What folly to ignore His commands! Our God is not the creation of man's hands. Isaiah talks about that, the man who cut down a tree and he burnt some of it to cook his food and he warmed himself by the fire and what was left he carved an idol and he fell down and worshiped the idol. And Isaiah is mocking idol worship. But my friends, people worship idols today. Now if you go to India, you see idols all over the place. But men and women in this country have idols. It might be a new car. It might be a wife or a husband. It might be a child. It might be an education. All kinds of things. They live for these things. It might be football or cricket or something like that. Now I'm not saying that we shouldn't do these things at all. Not the good things anyway. If you want to watch football, fine. I don't understand football at all. I just don't know anything about it. It's a complete washout to me. I know a little bit about cricket. And yeah, it's good to do these things. But my friends, if you live for that and nothing else, that's your idol. That's your idol. You understand that. You know that. Our God made us. He created this world. He created us. He upholds us. He gives us life. You just read, if you have any doubt about this, any doubt about the wonder of it, you just read Isaiah chapter 40, and see the way in which these things are described. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor, has taught him? And so on. Wonderful things! Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket to our God. Nothing! takes up the isles as a very little thing, and Lebanon, the great trees of Lebanon, which were renowned in the days of Isaiah the prophet as great cedars of Lebanon, the great tall trees, they're not even sufficient to burn all the beast for an offering. All the nations before him are nothing. So what, to whom then will you liken God? Well, you can't do it, you can't do it, for he is the great and mighty God. And the irony, as I've already said, of Isaiah's challenge, sorry, I've already mentioned it, but in Isaiah 44, verses 9 to 20, about the man who takes wood, and then he says, aha, I'm warm, I've seen the fire, and he takes what's left, and he makes it an idol, and he bows down to worship it. And he burns part in the fire and part he eats the flesh. He roasts his meat and is satisfied. He warms himself and the residue, the leftover, he makes a god and falls down and worships it and prays to it and says, deliver me for thou art my God. No wonder Isaiah goes on to say, they have not known nor understood for he has shut their eyes that they cannot see, and their hearts that they cannot stand, and no one considers in his heart, neither has knowledge or understanding, to say, I burned part of it in the fire, and I baked bread upon the coals thereof, I've roasted flesh and eaten of it, and shall I make the residue, the what's left over, an abomination, shall I fall down to the stalk of a tree? Our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases. The Bible tells us, because he is God. That's why it's good to trust God. Secondly, because of his mercy, he saves us. Mercy, he that trusts in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. How does he save us? He saves us by sending the Lord Jesus Christ. The maker of the world becomes an infant. The man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He who went about doing good, who never sinned, who never did anything wrong, in any shape or hands, taken by wicked hands and crucified and slain. As Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 53, all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned every one to our own way, but the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. You see, my friends, we've not been left to our own desserts. We are debtors to mercy alone. Because he is God, he made us. Because of his mercy, he saves us. Thirdly, because of his love, he keeps us. The Lord's one translation has it like this, the Lord's unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in him. Why do we know of his love, and how do we know of his love? What has God promised to us? Well, he's promised that we should call upon him, and when we call upon him in the day of trouble, he will hear us, and he will respond, and he will answer. Call on me in the day of trouble, and I will answer you, Isaiah tells us. Proverbs chapter three and verses three to eight. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee. Bind them about thy neck. Write them upon the table of thine heart. So shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart. and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes. Fear the Lord, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy body, and marrow to thy bones. Now as I've said, every believer will face trials, often many trials and sorrows. Life in this fallen world is far from perfect. And Satan is quite content to let the ungodly be at peace with themselves. He doesn't want them to be disturbed, because they might be driven to repentance. The world, the flesh, and the devil never cause them to fear for their souls. But when somebody turns to God, the devil gets angry. And now he will attack them with all his power, yet he cannot defeat the true child of God. That's why God has said to us, call upon me in the day of trouble and I will answer you. That's an expression of his love and kindness toward us. And we who are his can have the confidence, the glorious confidence, the truth of the confidence in God who is always infinitely faithful to his word. Verse 10b, mercies shall compass him about, literally girded about with mercy, like a belt around us, or perhaps more particularly like a shield to cover us and keep us safe. Remember those wonderful words in one of the other psalms, the Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly. How wonderful it is, God is a sun and a shield. That's the balance, isn't it? Now we may enjoy the sun, but too much sun is bad for us. It'll burn our skin, but he is a shield as well. So he is light and truth, but he also shields us and keeps us safe. And everywhere we turn, we find his mercy and grace and love coming to us. So David can say in that Psalm that we know so well, Psalm 23, my cup runs over, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. What love, what kindness, what goodness, what grace. What folly we have when we have such a God who is good and great to turn aside from his ways and reject it. Remember those wonderful words in Psalm 48 verse 14, the last verse of the psalm. For this God is our God for ever and ever. He will be our guide even to death. The Hebrew is literally even over death. He'll take us to death and over death and into the glory. As the hymn puts it, he will keep me till the river rolls its waters at my feet. Then he'll bear me safely over. And as the original says, not as so many corrupt versions say today, made by grace for glory meet. That's it. Made by grace for glory meet. So trust him, trust him. Who are those with great faith? Well, the Bible tells us. How do you measure faith? Well, read Hebrews 11. Faith is the promise of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. He who cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Great faith is not merely seen in those who trust God to give them great deliverance from trials, Although great faith is a great help on those occasions. But great faith continues to trust when all seems to fail. And even God sometimes seems to desert us. Behind a frowning Providence, he hides a smiling face. My friends, I know that. I've experienced that. I say, as I've often said, and I'm sure I've said it to you many times, when Providence frowns, sometimes it can be very hard, even though you know there's a smiling face behind it. Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain, but God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain. When darkness veils his lovely face, your version is slightly different, when darkness seems to veil his face, but one version of that hymn, when darkness veils his lovely face, I rest on his unchanging grace, in every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the veil. My friend, our faith does not rely on feelings. We live in a day when people live on their feelings. I feel that I'm a man, not a woman. I feel that I'm a woman, not a man. I'm in the wrong body. I feel. My feelings are the most important. My friend's feelings will fail you. My father used to have this illustration which he used. He died when I was a child, as you know. But he used to, time and again, he used to have this illustration. He would say, imagine, how do we know about these things? Fact, faith, and feelings are like three men walking along a wall. They're balancing on the top of the wall, and they're walking along the wall. And while faith keeps its eye on fact, it won't fall off the wall. But if it turns to feelings, they'll both fall off. Now you may think that's a silly illustration, but I found that as a child a very powerful illustration. Don't rely on your feelings. We live in today when everybody is feelings organized. My friends, that's it, isn't it? My anchor holds within the veil. You can't see an anchor when it's doing its work. It's out of sight. It only works when it's out of sight. No point pulling it up and saying, I wonder if it's holding. That's not going to work, is it, if you're in a storm? You need the anchor to work out of sight. You can't see it when it's doing its job. Our faith does not rest on feelings, or emotions, or experiences, but in fact. His oath, His covenant, and His blood support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my strength and stay. My friends, forgive me, but I've seen some hymn books, and they muck about with the words. They think they can improve these old hymns. And this hymn has been abused by some of these people. Here is one modern version. When weary in this earthy race, I rest on his unchanging grace. How weak. It's not when we're weary, but when darkness hides him, when we cannot see. In every wild and stormy gale my anchor holds and will not fail. No, it's not the fact that it will not fail, but the fact that it is out of sight. And we can't see it and we don't know, but we know it holds us safe. His vow, His covenant and blood are my defense against the flood. No, they're not a defense against it. They are a support in it. They take us through it. That's the wonder of the grace of God. When earthly hopes are swept away, He will uphold me on that day. No, that's not what the hymn writer wrote. He said, not my earthly hopes, but when everything else goes, when everything else goes, I remember vividly one year, I don't know if you've ever seen these things, I remember once as a child going on something like this at a fairground, you get in this barrel, and they spin the barrel up, and it goes faster and faster and faster and faster, and just when you think you don't know what's going to happen next, the bottom of the barrel drops out. But the centrifugal or centripetal, I never get those right, is so fast that you are held against the back of the barrel, but you've got nothing to stand on, my friends. It's very frightening, but it's absolutely safe. Now my friends, in a sense, that's an illustration. When the bottom drops out of the world, and there are crises in life that happen like that, you are still kept safe in the arms of Jesus. That's the point. Is that sentimental? Well, if it is, so be it. But it's true. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. For when the bottom drops out, those everlasting arms, as Moses says in Deuteronomy, are still underneath us. Do you know that, my friends? The man of faith, the woman of faith, still trusts when they cannot see. And even in the darkness, we will still go on with God, for He will never leave us nor forsake us. We may fail Him, and often do, but He will never fail us. Remember what He's done for us. God the Son, the well-beloved Son of the Father, the Maker of the worlds, becomes incarnate. He becomes the man of sorrows. He sheds his precious blood. He dies in order to provide a way of salvation for sinful rebels. Do you see what he's done? Do you recognize the grace of God? It's so difficult if you don't understand unless God speaks to your soul. See him in his agony as he dies on the cross, see him deserted by his friends, spat upon, derided, mocked, with a crown of thorns and a purple robe, despised and rejected of men and nailed to the cross, and yet He commands and commends His Spirit into the hands of His Father and dies in the place of rebels and sinners. Such love, such goodness, such grace. God's unfailing love to us is on the basis of His covenant promises. Now I'm not going to stop in detail with his covenant promises, which are wonderful. I'm just going to read you two Old Testament verses which remind us of these things. Deuteronomy chapter seven, verse nine. Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God. the faithful God, which keeps covenant and mercy with them that love Him, and keep His commandments to a thousand generations. And a little bit later in the same chapter, Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep them, and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which ye swear to your forefathers. But my friends, this blessing goes back before that, to the time of Abraham, and even before Abraham, it goes right back to the Garden of Eden. But this covenant is a one-sided covenant. Do you remember the story in Genesis 15? And how God comes, not the first time to Abraham, because he's already come to Abraham in Genesis 12 and spoken to him, but in Genesis 15, he comes to Abraham. And they set up the terms, the old set up the terms of the covenant. And what is that? You make a covenant and then you take animals for sacrifice and you cut them in two and you put one part on one side and one part on the other. And then the two of you who have made the covenant walk through the covenant. And what you're saying is you're gonna keep that covenant. You are pledging with your life to keep that covenant. Because if you don't, then you'll be like these animals, you'll be killed, you'll die. And what happens? As Abraham prepares to walk through between the sacrifice with God, as God makes his covenant with God, God puts Abraham into a deep sleep, and God alone Passes between the covenant. I think that is wonderful my friends And God is saying to Abraham Abraham you cannot keep the covenant I'm not going to put you through this because I know you cannot keep it But I'm gonna keep it for you And that's what God is saying. I'm going to keep it for you. So it becomes a one-sided covenant and God declares to Abraham that he is safe because he has trusted himself to the living God and the New Testament tells us Abraham believed God and God reckoned it to him as righteousness. That's why in Isaiah 55 verse 3 The Lord encourages us to come without money and without price, to buy from Him and to receive the blessings of the covenant that was only fully and perfectly fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, the Saviour, as He died upon Calvary. Are you in this covenant? Are you a man or woman of faith? Edward Bickersteth, who was the father of the Edward Bickersteth who wrote some of our hymns, said this. He was also a preacher. Here are the terrors of the Lord to persuade you. Here is the love of Christ to constrain you. That's wonderful. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. Do you trust in the Lord? Or are you still among the wicked? Well, we're going to sing a hymn as we close this evening, a great hymn of Augustus Toplady. 574, a debtor to mercy alone, of covenant mercy I sing, nor fear with thy righteousness on my person and offering to bring. The terrors of law and of God with me can have nothing to do. Why? Because my Savior's obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from view. 574.