It's good to be with you. I was here three years ago, I believe it was, to stay with Paul. A lot of you probably remember me from then. I was here two years ago, and stayed with John. Now I've stayed with John again, and it's good to see you all. Most of you probably know him. as he introduced me, Gary Vance, from Davis, Virginia. And today I've chosen in Psalm, Psalm 71, to speak to you by God's grace. In Psalm 71, this is believed to be a psalm of David. Most of David's psalms before the psalm, in the heading, it will have David as the one speaking, and as the chief musician, it will say this, this, and it didn't say that, but there's some things in it that declares it to me to be written by David himself about himself. And then Psalm 71 here in verse 9 and 18 says, Cast me not off into time of old age, forsake me not when my strength faileth. And it seems to be David writing it on it. And Psalm 71, 18 says, Now also when I am old, in great heavy, O God, forsake me not until I have shown thy strength unto this generation. And in these Psalms, most of the time, you can refer to Christ quite often as David, you know, a type of Christ, and also in the lessons as pointing to Christ. And it can be applied to God's church, Hank, God's church and to God's people and every believer that's in a distress. You know, David was in a distress during his plea, that he was in distress because of his son Absalom had rose up against him. And he was asking God in prayer to give him deliverance from this and to help him with this. And God did this for him, and he turned to praise God on account of it. So starting in 71, He said, In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. So David was looking to the Lord as only the child of God can. We cannot look to ourselves for anything, can we? We know who we are in His life. And we know who He is as our Lord, don't we? And we, by His grace, submit to Him and bow to Him and call upon Him because He is our all. He is the Lord and He is our Lord. He is our Lord. And we don't trust in ourselves, do we? We put our trust in the Lord by His grace through faith in Him, which is the gift of God, don't we? So we look to Him and rest in Him. And David also repeated this in another song. He said, in thee do I put my trust. So we don't put our trust in any creature or anything like that, do we? We put our trust in God and the promises of His Word toward us, don't we? He promised His people through His Word. And He will be with His people. Christ said, I'll go with you always, always, didn't He? Even to the ends of the earth. At times, it may seem like that He's not with us right then, but He is always with us. There's never a time that He's not with us. And whatever happens to us is by His will, His permissive will, or by His grace. And it will be for our good, won't it, in God's glory. So, the Lord, He is Jehovah. He's God over all. God bless forever. And He's all in Him. We look to Him and rest in Him. And we can trust only in Him. That's the only one we can trust in for our souls. We look and rest and trust and we rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not something that God forces you to do. God works in your heart. You gladly bow to Christ, don't you? And rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul said in Philippians 1, being confident of this very thing, that He would have begun a good work in you, He will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. So, that's our confidence in Him by His grace through faith, ain't it? We look to Him and we're accepted in Him. We don't know what might happen to us in this flesh, or what even we might do. We don't know. In time of, you know, somebody might walk up and slap you, you might even slap them back, you don't know. Oh, but God keeps a watch over His children, and those whom Christ is in, He's with them always, always, even in the eternal glory. And David said, in him, you see, he said, deliver me in thy righteousness. We don't look to our own righteousness, we don't have any. But we look to Him and His righteousness on. We're accepted in the Beloved. We're accepted in the righteousness of God Himself in and through Christ, ain't we? God accepts us as His own children. We're His children through Christ. And David's asking God to deliver him in his time of trouble here. And probably his son Absalom rising up against him. But we're justified by the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, thank you. We're completely whole in Christ before God. We're sinners in this flesh, but in Christ we're completely whole and every sin has been put away once and for all by His sacrifice. There is nothing between me and God to condemn me before God. Sin condemns me, but it does not condemn me before God, for Christ has put away my sins, and there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ. So we, by God's grace, love and love and rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our rest and our peace. We have peace with God through Christ. We are at peace with Him. We're not working in serving Him to gain favor with Him. We love to come together in unity and worship Him who we love, don't we? Together, His people. And He said, deliver me in thy righteousness. And that's the righteousness He delivers His people is in, is His righteousness. We're accepted in Him and He delivers us. We're justified through the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been delivered by Him. In 1 Corinthians 1.30 it says, But of Him, of God are you in Christ, who of God is made unto us, wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. He's our all, and we don't turn to anyone else or anything else, do we? We rest in Christ and rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ. We tend to glorify Him and lift Him up, don't we? We lift Him up. We don't glorify men. We are children of God in and through and by the Lord Jesus Christ, and we together rejoice in Him together with one another, don't we? We're close together as children of God, brothers and sisters in Christ, but our chief glory together is to glorify Him, to glorify Him. And David said, He will cause me to escape. He's our refuge in time of trouble. We don't know what we'll go through with, but we know that we're safe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And He will cause us to escape, whatever it is. He'll cause us to. And David, in his time of war, his confidence was in God. And he said, He will cause me to escape. And that's why he, you know, He bows down His Word to us, His ear to us, don't He? He calms the sins to us. Think about that. To man, by the grace of God, through His power and Spirit, to speak to us, His children, in Christ, don't He? And through Christ. We're the most blessed people in this world. We're the richest people in this world. The richest of God's grace and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We're rich. And it doesn't make much difference what we have in this life or the things in this life, but the main source is our Lord Jesus Christ. And our goal and our glory is to be with Him in His time in glory. And He said, save me out of my troubles and save me. And He's the one that saves us out of our troubles. We are trouble of and in ourselves, but He saves us out of our troubles. And He keeps us in store, don't He? And He will receive us into glory in His time. And David was asking God to deliver him in his time of trouble here in this war wanting. His son Absalom had rose up against him, and God gave him some comfort. and delivered him in that sense, didn't he? And his mind and heart was eased, and he began to glorify God for it. He said in Psalm 71, 4, deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, and out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. In Psalm 82, 4, he says, deliver the poor and the needy. So, that's me. I can identify with that. I'm a poor creature. I'm a sinful creature. I'm a poor creature. I'm a needy creature. I need God, don't you? I need Christ. And I have Christ by God's grace. Only by God's grace. And it's by His grace that we rejoice in glory in Him to us. And He said, be thou my strong habitation. We're nothing and nobody's in ourself, are we? And we have no strength of our own in that regard. He didn't even give us the strength to be here and to come up here and to stand here, whether we realize it or not. Our life's in God's hand. And He uses us in His time, His people, for His glory, don't He? And He brings us to the place where He does and can. And we try by God's grace as He speaks to our hearts to honor Him and honor Him alone as our all. He is our all. So to Thou be strong habitation. It's God that worketh in you. It's not you that worketh for God for gain, but it's God that worketh in you to the price of His glory, isn't it? And we rejoice in that, don't we? We rejoice in that. So David here was driven out of his hometown, wasn't he? His dwelling place where he dwelt. He was driven from his people and so on and so forth. And he was hiding from the enemy, wasn't he? But God was with him. He had a dwelling place. He dwelled in the Lord, and that's our dwelling place, ain't it? These natural things don't mean too much to us. The Lord Jesus Christ, we dwell in Him, and Him in us, don't we? He by His grace and power and His Spirit, He speaks to our heart, and He dwells in us richly, and we look and rest and trust and rejoice in Him alone, don't we, for all things? He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God. God loved us, and she had a proud of His love in her heart, didn't He? We had no love for God by nature. We're nothing by nature but sinners. But God in His mercy spoke to us, and expressed His love to us, and His call toward us through Christ, and pointed us to Christ, and caused us to look to Christ. and to put our confidence in Him, and to love Him, to love Him. That's love, ain't it? God's love. God's love for us and to us. That's love. God loved us. If God would have looked upon us as we were apart from Christ, He would have consumed us. Oh, but He looked upon us in Christ, in an everlasting love, eternal love, didn't He? In the Lord Jesus Christ. And Hebrews 12, 28 says, Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved. We're in a kingdom, the kingdom of God that cannot be moved. We haven't entered into glory yet, but in the mind and purpose and the Spirit of God, we're in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're seated with Him in glory. And in Him, Seated in Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ in us and us in Him. And He's seated at the right hand of God. And He's seated. There's a man in glory that's come to this world under God's bidding to do what God sent Him to do, to put away all the sins of all these people and all time. Now He's ascended back to glory and sat down. And we're seated in Him. Amen. Oh, what a wonderful it is to be in Christ. To know Christ by God's grace. And David said, wherefore I may continually live. And I think about it. It's a continuous thing. You don't just know Christ wants and go to Christ wants or go to God wants in prayer. We go continuously. We're continuously in need of Him. And we see our need by His grace. Maybe not at all times, but many, many times, don't we? Often, don't we? We see His need now. We need Him, don't we? And we have Him. And we look to Him and rest in Him. The Lord is a strong tower. You know, the fortress and the strong tower and the watchman that gets up in the tower. He's that strong tower. And we're in Him, aren't we? We're inside of that tower. And nothing can harm us in that tower, you see. We're protected and preserved in Him because of Him. And He'll receive us in the glory to be with Him eternally, won't He? So we continually resort to Him and look to Him and rejoice in Him by His grace, don't we? We do that through this life, and we'll do it by God's grace until this life is over, until we're with Him in glory eternally, won't we? And David said, Thou hast given commandment to save me. Thou hast given commandment. A commandment of God has been given to save David. God had told David he was going to enter into a kingdom, didn't He? Into that natural kingdom. Well, we know by God's grace and power that we're going to enter into a glorious kingdom, an eternal kingdom, don't we? So He has given command to save us in that regard. We know that. How do we know it? We know it by the promises of God in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, don't we? All the promises of God are sure in Christ. They're yes and amen, yay and amen. They're positive. So we're saved in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we don't look to ourselves, but we look to Christ by God's grace through faith, don't we? And through the power of the Holy Spirit. in us the hope of glory. He is our hope. My hope is built on nothing less, the old song says, than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. You see, we can't lean on anything else. We lean on His name alone, don't we? On the Lord Jesus Christ. So He has given commandments to save us, and He saved us through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We haven't entered into glory, but we're saved. We're saved. We have eternal life in and through and by the Lord Jesus Christ. We've been received of the Father through Christ, amen, and in Christ. God can look upon us in Christ before the foundation of the world in His surety. I can't understand that. But he could, in the most possible thing that was going to come to happen, Christ was sure to come. He was sure to die. He stood in the Lamb's light. Well, that means he stood as though he had already been slain, because he was so sure to be slain, he couldn't help but leave. And that's exactly why he came into this world. He came to save his people from their sins. He came to take their place before God, and to suffer God's condemnation against them in our substitute. And that's what he did. We're saved in the Lord Jesus Christ. And David said, Deliver me out, O God, out of the hands of the wicked. You know, Asalom, his son had rose up against him. He rose up against him to kill him, and finally at war with David and his officers, he was found in a tree hanging by the hair, one of the Axum was, and the captain staked him through with a sword and killed him, didn't he? Oh, but he's asking God to deliver him out of the hands of the wicked at this time, who had risen up against him in rebellion, and we believe even his own son had risen up against him. And that's what we ask God. God, deliver us from this awful state that I'm in through this awful being and through this awful thoughts and all these things. Deliver us from these things. And God delivers us in and through by the Lord Jesus Christ. Cause my heart and my mind to be set upon Him. You see that? And to rest in Him and no more else. He said, deliver me out of the hands of the unrighteous and cruel man. And God delivers us out of the hands of the unrighteous and cruel man, you know. He delivers us out of the hands of Satan himself, don't He? And He delivers us out of the hands of the cruelness of this world, the people in this world, and this world, don't He? And He sends us our hearts on Him. and causes us to look to Him, love Him, and to rest in Him, and to trust Him, and to rejoice in Him, rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're nothing to nobody, as I said, but He's everything. For Thou art my hope. Deliver me, for Thou art my hope. Out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man, for Thou art my hope. Do you see that? My hope is built on nothing less than Him. We look to Him and rest in Him. Thou art my hope, O God. Thou art my trust for my youth. So He's the foundation, ain't He? We look to Him. Our hope is built upon Him in earth. Our hope is in Him. Our hope is in nothing less by God's grace. We look to Christ. Thou art my trust from my youth. David, from his youth, said, Thou art my trust. And in Hebrews 13, 8, Paul said, Christ Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. This same Jesus that we came into a relationship to, or came in to acknowledge and to know by God's grace, is the same Jesus now He was when the day we came to know Him. Amen. He's the same Jesus. And the more we learn and are taught about Him, and the stronger we get in faith, the more we rejoice in Him, amen. The more. We're accepted in the beloved from the time we start believing by God's grace. We're accepted before the foundation of the world, but He reveals Him in our heart, and we know that from the time we start believing. But our faith grows in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ through the power of His Word. And the more we learn about Him, the more we can rejoice in Him, and the stronger our love is for Him. And the greater he is, that's it. For by thee have I been holding up from the womb. It's God that brings us into the world and it's God that calls us out of the world. And he said from his mother's womb he had been holding up. By thee, he had been supported and upheld and sustained and been given food and raiment out still of the days of his life. And he was followed by the mercies and grace of God as one of God's sheep. And we've been held another by him, ain't we? And he brings us to the point. Things don't happen by accident. If we're in a certain place at a certain time, and the Spirit of God works and causes by His grace to reveal Christ in us, that's by the grace of God in the power of God, and that's been foreordained before the foundation of the world. Know unto God all of His works from before the foundation of the world. God plans all things. Nothing's happening without God, do you know that? even by His permissive will and directive will. And He works all things for the good of His people. It may not seem like it at the time, but it is. No matter what happens, He works it for our good. And He'll bring us to glory. He'll bring us to glory in His time to be with Him forever. He said, Thou art He that took me out of my mother's bowels. Thou took me out of the womb, He said in Psalm 229. Thou didst make me whole. There it is. You made me whole. You took me out of the womb and you revealed Christ to my heart and gave me faith in him through knowledge that you gave me and caused me to come to him and rest and rejoice. He did that. He took me out and he gave me hope. He gave me hope. He gave me rest. He gave me peace. And Job, Job 121 says, Maybe came I out of my mother's womb, and maybe shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. As the Lord gives and as He takes away, or whatever He does, He does it for our good and for His glory. And blessed be His holy name. That's what we say. We thank Him. And here it is, my praise shall be continually of thee. Our praise is continuously with him. We're here today by God's grace. We arose to another morning and come together to worship God by His grace. Amen. And if we didn't come together, it might be by His grace for His people, right? In calling us out. All but God, for reasons of His glory, has brought us here today to give honor and glory to Him, ain't it? That's what He brought us here for. To praise Him, to lift up His Holy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So, our hearts, by God's grace, will praise Him. We don't praise men and people and works and deeds to try to gain favor with God. But we praise Him who is all and give Him all glory. It's a joy to praise Him. It's not a selfish work, but it's a joy, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure to be here to talk about Him and to honor Him and to glorify Him. And David said, I'm a wonder unto many, and no doubt unto many that looks up on God's people and don't know, they don't know what they're experiencing. They don't know nothing about what they know. Even religious people that's wondering about you and I. Well, what's he have that I don't have? He says he's right and he's in the grace of God. Well, I'm in the grace of God. What makes me the different from him? They don't know. You see what I'm saying? They don't know. It's by the grace of God. Who makes me the different to another? I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. He makes the difference on me. He's all. So it is a wonder to many, you see. It's a wonder to many. But Thou art my stronghold. You're my refuge. You're my strength. You're my stronghold. By Your grace, through faith that You give me, I rest in You and trust in You and look to You and rejoice in You. It's all in Him, ain't it? The affection that He puts in us, you see that? That's not a thing of human nature. That's the grace of God in the hearts of His people that honors God and glorifies God and exalts the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, don't it? In 2 Corinthians 6, 8-10, it says, By honor and dishonor, by evil and good report, as deceivers and yet true. You see that? That's why people think, unknown but yet well known. You see that? We're unknown of many, but yet we're well-known by many, God's people, and by God. He says that. Well-known, well-known. And behold, as dying in your life, behold, we live. We're dying every day. My hearts are getting gray. I ain't got much. It's half a minute. But I'm dying and I've got pains and aches and things like that. I'm not complaining. But I'm dying every day. But yet I'm alive unto God. Oh, that's joy in Him. That's joy in the grace of God. Alive unto God and we'll be with Him forever. We're chastened but not killed. We're not destroyed. You see that? We're chastened. We're chasing for things, and God has to bring us to remembrance of Him many times only, and chasing it. Oh, but we're not destroyed. It's for our good and for His glory only. And we're poor but yet rich. Poor in nature but yet rich in mercy. Rich in the Lord Jesus Christ. Having nothing and yet possessing all things. All things are of God in Christ and through Christ to our hearts by His grace. We have nothing. We say we might have nothing, but we have the greatest riches that's ever been brought into this world by the Lord Jesus Christ. Thou art my strong refuge, my comfort and my rest, and my peace is in the Lord Jesus Christ. I rest in Him and in Him alone. I can't rest anywhere else. I look to Him by His grace. Let my mouth be filled with praise to thee, to honor thee and to praise thee. Romans 2, 4, Paul said, Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness in four births and longsuffering, knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? The goodness of God. We will never know God if he hadn't in his goodness, by his grace, in our hearts, led us to him, to Christ. and to look to Him. Oh, that's the most blessed blessing that this world can ever know, ain't it? The goodness of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. The goodness of God in Christ. They said in Psalm 52-1, the goodness of God endeareth continually. The goodness of God is a continuous goodness. It's not here today and gone tomorrow. It's continually. The goodness of God leads us to repentance. The goodness of God will lead us into heaven by His grace and power. The goodness of God rests us in the Lord Jesus Christ, entrusts us in Christ, and rejoices us in Him, don't it? That's the goodness of God. We'll never know this except by the grace of God. That's it, ain't it? And with thy honor all the day long, all the day, and with thy honor, the goodness of God toward us, and it's in His honor, we honor Him for it, don't we? God is good to us, isn't He? He's good to us. We're the most blessed people in this world. Oh, the goodness of God honors God, rejoices in Him, and rests in Christ all the day long, We don't rest in Him one time and not rest in Him another, do we? By God's grace, we continually look to Him. We can't look anymore else. God has revealed to us who we are, and we can't look here. We've got to look by our own. We look to Christ. He calls it, and we do it. We look to Christ. We honor Him. We extol Him. We worship Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. All things are attributed to Him. All the grace and knowledge, and all the purpose, and all the bringing to, and all the keeping, and all the working in, and all the bringing us in. It's all of Him. It's all in and through and by Him. And we give Him glory to have revealed Himself to us. His goodness endures forever. The goodness of God endureth forever. Lamentations 3.23 says they are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The faithfulness of God to us are new every morning. When you open your eyes of the morning, you know what that is? That's the goodness of God directing you to Christ. That's what it is. What's usually the first thing you think about? You think about God and His goodness to you, don't you? Through Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ, what can we do today, or what are we going to do today? Lord, how can we honor Your name? How can we lift You up by Your grace in our hearts? The goodness of God. Psalm 161 says, Praise ye the Lord. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord for He is good. There it is. There's the goodness of God. The Lord is good to us, ain't He? He's good. He's eternal goodness. And we'll be with Him forever. Together. In glory. Rejoicing. Together in Christ. The goodness of God. Give thanks unto the Lord. He is good. His mercy endureth forever. It's eternal. His mercy endureth forever. He loved us with an everlasting love, and shed abroad His love in us. Amen, everyone. Bring us in glory by His love to anyone. We thank you all for calling us to be here with you. It's good to be here. Good to see you all. By God's grace, maybe he'll make us able to come back again.