Hemet Conference: 1991
Table of Contents
The Lord's Hands
Address—G.H. Hayhoe
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Hands. Different ways in which the hands are applied to us. But first of all, I'd like to look at the 19th Psalm, Psalm 19. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day utter a speech, and night unto night show us knowledge. There's no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.
In another verse in Revelation chapter 10.
Verse 5 And the Angel which I saw stand upon the sea, and upon the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, and swear by him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein. That there should be time no longer, but in the days of the voice of the 7th Angel, when he shall begin to sound the mystery.
God shall be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
Then the 11TH chapter in the 15th verse and the 7th Angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. And the four and 20 elders which sat before God on their seats fell upon their faces.
And worship God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art and wasp and art to come, because thou hast taken thy great power and hast reigned. Well, I just read these verses in this 19th Psalm and in Revelation to show how this world in which we live is God's handiwork. How good for us to realize this, that everything has been created by God.
Created here. And it's a remarkable thing that as men have discovered something about the other planets, they have found there's no life upon them. But God picked out this particular planet in order to make a display of his ways, of his heart, of his love, all displayed and made known. And to this very planet His own Son came down in manhood.
In order that God might be revealed, no man has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared him so. God has made himself known because the God of light and as a God of love. When we look at the verse that we read, passage that we read in Revelation, we see that there's one who stands upon the earth and the sea, the One who made everything. And it says there will be no longer delay. God has.
Wrought in this world.
For the blessing of man and their time coming, a day of reckoning when everything is going to be set right according to the mind and will of God. He's not going to allow sin to go on forever. He's going to step into his universe and he's going to set everything right. And as it says they are in the 11TH chapter, it says in the days of the voice of the 7th Angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished.
That is, there's a secret why God has allowed these things, how it's all going to come about to the man who doesn't bow to God's revelation. It's all a puzzle, he says. I just don't understand why am I here? What is all about? But there's a day coming when the Lord Jesus is going to have his rightful place, the kingdoms of this world.
Become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever.
And ever everything is going to be set right according to the mind and will of God. And there we find the redeemed in heaven, represented in the 24 elders. And it says they fell upon their faces and worshiped God, and rejoiced that at last He takes his great power and he reigns.
But between the event of creating things here in this world, it says.
That.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork, that is, His hand made all these things, as it tells us in another place, that He by His own hand made all these things.
And he's going to have his rightful place in the coming day. But I say that now, it's nice to think of how those hands are used in connection with those of us who are believers. And I just like to look at a few passages.
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Where his hand has to do with believers. For those of us in this room who know the Lord is our Savior. And so first of all, I'd like to turn to John chapter 10, John chapter 10, and the 27th verse. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
My father, which gave them me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand. I and my father are one.
Well, here we see the hand of the Son, the hand of the Son and the hand of the Father. How beautiful this is. And for those of us who know the Lord is our Savior, it's not just to know him as a creator God who made everything, who upholds all things by the word of his power and is in control of everything that goes on because.
There's a verse that says, Who hath purposed and brought it to pass, if the Lord commanded it now?
Puny man may think he's doing something but in reality couldn't do anything unless God allowed him to do it. It says in him we live and move and have our being, so everything is under his control. That's a good thing for us to remember as Christians. Not one thing happens in this world without God allowing it. He's in complete control of everything.
Another verse says we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. All the efforts of man will never prove one verse in this Bible untrue. In fact, many of the things that people say which they think discount the Bible to us only prove that it's true. God tells us how people would scoff. God tells us how people would speak of how He delayed his coming.
And the Bible says that that's what would happen in the last days.
That they would be scoffers saying, where is the promise of his coming? And so they were scoffing. Their remarks only proved to us that the Bible is true. But this verse, these verses that we have read here in John 10, perhaps we might say they're the beginning of the life of one who is brought into the family of God by new birth.
What does God do? He imparts new life.
He sees us in rebellion against Him. He sees us naturally dead in trespasses and sins and all the display of the goodness that's in the heart of God and His wonderful creatorial power does not change the heart of man. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, the Bible says. Who can know it?
And so when God begins a work, he must begin by imparting.
New life, divine life, that's how God begins. And when he begins that work, how wonderful that He said He's going to finish it. It says he that hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. And we think of those hands that created everything, the heavens and the earth, His handiwork.
And then to think that men took those hands and nailed them.
To Calvary's cross and there at that place where the heart of man was told out at its very worst, the heart of God came out, shall I say, at its very best, man that is worst, but the heart of God comes out. And where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. And this message of love is so wonderful that there are many, many people who are not in the enjoyment of the place of security. They.
Have when they're brought into the family of God. And you know, there can be no real progress in our souls, no real subtle peace until we see the place of security that God has brought us into. As often said, if I thought I could lose my salvation, I wouldn't live even one day in peace. I'd be always afraid that I had done something to forfeit my salvation.
I know that those who teach this kind of doctrine always.
Lower the standard of sin and certain sins would not be the means of losing your salvation, but they designate certain sins that would cause you to lose your salvation. They lower the standard of sin, but in God's sight, even the smallest sin, as men consider it, is enormous. In God's sight, not one lie the little thing that people think so lightly of, but it says.
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All liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth.
Fire and brimstone it says, there shall no in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie, for only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.
And so if it depended on us either before we were saved or after we were saved, who of us would be sure of salvation? But oh, brethren, how blessed to know that it doesn't depend upon us. It depends upon what the Lord Jesus did upon the cross. And our part is just accepting like a gift. You accept a gift not as a bargain, not as something that you have to pay a small price for.
But as a gift.
The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And isn't it lovely here for the Lord Jesus? Speaking of those who are his sheep, He says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them. Yes, the one who has heard that loving voice first telling us how sinful we were, how unable we were to provide salvation for ourselves.
That same voice tells us what the Lord Jesus has done and how upon the cross of Calvary He paid the price in full. And every one of us who are saved have the knowledge of salvation because we have heard His voice. We know it's speaking through His word, but His word is that what is now faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. We take God as His word we rest upon.
He has said and asked the way we have the assurance of salvation. And so it goes on to say.
And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Now I might say here that eternal life is not just the eternal existence, because even the lost will exist eternally.
Eternal life is the life of Christ. It says in John's epistle that we saw that eternal life who was with the Father and was manifested unto us. The Lord Jesus himself is that eternal life in a person, and he imparts eternal life, says in John 17 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the.
Only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
In my natural state as a Sinner, I didn't know God. I didn't know He knew me, but I didn't know Him. I couldn't commune with Him because it was a distance. My sins separated between me and God. But when God saved you, He gave you a life by which you could enter into and enjoy His thoughts, that you could have fellowship with Him. Help them think what a marvelous thing that is. I'll quote the verse again. And this is life eternal.
That they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent. Those who are in their sins don't know God.
They're afraid of him. They don't know him.
If they knew him, they trust him.
Because it's ours. They that know thy name shall put their trust in thee. And so we know him, and he knows us, and we know his voice. He says, I give unto them eternal life. So you as a believer possess the very life of Christ. Do you not have a different new life in heaven than what you already possess? You receive that.
Life, I often think, how wonderful the Lord's coming will be.
You know, down here in this world, we have a life that is often distressed by what we see around us and even by weaknesses we see in ourselves. And I love to think of this, brethren, if the Lord gave us hope now and we were caught up to be with Him to enter the Father's house, why for the first time we'd feel perfectly relaxed and perfectly at home.
We have a life that's suited to the place.
We're going and when we get there, you know, in this world where something like a fish out of water, a fish has a fish life whether it's in the water or not, but it's very uncomfortable when it's out of the water, and it's comfortable when it's in its element. And we're in a world possessing a life suited to heaven, and we're in an element that is quite different to the character, the life we have. But when the Lord takes us home, we'll be in our element.
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Oh, how wonderful that is. That's the life that we possess now. A person might say, well, could I lose that?
It says here, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Perhaps you've heard somebody say, Oh yes, but you can pluck yourself out.
Well, I don't believe you can. But they have forgotten that. The verse says more than that. It says they shall never perish. So if they have, shall I say the audacity to think that they could pluck themselves out of the Lord's hand? They still have His pledge. They shall never perish. God wants us to have assurance.
You like your children. You like your loved ones to have assurance.
And God wants us to have assurance. I think it's so lovely there in the 6th of Hebrews. He says that we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hopes set before us. And the strong consolation is that God has given his word, and he can't lie.
And in order to confirm it, it says he gave his oaths. Besides, because people don't always tell the truth, a man gives his word, but he also has to give his oath.
But God, who can't lie, says you might tend it out, so I'll give you my word, I'll give you my oath beside. How could you doubt a person that can't lie? Giving his word, and knowing that you might begin to doubt, he says, I'll give you my oath beside.
My promise, my pledge that you'll never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. There we have the hand giving security.
And then my Father, which gave them me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. This is beautifully brought out in John's Gospel, how the Lord Jesus was in this world revealing the Father.
So he could say he that hath seen me hath seen the Father, because he perfectly revealed the Father. And so we have here double security, We have the security of the Lord Jesus hand, the one who has whose hands were pierced for us at Calvary. We have that and on top of it he says the Father's hand.
You know, some people have a kind of a thought that.
God was against them and the Lord stepped in and paid the penalty so God wouldn't have to punish us. But it was the Father who sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. There was a Father who sent the Son. So we have the heart of the Father told out in sending his Son and the Lord Jesus in loving obedience, coming and doing that work. And so he could say.
In his place in dearty alignment, I am mine father and my father.
Are 10 how blessed this is?
Perhaps all of her, the little story that was told about a father and put some coins in his hand and he said to one of his children, now if you can get that money out of my hand, you can have it.
Well, little boy, he worked away trying to get his father's fingers up to get hold of that money that was in his hand. He worked away. And after a while he realized he couldn't get it. And he said, oh, I give up, that I give up. So he put his other hand on top and he said, try again, Try again. Oh, he said, Dad, I couldn't get out of one hand. I'll never get it out of two. Isn't this wonderful? You know that God.
Wants to have us when we think of the number of real.
Christians who don't enjoy the security of the believer, what they miss in the very starting point of their Christian life. And this is the hand, as I said, who created all things, came down into this world in order that he might accomplish redemption, so that we might be saved, so that we might be brought into this place of blessing. So the hands are brought before us here in this passage.
As the place of security into which we are brought.
I and my father are one, just like the person putting the other hand. Why there's no difference in purpose in the second hand and there was in the first. If it was somebody else's hand, while the other hand might change. But when it's the same person, by then it's going to be a common purpose. And so the hand of the father and of the son, I and my father are one, one in counsel, one in purpose. And I say again, the father.
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Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. So here we have brought before us security and we'd like to turn to another one in the Song of Solomon in the 2nd chapter. Song of Solomon in the 2nd chapter, in the sixth verse, his left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me. Well, here we find the Lord's hand is used in a different way.
It's not so much in this verse, the thought of security as just his loving interest in US. And this is a very wonderful thing to go through a world like this. I like to think of that expression.
His left hand is under my head, you know, the left hand is the nearest to the heart, and so it tells us his left hand is under my head. Sometimes, if I can put it this way, your head's just in a twirl. Everything's.
Seems to go wrong, a lot of problems confronting you. And isn't that lovely? As though the Lord understood, for he does understand perfectly all these problems of life and all these things that come up that are so distressing. And he puts his hand under our head and he, he says his left hand, his left hand is under my head. He cares.
I suppose many times when we get into.
Difficulty we we just wish we had a friend. I've been a friend on earth who cared that we could really talk to. There's a verse in the 62nd Psalm that says trust in him at all times. Pour out your heart before him. You know I've often said.
There's very few people here. Feel free to pour out your heart. You say They would never understand. They would never enter into the problem that I'm going through. I just can't tell them because they wouldn't. But you have a wonderful friend in the Lord Jesus, and you can, and He invites you to pour out your heart before Him. I'm sure all of us in some measure have experienced this when we felt we could tell no one else.
And we just pour out our heart before the Lord told him just exactly how we felt.
Oh, how wonderful that is.
Girl, a girl back at home had committed suicide in her car, and when they found her dead in her car, ready was going on some song, something like this. If only somebody loved me. Well, Christian will never have that experience that there's no one who loves him. The person who loves us in spite of all our failures and all our weakness is the one who puts his hand under our head.
And so it says here he puts his hand under his head and his right hand, I thought in the right hand is the hand of power. And so his right hand embraced me. You might tell people, you might tell a friend, and a friend does enter in a large measure. And as I noticed how you feel wonderful to have a friend like that. There's very few, but sometimes you do find a friend like that, you feel you can really talk to them.
But they don't have power to take you out of the problem.
They they'll listen and they'll support you, but they haven't power. But isn't this lovely? His right hand, his left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me. That arm of love that is around us.
So we see here in this passage is not so much the thought of security as it's the thought of His love and his power. We sing in little.
Is Jesus the 1St and the last? The Spirit shall guide a safe home, whose love is His great as His power. Oh, how wonderful it is. People love us, but they don't have power. But His love and His power are equal. She has perfect love. I've often said that the assurances of God's love to His people were always at times when you might have least expected it.
When the children of Israel walked through the wilderness for 40 years.
In that pathway through the wilderness, they rebelled, and the Scripture records much of their murmurings and failure. But at the very end of the wilderness journey, you read in Deuteronomy, yeah, he loved the people. All his Saints are in thy hand. And so after 40 years of vexing him, as the Bible says.
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And tried him by, didn't change his love.
One bit.
Then you turn over to Jeremiah 31. And the people had been brought into the land, and they had grievously failed. And Jeremiah is the weeping prophet who has to announce to them that because of their failure, the Lord is going to allow them to be carried into captivity to Babylon. And he breaks out in the 31St of Jeremiah with those wonderful words.
Yeah, I have loved thee.
With an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee. And then you come over to Malachi. A little remnant were brought back from that captivity, back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and rebuild a city. But you read in Malachi how things had gone. They questioned the Lord's love. They said, Maureen, hast thou loved us?
They wouldn't open the doors of the Lord's house for not.
But they offered the lame to the Lord instead of the best, and they offered polluted bread upon his altar. He would expected the Lord to say, how can I love them anymore? But it says in the opening part the burden of the word of the Lord by Malachi. I have loved you, saith the Lord. Satan will always put that thought into our minds as believers, that when we have failed, that the Lord.
Cease to love us now He may have to deal with us, but it's always in love. Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. And so here we find this beautiful verse.
As I say, the other passage had to do with security of salvation. That's a starting point. But now as we go on through life, do we walk in the enjoyment of this?
That His hand is under our head, and that He knows all those cares and all those things that, as I say, might seem to put our head in a twirl and get us so upset. And then to think that He puts that hand of love under our head, and He assures us that.
He has all power. All power tells us in Matthew 28, that when he rose from the dead, and that little company assembled in the appointed place in the 28th of Matthew, some doubted. And the Lord said, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth, and the Lord could take any one of us out of any problem that we have.
If it were his will to do so, he doesn't lack the power. Your best friend.
Do, but He doesn't, and if He has allowed it, he has a purpose of love and blessing and all that comes. So here we see then that his left hand is under my head and His right hand embrace me. But then I like turn to another one in Isaiah 41 and verse 10. Fear thou not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God.
I will strengthen thee day. I will help thee. Yeah, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. Here we find the Lord helping us, strengthening us, upholding us with the right hand of His righteousness. He never will approve of what is wrong in our lives, but He will never fail to uphold us. Peter tried to walk on the water.
And he got his eyes off the Lord, and he began to sing and he cried, Lord save me. And Lord reached out his hand and lifted him up. And so here we find, I believe we could say those that right hand, the hand of power strengthening us and upholding us, because one of the lessons of Christian life that we have to learn what the Lord Jesus said in the 15th chapter of John.
I can.
Do that without me, he can do nothing.
It's a thing that we need to constantly bear in mind. We, we think that we can handle certain situations that come up. We say, I know what to do. I, I wouldn't go too far. I wouldn't do this. I wouldn't do that. Well, that was the way it was with dear Peter. You know, he really had a lot of confidence in himself. And he said to the Lord that if all the disciples denied him, he would not deny the Lord. Was he?
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Sincere, I believe he was. Yes, I believe he was perfectly sincere. I believe he really loved the Lord. But he thought he had a strong enough character that he just wouldn't do that even if the others did. And the Lord had to teach him a lesson like every one of us have to learn. He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. And so if you and I think that we can meet the situations of life in our own strength.
Strengths for going The Lord is going to have to let us learn, and we can learn in two different ways, brethren. We can learn by listening to Him and Him reminding us that we don't have the strength. Or we can learn through a fall, just like you've got two ways to learn. The stove is hot. You can reach out your hand and touch it, get a burn that may leave a scar for the rest of your life. Or you can listen to the person who warns you and not touch.
And, you know, we have to learn. And if we think we have the strength, none of us should ever say, oh, I'd never do that.
Because that may be the very point on which the Lord will test us. I was in a meeting one time and I remember a dear old brother. I was sitting there. I still remember hearing him say it was many, many years ago. He's with the Lord many years now, but he was trying to make out the importance of the prayer meeting. And he said, he said, I've been saved and gathered for I don't remember exactly. It was either 40 or 50 years. And he said I never missed a perming.
If I could possibly help it, and I don't intend to.
Within a year, that man was out of fellowship, out of the meeting, out of the meeting. Let's not ever say I wouldn't do that.
No, we don't know our own hearts.
The Lord knows them.
We don't know how deceitful they are, but the Lord does, and so we need His strength. And every day we should begin with those words. Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do I put my trust. You know, Peter could have listened to the Lord's warning because the Lord said to Peter that he was going to deny him. And I believe if Peter had said Lord.
Unless thou keep me, I will. I believe the Lord would have kept him.
But when he said, now I won't, now the others might, but not me. The Lord had to let him learn the hard way. Well, may the Lord give us to realize then that there are hands, hands able to strengthen us, strengthen us for every situation that we have to meet in life.
I am thy God. I will strengthen me. Yeah, I will help thee. Yeah, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness means that we can't count on him to keep us in a path of self will. If we choose a path of self will and say, well, the Lord will keep me.
By then we are going to have to read the sad idea that we can count on Him to keep us in the path of disobedience.
He promised us to keep us, but in, as it says, the right hand of my righteousness.
Anytime we take a step in disobedience to the word of God and say, well, the Lord will keep me, we're really tempting God. That's what it means. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. We're asking him to protect us even though we're disobeying his word. And Saul, he does want to strengthen us. And Paul could say I can do all things.
Through Christ, which strengtheneth me, so He's able to do that. So here I believe in this passage. We have Him helping us, upholding us, and strengthening us. Now if you turn to one of the Psalms 139 Psalms 139, beginning at the first verse. O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising. Thou understandest my thought afar off.
Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. There is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and lay thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain to it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
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Whither shall I flee?
From thy presence, if I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell or Hades, behold thou art there by take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea.
And this was the verse I particularly had in mind. Even there shall I hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. Well here I like to think of it. Thy hand shall thy right hand, Thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. No, we need leading through the path. As I was saying often other people don't know, don't understand. But this is a remarkable Psalm. It says Thou hast searched me and known.
He understands our thoughts afar off. There's no place that we can go. We might go someplace and none of our friends know where we are or what we're doing. But whither shall I flee from thy presence? There's absolutely no place in the whole universe that we could go and get away from His presence. And how well He knows us is brought out in the later part of this Psalm, where it says in the.
16th verse.
Thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect, And in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashion, when as yet there was none of them.
And it's remarkable the Lord saw your body before you were born into this world and saw it being formed. There's none of your friends that know anything about those kind of things. But how wonderful this is the person with.
We have to do here is the one who wants to lead us.
Often other people who try to lead us, they don't really understand us. They don't understand our natural makeup and disposition. But here's one who knows the whole background. He knows all our natural tendencies. He numbers the hairs of our head.
He he knows about the weaknesses of our body, emotionally, physically, every way. There's no friend like this. And he's the one that says.
He wants to lead us and and pull us. What a what a friend we have in the Lord Jesus, His hand leading us.
No, Life is full of decisions. We're constantly making decisions in life, one way or another. Isn't it good to have a friend like this?
As I said before, other friends don't always know our natural tendencies and weaknesses and so on, but the Lord does, and so He's able to lead us. We all have to make decisions in life, leads us through all kinds of things. First of all, one who really wants to please Him and know how we should gather to worship and to remember the Lord, is he willing to lead us, does.
Say you just make the choice.
He says that he will lead us. Any man will do his will. He shall know the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself. Does he know where he wants you to live? Yes, he knows. He knows the very environment of the place you plan to move to and everything, the kind of job that you're suited for. Yes, he knows that. And the King's hearts in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water.
So he's telling us here there's no place you can go in the whole universe, that he doesn't know all about you and about your natural makeup and everything, the thoughts that go through your mind. And he says wherever you are, he is willing to lead us if we look to Him and hold us, hold us perhaps for making a wrong decision, if we're only willing to commit ourselves to his loving care.
What I'm trying to show from the scriptures, if I possibly can, is how that same hand that created everything, the same hand that's going to set things right in this world with all its confusion, is now on behalf of the Christian in the fullest possible way, giving us security, leading us, guiding us, strengthening us, everything that we need for our whole pathway.
Oh, it's so wonderful. It's so wonderful to.
To be a Christian and to have such a one, you often wonder how the world gets along trying to make their own decisions, trying to plan their own life. When we have one, it says His name shall be called. Wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the Father of eternity, the Prince of Peace. Somebody counsels you.
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But they don't know you're a natural disposition. They they don't. They may try, they may.
Work on the law of averages and things like that. But the Lord knows you as an individual. He numbers the hairs of your head. As I said, he watched your body being formed. He knows you're down sitting in your uprising. He knows what time you get up this morning. He knows what time you go to bed every place. He knows all about us. What what a savior. And he says, I want to I want to lead you and I want to hold you. I want to keep you because.
We have a watchful enemy who wants to spoil our lives if he possibly can. Well, there's another verse in the Psalm, Psalm 32. Psalm 32, verse 4. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me. Thy moisture is turned into the draught of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid, I confess my.
Discretion unto the Lord, transgressions unto the Lord. And thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin. For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee. In a time when thou mayest be found surely in the flood of great waters, they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding place. Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. I will instruct thee and teach thee.
In the way which thou shalt gull, I will guide thee with mine eye. Is particularly that fourth verse I was thinking of. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me.
Is there any Christian here tonight that would say Lord never had to correct me? Never since I've been saved has He ever had to put His hand on me to correct me. Now all of us know and we ought to recognize that if He does bring some discipline into our lives, I don't say every difficulty is necessary discipline, but we all need discipline, brethren.
What son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?
There's no Christian that can say, well, I didn't need discipline. I was such a good Christian. You know, he has to put his hand upon us. I don't need to make us secure and I don't need to lead us and guide us. But sometimes to correct us, there are different attitudes we can take. When he corrects us, tells us about that in Hebrews, we can take the attitude of saying, we can take the attitude of despising the chastening of the Lord.
Saying well.
I don't think there's anything the Lord sees that He's trying to correct in my life.
Or it says, nor faint, when thou art rebuked of him. We could say, Well, I think I have more than my share of discipline, and we can take that attitude too. Or as it says in that same chapter, we can be exercised by it. We can be before the Lord as to why He brought that.
Particular trial. I don't say that every trial is necessarily disciplined, but we all do need discipline at some time in our lives.
And if we don't recognize this, then we don't profit by things that the Lord has to pass us through. And sometimes he has to put His hand on us a little heavier. I guess every parent knows that. Put your hand on and shall. Now don't do that. But the child keeps on. You press a little harder, you hold them. Maybe he says you're pinching me, but you're putting a little more pressure. Now. This is what the psalmist is really saying.
Here day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. What did he do? Did he say, well, I don't know why the Lord's dealing with me now? He realized that there was something he wanted to correct in his life, and he said, I acknowledge my sin unto thee. Isn't it wonderful, brethren, that we have an advocate? It says, if any man sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
Now, of course, we never have to get saved over again. We never have to have the the thought of our sins judicially raised again. We'll never be judged under the judgment of God for our sins. But there is a family discipline. As I often say, I'll never have to do with God as a judge again, but I do have to do with a Father who corrects me.
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Who's always wise in his correction? I wasn't always wise in my.
Correction with my children, but my father, God, my father is always wise in his correction. And so it's nice to see the Psalmist recognizing this and saying I acknowledged my sin unto thee and mine iniquity. I think the thought in iniquity brethren, is the self will that's behind it. Not only the sin but.
Maybe I was pretty determined. Maybe I said I'm going to have my own way. And so the thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin. Then when it says transgressions, it means that I knew that I was doing wrong. A transgression. If you see a sign says no trespassing, then you know, if you go in there, you're wrong because there's no sign there. You might say, well, I didn't know that it was wrong to trust.
But if there's a sign, then you know.
Know that you're doing what you shouldn't when that sign is there. And sometimes we can actually be so stubborn that we take a path that's contrary to the word of God, a path that the Word of God says that's contrary to my mind and my will and my truth for you. So there's, there's the sin.
Some things that perhaps conscience tells us and then the self will that's in it. And then those things that we do and we know we shouldn't do them, but isn't it wonderful? We have an advocate. We have one who restores and brings us back.
And then in the seventh verse, thou art my hiding place, Thou shalt preserve me from trouble, Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance.
I think this is so lovely that when he brings us back then.
We feel the need of a hiding place. We say I need shelter. We find it in Him. And then this is nice too. In the eighth verse, a willingness to let the Lord guide us. He says, I will guide thee, I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye, I think.
And Darby translation says With thine eye upon me. And so the Lord has his eye on his eye upon us.
You know a person many times.
When I was young, if I was going to do something, I only need to look at my father's face to know whether it pleased him or not. I I could tell by just looking at him whether what I was doing was pleasing him because he was his eye was a little different when I was getting self willed. And to know the Lord guides us with his eye. He, he counts, shall I say, on intimacy and intimacy that knows that he's watching us, that he's looking at us.
And so his hand here is more in the thought of discipline. And it says in the 23rd Psalm, He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Isn't that lovely? He restoreth my soul. So he brings us back. Is it any of us tonight who are going on carelessly?
He may have the knowledge that you're secure because of putting your trust in Christ, but if the Lord's hand is upon you and you really feel that you're going against His will and that He's speaking to you about it, come back to Him. It isn't worthwhile to go on. There's nothing more miserable for a Christian to choose a path of self. Well, you know what? You can have a saved soul, but a lost life?
Blood is an example of that. I'm going to meet Lord in heaven. But He had a lost life, a lost life. The Lord wants us not only to have a saved soul, but a saved life. That is a life that will be preserved, that in a day of manifestation it will be manifested that there was in our life a desire to live, to please Him. Well, here then, the hand is upon us in the way of correction.
If you just go back on the same page.
In the 31St Psalm.
And.
The 15th Verse My times are in thy hand. Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.
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This seems to be a kind of a little summary, For as we sing in a little hymn. Our times are in Thy hand, Father, we wish them there. Our life, our soul, our all, we leave entirely to Thy care. And so I like to think of this expression here. My times.
Are in my hand that I can say since the Lord picked me up and made me secure. He's there to lead me, he's there to guide me, he's there to correct me. He has he has in other words, an interest in me in the whole pathway. Isn't that lovely? And so with confidence we can say my times are in my hand. He's singing that same little hymn. The hand are many sins had pierced.
Is now our guide and garden guide.
So no matter what happens, brethren, let's remember that verse. Let's say it often to ourselves.
My times are in thy hand. Absolutely nothing happens in your life or mine by chance. For under the hand of one who first picked us up and made us secure in his salvation, and who's now acting on our behalf, helping us, strengthening us, correcting us when we need correction. But confidence this ought to give us.
The Lord's coming is getting nearer, brethren. There isn't much time left.
We're told to redeem the time.
We're exhorted that we might be likened unto men who wait for their Lord. And I'm not just speaking to you, I'm speaking to myself. We need to have more confidence in those hands, more confidence that in everything, whether it's correction or guidance or whatever that he's, he's guiding us and leading us along the pathway of life. And he wants us to recognize this instead of.
A path of self will.
Well then, there's just one more well known to us in John 20, John chapter 20 and verse 19. And the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus, and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he showed unto them his hands and his side.
Then were the disciples.
Land when they saw the Lord. What a wonderful occasion this was. The work of redemption had been completed. The disciples we see were filled with fear and.
When he stood there tells us in Luke's gospel, they were afraid. But what does the Lord do? He showed unto them his hands and his side for bringing us back. For we always have to, as it were, make a circle. We start at the cross and we go around the circle, so to speak. What do we come back to? If we come right back to the cross? We come right back to the ground of all our blessing. I always like that little hymn that.
Sing sometimes I shall know Him, I shall know Him as redeemed by His side. I shall stand, I shall know him by the print of the nails in His hands. I've often thought, brethren, tells us that in Philippians 3 that we have bodies of glory fashioned like His glorious body, but we won't have any mark in our hands or side or feet. We won't have any of those marks. The only person who's.
Eternity will have the mark of what sin brought into this world is the one.
Who is God Himself, the Son of God, and there are redeemed around him. Those of us who by His grace have been saved, who share in all the results of his toil and victory, will have bodies of glory fashioned like his glory to His body. But He will have the mark of what He suffered to bring us there. Doesn't that?
Touch your heart and mind. I wonder It stirred the hearts of the disciples. Then were the disciples glad, and they saw the Lord. Some have.
Taken at showing those two things, His hands and His side and His hands bring before us what our hearts were, because it was our hearts that nailed Him to the cross. But that mark in His side is what He did for us. It was from that pierced side that the blood flowed forth. And we'll never forget those two things that our sins.
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Cost him the work of Calvary, but that he paid the price in full.
Through his precious blood. And so as we look into his altogether lovely face, we'll see those marks in his hands and we'll say.
Was my sins, it was my heart. It was part of that crowd that rejected Him. But when we did our worst, God did his best. And that sign that was pierced, as the hem writer put it, the very spear that pierced thy side drew forth the blood to save. Well, we're going to see him another day.
And I'm sure that as we realize more of his love, we'll want to please him more down here.
So let's remember those hands. We may forget about it at times, but.
How wonderful to think of this, those hands constantly, the hands that, as I say, give us security because of his work on Calvary. And then it's interested in everything in our lives. We need strength, we need help, we need guidance. We just need them at all times so we can say our times are in thy hand and we're looking forward to the time.
We're going to see those hands. We're going to look at them and see.
That those hands that now guided us, as our little hymn says.
The hand are many sins that pierced is now our garden guide.