Before we turn to the Book of Psalms,
I'd like for you please to turn to
a passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians,
Chapter 4, Chapter
5, I should say, Ephesians, Chapter 5.
Whenever I have a microphone like this before
me, I tend to count on it, but
if you don't hear me, I'll try to
raise my voice a little up higher.
Everybody hear me now?
Thank you.
So, the fifth chapter of Ephesians, in verse
18.
Be not drunk with wine where it is
excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking
to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing and making melodies in your heart
to the Lord, giving thanks always for all
things unto God and the Father, in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now this morning, I want to take a
psalm which I believe fulfills the very thing
that we're exhorted to do here.
So we'll turn please to Psalm 103.
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, and here we find the psalmist
doing exactly that.
So, I can notice here in Psalm 103,
he says, Bless the Lord, O my soul,
in talking to himself, in speaking to himself
in this psalm, and all that is within
me, and bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget
not all his benefits, who forgiveth all thine
iniquities, redeemeth all my diseases, who redeemeth thy
life from destruction, who crowneth thee with lovingkindness
and tender mercies, who satisfies thy mouth, O
Father, thine own age, with good things, so
that thy youth is renewed like the evening's.
This lovely psalm divides up into four parts,
and we've just read the first of these
four parts.
There's something about this book of the psalms
which I'd like to mention before we go
into meditation itself, and that is the fact
that the book of the psalms is divided
up into five sections, and these five sections
are clearly indicated because, at the close of
each one of them, we have an ontology.
I know some people say that it was
Dr. Spokane that made this division, because that's
the only place I've ever noticed it, but
the fact of the matter is that the
Holy Spirit made these divisions for us.
And, if you look carefully, we find at
the close of Psalm 41, there's an ontology,
then Psalm 72, Psalm 89, and again Psalm
106, and then, of course, the closing psalms
in itself are a great ontology.
And, we believe that these five books, these
five sections, answer to the first five books
in the Bible.
In other words, this is referred to sometimes
as the Pentateuchal structure of the psalms.
The word Pentateuchal being taken from the name
which is usually assigned to the first five
books of the Bible, called the Pentateuch.
And, in a sense, these sections resemble the
first five books of the Bible.
In those first 41 psalms, we get things
that answer quite nicely to the book of
Genesis, and certainly in the second book, that
which answers to the book of Exodus.
The third section, again, answers to the book
of Zedekiah.
The psalm that we're going to look at
this morning is found in the fourth section,
which answers to the book of Numbers.
Now, as one reads the book of Numbers,
we may painfully aware of the fact that
God's people do not always praise.
There seems to be a great deal of
murmuring, complaining, and so on.
But, here is a psalm which comes in
the fourth book, and there's not one word
of complaining.
There's not even a word of praising.
This is a psalm which is praised from
the start to the end.
And, this expression with which the psalm opens
up, "'Bless the Lord' is simply a way
of saying, "'Worship the Lord, O my soul.'"
And, this tells us immediately where true worship
has to come from.
It has to come from the devil.
Worship is not something that we make up
in our brains, but it's the overflow of
a heart, as it has been defined, the
overflow of a heart that has no request
to make.
That's real worship.
We're going to see the reasons for this
worship here.
Very briefly, we're going to call attention to
at least five great reasons to make the
soul sing like this, making melody in our
hearts to the Lord.
These are the five great benefits that he
has bestowed upon us.
And, actually, you'll notice that the first benefit
is where we all began when we got
to know him as our personal Lord and
Savior, for it says here in verse three,
"'Who forgiveth all thine iniquity.'" And, you'll notice
that in this word, iniquity, you have perhaps
the strongest word in the language for our
sins.
I know sometimes we fight at home in
town, as though the sins which we commit
were nothing more than mistakes.
I remember when I was on my way
to the mission field for the first time,
early or late in 1911, early 1912, before
the steamer arrived in Central America, and I
had been witnessing on the ship, and a
lady came to me, she said, "'I understand
you're going to the mission field,' I said,
"'Yes,' she said, "'Oh,' she said, "'I'm so
interested,' I said, "'Thank you, I hope you'll
pray for us,' she said, "'You know, my
father was a minister,' I said, "'That's nice,'
she said, "'but your father had some rather
interesting definitions of biblical terms,' and I began
to get suspicious.
"'I wonder what this is going on here,'
she said, "'You know, Father never mentioned the
term sin in his sermons.
"'He would always have referred to them as
errors or mistakes,' "'and she said, I rather
like that, it didn't hurt them.' "'Well now,
let's see, if that's a good translation, "'it
ought to fit in some of the text
in which we find the word sin.' "'So
I quoted a few of the well-known
texts in the New Testament, "'but Christ dies
for our mistakes,' according to the Scriptures.
"'Well, it doesn't really sound quite complete,' I
said, "'no, it doesn't.
"'If Christ died only for my mistakes, will
I help you for the rest?' "'You see,
the word of God is very plain, outspoken,
"'but it doesn't go any further than that
issue, "'and this word iniquity is a strong
word, "'but it hits the nail right on
the head.
"'It means out of equity.
"'The things that you know are not right,
"'the things that you do in spite of
the fact "'that you know that they're wrong,
"'that's an iniquity.
"'And here the psalmist is using the strong
word in the language "'when he wants to
talk about God's wonderful, forgiving grace, "'and notice
that he doesn't leave out anything.
"'He says, who forgives all my iniquities, "'and
I take it that this enables me, allows
me to say, "'all my iniquities have presence.'
"'Yes, and even Jesus, all.
"'I thank God that when the Lord Jesus
Christ died on the cross, "'He died for
all of my sins, all of my iniquities.
"'It's made a complete job of it.
"'When he said, it is finished, "'I meant
exactly what he said.
"'Is there a soul in the house this
morning, "'and I thought you'd forgive an old
man "'for coming back again and again to
this, "'but I have learned this, "'that even
in the naughtiest places "'where we can almost
assume that we have 100% victims, "'occasionally,
like last year here in the morning meeting
"'for the commandments of our Lord, "'we had
someone present "'who until that moment had never
yet confessed "'the Lord Jesus Christ as a
person saint.
"'It may be that you're here this morning,
my friend, "'a child of Christian parents, "'maybe
a parent yourself, "'who the Christian wife or
husband of the age may be.
"'I wonder if the Holy Spirit of God
"'would speak to you this morning "'and ask
you, have you had this blessing?
"'Would you praise the Lord for this benefit,
"'who forgives all my iniquities?' "'Then again, what
do we mean by the word forgiving?
"'What does this word mean?
"'Does it simply mean that God does over
-let us forget it?
"'Oh no, that isn't what it means.
"'The word forgiving, "'both the original languages of
the scripture, "'means to take away and to
put someone else.
"'This is exactly what the Lord has done
"'with your sins and mine.
"'He laid on Him the iniquity of us
all.
"'Yes, that's the doctrine of substitution, "'as we
sometimes say.
"'He suffered what I deserve.
"'This is the way God forgives.
"'No wonder the psalmist first thought "'of the
praise and praise.
"'Bless the Lord, oh my souls, "'who forgives
all my iniquities.
"'Blessing number one.
"'Sometimes I'm asked by well-meaning persons, "'Brother,
have you had the second blessing?
"'I feel like saying, have you had the
first?
"'Do you know what it means "'to have
all your sins forgiven?
"'Father, clearly, so far as God is concerned,
"'the precious blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son,
"'slimps in from all sins.'" But now we
come to benefit number two here.
He says in the end of verse three,
"'Who healeth all my diseases.'" Somebody says, "'Now,
I go along with you on that first
one, "'but I don't know that I could
on this second one, "'because I know that
a good many fine, "'precious people are still
suffering a whole lot.
"'Are you telling me, Mr. Insight, "'I know
something about this from experience.
"'The dear one who has gone home to
glory "'from my home, "'for the last 23
years of her life, "'suffered with an incurable
disease.
"'The doctors said when they discovered it "'that
she wouldn't live for two years, "'but she
lived 23 years.
"'And when I faced the doctor with it,
"'he said, well, there's only one way to
explain it.
"'She has the will to live.
"'But she suffered just the same.
"'And very often the question was raised, "'Why,
oh, why?
"'I believe I have some personal answers "'to
that question which I shall not disclose.
"'I believe God was speaking to me "'through
these very things.
"'But does this scripture speak of that kind
of disease?
"'Let us see the opening of this psalm
again.
"'The psalmist is not addressing his body, "'he's
addressing his soul.
"'Bless the Lord, O my soul!
"'It's the soul's iniquity to give up all
time, "'and the soul's iniquity to heal it
all, "'by the soul's disease.
"'Oh, yes, I didn't know the soul had
diseases.
"'You sometimes think about them, don't you?
"'There's not a friend like the Lord Jesus,
"'no, not one.
"'None like him could heal all our soul's
diseases.
"'I dare say when I mention a few
of the symptoms, "'you'll recognize them.
"'You know, friends, when you and I "'lose
our desire to pray, "'we lose our desire
to read the Word of God, "'we lose
our desire to fellowship with the people of
God, "'we're sick.
"'There's something wrong.
"'These are symptoms that we need to watch.
"'And the moment we discover them, "'let's go
to him of whom it is said in
this psalm, "'who'll heal us all by, that
is, the soul's disease.
"'You see, grammatically, this is so.
"'You know, you and I learned when we
went to school "'that pronouns were nouns that
stand for another noun, "'and so the pronoun
vine stands for another noun, "'and that noun
is found earlier in this psalm.
"'That noun is the word soul.
"'Who'll heal us all by the soul's disease.
"'And I might be speaking to some here
this morning "'who perhaps came to this conference
up here to this school "'in just that
state of soul.
"'Perhaps for some time back now, "'you haven't
found you had a real desire to pray,
"'a real desire to read the word of
God, "'a real desire to be found in
your place "'the Lord's Day morning with a
remembrance of the Lord.
"'That's a fact, sir.
"'But let the moment you discover it, "'as
I said a little while ago, "'let's go
right to him who can heal all our
soul's disease.
"'Let's get down in his holy presence.
"'I'm so glad that I was brought up
"'in a home where Saturday night was still
observed "'as part of the preparatory time for
the Lord's Day.
"'In fact, my dear father, it was so
strict "'that no shoes were shined Sunday morning.
"'That had to be done Saturday night "'so
that when you put your shined shoes on
"'before the meeting on Sunday morning, "'there was
no work to be done there.
"'Nothing unnecessary was done on the Lord's Day.
"'And that wasn't because my father was a
legalist.
"'He wasn't.
"'But he observed rigidly the Lord's Day.
"'We were brought up to it.
"'That was a sort of a preparatory search.
"'And then, in my early boyhood days, "'observing
the way the Lord's Father was served "'and
observed it in the communion "'where I was
attending at that time, "'as a boy, perhaps
two years earlier, "'they had a preparatory service.
"'Getting ready for this service on the Lord's
Day.
"'It's a wonderful thing.
"'I would suggest it to you, my dear
friend, "'if you have not done so, "'to
sit aside sometime Saturday evening "'to really get
ready for the return to the Lord "'on
the Lord's Day morning.
"'I found this a wonderful thing.
"'It enables one to get things cleared out
of his life "'and memory and his conscience
"'on this Saturday night to come to the
mind "'that is perfectly clean "'to commune with
the Lord and with his people "'on the
Lord's Day morning.
"'Yes, he heals all our souls to do.'"
We learned in Psalm 107 how he does
this.
Just keep your bookmark here in Psalm 103
and turn over for a moment to Psalm
107.
And here you will see how he does
this.
He says here in verse 20, Psalm 107,
verse 20, he sent his word and he
heals them.
This is the way of the Lord.
This is his medicine for healing us.
And so we find that not only do
we come into the presence of the Lord
to confess, to own up to all of
these things which have disturbed our communion, but
to read his word, because this is the
medicine that heals me and prepares me for
the next day.
So coming back now to Psalm 103, let's
look at benefit number three.
We find this in verse four, who redeems
us by life from destruction.
Just before the meeting this morning, Father Phillips
and I were having a little bit of
a conversation over here.
I referred to a young Scottish lad who
we had at the seminary in Dallas when
I was a teacher there years ago.
Dr. Chaser, who founded the seminary, would get
some of us together largely morning at seven
o'clock for the remembrance of the Lord.
Father Ryan and I had a wonderful influence
in those early days, and as a result
we were using a little hymn book called
The Little Flop Hymn Book, and we had
no musical influence.
Dr. Chaser was a good musician.
He always, as we say here in the
Southland, he hoisted the tune and we all
sang a cappella.
Occasionally this Scottish lad would get up and
in his baroque he would say, Reverend, let
me read you the Father's praise.
And he'd read us a paraphrase and songs,
and they were wonderful.
Well, I want to give you a homemade
paraphrase of this great and dear verse four.
Instead of reading, who redeems us by life
from destruction, let's look this way.
Who saves your life from going to waste.
You know, a lot of people whose souls
are saved and whose lives are lost.
Although I've stood by so many bedsides, I
suppose I've seen more people die than most
of you.
Because for ten years I was honorary captain
of the Spanish Herry in the city of
Albuquerque in New Mexico, and it seemed scarcely
a week and sometimes more than once a
week we were called to sit by the
bedsides of those who were passing from this
life into the next.
It's interesting to hear some of the things
they said in those last moments.
And I can't tell you how many of
them said something like this, oh brother, if
I only had a city over there.
How I wish now I had lived in
the kind of life that I would like
to live right now.
Dream.
Don't let that be your experience.
You don't have to come to the end
of life like that.
You can come to the end of life
like a hospital kid when you say, I
have had it good.
I've finished my goal.
I've kept the faith.
Yes, you were sure of it.
And you can be just as sure of
it.
But let me just point out to you
that this requires some surrender on your part.
Who redeems thy life?
He buys it back and saves it from
going to waste.
And he tells you, I mean, the epistle
of Romans, how it is done.
In the twelfth chapter of Romans we read,
and how sweetly the apostle puts it, he
doesn't say, I command you, he doesn't say,
he says, I beseech you by the mercies
or the compassions of God that you present
your body.
Present your body in acceptable sacrifice, a holy
sacrifice, to the Lord.
Your body, which is your intelligent or reasonable
servant.
God wants you to do that.
This is something which you do in addition
to putting your faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ as your Savior.
You just surrender this to him.
I remember when that verse first struck me,
I went to a young fellow who was
baptized the same night I was, received into
fellowship the same day I was received into
fellowship.
And I said to him, Sam, I said,
have you ever read Romans 12 and 1?
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies in
a sacrificed, holy, acceptable, under God, which is
your reasonable or intelligent servant.
He said, I've read it a lot of
times.
I said, have you ever done it?
He said, no, I don't think I have.
I said, do you know how it's done?
No, he said, I don't think I do.
I went to another fellow who likewise was
baptized in that same group that night.
I said, Archie, have you ever read Romans
12 and 1?
I said, have you ever done it?
No, he said, I don't think I have.
I said, do you know how it's done?
No, he said, I don't think I do.
I said, you're no brother.
So, I went to his father, dear old
brother Archie Baldwin Calvin.
I said, listen Calvin, I've been reading in
Romans 12, 1 and 2, and I'm going
to present my father, a sackcloth, to the
Lord.
I said, did he tell me how this
is done?
Then he said, I don't know that there's
any particular way in which it is done,
but I think I know any way in
which it is done.
I was all ears listening.
He said, I would suggest to you that
you go to your room with your Bible,
close the door, lock it if necessary, so
you can change the subject.
Open your Bible to that verse, turn on
the image, put your finger on it, and
say to the Lord, Lord Jesus, I'd like
to be healed.
I was a teenager, 17, and I had
been saved for two years.
And I thought, my, this is simple.
And I did it exactly as Mr. Calvin
told me.
But you know what?
When I put my finger on that text
and said to the Lord, Lord, I'd like
to do this, cold sweat came out of
me.
But I began to realize that in the
presentation of my body, this meant my brain.
That with which I think, and sometimes think
things that I wish I could forget.
These eyes with which I looked at things
which I wish I had never seen.
These ears that took in things which I
wish I'd never heard.
This tongue which says things which I wish
I'd never said.
These hands which do things that I wish
I'd never done.
And these feet that took me to places
I wish I'd never gone.
Oh, the cold sweat came out on me
as I went into this transaction with the
Lord.
And all the stupid matters.
But I realized this was a crucial time
in my life.
And now I ask the Lord that I
might be able to carry this through, realizing
that in my own strength I'd never be
able to do it.
Oh, how wonderful to have the privilege of
presenting this body as sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable or intelligent service.
My dear friends, many years have passed since
then.
More than sixty years have passed since that
wonderful transaction that day in my little room.
I have never regretted it.
I've had many times to confess that I
haven't regretted it.
But I've never regretted it.
Oh, who could regret giving to him who
gave himself up to give to him his
spirit, soul, and body?
Who redeemed my life from destruction and who
saved it from going to waste?
My dear friends, it is my earnest hope
that the Lord carries through me.
I have to transfer the article of death,
as so many of my go-bears have,
that I too will be able to say
to the Apostle Paul, I apologize, I finish
him for this.
Oh, let's come to a triumphant end.
And then this brings us to blessing number
four, which we have right here in this
fourth verse, the latter part of the verse,
who crown him with faith, with loving kindness
and tender mercy.
And notice how all of these verse are
in the present tense.
Who forgive us, present tense.
Heal us, present tense.
Redeem us, present tense.
Crown us, present tense.
This isn't something that waits till you get
over yonder.
This is something you wear now.
A kind of a crown that doesn't weigh
heavy on your head.
A crown of tender mercy.
Look at that, isn't it lovely?
Loving kindness and tender mercy.
Say, well, I don't know that I've ever
seen anybody wear a crown like that.
Well, maybe I dare to use my beloved
mother as an example here.
Mother was a mother of ten children.
Prostitute.
Not able to afford servants in the home.
A lot of work to be done.
Dressed to be faithful.
Sewed to be washed, ironed, amended, and all
the chores of it.
Yet, trying to help the neighbors.
One day, news came to us that a
little one was expected next door and that
Dr. Cuddy had broken down with another plea
from us.
We see Mother gathering a few things together
in a bag and going over there and
helping to bring this little one into the
world.
As she came back, my dear brother Henry,
up to whom I made records last night,
we were watching her as she came back
from this home and having performed this errand
of mercy, Henry said to me, Carl, isn't
Mom a queen?
And she was.
She was a queen wearing a crown as
we have described here, loving, kind, and tender.
And she told us to wear a crown
like that.
This kind of a crown, as I said
before, doesn't weigh heavy on me.
I've never had a headache from wearing this.
And I'll tell you, this figure, you wouldn't
get a swell day from wearing this one.
This is the kind of a crown which
I pray God may adorn the heads of
most of us, if not all of us.
And then this brings me to the final
thing here.
And that is satisfaction, verse 5.
This seems to be the climax of this
section here, who's satisfied.
And you notice that I altered the reading
to conform to other translations.
Mr. Darby tells us in his footnotes that
it could be either old age, or mouth,
or even another translation.
But one of those words is very versatile
in the original.
So we're going to use the old age
this morning to crown it, to satisfy it
by an old age, we could say.
You know, when I was a boy, I
heard this statement that the devil has no
happy old men.
And I've been looking at old men ever
since.
And I know that statement is absolutely true.
The devil has no happy old men.
But the Lord does.
It's a wonderful thing to grow old in
the grace of God, and to have a
joy which increases with the days.
Friends, if there's one text I love in
the Bible, it's the one which says in
Philippians 4, Rejoice in the Lord, and again
I say rejoice.
The joy of the Lord is a strength.
This is the way we give evidence that
what he needs for us, that he really
satisfies us, really does.
Satisfied to the point where the things of
time and sense have little or no appeal,
we don't need them.
I've been asked very frequently, why don't you
do this?
Why don't you do that?
Remember we moved into a home some years
ago in Dallas, and a neighbor lady came
over.
The moving men were moving stuff in.
I said to my wife, she said, y
'all don't have your stove set up?
Come on over to my house.
Get your lunch ready.
In fact, she said, I've got stuff in
the refrigerator.
Please come on in.
We use stuff in the hospitality.
You know what I mean?
And so we accepted it, and went in.
I noticed after a while she got into
a conversation with Mrs. Arnolding, and she said,
did y'all stay there?
I said, yes.
Mrs. Arnolding said, no.
Did y'all cook the dinner?
Mrs. Arnolding said, no.
Did y'all play cards?
Mrs. Arnolding said, no.
Did you play golf?
No.
Well, y'all do have a good time.
And then my wife had to tell us
that we found out a story, and it
isn't great.
She said, you know, we go down a
little meeting down here on Fifth Street Avenue,
where a group of Christians meet to remember
the Lord and the Lord's Remembrance, where they
meet for the preaching of the gospel Sunday
night, and where they meet for prayer and
Bible study.
Mrs. Arnolding said, you need to tell me,
did you get played on then?
My wife, I was listening to the conversation,
she said, not only did I play golf,
but she said, it was a real pleasure.
A real pleasure.
Oh, the satisfaction of being with the Lord's
people and enjoying the Lord.
Well, now, we're going to take a minute
or two more this morning, I hope to
time it up.
I would like to apply a few measurements
to this, and these measurements I've given us
right in this time itself.
I was trained to be an engineer.
I wasn't trained to be a preacher.
My profession was to do mechanical engineering, and
so I'm still in the habit of making
measurements.
I come into a room like this, and
I wonder how wide it is, and how
long it is, and how high the ceiling
is, and whether this beam above me is
going to break down on me.
Take some measurements.
Now, we've got some measurements right here in
this time.
Look at verse 10.
He has not dealt with this after or
according to our sins, nor have wrought reward
as a supporting for our iniquities, for as
the heaven is high above the earth.
There's a measurement for you.
How high is that?
Our astronauts have been going up.
Yes, they've been going up into the, beyond
the stratosphere, way up there, they've been going,
but they still haven't reached the earth.
As high as the heaven is above the
earth, so great is His mercy toward them,
the criminals.
What a measurement that is.
There's only one word that fits this, and
what is it?
It's the word infinity.
As high as the heaven is above the
earth.
I remember when they were planning that big
telescope at Palomar, and my student Dave, and
I remember saying to my professor of chemistry,
I said, Dr. Clark, I said, what do
you think they'll discover when they get that
big telescope in place down at Palomar?
He looked at me with a merry smile
in his eyes.
He said, they'll discover how little they know.
How high is it?
Nobody can tell.
This is infinite.
There's only another measurement given us in verse
12.
For as far as the east is from
the west, so far have we removed our
transgression from it.
How far is that?
Well, you say, that can be measured.
Can it?
If it is from north to south, you
might be right, because there is a place
in this old globe where you couldn't go
any further north, and there's a place in
this old globe where you couldn't go any
further south.
But if you're traveling from east to west,
or west to east, you can keep on
going even though you reach the same point,
you still go on.
Again, it's infinite, isn't it?
And here we have two lines of measurement.
One is perpendicular, the other is horizontal, and
you put the two of them together, and
what do you have?
You have a cross.
This is the measurement of all these blessings
we've been talking about.
This is the measure.
Measured by that darkness.
Measured by those sufferings that he endured from
that cross.
Oh, how deep God's love must be.
Then one more measurement, and this is found
in the 17th verse, it's the time measurement.
You know, the philosophers are very fond of
talking about the space-time continuum.
But here's the time measurement in verse 17,
and mercy of the Lord is from everlasting
to everlasting.
So you see, so wherever you apply these
measurements, you have them in infinity.
There they are.
And whom do we find only?
We find only one blessed person in whom
are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge.
Our Lord Jesus Christ.
So, beloved friends, I thought that having looked
again at this wonderful inventory of blessings, of
Genesis, that we should go away from this
conference not any richer than we came, but
more aware of the riches which are ours
in Christ Jesus.
Although he was rich, and for our sakes
he became poor, that we, with his poverty,
might be rich.
I'm satisfied that Frank Crosby must have been
thinking about this Psalm, and she wrote this
lovely hymn number six in our hymnal.
And she said, Praise him, praise him, Jesus,
our blessed Redeemer.
Sing, O earth, his wonderful love proclaim.
Hail him, hail him, heart of high gardens
and glory.
Strength and honor give to his holy name.