Desires for spiritual blessings through Christ (Quality: Good)

[0:00] Seek again your attention to Psalm 145 and verse 19. Psalm 145 and verse 19.

[0:16] He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. Yours soul will hear their cry and will save them. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him.

[0:30] He also will hear their cry and will save them. We did try for a few moments this morning to consider those who fear him.

[0:45] Because that's whom the promise is left on record for. It's not this general promise. There are general promises in the world, in the word rather.

[1:00] And many are the subject of it. But this is a promise to those who fear him. That walk by grace and walk dependent on him for their spiritual life.

[1:20] I felt too, as we tried to speak of those who fear the Lord, that the desires of those who fear the Lord are not earthbound desires. So much as they are those blessings which are in glory.

[1:38] I would, as the Lord will help us, keep our minds on spiritual substance this night. And that's where our desire is.

[1:50] That it may be on things above and not on things of this earth. There is a comfort, you know, in that hymn that one wrote, He that hath made my heaven secure will here all good provide.

[2:07] While Christ is rich, I can't be poor. What else I want beside? Many of the Lord's people, all of them in their measure, need continually the appearance in the pathway.

[2:24] But I feel there is a leaving of those things for a moment. The Lord blesses with holy desires. If the principle of grace is in our soul, it will be holy desires that we shall seek for.

[2:40] It will be the exercise, we said, the desire is but a little word, and it is perhaps a very low way of describing the spiritual exercise of God's people.

[2:56] It is a word that comes down to those who only claim that they have a desire, a desire for the things of God. And we said it is one of those shells and wills of the promises of God in the scriptures.

[3:14] And because there is no uncertainty about any of his promises. And if you desire by reason of the fear of God within you, you may be sure of this, that it will be fulfilled.

[3:29] He will fulfill. Fill it fully. Completely. Completely. There will be no wanting. And as we said, I hope reverently, God will never be in debt to any of his people.

[3:46] Now we began to speak about the desires of those who fear him, and we spoke of that word from the 23rd of Job, when he said, oh, that I knew where I might find him.

[4:03] And I believe we just want to just add a little to that, that in seeking him is because of the feeling, sense of his absence. But to find him in everything that does with our pathway here below.

[4:22] Oh, that we might find him in salvation. And we shall find him in salvation, my friends, if we are brought by faith to look to Calvary.

[4:33] And you'll find him there as the saviour of the lost, the redeemer of his people. What a desire. And it is the right desire for Christ.

[4:46] Those who know themselves to be convicted by a broken law will know this, that their pleadings, their cries, their desires may be for deliverance from the broken law.

[5:00] And it will only be at Calvary where you'll find that deliverance. Oh, then if you seek him, you'll seek him for your salvation. You desire to be established in the truth.

[5:15] You desire to be assured by the truth. You desire, my friends, to have some believing views of this precious person who lived and died and rose again.

[5:27] He will fulfill the desires, desire of them that fear him. And it is by faith that they will see this glorious person as he was crucified in their room and place and stead.

[5:46] Now in the reading of the word, and I looked at one or two places to read, it was in that 38th Psalm we read together. It was this, and I felt there was a need to read it.

[5:59] You know, we might be left to leave out one of your desires. You know, it's not a catalogue. We can't look up a catalogue because the Lord teaches his people individually and personally.

[6:14] And he places those desires within them, those exercises within those burdens, those cryings, those longings, after the things of God and of God himself.

[6:27] Now, the Holy Spirit in the 38th Psalm speaks comprehensively. And I'm thankful for it because, as I said, if we just bring before you, because of the time, just a few of those desires, you might go home and say, well, now my desire wasn't mentioned.

[6:53] And then it might be the cause of a downcast spirit. It might be the cause of temptation. And Satan might take advantage and say, well, no, there it is.

[7:04] It's not a right desire. So it would have been mentioned. But the psalmist speaks comprehensively, all my desire is before thee.

[7:16] And my groaning is not hid from thee. I'm thankful for the Lord, to the Lord, for the spirit that he has recorded in that simple way that covers all the desires of the people of God.

[7:33] He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. And then I looked at one more in the very brief time I seem to have on this Lord's Day for anything of reading the word of God.

[7:51] I have to wait for him and wait on him. But I read in the 22nd chapter of the Gospel of Luke the words of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[8:03] And I felt if there was a soul in this chapel that could echo the words of Christ, he will, in his time and in his way, to his honour and his glory, bring it to pass.

[8:19] And what is that desire? And he said unto them, with desire, I have desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.

[8:32] I don't want to misinterpret the words of Christ, neither do I misapply those words. We have no such thing as a Passover, but we have such a thing as the table of the Lord, the Lord's Supper.

[8:54] The Passover was but one type, one of the types and shadows of the old dispensation that taught Israel that there was a better day coming, when the types and shadows shall be done away, when there shall be a glorious day of Christ coming.

[9:17] Now, he is depicted in the Passover and he is also taught by the table of the Lord.

[9:27] It is a table of remembrance, but it is a table of teaching. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him.

[9:39] I can go back in my own experience, though that's poor enough, but I can remember the times I sat in the back of the chapel and watched the church at the ordinance table, and the Lord knows there was a desire in my heart to be there then.

[9:59] It was a desire I trust not to promote myself, but to be in fellowship and union with the people of God. Because, my friends, sin makes a separation.

[10:15] Not from the Lord's people it shouldn't. Not from the Lord's people. people. I mean this, that Satan will point out the sins, the iniquities, the transgressions, the slips and the falls, and he will, as it were, wage war against the desire upon the spirit of a child of God and point out all the reasons why you shouldn't be there and cast you down.

[10:46] But remember that story that we sometimes hear. You know, that ordinance of the Lord's Supper in a Presbyterian church in Scotland.

[10:58] There was a dear woman sat there who was under the sense of indwelling sin and when she came to the bread, she sent it back and the minister sent it back to her and said it's for sinners.

[11:14] Now the table of the Lord is for sinners. It is there that they are called to remember the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[11:26] And I believe in every living soul, and that is every soul quickened by grace, they will desire to be there.

[11:38] He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. And there's a longing for it. There's many temptations in that path.

[11:49] There's many, what we might say, snares that shall be seen in that path. There will be many opposition to that path, and opposition from within as well as from the enemy of the soul.

[12:06] And one of the things, my friends, he will apply to the spirit of a child of God with these desires is, well, he'll point out all their slips and falls, and he'll say you're not fit.

[12:21] But if this is any consolation, there's nobody fit in themselves to be there. There's no fitness in old nature.

[12:33] You know, there's something, you know, that we must ever be aware of in the temptations of the enemy of one's soul. All he shows you is your old nature.

[12:45] All he shows you is the besetting sins, the slips, the falls, the things which he knows will cast you down. He can't show you anything else.

[12:57] And by those things, of course, he'll try to prove to your old nature that you're not fit to be there. But I've never met anyone yet who's fit to be there.

[13:07] And I've never been fit to be there. My friends, no wonder John Newton called it amazing grace, because it's only grace that brings a soul to sit at the table of the Lord.

[13:20] Well, now the Lord Jesus Christ then had a desire, with desire of I to sit at that table before I suffer. My friends, this is the desire of God's people also.

[13:35] And why is it so? Because they seek a union and they seek communion not only with the people of God, with the church, but with the church's living head.

[13:48] Because of the promise, rather because of the command that the Lord Jesus has given, you may read it, of course, in that chapter that we just looked at in Luke.

[14:02] In the 19th verse, it says, and he took bread and gave thanks and break it. And gave unto them, saying, this is my body, which is given for you, this do, in remembrance of me.

[14:15] And likewise also the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you. Now, both of those things respect what the Lord has done.

[14:30] This is my body, which is given for you. this is the cup, this cup is the new testament in my blood, which was shed for you. Now, the Lord fulfill all your desires in that.

[14:45] That if you desire to be found where the child of grace, the church of Christ gather on the first Sundays, around the table of the Lord, that he might bring you through that way to the table.

[15:00] you know, it is often said, and rightly so, of course, that the ordinance of believers' baptism is the way to the Lord's table. There's another way.

[15:15] There's another way, my friends, and that way is Calvary. If you are led through the scenes at Calvary, one by one, those scenes will be by faith seen as being what was done for sinners, you know, one of the arguments that a fallen sinner, and I mean a sensible sinner, that's acknowledged his fallen state is this, you know, they'll acknowledge that it was done for sinners, but so great will be the darkness and the distress of soul, that that's not the answer.

[15:58] the answer that you require is though you know it's been done for sinners, that you might know that your name was amongst that people for whom Christ suffered.

[16:09] He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. The way to the table, my friends, is through Calvary. Oh, I'm not for a second denying the truth of the blessing of the ordinance.

[16:22] not for a second would I. My friends, I believe I'm a Baptist through and through. The Lord Jesus Christ has given us two ordinances in which we should walk in love through them, which we trust will be to the glory and honour of his great name.

[16:45] But you know, before you come to any of those ordinances, you will know this truth, my friends, that was performed and settled and sealed at Calvary, that not only did Christ Jesus come into the world to save sinners, but you who feel yourself to be the chief.

[17:10] He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. My friends, this blessed ordinance is done in remembrance of him, but it is in remembrance of the day when he gave his life a ransom for many, when he willingly, voluntarily, and in love to his church, who are made up of sinners, he voluntarily and in love to them lays his life down.

[17:42] My friends, you must need to go through Calvary before you know this ordinance of believers' baptism and of the Lord's Supper.

[17:53] Oh, is that the desire? My friends, it's a good desire. And then you might say, well, I've been amongst the Lord's people all my days, and I learn these things, I hear of them.

[18:07] is it such that, well, you know, you develop a sort of religion by custom and by formality and then you fear, that's all it is.

[18:20] Well, there's one thing certain, my friends, if you have desires upon your soul for the things of Christ, Satan never put it there. Satan never put it there.

[18:34] It is of the spirit of truth. he will fulfil the desire of them that fear him. We spoke then of the desires of Christ Jesus.

[18:48] All my desires are before thee, and my groanings have I not hid. My friends, we may as help then take up a few more desires, and if the Lord should so present them before us, that it may please the Lord that your desire may be mentioned before the Lord this night.

[19:14] Those blessed things which are the things of God, and the things of the Lord Jesus Christ, those certain necessities, those blessings, those mercies that flow through him into the church.

[19:33] My friends, do you not desire them? I never want to talk about experience. All that the Holy Spirit is pleased to instruct the chart of grace, we may call experience.

[19:51] And I've often felt, you know, that when you hear one of the Lord's people speaking about experience, that it might be spoken with a right spirit, not out of spiritual pride, but rather out of humility, out of the sense of the feeling of the goodness of the Lord within, not to dictate or to spread before another experience as if they were attainments.

[20:25] They aren't attainments. But, you know, sometimes we could be left to speak of them as attainments which, shall we say, makes us somewhat more spiritual than someone else.

[20:39] And the result of that is, my friends, there's a casting down of poor and needy souls. And Satan is very quick to take advantage of the casting down and say, well, yes, he is or she is a child of grace, but you don't know these matters.

[21:01] So, therefore, you're out of the secret. My friends, often Satan uses even the spiritual conversations of the people of God to cast down the seeking soul, to cast down those who long for a blessing.

[21:17] sin he will fulfill, and he will abundantly fulfill. And they shall be led along and taught, here a little, there a little, of the things of God and the things concerning of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[21:37] Experience is what's taught. Experience is what they come into. do. No, my friends, it may be that you feel to have no experience.

[21:49] Well, there's nobody that feels to have no experience because the very sense of the knowledge of emptiness is experience. If the Lord is pleased to so strip you and I from a fleshly religion, you know, and those of us who have gone to chapel all their days, may well be tried and tempted sometimes that that's all our religion is.

[22:15] Nothing but a fleshly religion, something that we've gleaned. That is in the formality of it, in the duty of it, in the method and way that is often brought before us.

[22:28] We've imbibed it. It enters our mind. It's part of us. And really and truly none of it is grace and none of it is of the spirit. Now, I believe a child of God will fear that sort of religion.

[22:44] You know, a head knowledge of truth is one thing, but a heart knowledge is entirely something different. Christ in the head is one thing, my friends, and there's plenty of religious people that can quote chapter and verse of the doctrines and speak eloquently, I expect, of those things which are scriptural, spiritual, and of Christ.

[23:12] But it's Christ in the heart, that's experience. It's Christ by revelation. It's Christ by application. You know, let this be a comfort to anybody who's troubled about the lack of experience.

[23:28] What are you looking for? What is it that you expect a child of God to have that you think you haven't got? Well, let me quote the word a little, that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.

[23:46] Whatever you and I may be taught as we go on the way and down to the end, my friends, in comparison with Christ and with the glory of Christ and the fullness of Christ and the riches of his grace and of his mercy, you'll have to come to the end of your days like us all and say, well, really, Lord, I only seem to know a little, but it's experience.

[24:12] Oh, I do believe the Lord's people seek for experience, experience in the heart, my friends, upon the Spirit. Oh, blessed be God, we have a teacher, the Holy Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, he will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have spoken unto you.

[24:42] We might remind you too of that word of the Lord Jesus Christ. My friends, the office of the Holy Ghost is to teach a sinner about a Saviour, is to bring to the desire those things of Christ.

[25:01] And he will do so, he will take of mine and will show it unto you. That's experience. It's not reading about it from Genesis to Revelations.

[25:15] It's what you've tasted and what you will taste and handle and feel of the good word of life. You'll know as much of Christ as the Holy Ghost will reveal him.

[25:29] He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. And he will not leave it to his servants. The means of grace, the Lord raises up those who preach his gospel.

[25:46] But you know, my friends, he has promised to give this office to the church, some pastors and teachers. But it isn't instead, it isn't in place of the Holy Ghost.

[26:00] He may see fit to lay you aside and lay you on a bed of affliction. Well, you can't come to the Lord's house. There may be something prevents you from coming to the sanctuary.

[26:14] But it might be a place where the Holy Spirit, and I know these places, where the Holy Spirit is pleased to teach you something of Christ Jesus.

[26:25] I've told a story for many years now, and it's absolutely true, because I met the man a long, long time ago now, an old deacon, he's long gone to glory.

[26:38] But in many years ago, when they operated on his eyes, he had slit retinas, and the operation was successful, but it meant that he had to lay still for two weeks.

[26:55] Lay on his back for two weeks, and he couldn't do a thing for himself. Well, I admired his patience when he told me, and I said, how did you manage to lay still for two weeks?

[27:06] It's such an operation that if you moved, you might undo all the good work that was done. And he said, I'd have it done again, if I had the blessing that I had then.

[27:23] Now, the Lord does use these means that he has, a path of affliction, a trial, a hospital ward, a sickness, and it's a place where he's pleased to teach, and pleased to bless his people.

[27:39] My friends, that's where you'll gain experience. Cease from man, I keep saying it these days. cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils.

[27:50] My friends, the Holy Ghost is the teacher, and he shall not speak of himself, the Lord Jesus said, but he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you, the desire he will fulfill.

[28:09] Every God-given desire shall be fulfilled. And it will be fulfilled, again, in all reverence, my friends, far more than you can ask or even think.

[28:25] He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. He also will hear their cry, and will save them. cry of a child of God, as we must simply put it, of course, is what might be contained in the spirit of prayer.

[28:51] prayer. We may use the poet's words and say, the upward glances of an eye when none but God is near. But crying, in a spiritual sense, infers or teaches us to consider the spirit of prayer which the Lord is pleased to grant to his people.

[29:14] Now, what is the spirit of prayer here? You'll also hear their cry and will save them. Well, my friends, I felt as I looked at these words that if you feel the need to be delivered, as what saving, save them, we must say means, it is because you feel to be lost.

[29:36] And, you know, you won't find anybody but a child of God that talks about the sense of being lost. You know, I've come to some low places and I remember I've had to say, well, I must be amongst the lost.

[29:53] But, you know, my friends, none that have come to these low places have been left in those low places. I go back, of course, as we so often have done to speak about that poor man, Jonah, the servant of God who was at the bottom of the mountains, cast out of his side.

[30:14] But being cast out of his side did not prevent a cry. Being in that place by reason of the chastening hand of his God did not take the cry away from his spirit.

[30:32] My friends, if you ever feel to be amongst the lost, it's because you're taught of the spirit what it is by nature. You are truly a lost condition.

[30:43] Minds, alas, a lost condition. Works cannot work the remission. My friends, it can't. But these that feel by the spirit their lost state and condition will also have raised up in them a cry.

[31:03] I suppose that dear man who went to the temple to pray, God be merciful to me a sinner, is very familiar. It's often quoted. But is his experience known?

[31:15] My friends, talk about somebody else's experience enough and it becomes common language. But the mercy is if it's found in your heart and mine by the spirit.

[31:27] I believe that man was brought to that condition. He also will hear their cry and will save them. And on his lips was the cry for mercy.

[31:38] mercy. My friends, that's a saved sinner that cries for mercy. Oh, he might feel to be lost. Indeed, he will feel to be lost.

[31:49] It's a far better place, my friends, than to have a religion that's always on a mountaintop and that looks down, despises these poor and needy souls that creep along crying for mercy.

[32:02] He also, he not only will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. He also will hear their cry. And they will cry, my friends, all the days of their life.

[32:15] He shall call and I will answer. God put a cry in your heart when he called you by his grace. My friends, you will cry all the way to heaven. You won't cry in heaven because prayer will be given place to praise.

[32:32] But then he also will hear their cry and will save them. And that is, you will find as you go along, my friends, that you need him to bring about a deliverance.

[32:48] You know, great dangers surround a child of God. Oh, great dangers. Satan is a roaring lion going to go with about seeking whom he may devour.

[33:01] You will recognize a roaring lion, you know. And you wouldn't put a foot in the place if you knew a roaring lion was there. But my friends, it isn't always a roaring lion.

[33:13] Satan has got many devious ways and methods which he will seek the overthrow of a child of God. You don't have to fear a roaring lion because you wouldn't be anywhere near him if you could.

[33:30] My friends, it's not him as a roaring lion you should fear. It's when he's dressed up as an angel of light. That's whom you should fear. That is who you should be fearful of, be mindful of.

[33:44] That's where your prayer and supplication and cry will do in some moment unawares, surprisingly, that it shall come upon you.

[33:56] my friends, that is where you need deliverance from. You know an enemy and see it, well you won't be anywhere near him if you've got any way of avoiding him.

[34:08] But you know, as I said, Satan doesn't always dress up as a roaring lion. It's sometimes as an angel of light. And by devious means and deceiving means how he dresses up evil to look as an appearance as good.

[34:27] You know how we need to be kept, my friends, from what we can't see. It's equally as much to be kept from what we can see. And another thing too, my friends, how easy it is to slip and to fall in some unguarded moment.

[34:46] You know, Peter was one of those people who thought he could keep himself. Though all men should forsake thee, he said, yet will not I.

[34:59] And though they all forsook him and fled, they didn't all swear and curse. And they didn't all deny their Lord and Master publicly before the world.

[35:11] He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. He also will hear their cry and will save them. Egypt was a place of captivity, was a place of taskmasters.

[35:29] And the children of Israel suffered in that captivity and under that taskmasters. And they were in bondage. We might say, well, the Lord began to deal with their bondage in raising up Moses.

[35:46] Moses. And he made a way through Moses to bring about a deliverance. But before that happened, he heard their cry. And he said, and I am come down to deliver them.

[36:00] He also will hear their cry. It's not done by a multitude of words. The 15th of Matthew finds the dear woman's experience when she fell down and worshipped him and said, Lord, help me.

[36:13] That's the cry of a child of God. He also will hear their cry and will save them. All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

[36:24] That is where the saving will come from. My friends, you and I need saving constantly from a deceiving world, from a deceiving heart.

[36:38] My friends, you know something about that, a deceiving heart. that of your own nature, not someone else's. You've got enough, I've got enough inside.

[36:51] My friends, to know this, that you can be deceived by your own nature. Not eternally deceived, of course, but to be deceived.

[37:05] But oh, the cry, what a mercy. It's a sign of life as it obviously presents. The Lord's people have life in their soul, they will cry.

[37:19] And will save them. Power, my friends, with heaven and earth at his command, he waits to answer prayer. Well, what a sweet promise.

[37:31] It's been feebly spoken, and I'm sure that I've probably left out a lot of your desires. But I hope by reading that psalm, it is, shall we say, comprehensively spoken of as all my desires.

[37:52] Though this poor sinner has not mentioned it, the Lord knows all your desires. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him.

[38:03] He also will hear their cry, and will save them. And my friends, he will from the workings of grace within to the end of the journey.

[38:15] There was no forsaking. He will not repent of his blessings. Amen. Amen. God willing, there will be a prayer meeting on Tuesday evening.

[38:45] This means there will be no service on Wednesday, Wednesday, and our pastor is expected next Lord's Day. The amount collected from the building fund box at the door for the month of November was 161 pounds.

[39:08] So I'll sing together our last hymn, hymn 975. He comes, the saviour full of grace, by ancient prophets, saviour, the smile of mercy on his face and truth upon his tongue.

[39:51] In him the world no beauty sees, no form nor comeliness, rejected and despised he is, and plunged in deep distress.

[40:06] Hymn 975. gods, o saviour, what am great, an ancient prophet, God bless you.

[41:05] God bless you.

[41:35] God bless you.

[42:05] God bless you.

[42:35] God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.

[42:46] God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.

[42:57] God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.

[43:13] God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.

[43:27] God bless you. God bless you. May thy blessing rest, O Lord, on thine own holy word, and forgiveness granted for all that's amiss.

[43:57] Now gather with us, Lord, around thy table. O, to grant us, Lord, a truly softened heart, that we might recount the mercies and goodness of the Lord that has gathered us there.

[44:17] Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the fellowship, communion of the Holy Spirit, abide with us each.

[44:31] Both now and forever. Amen.