[0:00] As the Lord may be pleased to help us, we will turn to Psalm 98 and verse 1.
[0:23] The 98th Psalm, verse 1. O sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvellous things.
[0:44] His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him the victory. As the Lord may help us, we will endeavour first to speak of these marvellous things, extraordinary things, things which God has done.
[1:19] And we will try then to find out for whom these marvellous things are done.
[1:33] Because God doesn't do everything for himself, ultimately all is for his glory, we believe, but he does things, he does so much for others.
[1:49] And then in the third place, the outcome of a realisation and enjoyment of these marvellous things which God has done for sinners.
[2:07] Namely, that they are called upon to sing a new song to his praise. O sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvellous things.
[2:29] Now everything God does is a marvellous thing. Many of the things he does, though, we are inclined to think as ordinary, if not second-hand, old things, as though there's nothing new.
[2:55] How mistaken we are. All that God does is new, fresh. You take that word in the third of Lamentations as an example, about the Lord's compassions and mercies.
[3:14] They are new every morning. Every morning and new. Fresh from God. Even such providential gifts as we need.
[3:29] Food, raiment, drink, air homes. The many comforts we have and blessings we enjoy.
[3:40] They're not old ones brought forward from yesterday. They are, as it were, yesterdays I mean, that they're ruled off.
[3:51] As though there's a fresh start. They're new. And new. But even when we talk of ruling the old off, or closing, that's not an end of them.
[4:06] We ought not to let his mercies lie forgotten in unthankfulness, and without praises die, because they're new every morning.
[4:20] If we are spared to see the light of tomorrow, let us try and think of the text tonight, and think of that word from Lamentations we have quoted, regarding the Lord's mercies and his great faithfulness, his divine compassions, which, they are not, they're new.
[4:45] Tomorrow's blessings will be new blessings, new for you, new for me. What if they take on a similar appearance to those of this morning or this day?
[4:58] They're still new, says God, new every morning. I asked someone, only last Thursday evening, have you had any answers to prayer lately?
[5:12] There was some hesitation on the part of one who needed a little prompting. Another, who was questioned in the same way, had a ready answer, and went on to express her present prayer, which is that the Lord would take her home.
[5:38] She hardly knew whether she was right in praying like that. I said, well, do you feel prepared and ready? She said, I do. I said, well, then I think it's right for you to pray like that, because you can't hasten the Lord's time.
[5:57] And so, as it is in regard to prayer and its answers, so it is with regard to the Lord's blessings, and they're being granted to us, and they're receiving, oh, they're always new.
[6:12] That's a marvellous thing. So rather than look upon this and that as being so ordinary, may the Lord open their eyes to see that they are out of the ordinary.
[6:25] the more so because of what we are, wretched, undeserving sinners. If, for some reason, it could be said that we were entitled to them, it would be very different.
[6:45] Because we're not, surely they seem to be all the more new and good for that. He hath done marvellous things.
[7:02] And as we go along to try and name just a few of them, let us bear in mind that He has done them already. They're done.
[7:15] He's still doing marvellous things. But He has done marvellous things already. Things which are past and yet, because they're not old but new, still have a relevancy and application for you and me today.
[7:37] Now, surely the greatest thing He has done is the one alluded to in the second half of this verse.
[7:48] His right hand and His holy arm hath gotten Him the victory. The victory is a marvellous thing.
[8:01] I suppose most of us remember when victory was declared in 1945. life. What a wonderful feeling it created.
[8:14] It was a marvellous. Those long six years we wondered whether they would ever end. And if they would end, how would they end?
[8:26] it. And we know that the proclamation of victory created a joy and thanksgiving everywhere throughout the world, I believe, except perhaps for the ones over whom the victory had been gained.
[8:45] That's a different matter. Now this is the greatest marvel that God has done. And as we go back as far as we can in our finite minds, well, we speak, as you know, of eternity past.
[9:07] And I like to think in connection with eternity past, of eternal love, love taking its rise in God himself, in that he would save a people from death and destruction and sin and hell, because he loved to do that and loved those for whom he would do that.
[9:38] If he did not love, it would be a very different thing. no, the love of God is a marvelous thing. Who can fathom its depths?
[9:52] Poor goodness. He speaks in one of his epistles of what I like to think of as the eternal dimensions of the love of God in Christ towards sinners.
[10:07] He mentions the height and the depth, the length from the breath, but then has to explain that this love of God in Christ, it passes all understanding.
[10:22] And yet he would have those to whom he wrote to go on to know that love as far as God would be pleased, that is, to reveal it and make it known in their hearts.
[10:36] Now, who then can measure the love of God? The love of God is such that eternity, and all that will go on in eternity, can never, never exhaust it, or diminish it one little bit.
[10:55] It's a vast, a vast ocean, with neither shore nor bottom, into which we so much need that God would direct their hearts.
[11:08] know the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ. According to God's love, he did the most marvelous thing.
[11:24] He sent his dear son to seek and to save that which was lost. It's a marvelous thing. Men would count it a marvelous thing if a shepherd had 100 sheep and lost one.
[11:45] He wouldn't let it remain lost. He would put himself to much danger and hardship in order to find it, and he wouldn't go back until he had found it.
[12:02] And yet, he's got 99. would he miss that one? He's got 99. That's almost 100. Almost, but not quite.
[12:14] And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulder or parishes it in his bosom, and that with rejoicing. Rejoice with me, I have found that which was lost.
[12:30] This is a marvelous thing. You think of the marvelous thing done by God the Holy Ghost in giving effect to the birth of the humanity of the Son of God.
[12:47] A virgin shall conceive. My friends, what a marvelous thing. This caused Mary to marvel.
[12:58] Who can tell how much Joseph too, silently and secretly before God, marveled at the same marvelous thing. God did it. We believe in this as a fundamental and essential doctrine of the reformed faith which we profess.
[13:19] God to the God. Because men would explain it away, they alter the wording and produce a perversion of the scriptures of truth, making out it is just a young woman who should bear a son, not a virgin.
[13:40] Isn't this a marvelous thing? Think of it. that the power of the Most High God should descend upon Mary who is overshadowed by the Holy Ghost so that he, her first born, should be without sin.
[14:03] Mary had other children afterwards. We know that from the scriptures. We know the names of at least one of them. they are referred to as the Lord's brethren.
[14:16] And they didn't think much of him. Oh, they didn't. They spoke very wrongly to him at times. But her firstborn, of whom Joseph was not the father but God, and yet Mary was the mother, he was born without sin.
[14:39] He wasn't shaped in iniquity, like you and I have been and are. He was born without sin. What a marvelous thing.
[14:50] Why must this be so? Because he must be without sin. So that the offering of himself shall be spotless and full of merit, and such spotlessness merit as can be imputed to others for their everlasting salvation.
[15:18] What a marvelous thing that he lived among sinners and was never tainted by their sin. What a marvelous thing that he should touch leprosy and never have leprosy.
[15:33] leprosy. But when those poor lepros carried a bell or something of that nature to sound an alarm, warning others to keep out of the way, the Lord Jesus was rather attracted by that than repelled, and he healed the leprous ones.
[15:55] He wasn't afraid to touch them. Had we touched a leper, we should have contracted leprosy, no doubt. So for us it would have been a signal, a warning to keep away, but rather with the Lord Jesus an invitation, a plea that he would come and do a marvelous thing by touching them and healing them.
[16:28] What a marvelous thing he did in his life. by way I mean of a life of perfect righteousness. He kept the law inviolate, in every jot and tittle, so that, as in the case of those lepers, they must need to go and offer for their cleansing.
[16:56] They must go to the priest and keep the law. a life of obedience and righteousness was that of the dear Lord Jesus, our Savior.
[17:09] What a marvelous thing to go in and out amongst sinners and yet never be like them, as sinners I mean, like them in his human nature and habit or conduct or appearance.
[17:25] he was all that, but this vast and vital difference, but he knew no sin. He knew many sinners.
[17:38] He had contact with many sinners and they with him. sin, my friends, he didn't make contact with sin in such a way to imbibe it.
[17:50] Sin, my friends, had to fall back from Christ. Sin approached him, but it fell back, it fell away. Sin couldn't touch him to defile.
[18:03] This is a marvelous thing. And when the Lord Jesus claimed his Godhead and holiness and so on, in the presence of the Jews, they simply could not understand it.
[18:19] They must have thought it a marvelous thing, but they tried to explain it away, and in such a dreadful manner too, by saying, thou art mad, thou hast a devil, thou art not from God, thou art not from the Father, how canst thou give us thy bread, thy body, to eat, and thy blood to drink.
[18:45] This is a hard saying. My friends, there were those to whom that very saying was a marvelous saying, and the whole thing was a marvelous thing, because they saw the connection it had with their eternal well-being, their everlasting salvation.
[19:06] salvation. Therefore, they rejoiced in the Lord Jesus, and in his marvelous work which he had done.
[19:18] Think, too, of the sacrifice of himself. When he died to the accursed death upon the cross, he was doing a marvelous thing, a thing called elsewhere in scripture, an accomplishment.
[19:36] for we read in one of the gospels, if not more than one, of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.
[19:50] A marvelous accomplishment, yes? Marvelous, why? Because he's the Lord of life. Because he's the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
[20:03] death. Because death cannot hold him or keep him. Death has nothing to do with Christ, except he volunteers to die, which he certainly did, laying down his life voluntarily, a ransom for us.
[20:25] death. What a marvelous thing the Lord has done in dying. That the Prince of peace and of life should be made willing to die and should face death and give himself up to it.
[20:44] That he should die a real death, a voluntary death. And then, what a marvelous thing he did, when by his own almighty power he was raised from the dead.
[21:01] At the time he had foretold his own children of, on the third day I will rise again, said he to them.
[21:12] He told them that. What a marvelous thing. Can you explain it? Friends, things we can't explain are marvelous, but we should be thankful to God for his grace which enables us to believe marvelous things and to rejoice in that.
[21:37] It's a marvelous thing when, on the ascension day, he was caught up into the clouds and disappeared from the sight of those gazing Galileans.
[21:50] It's a marvelous thing. By what power? His own. What a marvelous thing he now does in glory. What?
[22:01] Pleading the cause of his people. Interceding for his own, according to the will of God. Well, the Lord has done marvelous things.
[22:16] We read in the Old Testament about the sacrifices and offerings that the life of the flesh is in the blood thereof.
[22:29] Now, Christ shed his precious blood, a marvelous thing. And this marvelous thing issues from the ransom which Christ has paid or made.
[22:43] this, that the blood of Christ divinely flows a healing balm for your woes, dear friend, poor sinner that you are, and for mine as well.
[22:58] It's a marvelous thing that a black, foul, vile, corrupt sinner can be washed in the blood of Christ and come up from that washing white and clean.
[23:14] How clean, absolutely spotless. How white, whiter than snow. What a marvelous thing.
[23:26] All these marvelous things might be multiplied, whether we take them from the spiritual angle, or the providential, or in a way of creation.
[23:37] The more marvelous the work of God in his soul, and the more marvelous the thing it is to anticipate glory, when one shall see the king in his beauty, and behold the land that is very far off.
[23:59] It's a marvelous thing. God's love. Now, my friends, the third thing is this, that God's marvelous works or things call the sounds of loudest praise.
[24:17] Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song. things, a new song.
[24:29] God's marvelous things, and the fact that he has done them for us. Oh, sing unto the Lord then a new song, a new song.
[24:42] As it is so with songs, we think of things as being old, whereas we should regard them as being new.
[24:57] We think of old songs, we get weary of them, except they be concerning Christ, and then there is always a freshness, new life as it were, in them.
[25:16] Now, this is a new song, a new song. Some of us, in days of unregeneracy, were thrilled, yes, so thrilled with songs of the world.
[25:33] Now, they really have become old. You know, apart from God's grace, they would have been new to us still. Now, grace, you see, makes this wondrous change in the soul.
[25:46] Old things pass away. Behold, all things become new. And he says, does he not, behold, I make all things new.
[26:02] But it's not so much for him to sing, as for you to sing. you are to sing this new song. You for whom God has done great things, whereof you are glad.
[26:17] You are to sing. Friends, when you get the view of Christ, when he draws near to your poor soul, blessing you, pardoning you, loving you, cheering you, why you will sing in such a way that you will feel just like this.
[26:38] This song I'm now singing is altogether new, filled with sweet surprises, things touching the glorious King of Kings.
[26:50] I felt like this a little in the last day or two, particularly in reading the word and meditating thereofon. The Lord has come, not with a word, I don't get many words as such from God, but I get touches and constrainings, such times when I feel my hard heart softened.
[27:18] and self put out of the way, put behind the scenes and the Lord Jesus is so precious as I think we were singing just now.
[27:33] One of the two hymns we've sung already has that scripture about it, I think, from Peter unto you therefore which believe he is precious. Now you feel this and you are enabled for a little while at least to rejoice in God your Saviour when you are singing within this new song, this new song that doesn't become old, it's always new.
[28:01] You'll sing it again and perhaps in higher strains if indeed the Lord draws near to you and blesses you in such a way that he has not done so before.
[28:14] Then you'll sing with a full heart to God's praise and we are called upon to do this. Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song for he hath done marvellous things.
[28:33] Let me ask you a question. I base this question upon something I read in the gospel according to John chapter 9.
[28:45] We have a man somewhere in the middle of that chapter I think who says this, why, herein is a marvellous thing.
[28:57] Why, herein is a marvellous thing. He was a man who was born blind and he is speaking in that way to the Jews about Christ and about the fact that Christ had anointed his eyes and sent him to wash and he came seeing.
[29:18] Why, herein is a marvellous thing. If I may touch upon a personal note for a moment, I'll do so. Years ago, when I was in my late teens, I suppose, I began to see God and the only one from my family, a father and mother and the three boys.
[29:41] I'm the middle of the three boys. And it was sad for me to have to go to God's house alone. No one else would come with me.
[29:54] I kept praying that someone from my family would come. Week after week and month after month.
[30:06] I was glad to go to hear the word of God, but I was sad because I had to go alone. And one day I went alone, the Lord's day evening it was, and I was praying as I went along that the Lord would cause one of my brothers to come to the service that night.
[30:30] And I was looking around hopefully, but no, he didn't come. I got to the house of God, I went inside, and I paused in the porch, then I looked around up the chapel path or drive, and I saw my younger brother coming to the service, and immediately that scripture came, why?
[30:54] Herein is a marvelous thing. He was to me, he was to me, and I felt my heart leap with joy, that I would not be alone again, and I wasn't.
[31:10] He came, another came, another came, why, herein is a marvelous thing, a young man praying, getting an answer like that.
[31:24] Now I ask you, have there not been many times in your life, when God has heard your poor petitions?
[31:35] That's a marvelous thing which he has done, but he's done more than that, he's done another marvelous thing, he's answered your prayer, he's answered your cry, he's heard it, he knows all about it, he knows what this means to you, whatever it might be, how you have needed him, how you have wanted and desired him, and he hasn't disappointed you, herein is a marvelous thing that he hasn't disappointed you, but heard your petition, granted you your request, doubtless you had to wait long for an answer, but you might not have had to, according to the urgency of the situation you were in, whether speedily or not so speedily, can you not say and have you not said many a time, dear friends, why, herein, is a marvelous thing, the great and almighty
[32:41] God, so high and so holy, has regarded my petition, my supplication, has entered into the ears of the Lord God of Sir Baal, and moved him toward me, in this particular, in this special way and manner.
[33:04] You sang a new song, a song you never sung before, even praise unto our God, and didn't you find praise comely, and good, and pleasant?
[33:18] It is that to God, and also to God's dear people. Then what about this, a deliverance from temptation?
[33:33] Who, like God's people, amongst sinners, are tempted people? God's people are tempted more than any others. Satan, you see, is against them, always against them, does nothing for them.
[33:52] He can't. And if he could, he wouldn't, but he can't. He does everything against us. If he's not translated or transformed into an angel of light, to do something against us, he turns himself into the likeness of a roaring lion, seeking that he may devour us.
[34:20] And if not, a subtle serpent, a subtle serpent, and in various ways does Satan come against the dear people of God?
[34:32] They need security, defense, shelter. They have it in the Lord himself. the Lord who is in the midst of her, that is Zion, is mighty.
[34:49] He's their sovereign protector, you know, and sovereign deliverer. In the ninth of Ecclesiastes we read of a certain aspect of wisdom that seems to have caused the wise man Solomon to stay, to pause and consider.
[35:15] This wisdom also have I seen under the sun. And then he says, and it seemed great unto me. It seemed great unto me.
[35:28] But it was about a poor wise man in a certain city. There was a little city and few men in it. And a great king came against it and besieged it, built bulwarks against it.
[35:46] Now that poor wise man delivered the city from that very powerful enemy, that alien king and army. By his wisdom he delivered it.
[36:00] Yet no man remembered that poor man. His wisdom was despised and he was for it and his words were not heard.
[36:12] They soon forget him. Yet there was a marvelous thing. There's a victory. There is wisdom. Friends, you might feel like that poor man.
[36:27] You might seem to be poor, unwise, foolish man. You've got no wisdom. If you have the Lord Jesus, you have wisdom.
[36:39] Wisdom in him, not wisdom in yourself. And his air wisdom in all air folly, to look to him for the wisdom we need to effect a deliverance, to gain a victory.
[36:53] well, we were speaking of temptation. There might be this great king, King Satan. He is a king. Is he?
[37:05] Yes, because we read of the kingdom of Satan. You can't have a kingdom without a king. Can you? So he's a king. He's not called a king in scripture, but he has a kingdom according to scripture.
[37:21] The kingdom of Satan. Now he builds bulwarks against you, like he did that little city we read of in Ecclesiastes. He builds bulwarks against you.
[37:34] He brings all his might and main against you. And you can't see where deliverance can come from. How can I be delivered from this terrible, sinister, subtle temptation, temptation, in which I see that Satan has touched the very spot where I give way, where I succumb to the temptation, except the Lord work the deliverance and gain the victory, and then give me the victory and the benefits of it over the wicked one, Satan.
[38:12] Have you known this? If you have, you've taken up the same cry of the blind man and the cry I had, a cry to God's praise, why, herein, it's a marvellous thing, marvellous thing.
[38:31] My God has not forgotten me. I cried to him from the very depths of my being, my inner being, my soul, and he heard my cry.
[38:43] and delivered me. He is a marvellous thing. His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him the victory.
[38:59] This, first of all, must point us to Calvary and the wondrous transaction carried out by the Lord Jesus himself, quite unaided.
[39:12] man didn't help him in effecting their salvation. His disciples didn't help him.
[39:24] They were little help to him in that they all forsook him and fled. Peter didn't help matters by drawing his sword.
[39:35] the damage he had done, Christ had to amend. That would not do. As Christ said to Pilate, if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight?
[39:50] But my kingdom, said he, is not of this world. Therefore, this thing is alluded to, of course, therefore my servants do not fight.
[40:02] They must not fight. If they do damage, that damage must be healed. So Christ did that. He healed the one whom Peter sawed, or Peter by his sword, had injured.
[40:17] His father wasn't with him in that sad moment, hour rather, or hours it might have been, when his dear son cried out in agony, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
[40:38] My friends, the marvelous thing he wrought out of Calvary, in dying once unto sin, and once for sin, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
[40:55] Was there ever such a sacrifice made? Was there ever such a price paid? Or ransom effected? And the more we know, as we said just now, the more we know of their sin and wretchedness and guilt and shame, so the more marvelous in our eyes will be this, that Christ has done at Calvary for us.
[41:24] Of his suffering so intense, angels have no perfect sense. So we haven't anything like a perfect sense, but can we not say this, herein is a marvelous thing, in that his right hand, not someone else's right hand, we don't know that Peter was left-handed, he might well have been right-handed, but not his right hand would do, any more than Moses' right hand or left hand as well would do when he went out and smoked the Egyptian, buried him in the sand, thinking I suppose to effect Israel's deliverance from Egypt in that way, the way of human might and contrivance.
[42:18] No, that wasn't the way for Moses, that wasn't the way for Peter. Now this that he has done is God's own way for you poor sinner, and for me too.
[42:30] Are you a poor sinner? Do you really feel the need of Christ's salvation, his precious blood to cleanse you from sin? Why then, allow me to give you this counsel, dwell upon these marvelous things.
[42:48] the Lord give you faith to travel as far as Jerusalem. By faith is this journey made.
[43:01] You can take this journey by sitting still in your seat, here or at home as the case may be, and think of Jerusalem.
[43:14] Think of the scene which is presented to us in holy writ by the Holy Spirit, the judgment hall. Peter, Christ denying his blessed Lord and Master, he knew Christ, but when questioned, he said, I know not the man.
[43:37] I know not the man. Don't know him. A stranger to me. I've never met him before. That is what his words imply, do they not?
[43:48] I don't know him. I know not the man. Incidentally, we might well pause there for a moment and say, why, herein is a marvelous thing which the Lord did.
[44:05] He turned and looked upon Peter, as you know, and Peter went out and wept bitterly. Why, herein is a marvelous thing that Peter could do that.
[44:19] More marvelous than the Lord could still love him and own him though he had disowned Christ. That he had put Christ away, but Christ would never put Peter away.
[44:33] Why not? Herein is a marvelous thing. what? The covenant of grace. The covenant of grace, my friends, ordered in all things and sure.
[44:48] So that guilty Peter, guilty Abraham, guilty Jacob, guilty David, were all guilty, should not be cast away, but should have that wondrous word in John.
[45:06] 6, John chapter 6, I believe it is fulfilled, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me, whether it be the murderous David, a deceiving Jacob, a lying Abraham, and a denying Peter, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me.
[45:37] And him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. Now all this is because of the victory which his own right hand and his holy arm hath gotten him.
[45:50] Victory. You know God's people have a victory. They have more than one victory in fact. I believe the one intimated here must be the prophetic word concerning Christ's great salvation effected or to be effected rather at Calvary.
[46:13] To be effected in the psalmist day, no effected as a thing passed and done, having been declared finished by the dying Savior himself.
[46:26] His right hand. power and almightyness. Power. Tremendous power.
[46:38] His right hand and his holy arm stretched out as it were. Here is God's holiness linked with his power.
[46:51] Power and holiness join together in the matter of their salvation. in his great matter of victory over sin and Satan and death and hell, enabling even a poor sinner to sing this new song at times, namely, O grave, where is thy victory?
[47:23] O death, where is thy sting? God's death, who is the final, and the final, glorious note rings out, thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
[47:40] Christ. We've gone through this very quickly, and all too much on the surface. I always feel this in the ministry is a sad feeling, but all my sad feelings make no difference to the glorious facts, because it's not feelings so much as facts, divine facts, which ensure their salvation.
[48:11] Feelings may often be very deceptive feelings, but there's nothing deceptive in the marvellous things which God has wrought for us.
[48:25] And I close tonight with a word from one of John's epistles. It's to this effect, if not quoted exactly word for word, this is the effect of it, see that he lose not that which we have wrought.
[48:43] We might say like this, see that you come not short of that which God has wrought, even his marvellous works on behalf of the likes of you and me, all wretched sins, while see that you, that no man, taketh thy crown, but that you have a sure reward.
[49:09] May he add his blessing. Amen. Thank you.
[49:42] Thank you.