Psalms

[0:00] A portion of verse 4 in Psalm 103.

[0:12] Psalm 103, an portion of verse 4. O crown it thee with love and kindness and tender mercies.

[0:32] O crown it thee with love and kindness and tender mercies.

[0:49] It's a word of a thing to know anything about the crowning of our text.

[1:02] And before any can understand to the saving of their soul of what that crowning is, there's a majesty in it.

[1:27] You could compare it literally to the crowning of the king or the queen of realms. This is a crowning that is by the love of God or equal with Jesus Christ.

[1:54] It given unto Paul a crown of righteousness that should never fade away. And this in our text is a crown of glory that should never fade.

[2:15] Without you and I know anything of it. I believe one of the hardest things our poor Alfred heirs can ever hear is the grace of God.

[2:34] Now, live in till thou, Sam, and left others to perish in their sins.

[2:45] And we begin, as should if we were left there, to say, what an odd master. Now, now, my friend, there is one thing, either on the right or the left, on that day of reckoning, the day of judgment, you and I shall either stand.

[3:14] There are many in our faces in the form of religion in our Church of England that have lately declared that the Ten Commandments could be thoroughly done away and that that regarded the Sabbath could be obliterated altogether.

[3:43] But these truths that God opines to be preached by Thousia Knights, do you know, if you are brought out by the grace of the Lord Jesus to walk in his way, follow where he leads, prepared by his Spirit, you are hated above everything else, by the professing world and by the world.

[4:17] There's an hate to it. I picked up a volume last week by a very clever man.

[4:32] The devil can use that. He don't use fools for his work. He is this very clever man. And do you know, while he was speaking of different religions, he said, the most difficult and hated religion in my breast is that of predestination and election and that the people, a few among the many, should be saved.

[5:11] He said, it's awful, it's dreadful. I put it down and I had in my heart to say who hath made me to differ.

[5:27] Not me. Not me. I might have been exactly the same. Then, my friends, the vast evidence of his mercy is that he saved sinners and was not wondered what he's left.

[5:54] He left the angels, those ministering spirits, after the word to his pure people. He left the angels, left this father, to fulfill a law in its spirituality, never dies.

[6:15] Never dies. And such was the giving of that holy door on Mount Sinai that Moses never wanted to hear it again.

[6:32] not one was suffered, not even a kettle to touch the board of that man.

[6:43] And there was only one voice and Beth was in thunder, louder than that. And there's always, literally, there's always a solemnity when we hear the claps of thunders, especially if they're very heavy.

[7:05] But this is far beyond the thunders of what has been created and cometh down from the heavens above that brought the peace people to tremble.

[7:26] And that voice spake every portion of thou's commands. And in the day of judgment that the holy law will be before everyone that is never fulfilled.

[7:50] And it would that be you and me if it's never been fulfilled for us, you and me. And my friends, it will not be because it's that one sinner better than another.

[8:12] No, that's it. God's not dividing his love. all have sinned. All have sinned and have come short of the glory of God.

[8:25] It's because the fallen loved them. They didn't love their person. They loved their nearly darn souls. So, my friends, there is this, it will be their own condemnation.

[8:47] Read it. Well, you might read it. You might read thou's commandments a thousand upon thousand times.

[8:58] Never enter in its solemnity death and its holy thing. But when it does, you're brought in guilt.

[9:12] And, you've read lies, there's a judge. And that judge, full of justice, will not enter.

[9:33] And, where do it leave you? It'll leave you as a sinner before a whole world.

[9:45] That's all the time. A solid place, solid place, you see, he brings you to that place where you're a beggar.

[10:09] You have nothing to plead in your own self. If you have thought you had good works, no man can say this own soul, now's works have all gone out of sight.

[10:39] And there you stand, naked, ragged, without any shoes, where now ring of the Father's love, and you stand naked with her.

[10:58] Why? Because the entrance of God's soul world in his holy door entered your heart.

[11:11] Bless God. Judgment shall begin at the house of God, and then it begins at half.

[11:23] You'd never know, you'll never know, but you'll know that. And that sinner that is thus wrought upon by the Spirit, and we cannot order God's work to the times, if the old paths will ever stand.

[11:47] The calling of a sinner, it has run through my ears all this week, ye must be born again.

[12:01] you say, what effect has it had to know whether I am born again? You will be.

[12:14] You will be. Here's a sinner I've looked, and I'm not, that sinner will not stand in the judgment to be condemned, and the sentence passed done them.

[12:32] I have sent forth mine only beloved's begotten Son to fulfill what is against them. Now, those that think it's never to be applied, they'll be awfully deceived, because there's a near life in it, and there's a spirituality in it, and there's to live for only one purpose, to bring the sinner to deep, my friends, to a deep concern about their never-dying soul.

[13:17] I'll say, many have God's little wands, I do not know that ever I had a law work, for you did, if you ever had to come before it, as a sinner, as a blessed son.

[13:33] Ah, you say, well, I have had to bow my head before it, and my soul, too, and knew that there was none that could save me, and you had to come, my friend before him, because he had shown you what would keep you out of him, not the door itself, that was perfect, that was perfect, but there was this, if we continue, not in one part of it, we broke it, we broke the perfection of it, oh, it is a great thing to be a saved sinner, no light matter to say you are saved, no light matter to say you are redeemed, no light matter to say you are sins of pardon, but it will be a full matter when Christ is revealed to you, and bet there is this, you are before God and all you can say, can ever mercy reach me, in the eye, higher than the heavens, higher than the earth, there was that that you know nothing of when you were under conviction, you had in the top of your last hymn,

[15:21] God is love, and if there had been no love in heaven, there had been no love on earth, I can tell you to God, never, do greater work for you and me to accomplish, and yet it's so mighty that it stokes down, my friends, to the lowest soul, and it takes that poor poverty one, that can't do anything, and that's a great mercy, isn't it, I know some have had deeper stretches of the Lord in others, but you cannot know your sin as it sinks so deep and the soars so heavy unless he has shown you what is just disease, and you have thought, can there be any hope to me?

[16:50] I'd love to hear that if I heard no other until the time the ransom was shown can there be any hope for me?

[17:06] Some had been driven to the edge of the river, some to cut their throat under that heavy door, and God never suffered it, never.

[17:25] One to drink poison, and that poison never to take effect. Why? Because there had a life that could never be taken away, that's why.

[17:45] And it was hid in the councils of God and his electing lamp, that's why. You shall not die, but live and declare the works of the Lord.

[18:06] And that present land, God's out time, that sinner is known by us, they have a savior.

[18:19] You've been singing of it, very sweet, a ransom, a savior of righteousness, a sprinkling of the sacred blood of a precious savior that cleanses from all sin, and he came to fulfill that love.

[18:41] And he was the prince of peace, the son of God, the mighty savior, that can pardon to the belly at the mouth, where they lie as a babe on the breast of Mary.

[19:01] It wasn't Mary at all. She pondered these things over in her heart when the angel came and told her that a precious grass would be brought by the holy ghost, no other.

[19:23] Wasn't Mary's wound, the holy ghost failed thing, nothing to do with Mary, only the saving of her soul, and there was a leaping with it.

[19:42] Oh, you say, why not anything to do with Mary? Well, the camp when he was missing, and they sought for it, and when thou surrounded saw Jesus, and said, thy mother and father are seeking for thee, who is my mother?

[20:14] Who is my father? He that knoweth my will undoeth it. There was a divine relationship.

[20:30] The purpose of God the father was this, that he should fulfill every tickle the God. God and if you and me are led unto Jesus Christ, you see all that's been completed.

[20:55] And the value of the temple was rented to you. And the sinner, the other side of the cross was saved.

[21:07] that out part to those who know nothing don't want to have no room, no room for it in their hearts.

[21:24] Everything else sticking up their desire to bow them, go, may you never die like it. never die like it.

[21:43] In my age I have to pray that may I never die like it. Because as the tree falls, so shall it lie.

[22:00] But look at the mercy that flows from the love. And then there's a beautiful stream that flows from the mercy.

[22:13] And it's his loving kindness. His loving kindness. It's a kindness that you could never claim and never expect.

[22:28] and it's filled with love. Sal, my friends, he bringeth you that have felt you could not please God and you could not satisfy what his demands were.

[22:54] God as mercy is he raiseth the poor from the dust and the beggar from the dung and say, well, that's very law in you, very great humility there.

[23:18] yeah, it is. It is. Whether you fail it or not, we'll carry enough about us that would ever sink us, wherever hope or mercy could ever reach, but he's come over, over all that you desire, and come to yourself and my friends he raiseth up and a beggar from the dung here, what for to set them among princes?

[24:02] You see, among those that should be equal with him, and they haunt of them a crown.

[24:17] Crown is very valuable, isn't it? There's not everyone born in a kingdom that has a queen or a king that can wear the crown of the same value or give the same importance as the majesty of an earthly monarch, if this is greater than all.

[24:41] This is the Lord of hosts. This is the eternal God. This is the judge of all the earth.

[24:54] Oh, yes, there won't be a sinner, but we'll have to be lost if he never gives them mercy or grace, and he'd be quite just, quite just in doing it.

[25:08] Oh, yes, because oh, I knew that I never wanted to go to chapel. When my good father was a teacher at Sunday school, I and my friend had slip hope in the fields because his father was a farmer, ah, and we'd spend the afternoon sooner than go to the chapel.

[25:34] we created more trouble than good at the school when we were there. And yet he prayed, and the mother prayed, I think of those days now, and that which I once had it, I began to love.

[26:04] I remember in the first reciting a hymn which we had to do every Sunday, a portion of a hymn we had to recite, 15 in the school then, and that was asking for mercy.

[26:28] And he said, my lad, I hope that comes from your heart. Ah, you see, he's fulfilled that Lord, dear child of God, if you fail, you've never had one.

[26:48] And he's come, and he's took all the guilt of each sin that weighed you down, and in his mercy, and in his love, he ransomed you from the power of the grave.

[27:09] He ransomed you. Think of it. And for that ransom he gave his life.

[27:21] Fulfilled it. Why did he have to die? Why did he have to die? Because that was the sentence, wasn't it?

[27:37] Thus thou art, and unto dusk shalt thou return. We don't like to think or be the bride of our poor flesh to think it's good to go to dusk, do we?

[27:54] Now, you see James, Philip is never went to dust.

[28:09] What a ransom the father demanded, and what a gift in his mercy, you see, because his scum was equal with himself.

[28:24] He was divine. holy and just and good. There was no evil in Christ.

[28:40] And they sent him forth and he came as a lamb to go into the slaughter and they never opened his mouth.

[28:55] In coming. What a mercy that that saviour and the redeemer and the one that's been made of ransom and accepted by the father for all whom the father gave him is now in heaven that same living Christ in that same sacred body to be your advocate and your saviour.

[29:29] Hey, think of me. And oh, if you could go home today with that sweetness in your sorrow that you have a God in heaven in the person of Jesus Christ who can succor you in all his dealings with you.

[29:52] You say, what are those? If he's the God of love, what other dealings as he chastens us? And they're very severe sometimes.

[30:10] If we go on terror to his heavenly and holy will in the appointed path and lean to our own understanding or to our own heart and thou hast one of his having purchased you with a price and that forever he is something severe in his chastening but it's in love in love I've known that it's not me to tell you and now and when he took away all I had wife and house and all in it he came because I made an idol of him did he leave

[31:13] I thought I got now religion there I thought I got now God then I thought I had now hunker then why it was one the most precious times I ever had on this earth he came and stood by me by his spirit and beautifully in his mercy speaks into this living child that has heard the solemn solemnity of the law he speaks peace to them he said although I've taken away your all myself I give you still I blessed him for it I was alone ah friend what mercy he will chasten you about one of his we need a great deal out of him but he love you he only takes away what would keep you out of heaven and he gives you in its place every grace every mercy that will take you there and give you above all the greatest gift you ever receive himself what we're going to say about this crowd and poor heaven has made the high priest he had to have oil poured over his head to cover his whole body and it fell down to the feet before he could serve good he was and by that very act he was crowned by the will of

[33:32] God of heaven to serve him he was set apart for that purpose and that's what he does with every servant and every child of his and the isle comes down and there's no sweeter isle than sanctification here's a sinner I'm about to renew I've renewed Joshua you're renewed you can look on the side they're meant to be wondered that you're to have a crown and called a miter you can have a crown and you'll have to have a crown and I shall have to have a crown because only royalty is admitted into the gates of heaven and yet he takes those that shall be riled in his sight from your sinners and beggars but have nothing have you ever come to chapel with nothing and you've had that sanctifying grace nothing in my hand

[35:04] I bring simply to thy cross I think guilty look to thee for grace you see the night is very precious again oh Jesse you must go Samuel to Jesse's house and here is the night when that shall be okay for the crown is blessed on his head he brings in David and when he was united with the oil that ploughed from Samuel what the Lord gave him and that God command he was my king before the crown outwardly was put on his head now there have been many a child of God that have had the oil of his grace mercy and love for

[36:09] Dundon before it was made many feasts that they should wear a crown a crown of mercy that could never be taken off when it's placed on them but the time came when David had to have the crown literally what he had to pass truth but he was crowned with mercy he had plenty of enemies without but he had very greater ones within that he never can control he had the love of God in his soul he had the mercy of God he had the guidance of God many times he had to look back and see that the arrows of that soul said never entered his heart he had to look to the time when he lay there in the cave and when he could have taken

[37:25] Saul's life he was only a knight did Saul was for this life but when he had come to Bathsheba and placing Uriah in the midst of the battle in the front what an enemy had got there and never knew it never saw any sin in him could it be possible preserved in Jesus it's the only thing preserved in him we have our tempers we have our frames we have our misdoings we have our besetting sin that which is above everything else it's only known to ourselves mercy when it don't come out because that it defiles him then he never left everything to his

[38:44] God he began to want his army to be numbered that won't have you do that you were to leave everything with God if you are one of his you must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him think of it oh how diligent when you see it required a very short sermon when he sent the prophet but one that went home of the little eulam raised David's anger to think there was such a cruel man as that ah thou art the man thou art the man ah was there any mercy there his blessings rest on his holy name when he was the knighted by

[40:08] Samuel under the command of God that was a crown on his soul yes and without it we couldn't live and it never was taken all mercy oh my friend he crowns you with it and that is the riches of it the stones are more valuable than all the pearls and jewels that ever filled the queen's crown or any other monarchs oh yeah they're tender that tender oh said mercy David restore unto me the joy of thy salvation he lost something for a time they wanted it restored bless his name it was fully restored was hidden he mercy was that he was in the bonds of the covenant so he could say although my house may not sell with

[41:41] God has made with me an everlasting covenant ordered and in all things ensure in the chapter his ministers need that crown of nothing I wish there were more red John Warburton had been reading a little yesterday he had a very nice text mind he had a thousand here and something he said he had a very nice text nothing shall separate us from the love of God and my friends he had a beautiful meditation and he had it all open to it on the

[42:43] Saturday night and he said Lord he in his poor spiritual pride crept in I hope there'll be a chapel full tomorrow to hear what I've got to say about this text he smiled it all he said the chapel was full and he got up into the pulpit and the Lord took all the thoughts away and all he could say was this if God loves you the devil can never have you he said I said it twenty minutes continually out of my sermon when

[43:46] I finished I said friends the grace of the Lord be with us and he got down and walked home well he didn't want no one with him he said I walked down to my home one of the biggest fools that ever stood in a poop he is not alone I walked down as the biggest fool that ever stood before you and there was a woman followed him followed him through the streets a stranger may I may I was you that man that preached there tonight where he said there was no preaching I was there but there was no preaching and she broke into tears she said you did not know that

[44:56] I made my mind up in my distress to throw myself in the river and seeing a light in the chapel I thought I would go in oh what a sermon what a sermon she said what preaching I came out with my sins pardon the Lord shut that man up of all his pride buried your what put him in such confusion as he thought made him feel so foolish to call one of his vessels though that very night would have drowned herself and she lived to be a monument of his grace doesn't be good my friend

[46:11] I had to look at it this morning before I come to chapel yes oh the foolishness of preaching when God shows you we must do it all he uses his instrument wonderful thing why what was that life changed by there's a blessing of the Lord why he said I and the woman wept together I couldn't help it I couldn't help weeping God has showed his tender mercy I all see in his great compassion now where does it all come from the Lord of prepared his throne in the heavens and his kingdom to rule it over all don't mean that you and me are going to be careless either in this world goods are in their homes are regard to providence or a little better we come to be careless oh no he'll have you be diligent the rest he'll do the rest he will do he don't want you to do it he just says to come from no at ease at ease it's not yours lent you for a time lent me for a time

[47:59] I shan't want any prison let now I thank God to have enough to just carry me to the grave now why he's prepared from his throne all that he commends his people to do and I believe whether you know it or not that he's gave us a command concerning what is now taking place to arise and build and given when my poor faith sank so low that I felt it to be impossible says arise and build no waiting and looked in my bible and there it was arise and have left the command we need

[49:03] I don't look to anything on that look unto me you're something to look for what is that what is given you now it says you are to bless this dear man who excel in strength that do his commandments as believe don't mean you got to go home and sit down and say that will come no he won't give you anything that way oh no he'll never give you anything that way groan him cry and go in empty handed you can and in better ways than you ever imagined and don't find fault what he provides for you his goodness he makes the past before you in the world bless the

[50:12] Lord his angels and his house and his ministers and all his works and the babbage world is his tender mercy now don't think that I've been on the mountain to come here this morning and ask you to bless him it's been where I have that have seen more of his mercy than I saw if I'd never been there so I said Lord I'll go and tell the people of thy mercy and loving kindness and of thy tenderness yes as we've had hard thoughts about it dealing with you and that was rebellion sometimes you was in it a little time and you never found any help then and he knew how to take it away and bless you and it's all not mercy alone but it's very tender amen