Transcription downloaded from https://sermons.heritagesermons.org/sermons/57508/thou-hast-dealt-well-with-thy-servant-o-lord-quality-very-good/.

Disclaimer: this is an automatically generated machine transcription - there may be small errors or mistranscriptions.
Please refer to the original audio if you are in any doubt.


[0:00] I'm Mr. Highshaw's Corner. Hearing a testimony which one would desire may be our testimony as well.

[0:14] Thou hast dealt well with thy servants, O Lord, according unto thy word. Our paths under God may have been of a very different kind.

[0:34] Providentially speaking, such courses may be quite divergent. And yet, can we say in respect to them all, not some, but in respect to them all, thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord.

[0:58] One feels in reading this 119th Psalm that the writer was in a good spiritual place.

[1:09] Yes, undoubtedly the word of the Lord was very precious to him. And therefore he is not slow to inform us of what it meant to him.

[1:27] And the love that he had to the law of the Lord. But we would come, as the Lord may help, to a number of incidents.

[1:42] Not just incidents as might to refer to passing things. But incidents which God has specifically ordered in our lives.

[1:57] That causes us to realize that those things have been according unto thy word. This expression, according unto thy word, occurs twelve times in the 119th Psalm.

[2:15] And even in respect to such things, we may notice from those points brought forward, what was in the psalmist mind that brought him to say that the Lord had dealt well with him.

[2:32] And we find, then, counsel given in answer to a question in the ninth verse.

[2:49] Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word.

[3:02] What a precept this is. Do we know what way to take? Do we know if our way is evil, how it may be cleansed?

[3:14] Then, the psalmist was led to consider that it must be according to the word of the Lord.

[3:26] Will this not be salutary? Will it not find a place in our own experience of the things of God? Our own soul's movement?

[3:39] Have we come to this point in our experience? To ask ourselves the way and the means whereby one might cleanse his way?

[3:55] This can only be coming from one who is aware that his way needs cleansing. But it's according to the word of the Lord that our way needs cleansing.

[4:12] This is not something which takes place once. It well refers here to a young man that that same young man may grow into advanced years and still find it an applicable, suitable, and proper word.

[4:34] Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? And the answer is by taking heed thereto according to thy word.

[4:46] So it is not just some conclusion that we may reach. It is not the gathering together of opinions of people and taking the majority opinion that it is according to thy word.

[5:08] Now, if we are to take heed according unto the word of God, it means searching the word of God. In order that we may know what way to take.

[5:22] How salutary is the book of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes in this respect. What instruction we can receive from those parts in respect to the way that we take.

[5:37] But then, the word before us says, Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord. So, it is not that which we have done.

[5:53] It is not the searching that we have done. But the doing well with us has been the grace that has been given. Which brings us to another point mentioned by the psalmist, Quicken me according to thy word.

[6:12] Is it not good when grace is given to us that we want nothing? In our soul experience, but what is according to the word of the Lord.

[6:24] That which we may find in the scripture. We are sometimes discouraged. Sometimes we may hear the testimony of a person truly born again in the spirit.

[6:41] Speaking of their personal experience of the things of God, revelations of Jesus Christ, convictions of sin.

[6:54] And sometimes we may say, my experience is not like that. It's not required to be.

[7:04] What it is required to be is according unto thy word. Can we therefore find what we are passing through now in the word of God?

[7:20] Can we find as to whether we are quickened or not? It is an important point to know that we are quickened into life.

[7:31] What does the word of God say about it? We turn to the third chapter of John where the Lord is speaking to Nicodemus about being born again.

[7:46] And the Lord Jesus explains specifically what this all means.

[7:57] And furthermore, he says, Marvel not that I say and said unto thee ye must be born again.

[8:08] The wind bloweth where it listeth, though hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of the spirit.

[8:22] Now that is according to thy word when we are born again, quickened by the spirit. Now is that how it is?

[8:34] In which case, we can weigh the matter up. And in all humility before God, we can say, I am born again. Because this is how it has happened to me when the wind blows.

[8:49] And we canst not tell from whence it comes. And, we hear the sound thereof. And then, where does it go?

[9:02] But it leaves an effect. Have we felt that effect? the spirit of God coming. And, dwelling in our hearts.

[9:18] And this is the manner of its coming. Everything is in the word of God to bring you to a conclusion as to where you stand.

[9:29] And whether the work of God in your soul is right and real. And this is certainly of great importance. to know that we are born again.

[9:42] Then we can say, looking at our own soul's feelings, and looking into the word of God, thou hast dealt well with thy servant.

[9:53] Because thou hast quickened thy servant according to thy word. That which the word of God declares in so far as the feelings of a person being born again are the very things which I have felt.

[10:08] So therefore, thou hast dealt well with thy servant. But then, we may look at another view of this word quickening.

[10:24] that which is a word of God. And, sometimes, it means to recover or revive. How many times have you echoed the words in the 25th verse, my soul cleaveth unto the dust.

[10:45] And the dust covers up everything. And God makes us to understand another passage in the scriptures, we see not our signs.

[10:56] my soul cleaveth unto the dust. Is there any teaching in this?

[11:08] One would have thought that this man would have cleaved to Christ. But he finds himself cleaving to the dust. Is there any teaching in this?

[11:20] It is in order that we may know that our strength is in God. Paul experiences it when he says, when God says to him, my grace is sufficient for thee, my strength is made perfect in weakness.

[11:43] And so, if my soul cleaves unto the dust, if we confess our great weakness, if we say we have no power to raise ourselves from the dust, do we pray with the psalmist, quicken thou me according to thy word.

[12:07] Wilt not thou revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee? And when that takes place, will not the soul say thou hast dealt well with thy servant?

[12:21] O Lord, thou hast quickened me. Thou hast revived me. Well, how are we revived? One or two references are made in the scriptures in relation to reviving.

[12:42] Why? The wine of the gospel is poured in maybe in small measures.

[12:55] And there is an immediate reviving if we should be faint. And one of the marks of the scriptures, of the people of God in the scriptures, is that they are ready to faint.

[13:10] The psalmist says, I had fainted unless I had seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

[13:25] Now, we may look round about us and see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, that is, in the land of the living family of God. God.

[13:36] But we also see it described to us in the scriptures of truth. And when we can see that God pours in, as only he can pour in the words of the gospel truth, then we say, thou hast dealt well with thy servant.

[13:56] I know it's true. My experience is right. because thou hast poured in oil and wine, and thou hast recovered my spirit, and thou hast revived my drooping desires, and it's all according to thy word.

[14:20] We may often consider the book of Psalms as describing to us heart, soul, feelings. And if you can therefore express yourself in the book of Psalms, in your prayers, well, will you not say thou hast dealt well with thy servant because thou hast taught thy servant to pray according to thy word?

[14:52] We may take at random. Hear my cry, O God. Attend unto my prayer, from the end of the earth will I cry unto thee when my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

[15:11] For thou hast been a shelter for me and a strong tower from the enemy. Is this an agreeable word of the Lord put into our hearts when we knew not how to pray, and sometimes we don't know how to express ourselves, but the word of God will sometimes provide the exact expression.

[15:37] Is this one of the expressions in your experience, and you have seen that it is according to the word of God, and then thou hast dealt well with thy servant, because in his ignorance and foolishness, thou hast had pity upon him when he could not express himself or herself in words before God, yet thou hast described that very experience and feeling in which I was, and has enabled me to explain my case to thee.

[16:17] And then we look at the 63rd Psalm just to see another experience, soul experience, and when I say soul experience, I mean a condition which will bring forth certain prayers.

[16:36] We do not pray the same every day. I know there are certain things that we need every day. But if our soul is lively, and if we are emptied from vessel to vessel, then we shall find a utility in the psalms, in suiting prayers according to our need.

[17:02] So we find the psalmist now expressing himself, O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee. My soul thirsteth for thee, my soul longeth for thee, in a dry and thirsty land where no water is, to see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary.

[17:26] And is that a daily experience? With shame, with shame, we have to confess, do we not, that we cannot always say, every day, my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh, longeth for thee.

[17:48] But when it does, on those days when our very soul is bursting, so to speak, for Christ to be revealed, for his presence to be felt, and for his loveliness to be made known over to us, what a longing, what a thirsting, what a result of quickening, the quickening grace of God.

[18:15] And what a transformation, because, was it yesterday that we had, that our thirst and our longing was at a low end? So God has made a great change.

[18:32] Shall we therefore not join with the psalmist, in saying, thou hast dealt well with thy servant? But then, we come on to consider that the experience according to thy word will bring us to consider the mercies of God.

[18:58] And hence, as the psalmist goes on through this psalm, he speaks of the mercies of the Lord, according to thy word, seeking for the mercies of the Lord to be revealed.

[19:23] The whole of our life is a life of mercy. If God restrained his mercy the moment we were born, we should be lost.

[19:36] so mercy begins from the earliest moment. But when we come on in life, and when we see the kindness and mercy of God in our unregenerate days, when we had no thought or desire after God, we may have been religious, believers.

[20:05] But that doesn't mean to say that we had a thought or desire after the glory of God. We were happy to attempt to serve God and Ammon.

[20:18] We were happy to court the world and also to be respectable on the Lord's day. day. And all those days we lived without God and we didn't know it, but also without hope in the world.

[20:39] And all that time the mercies of the Lord have been over everyone whose names are written in heaven. Now when we are born again of the Spirit, we look back over those years, you know, and we think of how wonderfully merciful God was over those years.

[21:03] Thou hast dealt well with thy servant in thy mercy. We can easily pass over those years, but you know, sometimes as the years go on, the sins that we committed in those years, yay, the sins that we have committed in the years up to now, take on a deeper and a darker shade, blacker shade.

[21:33] And we realize how remarkable the mercy of the Lord was. Did we think our sins were dreadful? According to the word of the Lord?

[21:48] Yet how do we feel about them today? can we more feelingly say, I am black? But this is now when we can also feelingly say, but comely, through the righteousness of Christ, through the bloodshedding of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[22:12] consequence, we can give praise and thanks to God, and say, thou hast dealt well with thy servant.

[22:25] Oh, thou hast dealt well. But then, a desire is expressed in the soul.

[22:37] let my cry come near before thee, O Lord, give me understanding according to thy word. The fear of the Lord is understanding.

[22:52] Can we worship God this evening? Because he has given us spiritual understanding, which is to be distinguished from intellectual understanding.

[23:07] spiritual understanding, when it is given, will cause us to receive the truth and humility. And a deep sense of unworthiness will come upon us, and we shall be ready to say, what am I, and what is my father's house?

[23:25] That we shall be just thus favored to have a spiritual understanding. Intellectual understanding will generally speaking, increase a person's pride.

[23:44] That spiritual understanding will lay us at the feet of Jesus Christ. And we shall be ready to remain there.

[23:56] The man among the tombs, when he was blessed with a spiritual understanding, he was ready to sit at the feet of Jesus and to learn of him.

[24:11] What mercy the Lord had upon that poor man. Are we in that kind of condition? Have we been in that kind of condition?

[24:23] Dwelling among the dead, being uncontrollable, and yet the mercy of the Lord to that man was great. Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word.

[24:40] So it is good for us to have a spiritual knowledge. And here is a prayer that is in accordance with the word of God.

[24:53] Give me understanding according to thy word. Elsewhere, the psalmist says, Open thou thine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

[25:07] Now this is quite a searching point, because we are very often interested and seek God, that we might have an understanding of the word of God.

[25:25] Is it to be received into our intellect? Is it to be that we can boast their knowledge? Does it come under the category that we read of in James' epistle, ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye might consume it upon your lusts?

[25:49] The word of God can be very searching in respect to our petitions. When we read the word of God, are we dark? Do we seem to have no light upon it?

[26:02] And yet you say, but I've asked for an understanding, I've asked that light might be given to me in regard to the sacred page, that I might understand the depth which carries beneath.

[26:16] What for? What for? Is it according to the word of God? Is it that you might glorify the Father?

[26:30] Is it that you might glorify the Son and glorify the Eternal Spirit? Is it that you might come to a place where you worship God with a depth of feeling and say, not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake?

[26:50] When God deals with us, sometimes in a very painful way, we shall say thou hast dealt well with thy servant, because thou hast hindered him or her, as the case may be, from pursuing a course which seems right unto a man.

[27:12] Twice we read in the scriptures, there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is destruction and is death too.

[27:28] Now, seems right unto a man, doesn't it, to seek that the Lord will open our understanding, but which understanding? Which understanding?

[27:40] Our intellect or our spiritual understanding? Now, the thoughts and desires of these two understandings are quite distinct.

[27:54] The spiritual understanding will desire to seek Christ in the sacred page, and the spiritual understanding will desire that a capacity might be given to it to appreciate the work of God, and to see the glory of God, in the word of God, yes, but also as it is worked out in our own souls.

[28:27] And it's worked out in our own souls according to the word of God, day by day. God's work is continuous. continuous. It is not something which stops, we may think it does, but it's continuous.

[28:46] Whether we're lively or whether we're in a deadly state, God's work is continuous, because God's work is teaching, and God teaches in a practical way, and therefore, if we are feeling hard and dead in our spirits, if we are in darkness, and have no light, do we disassociate this with God's work?

[29:18] If so, we should be wrong, because God is preparing and teaching us in this what? Without me, he can do nothing.

[29:30] He is teaching us our helplessness, we should not be found giving glory to God very often, if our heart being harmed, our spirit being dead according to our feeling, we could quickly change the scene, and then we would trust in ourselves, and then we would discard the scriptures, put ye not confidence in a man, cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils, such scriptures would be discarded.

[30:12] But what reason we have to say thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word, because thou hast shown me that life comes from God, and that it is maintained by God.

[30:38] But then, the pathway of the children of God is made up a great deal of tribulation, that is, affliction, and trial, and adversity, that burns up all false religion.

[31:04] And the psalmist declares, it is good that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.

[31:19] Afflictions are indeed a blessing if we learn God's statutes, and in learning them, we learn about him.

[31:31] but then, we read in the Hebrews about chastisement.

[31:45] Now, God's love, God's chastisement is through the hand of love. Do you want to know that God is love?

[32:00] Have you prayed sometimes that he might show his loving hand upon you, and what did you expect? Something which would suit the sentimental, something that would be very smooth, and which would be easy and pleasant.

[32:25] There are times, oh, there are certainly times when God's love is described in the words of the bride, his left hand is under my head, and his right hand hath embraced me.

[32:42] But we have to consider this point, that because of our depraved nature, we are erring creatures, and therefore we have to be put right.

[32:54] and when God puts us right, and then shows us it is according unto thy word, we can see the love of God in it, and we can say thou hast dealt well with thy servant, oh Lord, it is good that I have been effective, it was so necessary, I have seen so much in it, I have learned so much by it.

[33:29] We can therefore praise God, especially, and yet only, when we can see that the chastening hand of God is according to the word of the Lord.

[33:45] Now when we can trace that, we shall see that the love of God is in it. What a proof we have, too, of being God's children.

[34:04] Bastards may escape the rot, but a true born child of God would not if he might. so we shall see, yea, we shall feel, God is love, not only when we are down road upon the knees of Zion and suck the breast of Zion's consolations, but also when God brings us under the rot, blood.

[34:42] Now there's no vindictiveness in the wrath to the people of God. That vindictiveness has been laid upon Jesus Christ.

[34:54] He has taken out all the vindictiveness, the wrath of God in his sacrifice. Sweet is your affliction when you discover the fullness and sweetness of the lions.

[35:16] It is softened in his blood, the lash is steeped, he on thee lays and softened in his blood.

[35:27] thou have dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word.

[35:39] Now we read in the 15th Corinthians the apostle speaking about the things that he had been taught and it begins like this, for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures.

[36:13] us. Now this will bring us to these few words in our text, according unto thy word. How blessed will be the days of our life, painful as they may be to us and to our nature, when God prepares us to receive the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.

[36:41] When he brings us to this point, and that we are indeed made witnesses to it, that Christ died for our sins.

[36:55] Now if your affliction should be the weight of sins upon your conscience, and the guilt felt by reason of it, you know that day will be a wonderful day, in which you will say, thou hast dealt well with thy servant, because I have been brought to know my sins, but only in that I might rejoice in the salvation which is in Jesus Christ.

[37:28] How Paul was taught this. And it was the work of God without any question. Paul was a self-righteous Pharisee, as you very well know.

[37:45] Who could turn him? Are we any different? God sometimes shows us that in our nature we have that ingredient of being self-righteous Pharisees.

[38:04] Now many self-righteous Pharisees were never dealt with by God. They carried on and on and on, right down to the bitter end. But the Lord had mercy on Saul of Tarsus, and he showed him that he was a great sinner in a moment of time.

[38:28] God is able to do the same today. He's the same God. To change the heart, renew the will, and turn the feet to Zion's hill.

[38:42] But the apostle says that he is delivering this, but only that which he has received, that is received into his heart, received as something suitable and agreeable to his need, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

[39:02] It is instructive, and also food for the soul sometimes, when we can read in the accounts of the evangelists that the scriptures might be fulfilled.

[39:19] That the scriptures might be fulfilled. one or two of them, you may be favored to be thankful for, thou hast dealt well with thy servant, because one of the scriptures that is to be fulfilled is this, he was numbered with the transgressors.

[39:42] transgressors. Just think of it. He was numbered with the transgressors. Sometimes we might feel to be transgressors indeed.

[40:00] We might feel that we are cut off, feel God look upon us graciously and mercifully according to the word of God.

[40:12] He was numbered with the transgressors. And then we have that remarkable word in the Hebrews, he is not ashamed to call them brethren.

[40:27] Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, yet the heart of Christ is revealed according to his word. And he shows us that, shamed as we are of ourselves, he is not ashamed to call us brethren.

[40:42] Not ashamed to be numbered with the transgressors. And then again, when we see Jesus Christ numbered with the transgressors, is this aspect of Christ's sufferings ever brought to our attention?

[41:02] He was made a curse for us. And then again, he was made sin who knew no sin, that the righteousness of God might be revealed.

[41:19] Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, when I can see clearly that my salvation is according to thy word, and that Jesus Christ was made a curse for me.

[41:36] We have reminders of the curse. Many, many people are not reminded, but sometimes we are reminded. The curse goes back to the Garden of Eden.

[41:51] And do you ever be reminded of the curse? Men, in earning their bread by the sweat of their brow?

[42:06] And do godly women become aware of the curse in their childbearing? And their subjection? And do the man the curse?

[42:19] Now, the Lord said to Satan in the Garden of Eden that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

[42:37] And by that the curse was removed. We are born under the curse. And thou hast dealt well with thy servant according to thy word if the curse is removed.

[42:53] And we can see clearly that it is removed according to the word of the Lord. That is, Jesus Christ himself being made a curse, absorbing all that the curse meant, absorbing it into himself, until there was no more curse left.

[43:25] Solemn, it is to be under the curse. Have we ever thought about it? Has the curse filled us with fear sometimes?

[43:38] You know there are some people, witch doctors and those kind of stupid, suspicious people, gypsies and so on, who will sometimes pronounce a curse, as they say, upon their fellow men.

[43:55] And many a person has trembled because of men's curses. But have we trembled because of God's curse? Cursed it is everyone that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.

[44:16] How did Christ remove the curse? On the cross indeed. But also in keeping the whole law in spirit as well as in the letter.

[44:35] So, he made the law lively and kept the law in a lively way for himself, for his own glory, for his personal satisfaction?

[44:50] No. But in order that he might remove the curse from that aspect from his people, thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word, when eyes are opened and knowledge is given to our spiritual sight to see the wonder of God's life, God's life, the son of God's life, and the wonder of his death.

[45:27] May I repeat this word, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. Now when God shines upon that passage, you know we shall almost be demented, because try as we will, we come up against another passage of scripture, whoso is guilty in one point is guilty of all.

[46:00] and I sometimes think that when you come to that point, you're reaching rock bottom in law work. Whoso is guilty in one point is guilty of all.

[46:16] So, go where we will, do what we can, we fail, and we fail again. And if we should keep this or that in the letter, God shines upon the spirit, and we discover that's wrong.

[46:32] And the spirit has got to be right as well as the letter. But then, for faith to be given, will cause us to look out of ourselves to young glorious man who kept the law for us.

[46:52] Beautiful to my mind are the words of Calper where he says, to see the law by Christ fulfilled, to hear his pardoning voice changes a child, a slave into a child, and duty into choice.

[47:10] We shall say then, thou hast dealt well with thy servant, giving him this knowledge, and it's according to thy word, and then, giving him this knowledge too, that Christ has risen according to the scriptures.

[47:28] That's why he rose. Prophecy was fulfilled. There were those of the Jews that said, this man, he said that he would rise again.

[47:43] And Pilate said, go make it as sure as you can. But nothing could stop the resurrection, and nothing can stop the benefits and blessings of the resurrection coming into the souls of every member of his body, the church.