“HIS LOVING KINDNESS ENDURETH FOR EVER”
Jim Gray
The Psalmist has a great impression of the mercy of God. He can hardly wait to complete his sentence before he interjects, “for his loving-kindness endureth for ever”. That is the God that we have, dear brethren. I just touch on a few thoughts in the Psalm. We sang last night:
Awake each saint in joyful lays,
To sing the great Redeemer’s praise;
He justly claims a song from thee:
His loving-kindness, O how free.
It leaves an impression on your spirit, the greatness of the Redeemer. God is the Redeemer. Here He is in creation, the One who made things, made things for a house for Himself. Creation, the universe - is a house for God and a house for man. The tabernacle of God will be with men. It is the idea of a house, His dwelling place, but He has made it too for man. We owe to Him alone who doeth great wonders, Him that by understanding made the heavens. What understanding comes out in the heavens. Take account of the heavens. It says the sun for rule over the day, the moon and stars for rule over the night. God in his mercy set these things there in creation for man. Another has remarked but it is true anyway, ‘How would man have got on in the oceans of the world, if it hadn’t been for the sun and the moon and the stars’. It is all right while you travel from here to London on a highway; even if there are no road signs, you can make your own mark, mark out directions of roads. But you get into the ocean, go outside of the sphere of the land, how do you navigate? God in His mercy put the sun and the moon and the stars there for man, for man to navigate the globe. I am not going to proceed on the lines of navigation but it is interesting to know that. That is God’s mercy, to allow man to travel.
What I wanted to speak about was the moral side. He smote the Egyptian. He speaks here as to Israel’s extrication from Egypt. As coming into the wilderness, now he says “To him that smote Egypt in their firstborn, for his loving-kindness endureth for ever. And brought Israel out from among them, for his loving-kindness endureth for ever”, (vv 10,11). I would like to say to us all and to our younger people, we want to give thanks to God for His mercy, being delivered from the sin system in this world. What a thing that is! Take account of humanity, much of it entrapped in the sin system of the world. The world is a sin system, man serving his own ends, for his own pleasures and his own lusts, without God. What a sorrowful state it is, humanity, without God and without hope in the world. But here are persons who have hope, who can sing of the mercy of God. It is a wonderful triumph to be able to sing ‘his loving-kindness endureth for ever’. He has brought me, He has extricated me from the sin system of this world. He has set me up and given me a power, He gives you a power to be here in the wilderness.
When you take account of the history of it, the Lord Jesus had to die. He was the One who had to die to make a way out for us. It says that, “with a powerful hand and a stretched out arm … divided the Red sea into parts, for his loving-kindness endureth for ever” (vv 12,13). He delivered us from Egypt; the blood on the lintel and on the door post the testimony to a fact that we were not judged. What a triumph to be delivered from Egypt, not only delivered from judgment, but to be taken out of this system. When the children of Israel walked through the Red Sea, Paul says they were identified with the death of the Lord. When they walked through the Red Sea, they walked through the sea where the Lord had made a way by His death. That is what it speaks typically of. That is the believer being identified morally with the death of the Lord.
So it says in Romans 6 verse 1; “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?”- that grace may abound. There you know Christ as your Saviour and you can sing of the mercy of God that has delivered you from the judgment. Now you desire to be for Christ in this world, are we going to continue in sin that grace may abound? Paul says, Far be the thought. You are not going to continue in sin that grace may abound. There are new desires in the heart of the believer. What a thing when you come to Christ you find that you have new desires, a new assessment of things. The world around you, the town in which you live, the places where you might have found your pleasures before, you do not want to be there any more because you love the Lord Jesus. You want to be for Him. So you do not want sin to have dominion over you and the Lord gives you a power. It says “To him who led his people through the wilderness” (v 16). There is no thought of wandering. That is what has attracted me, “To him that led his people through the wilderness”. There is no thought of wandering. There is a power that you get, the gift of the Holy Spirit. He would give you power to go through this world for the Lord Jesus. The desires are right; new birth brings about desires that are right, conversion confirms them. Trust in Christ as your Saviour and your desires are right. Then the power comes in the Holy Spirit, and “he led his people through the wilderness”. Think of the provision of God in the wilderness, ‘for his loving-kindness endureth for ever’. Think of singing that song, in relation to our daily lives as you go out on the morning and you go to school or college or office or workshop or whatever you might do. You may be tested by it as troubles and tribulations, disappointments, come, but you come home at night and you can sing ‘for his loving-kindness endureth for ever’. He has brought me through, has brought you through today.
What a God He is! He has provided you with food and blessing, provides you with Christ. He gives you Christ in the Gospels, the humble Jesus. Go out in the morning with a taste that you are going to be here as the humble Jesus was here, the lowly Jesus, the meek and lowly man. The power is there in the Holy Spirit to keep your foot on the highway and to give you strength and power inwardly. Think of God providing a power inwardly. So it says ‘as many as are led by the Spirit of God these are sons of God’. He gives you a power inwardly. What compression comes into that verse 16. It says “To him that led his people through the wilderness, for his loving-kindness endureth for ever”. He provided them with the manna, provided them with the springing well. A whole history comes in that is untouched in the Psalm. The Psalmist has an impression of it. “To him that smote great kings” (v 17). He is coming on to the borders of the land, near the end of the wilderness journey.
This Psalm does not take you as far as the land, that is it does not take you to the gathering of the saints; it takes you up to the gathering of the saints, this Psalm. It takes you up in relation to your life, your business life, your secular life, and tells you to prove the mercy of God and sing about it. Praise the One who has brought you through and given you the strength to go against the current of this world. One man could say ‘Why is it believers can go against the current of this world’. It is the holy unseen, unknown by the world, protection that enshrouds the believer. That is the power of the Holy Spirit. When you are reproached in the name of Christ, “blessed are ye for … the Spirit of God rests upon you”, 1 Peter 4: 14. What a power that is! What a moment that is! It is not only receiving the Spirit initially but the Spirit’s delight to give you a sense of His pleasure in you as you are reproached in the Name of the Lord Jesus. What a blessing that is! So you can sing ‘his loving-kindness endureth for ever’.
Then you come to the borders of the land and there are these giants. You might say ‘what do you mean by the borders of the land?’ Well, you hear much at the present day about the west bank, the West Bank of the Jordan. It is the West Bank of the Jordan, but this is the East Bank of the Jordan, that is that it does not belong wholly to the nation of Israel. It was property of land on the east of the Jordan. You know what it means, dear young friend, it is the area typically where we live in our homes and amongst our relationships. There are giants to be met who would hinder you from holding your home, from holding your domestic life, from holding your family life, your relationships in family life for the Lord. All that you have, your stewardship for the Lord, is held on the East Bank of the Jordan. To use the typical teaching that is the area in which you live and family life and domestic life, a man’s household is for the Lord. He is to hold it all for the Lord. The mammon of unrighteousness, you may say money, everything is held for the Lord. Everything you have is held for the Lord, it all belongs to the Lord. And these giants, these are figurative principles that would oppose it. What would oppose that? What would keep me from holding things for the Lord. It would be self, self-indulgence. That is what one of them speaks about. Og had a big bed, a great big bed, about ten feet long. He was one of the giants and he would keep you from using things for the Lord because of self-indulgence. And the other man would energise you in relation to your own interests, fleshly interests, carnal interests. And overcoming these things, you hold them for the Lord.
What an environment the households of the saints are. I believe it is so with us in our city. I am not being critical, I am being encouraging. And you can sing in the evening in your home ‘for his loving-kindness endureth for ever’. God has helped you in your family circumstances, helped you in your business and helped you to hold it for the Lord, and helped you to hold it in a manner that it doesn’t overcome you. So that the man is in control of everything, the man of the house, man in his business and a young person in their own sphere or environment is to hold things for the Lord. Everything you have you hold for the Lord. What a joy that is!
So that you can then come down to “who hath remembered us in our low estate”! How God remembered us! It says in Ephesians 2, dear friend, that we were to be found in trespasses and sin. The low estate, how low could we go and God operated in your soul to bring you into the light of Christianity. What a God He is and He has elevated you, elevated you in Christ, and He has brought you into another order of humanity. Taken you out of the old Adam and brought you into an order of humanity that is in Christ. The Lord Jesus went low, a little lower than angels on account of the suffering of death; that is the Lord Jesus. How low did He go? But it has resulted in the elevation of mankind, man after Christ, the elevation of man as a race. God had in mind that the race should be elevated. But to come into the blessing of the elevation you have to trust Christ as your Saviour. Trust in Christ as your Saviour and you can take account of the fact that you are no longer in Adam, you are in Christ. It is another race of men, completely different from the Adam. It is a race that belongs to heaven, a heavenly order of humanity. “The sanctifier and the sanctified are all of one for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren”. Well, you can take account of that and say ‘for his loving-kindness endureth for ever’.
May it rest in our souls and our spirits tonight. Go home and sing about it, think about it. The God who has seen you all the way through, will be able to save you unto the uttermost, the salvation so great. He is able to save us, the One who is able to do things. Give thanks unto the Lord, to Him, to Him, to Him. You find out that in many verses, ‘to Him’, One who is able to do that, One who overcame the problems for you. He will be with you and you will be able to say ‘his loving-kindness endureth for ever’. Give thanks unto the God of the heavens (v 26). Just before that “Who giveth food to all flesh, for his loving-kindness endureth for ever” (v 25). What a God He is! He considers for all. He will provide food for every man, you know, it is there in Christ. God would provide food too for every man. Man’s maladministration fails, but here I would take it up in a moral sense. He would provide food, food for your soul. What a God who can provide food for you, bringing you into the wilderness. Our lives are fashioned in the wilderness, dear brethren, largely fashioned in the wilderness. We touch the areas of the service of God, blessed as it is; it has an effect on this too. The moral fibre in our lives is fashioned in the wilderness. You know these giants involve our thinking. The children of Israel did not proceed after eleven days journey to Kadesh-Barnea. They did not proceed into the land after the spying out of the land because they were frightened of giants, the giants in Hebron. There are three of them. Mr Coates points it out somewhere in his ministry - one represents the brotherhood of men, a copy of Christianity, in Hebron; another giant represents the desire for man to be a free thinker, not bound by any discipline in his mind, he allows his mind free scope as he says. And the other one represents the confidence that relates to philosophy, the mind of man, confidence relates to that. Mr Darby points out that you find the philosophers are very sure of their ground. Some of these scientists have had hypotheses about evolution and all that. They are very sure of their ground. That kind of mind has to be displaced in you and me. And the power of the Spirit of God is the power to displace it in the believer to root out the giants. Caleb was a man who dealt with the giants, a man who wholly followed the Lord. We need to deal with these things in our mind. Mr Taylor said an interesting thing once; he said ‘There is a power for the principle of elimination’. That is you do not entertain certain thoughts in your mind, you eliminate them. The power to do it is the Holy Spirit. You can’t do it in your own flesh. The mind would be occupied with Hebron in relation to what it becomes under Caleb, centre of a place where Christ has the first place in all things, the centre of heavenly fellowship, that is Hebron. The fellowship is on heavenly ground, built seven years before Zoan in Egypt. It is greater and better than anything this world can provide. May your heart thus be linked up with the God and be able to say ‘for his loving-kindness endureth for ever’.
EDINBURGH
16 May 2000