As for man-God-me

Now before we open the scriptures, let's pray. Our Father again, our request is simple. In thanksgiving we would make mention again of the goodness of God towards us in salvation.

And Father, we acknowledge that there is no person like the Lord Jesus. What a saviour he is, what a son. And Father, our prayer tonight is that there would be some soul in this audience that would come to trust him and experience in him the wonder of what it is to find peace with God and to have the assurance of sins forgiven and the blessed hope of eternity with our Lord Jesus.

Father, we give thanks for this opportunity and ask for help, asking in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen. Now I'd like you to take your Bible please and read with me just three simple verses in three psalms. The first will be Psalm 103.

Psalm 103. Psalms is around the middle of your Bible if you're not familiar, it's in the Old Testament. 150 psalms, so it's quite a large book.

Psalm 103 and we want to read two verses and we'll take our reading from verse 15. Psalm 103. Now in each of these readings that I take, I want you to notice the first three words in each of the psalms.

Psalm 103 verse 15. As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth, for the wind passeth over it and it is gone. Now turn with me to Psalm 18.

Psalm 18. This time we'll take our reading from verse 30. Psalm 18 verse 30.

As for God, his way is perfect. The word of the Lord is tried. He is a buckler or a shield to all those that trust in him.

Come to the previous psalm, Psalm 17 and we'll take our reading from verse 15. Psalm 17 verse 15. As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness.

I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. As for man, as for God, as for me. It's the three statements that I want you to focus on with me as we preach the gospel in these few minutes that remain.

We are taught here clearly, as for man, his days are as grass. I'm very thankful, my friends, that when we come to the Bible, God is very honest with us. He does not try to paint a picture that is not what we are.

And so we read this verse. It's not very flattering, really, to be described as equivalent to grass or our days as being equivalent to grass. This would be quoted again by a man that we were reading from earlier, Peter, and he would say all flesh is as grass and the glory of man is as the flower of the grass.

The grass withers and the flower fades. The glory of mankind passes away. And we want to think about this for a moment in seriousness.

It testifies to us, doesn't it, of the fragility of our lives and the brevity of our lives. We seem to appear for a while. Our lives in the grand scheme of things are not very long.

We rise to a peak and then down the slippery slope of the other side as we face death and the stark reality of eternity and all that lies beyond. And so we must stop to think about what the Scriptures have spoken to us here this evening. All flesh is as grass.

You know, there is plenty of grass. We go outside and we see the grass. It moves in the wind from one way to the other.

This grass, it may not have been the regular grass that the writer was thinking of. Maybe it was the grass that you see out in the fields, corn-like grass, which produces its flower. And the sun comes up and beats down on the hot wind and soon it dries up and withers away.

I'm sure that you farmers and people in this area are very familiar with the comings and goings of the seasons. And you see the grass rise and flourish and it gets to its peak and then it's gone. Season after season.

You think of people that once lived in Garnavilla and after a few short years of life are gone. You know, friends, we have to stop and think about the reality that we're only here for a few short years and then the great beyond. We are a creature that thinks about the great beyond, distinct in all the creation of God, stamped with the image of God.

And we know that within our very being there's something that testifies, this conscience that we have, testifies to the eternal realities that are before us. The very fact that we look back and wonder where we came from and look on and think about where we might be going to and look up and think about if there is a God testifies that within us lies the conscious knowledge of these things and that's how we've been created. And so we read here all flesh is as grass.

I thought of the weakness of humanity. You know, after 6,000 plus years of recorded human history, we're still in a mess, aren't we? We still have so many problems on a global scale. Coronavirus comes, many people die.

Death is indiscriminate with its victims, old, young, rich, and poor. The psalmist looks out across the great landscape of this world. He looks at humanity in its totality and he says all flesh is as grass.

There's not a person in this audience this afternoon that lives on longer beyond the capped time that humanity has been given. You reach 70 years and if by reason of strength just a few more and then we die. I wonder if you're prepared to die.

I wonder if you know where you're going. I wonder if you young people just stop to think about what lies beyond. If God was to take your breath this very evening, where would you be? I stopped at that word, gone.

The verse did carry on as you would note, verse 16 of Psalm 103, but it says the wind passes over it and it's gone. Well, he's likening this to humanity. If you were to die tonight, gone, where? Just stop to think solemnly about where you would be.

I'm very thankful that God has left for us on record the reality of salvation, the possibility that you can be saved, the opportunity that he gives you, to be found safe in glory. We'll come to that more in a moment. But God speaks to us graphically, explicitly.

The Lord Jesus takes up these words in the New Testament and speaks of a man who died and was buried, lifted up his eyes in hell, being in torment, gone, where? I wonder where your trust is. I wonder what confidence you have for the future. I wonder if you know the assurance of your sins forgiven, or is it a big question mark to you? Maybe it's a worry to you.

Maybe you've heard the gospel many times. Well, I want you to know, my friends, that as for God, His way is perfect. You know, you can come to trust God.

He has provided for us a way of salvation. He's provided for us opportunity in life. He's left for us His Word, which teaches us, instructs us as to how we can be made right with God because of the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Not only has God placed the conscience within you that testifies when you sin against Him and left His Word indelibly for us to read, it speaks to us of His Son that came down from heaven. And I love to read this verse, as for God, His way is perfect. When you think of the mess in this world in which we live, and great leaders of this world can't sort out really problems that are small, and yet God, in the person of His Son, made a visitation to planet earth to sort the greatest problem known to humanity, the problem of our sin.

Do you know the Lord Jesus? Have you heard how the Son of God came down from heaven through the virgin womb, came into this world as we've been listening, as a real man, to experience what it was in manhood to suffer upon a cross for my sin and for your sin? The Son of God knew what it was to receive the judgment of God on our behalf. All flesh is as grass, passes away, utterly unable to do anything about the problem of sin in all our weakness. But I'm very thankful that the Lord Jesus Christ had the power to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

He could deal with this problem head on. He could exhaust the judgment of God for the sin of this world. He could bear my sins in His own body on the tree.

And so we read, as for God, His way is perfect. I thought about this in relation to the justice of God, perfect. The mercy of God, perfect.

The love of God, perfect. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. I'm very thankful that when it came to dealing with the problem of sin, God did not take a third party.

He would have been unjust, speaking reverently, if He had taken a third party and poured out His wrath upon a third party. No, He took His own Son, and God dealt with this problem of sin Himself. He took the responsibility Himself to deal with the sin of humanity, and He judged His own Son upon a cross, that you may find in Him the forgiveness of your sin.

You might find in Him peace with God, that you might come to know a living relationship which lasts. Listen to what the Bible says, the Word of the Lord is tried. It is a buckler to all those who trust in Him.

Yes, because of the work that Jesus Christ accomplished at Calvary's cross 2,000 years ago, into death, and in absolute satisfaction, God raised His Son, and took Him back to heaven, and set Him at His own right hand, at the pinnacle of glory. The Lord Jesus Christ sits in heaven as we speak, in this little gospel meeting here in Garnavillo, waiting to save any person that will trust Him. Would you put your confidence in the Lord Jesus? I came to hear about the Lord Jesus a few years ago.

I heard the gospel. I knew that I was a sinner. I hardly needed to be told that fact, but I came to hear that there was a Savior for sinners.

I came to hear of God's beloved Son, who came down from heaven to die upon a cross, and in my place condemned He stood. He sealed my pardon with His blood, and He went into death, all the awfulness of that judgment, and into the reality of death. But God raised His Son, and just at the side of a road, 20 years ago next month, I put my confidence, my trust in the Lord Jesus.

I can't even remember the exact words that I uttered. I didn't have an open Bible, or even a verse from the Bible upon my mind. I had heard the gospel, that which I'm preaching to you this evening, and which you will hear again in a moment, and at the side of a road, I just simply asked the Lord Jesus to save me, and He did.

Because this is what it says, the word of the Lord is tried. God has given you His word on this. We have it in our hands, we've been reading it.

This is the word of the Lord. This is not the word of the Garnavillo Gospel Hall, or the Christians of such and such a place, or some antiquated religion, or some going back into generations past. This is the word of the Lord.

This is God's word that you have on this matter, that He will save you if you trust His Son, and He will become a shield to you, to all those that trust Him. And I am very thankful that central to this message, as for God, His way is perfect. But we read a final verse, and we read, as for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness.

My wife came from a Christian home, and I know she won't mind me saying this, but when she was a little girl, contrary to what her parents taught her, of course, because she came from a fine Christian home, where her parents raised her with the Gospel message, but she thought when she was just a little girl, that she would be going to heaven, because she was living in a Christian home. She said she remembers going to school, and kind of looking at the other children at school, and feeling sorry for them that they weren't in Christian homes, and that she was in a Christian home and going to heaven. But then she said one day, her uncle preached the Gospel, and she heard for the first time, it sunk in for the first time, that she needed to personally trust Christ.

That's why I wanted to read this verse, as for me. Can you say that? Do you have absolute confidence this evening, that you could say, as for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness, that we will move into the presence of the Lord Jesus, where sin will never obstruct the sight again, and I will behold the very face of Christ, and there will be nothing to distract, and nothing to mar. And you know the Christian, he not only can say, she can not only say, I will behold thy face in righteousness, they can also say this, that I will awaken.

Let me just quote it again, I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. My brother Larry has said this numerous times already through this week, this weekend, that he can't wait to see the face of the Lord Jesus. I can't wait either.

What a moment it will be. But you know, for the Christians, we will not only see his face, we are going to wake with his likeness. We're going to be like him for eternity, in bodies that will never ever be able to sin again.

What hope, what glory. And as I stand upon this little podium, I can say, as for me, I shall be satisfied, and I shall awake with his likeness. Where are you? As for man, his days are as grass.

All the glory, gone. As for God, his way is perfect. As for me,