7. God’s Clear and Patient Grace! Psalm 78:35-57

Text: “But He (the Lord God), being full of compassion forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned He His anger away, and did not stir up His wrath.  For He remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.”

Psalm 78:38-39. 

Good morning, thankful Christian!  Your thankfulness, and mine is, primarily, an everlasting thankfulness and gratitude for being permitted, elected, to be part of God’s Salvation plan Divinely conceived in Eternity – when God the Father chose us as His gift to His Son, Jesus Christ, with the full pre-knowledge that His dear Son would go to the Cross and suffer and die to make a full Atonement Sacrifice for all the sins of ‘His people’ elected to Salvation. 

“All that the Father giveth Me (in Eternity, before the world was Created) shall come to Me; and him/her that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.”  (John 6:37)

However, following this primary cause for great thankfulness and Eternal gratitude, we are also most grateful and eternally thankful for God’s patient grace bestowed upon us AFTER we have been gloriously saved, AFTER we have been redeemed by the precious and sinless Blood of Christ Jesus, God’s only begotten Lamb.  Redeemed sinners are still sinners yet!

God has been so very gracious to us, in tolerating our sin-prone state, and, after granting us continual repentance from our committed sin, and after confessing it to Him - continuing to forgive us our sin, and continuing to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This gracious gift of God to us enables us to continue on in close fellowship with His Holy Self. 

Praise God for His gift of repentance and Progressive Sanctification from our daily sins!  Hallelujah!  What a Saviour we love and seek to serve, in Christ Jesus!

“If we say that we have no sin (after we are saved), we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:8-10)

The Sin of Self-righteousness: One of the greatest sins being committed today within the professing church of Christ, is the sin of self-righteousness, which is in itself, a form of blatant legalism.

Legalism: “A term that is used with various meanings. 1. The dogma of Salvation by works, the heresy that man must earn a place in Heaven by his/her personal righteousness. 2. Neonomianism – the theory that works of obedience are a constitutional part of saving faith, rather than its natural fruit.  In earlier times Neonomianism produced the sterile moralism of moderatism.  Nowadays it has found a place in much evangelical preaching where faith is looked upon as “man’s part” in the plan of Salvation.  It is often popularly expressed, “God has done His part, now it is up to you to do your part.” In the Neonomian scheme, this doing is the condition of Salvation; it is not the fruit of the free gift of saving faith, sovereignly imparted by God to His elect.” (Alan Cairns, Dictionary of Theological Terms, Ambassador-Emerald International, 1998)

Legalism: Sinful man gets all puffed up by relying on his ‘works’, how many times he/she attends church-meetings; how much he/she tithes to the church group; how much of the ‘touch not, taste not, abstain from’ one can personally achieve –  this all leads to the person thinking of themselves as not as sinful as other professing believers all around, and thus promotes within themselves a ‘better than thou’ attitude, which can stifle the grace of Christian humility and thankfulness for God’s free and Sovereign grace bestowed daily. 

Self-righteousness is an ugly characteristic being too much tolerated and practiced within church groups today, as those afflicted by it take on the high look and distaste of one constantly sucking on a sour grape.  Or indulge vain-glorious pride in self: Phariseeism.

“Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth (does, and continues to do) the will of My Father which is in Heaven.” (Matthew 7:19-21) God’s will is found, clearly, in God’s Word.

“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10) We all need Christ’s impeccable righteousness to get into Heaven, and that is imputed unto us by God-given faith.

The Lord God in His Divinity is long-suffering towards sinners such as we, ‘His people’, and necessary so, for honest Christians prove to ourselves every day, the sinfulness of our Adamic, sin-prone, nature.  This is the point in this lesson that the self-righteous and the legalistic professors leave the page in protest.  Please feel free to do so.

Psalm 78: 35-56: This section of Psalm 78 reveals how consistently mankind has provoked our Holy Lord God by our accursed sinful nature, inherited from Adam, but if we are honest, wilfully practiced by ourselves.  This section of Psalm 78 also, praise God, reveals God’s clear and patient grace bestowed upon our forefathers in the wilderness, and ourselves in the increasingly apostate wilderness of this modern 21^st Century social and political world.

State of the Nations: False worship, religious flattery of God, dishonesty, provocation of our Holy Lord God in a host of varied manners; ignoring of God’s Day of grace; taking for granted God’s deliverance from floods, earthquakes, disease; wild storms; the nations have wallowed in diabolical social trends and deep sin that the Lord God has proven to all that He particularly detests. God cannot bless nations or individuals that persist in blatant ignoring of His’ clear and patient grace’. If we deny the Lord God, He will deny us. Time to turn from sin. “But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him/her will I also deny before My Father which is in Heaven.” (Matthew 10:33)

Verse 56. “And kept not His testimonies. They were true to nothing but hereditary treachery; steadfast in nothing but in falsehood.  They knew His truth and forgot it, His will and disobeyed it, His grace and perverted it to an occasion for greater transgression.” (C.H. Spurgeon, Treasury of David, page 341)

Thought: It is dangerous to ignore God’s clear and patient grace. Judgement is coming.