Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world.
So that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church, located in Kernersville, North Carolina. From the Word of God, would you please to the book of Lamentations as you're standing there? Lamentations chapter number three. And we'll return to this text the Spirit of God has led us to.
Anyone in here read Lamentations today? I'm just curious. Anyone read some? That's good. These are the overachievers among us, all right?
But I'm going to ask all of you, and I really mean this, to spend some time this week, not in the church service, on your own time, reading in the book of Lamentations. If you read it in here, it doesn't count, all right? You got to read it on your own, read it with your family, read it devotionally. We return again right where we left off earlier this Lord's Day, Lamentations chapter 3, verse number 22. It is of the Lord's mercies.
That we are not consumed. Because his compassions Fail not. They are new. every morning. Great is great.
By faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul. Therefore Well, I hope in him. Father, teach us now. As Jesus promised, by your Spirit, guide us into this truth.
Open it to us, Lord. Open us to you. And you to us. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Would you be seated, please? And I want you to mark something in your Bible. Look at the text again. Lamentations 3, verse 22. It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.
Now, In the first hour this morning, I had you mark the mercies in verse number 22. And we talked about the mercy of the Lord. How many of you are glad the Lord is still merciful? You might want to go back and read Psalm 136, where it says over and over and over again that his mercy endureth forever. Forever.
In fact, the first mention of that's way back in the book of Chronicles, and it's found all through the scripture that his mercy endureth forever. I like what the old Puritan Richard Sibbs in the Bruised Reed said. That there is more mercy in Christ than sin in us. And by the way, that's a whole lot of mercy because there's a whole lot of sin in us. And the word, of course, is a word for God's unchanging love.
He never fails. He never forgets. He never forsakes. He is always the same. And so we come to our verse for tonight, verse 23.
They are new every what's that word, church? I want you to take your pen and do something tonight. In verse 22, I'd like you to mark mercies, and in verse 23, I'd like you to mark mourning and connect the two in your Bible and in your thinking. The oldest Psalm in the Bible, Psalm 90, verse number 14, Moses, the old man of God, said, Satisfy us early with thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Watch this.
The earlier in a day you experience the mercy of God, the more of God's presence you have all day long. And the earlier in life you experience the mercy of God, the more of God's presence you enjoy all the days of your life. In other words, if you want God in on the flight and in on the landing, you ought to get him in on the takeoff. And in Scripture That's the morning. How many morning people are here?
Would you raise your hand, all you mourning people? We don't like you. We want you to know that, all right? How many night people are here? All you night owls?
Look at that. How many of you are neither? Would you raise your hand, please? These people have two good hours in the middle of the day. That's all they have.
The older I get, the more of a morning person I become. Not because I don't want to sleep in, I just can't. That means you know what I'm talking about. And uh praise God for coffee. I had a teacher in college used to say he didn't even feel like a Christian when he had his second cup of coffee in the morning.
I'm starting to understand what he meant. You know, that's sanctification, I think. But there is something very special about the morning hours. Jesus rose a great while before day. and went into a solitary place.
And there prayed. At the end of every message I ever give, I give some type of invitation. They're all a little different, but I still like giving invitations. I like calling on people to believe the gospel and obey the truth. And frankly, I don't think church ought to be a spectator sport.
I think you ought to be a participant. And I think the obedience doesn't start when you get home. It ought to start right in the meeting. But I want to tell you right up front tonight that tonight's invitation will take place tomorrow morning. It will not happen in this auditorium.
Oh, we'll have a season of prayer when I'm done preaching, but. The real application of what I'm going to show you in the Word of God tonight will not be seen in this meeting in some public place. It will be seen early tomorrow morning in your private place alone with God. You see, I'm not preaching tonight for tonight. I'm preaching for tomorrow morning.
No, no, I'm preaching for in the words of Jeremiah every Morning. See, there's something better. Than decisions. And don't get me wrong, I love decisions. I love to see people profess faith in Christ, and backsliders get right, and people join a church, and folks get right with each other.
And we see a lot of that in special meetings, and I love that. But don't miss this: the decision is not the goal, the goal is what grows out of the decision. The greatest thing in a special meeting is not the meeting, it's what the meeting sets in motion. I understand this church the last several months has been really praying and giving yourself to prayer. And I want to thank you for that.
I want to tell you, you sense a difference in a meeting when people's hearts are ready and prepared to hear from God. But increasingly, I have come to believe that the great thing is not what goes into a meeting, it's what grows out of a meeting. See, there is something better than a revival meeting, it's called a revived life. As thrilled as I was this morning to see an altar full of people praying. I'm going to tell you what would be even grander to grow out of this meeting is if out of this meeting, in the early morning, every morning, every morning, this church family, everywhere you are, in your apartment or trailer or in your house or wherever it is you call home, you meet with God in that place.
It was Matthew Henry that said, wherever man pitches a tent, God should have an altar. I wonder. Do you meet with God in the mornings? And we're going to take a little trip. We're coming back.
I promise you, we're coming back.
So, mark Lamentations 3 and don't lose your spot. But we're going to take a little trip. And I'm going to ask you to follow along.
So get your fingers limbered up, would you please? Because we're going to do just a little turning. But I'm going somewhere with this. Go back to the book of Job with me for just a moment. Would you please?
I take you to the oldest book of the Bible because I want you to see. How this principle is woven through the whole of Scripture. Look at Job chapter number 7. Job is in the throes of his trial. Might I say there's an interesting parallel between Job and the Book of Lamentations.
In one, Job is lamenting, and in the other, Jeremiah is lamenting. Can I remind you that even God's people have their burdens? And the burden, look at me, the burden should not serve to drive you further from God, it should serve to draw you nearer to God. The question is not what are you going to do with your brokenness, or are you going to have brokenness? The question is, what are you going to do with the brokenness?
Look at Job chapter number seven, verse seventeen. Job is weeping. And he says, What is man? That thou shouldest magnify him, and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him, and that thou shouldest visit him. What's the next two words, church?
Every morning. And try him every moment. David would echo these words, What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him? Job said, Dear God, what am I? Why are you letting me go through this trial?
It's like every morning when I get up, you're doing something. Every morning when I get up, you have something you're trying to say to me. Why, Lord? Still in Job? Come over a pe few pages to Job chapter 33.
Job Is learning something about how God speaks and how God works. Oh, may God help us to learn. Look at Job 33 and verse number 14. For God speaketh once, yea, twice. Yet man perceiveth it not.
I wonder sometimes how many times God has to speak before we listen. Look when he speaks most, verse 15, in a dream. In a vision of the night, When deep sleep falleth upon men in slumberings upon the bed, then he openeth the ears of men and sealeth their instruction that he may withdraw man from his purpose and hide pride from man. He says, I get you alone in your bedroom, lying in your bed, staring at the ceiling, eyes wide open, wetting your pillow with your tears, trying to figure it out, can't fix your problems, but that's exactly where I want you to be because it's at that moment, it's not you and everybody else, it's you and God. You know, it's interesting, but All the world in some way reflects the way God deals with us.
You ever wonder why the lights go out at night? Why did God make it so you had to go to sleep at night? That's not part of the fall.
Somebody say, well, that's a curse. That's not part of the curse. God made the moon and the stars and the lights to go out at night so that you and I would go to bed and go to sleep. Why didn't God make Adam and Eve so they'd run like energizer bunnies 24 hours a day? And we'll tell you why you get tired, why you get weary.
Because every night, sleep is God's reminder that God is God and you are not. It is built in to the rhythm of every day, God's reminder that there is an end to you, but blessed be God, there is no end to the one who faints not, neither is weary. You got to go to sleep tonight. That's all right. God's going to sit up all night long.
He works the night shift, you see. And what is the morning? The morning, likewise, is God's object and reminder that every morning there is to be a freshness as we approach the day. In a sense, every morning is a revival meeting. Every morning is a resurrection of sorts.
We died, and God, in His mercy and grace, lets us rise again. And every morning is God's object lesson to us that we desperately need our God. Not sometimes. Every morning. Come on with me over to the Psalms just a minute and stop off.
Would you please? Psalm five for a moment. And listen to the psalmist, David. Give ear to my words, O Lord. Consider my meditation.
Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my king and my God. For unto thee will I pray. And everybody look at Psalm 5 and verse number 3. My voice. Shalt thou hear when?
In the morning, O Lord, And he repeats it a second time: In the morning, will I direct my prayer unto thee and will look up. You know what most people do when they wake up in the morning? What's the first thing most people reach for? A mobile phone.
Well, even in the world we live in today, most people use it for an alarm and that kind of thing. But I travel all the time. I wake up in different hotel rooms and places every morning. And frankly, Pastor, you've done a lot of this. You know what I'm talking about.
A lot of times I wake up and have to think for a minute: what state am I in today? Strange. And very often I reach over and I grab a phone to turn off an alarm or See what time it is. And if you're not careful, you know what you do every morning, first thing? Every morning, you start checking your messages, and checking your email, and checking your social media, and checking what everybody else is doing, checking what everybody else is saying.
If you're not careful, here's what's going to happen to you: every morning, you're going to get so in tune with the people around you without getting in tune with God, and you're going to start your day talking to the wrong person. Let me give you a little practical recommendation. When you get up tomorrow morning, Before your feet hit the floor. Before you speak to anybody else, stretch yourself out on your bed and imagine that your bed is an altar for a living sacrifice. And lift your head toward heaven.
Look up and say, Lord, thank you for the mercy of God that let me live to see another day. And I give this day and myself back to you. I've been trying to do that myself every morning for the last several months. And Madison has changed the way I start my day. It's suddenly, you know what it's doing?
Look at the verse. It's getting my head up, my eyes on the Lord every morning. Come on over. You still in the Psalms? Come over to Psalm 88 just a moment.
A different psalmist, best we can tell. Same principle. Look at Psalm 88, verse number 13. But unto thee have I cried, O Lord. And, oh, I love this.
Look at Psalm 88, verse 13. In the morning. Shall my prayer prevent thee? He says, I just want you to know, Lord, for I talk to everybody else, I'm going to talk to you. Before I see everybody else's face, I'm going to see your face.
I'm not going to give you the leftovers. I'm going to give you the first fruits. I'm not going to wait until I'm too weird to even speak. I'm going to give you the first energy and the light of a new day. I'm going to lift my eyes and my voice to you in the morning.
Come on over to Psalm 92 just a minute. Anybody starting to see a pattern? Look at Psalm 92, verse 2. It begins in verse 1: It's a good thing to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High. Look at verse 2.
to show forth Thy loving kindness Would you mark it? In the morning. And thy faithfulness. Every night, almost like bookends on the day. Look at that verse.
You got the morning and you got the night. It's loving kindness. By the way, that's the same word we learned this morning: mercies. That's Hased. That's the same word.
Loving kindness. God's mercy. Every morning. It's mercy that you live to see another day. It's God's love that you can get out of bed.
It's God's kindness that you have the health and energy to sustain you to this moment. Blessed be our great God every morning. And when you come to the nighttime hours, oh Lord, God, thank you for your faithfulness. Come on over a few pages of Psalm 143. Mark them in your Bibles, Psalm 143, verse 8.
Calls me to hear Thy loving kindness, Hasid, Same word. Mercies. Thy loving kindness in the morning. For in thee do I trust. Calls me to know the way wherein I should walk.
For I lift up my soul in thee. Dear God, I'm starting the day. I don't even know how to walk today. Look, I can get out of bed, but I don't know which way to go. I can get dressed, but I don't know what to do.
I can get in my car and drive to the job or drive to the school, but it can't get done today. What I need to get done today, if you don't show me the way wherein I should walk, oh God, speak to me every morning. I love the back and forth here. Don't you love the back and forth? He said, I'm going to talk to you in the morning.
Now I'm listening for you to talk to me in the morning. There's some voices I love to hear every morning. I love to hear my wife. Speak my name. Say I love you.
I love to hear the voices of my children. Our oldest daughter called me as I was coming into the meeting tonight, and oh, I just love to hear her voice, precious, tender to me. But I'm testifying now: there is no voice on this earth that I enjoy hearing any more, especially in the morning hours, than the voice of Almighty God. It's amazing how the voice of God brings clarity in a world of confusion, cuts through all the other noise. And suddenly, when you get what old Vance Habner called in tune with heaven, it seems like everything else finds its proper place because you're in tune with God now.
In the morning. Come over to the book of Isaiah. Look at Isaiah chapter 33. See, this is God's principle. Look, I'm not preaching my principle tonight.
I'm preaching God's principle tonight. Look at Isaiah 33 and verse number 2. Oh, Lord. Be gracious unto us. We have waited for thee.
By the way, did you notice that in almost all these verses there is, oh Lord. How many of you noticed that? Oh Lord, I lift up my prayer. Oh Lord, I want to hear it. Oh Lord, right?
It's the same name we studied this morning, the covenant, God, the faithful God. But notice the little word before it. What's the little word before the Lord? What is it? Say it out loud.
What is it? Would you please define that word for me? If I said, stand up and tell me what O means. It's a word that defies definition. You know why?
Because O is more of a groan than it is a word. Watch this. O is what you say when you don't know what to say. I love this. The psalmists, the prophets, all of them just said, Oh.
I'm going to tell you what's wrong with us, church. We've lost our O. Oh, we know how to pray. Matter of fact, we pray beautiful prayers. Such beautiful prayers that everybody else is impressed by them.
We've lost our hoe. We've lost the prayer, Moses. Oh, Lord. Pardon the sin of your people. And if not, you ever read that?
There's a dash there, a brokenness. The dash is not a grammatical error in Scripture. It's a sign of brokenness. Where is the brokenness? Where is the O of God's people?
See, as long as you can live without the presence of God, go right on, just like you've been going on. You'll live that way. But there'll come a moment where God will bring you to your Job moment. God will bring you to your Jeremiah moment. God will bring your life to lamentations, and suddenly you got nothing but God, and you've got to say, Oh, God, I've got to have you today.
Let me tell you how to know that you're ready and on praying ground on your hardest day. Be on praying ground every day. Every morning. Come on over to Isaiah 50. You didn't know this was all in here, did you?
Look at Isaiah 50. Verse number four. The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned. That I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. Stop just a minute.
How many of you know we're living in a weary world? By the way, tomorrow is Monday, and you're going to meet a whole lot of weary people tomorrow. You know, they need a word from God. They need somebody who heard from God today to tell them about God tomorrow. Don't you miss this.
You're not going to be ready. Unless every morning, tomorrow morning, You get a word from God yourself. And I tell you, as a preacher, I've learned this. I don't need to get a sermon. You don't need another sermon.
I don't need a good outline. I don't have to impress you. I don't have to preach the greatest sermon you ever heard. I'm going to tell you what I need: me, Scott Paulie, me, as a Christian, not a preacher, as a Christian. You know what I need?
I got to get in tune with God. I got to hear the voice of God. I got to live in the presence of God. And if I just concentrate on that, out of the overflow of that, God will give me something to say to somebody else.
So keep reading. Look at the end of verse number 4. He said, He that is the Lord wakeneth. I love this phrase. Morning by morning.
He wakeneth mine ear to hears the learned. You might want to write in the margin of your Bible every morning. Every morning, you know, on Sundays, it's easy to feel spiritual. Can I get a witness there, yes? You hear this kind of beautiful music, and you sit around God's people and say, Isn't it just wonderful to be a Christian?
You know, it's wonderful. And then Monday morning rolls around. How many of you are with me? And you got to go to work and school. Deal with family and junk.
By the way, everybody's got to deal with.
Social media, you know, social media is a blessing and a curse. And one of the curses of it is the comparison it causes people to do. You look at people's lives and you get the impression that everything is perfect in their life. Let me just tell you, there are no perfect people, and most people who look like they got it all together are usually coming apart at the seams. You hold the camera just right, take 45 pictures, and put the right filter on it, anybody looks good.
And I came to tell you tonight: some of you need to stop looking at everybody else, listening to everybody else. You need to get up tomorrow morning. You need to get in the Bible, get on your face, get in tune with God every morning, every morning, get a word from the Lord, and out of that, go forth in power to walk with Jesus Christ. I wrote in the back of my Bible the words of Charles Spurge, and he said, The morning is the gate of the day. and must be well grounded in prayer.
He who would rush from the bed to the business is like he who is not washed or dressed. You wouldn't think about getting up and running out of your house naked tomorrow morning. At least I hope you wouldn't. Put some clothes on. But you know the problem?
We got a whole bunch of Christians who are not spiritually dressed, equipped, and ready for the day. You got to get in tune with God in the morning. Ian Bounds said, The men who've done the most for God in this world have been early on their knees. He who fritters away the early morning, its opportunity and freshness in other pursuits than seeking God, will make poor headway seeking Him the rest of the day. If God is not first in our thoughts and efforts in the morning, He will be in the last place the rest of the day.
Martin Luther said On one particular occasion, I have so much to do. I must get up and pray for three hours before the day begins. That's not the way we live, is it? Maybe that's why we got such weak, anemic, pathetic, average, run-of-the-mill kind of Christianity that's leading very few people to Jesus, seeing very few answers to prayer, and making very little difference in this world. Brother, when you don't live in the presence of God, you don't have the power of God on you.
But when you get in the presence of God early in the morning, the whole day has the fragrance of heaven upon it. I wonder. What do you do in the mornings? Let me show you one more. Go over to the book of Zephaniah for just a minute.
Some of you say, is that in the Bible? Yes, that's in the Bible. It's where the pages still stick together, all right? It's still really white and clean because we don't go there often. Look at Zephaniah chapter 3.
Verse number five. The just Lord The prophet says. Is in the midst thereof, he will not do iniquity. Notice these two words. It almost is like, it's almost like the Holy Ghost keeps using this phrase on purpose to get our attention.
Can I just remind you that when God repeats himself, it's never because he forgot he said it. It's because there's something here he doesn't want us to forget he said. Mark it, Zephaniah 3.
Some of you are still looking. That's Matthew, Mark, Luke, Zephaniah. All right? Zephaniah chapter 3, verse 5. Mark it every morning.
Doth he bring his judgment to light. He faileth not, but the unjust knoweth no shame. God is working in our lives every morning. Yeah. We let it With that in mind, go back now to the book of Lamentations and let me give you my thoughts very briefly before we pray.
How do you make every morning a revival meeting? You know, I've been around meetings all my life. I'm in a lot of meetings every week in my life now. Every week. All kinds of churches.
And I want you to know that when you've been around this long enough, in a meeting, you can get people stirred up. There's buzzwords you can use and things you can talk about. Brother, you can get people worked up into a holy lather and an unholy lather. And I'm going to tell you what I've learned. That hasn't changed anybody's life.
No? There's people that hop from religious meeting to religious meeting. They ride a religious roller coaster all the time. They're up and down, in and out, on and off, hot and cold. And they come in and they say, oh, I got to chill up my spine.
It was wonderful. God was really among us. Yeah. And the emotion wears off. By the way, you let emotion run your life, it'll ruin your life.
I'm not talking about emotional life. I'm not talking about having a good feeling. I'm not talking about a positive mental attitude. I'm talking about getting in tune with Almighty God through faith and letting God do in your life every day what He wants to do and starting every morning.
So how do you do that?
Well, let's walk through these verses and I'll give you these thoughts. Number one. Every morning you must acknowledge His mercy.
Sound familiar? That's where it begins, verse 22. It's of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. That means every day you need to begin the day thinking on God's mercy in your life. Rehearse to yourself how good God has been.
This is gonna sound strange, but I'm gonna tell you how to be ready to preach the gospel to others. You ready? Preach the gospel to yourself every day. Look at yourself in the mirror in the morning while you're getting ready. and say you are a dirty, rotten, filthy sinner.
I'm really helping your self-esteem tonight, aren't I? And you deserve to go to hell. But Jesus loved you. and washed you from your s The greatest news that anyone can receive is the news of the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is our desire for you to know him personally.
Would you take a moment to hear this today? Every man is born with a sin nature. Romans three twenty three says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. No matter how hard we try, we're not good enough to obtain God's glory. or to get to heaven.
Because of that, sin carries the penalty of death. Romans 6:23 says, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of our sin, or the payment of our sin, only equals death and separation from God. But it's only through God's gift of salvation through Jesus Christ that we can accept him as our Savior.
Jesus Christ paid for your sin debt. The Bible says in Romans 5.8, But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. All you have to do is receive Christ. by faith as your Saviour. Romans 10, 9 says, That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Verse 13 continues, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's as simple as admitting that you're a sinner, believing that Jesus is the only way, and calling upon his name. Bible says whosoever that's anyone can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Have you accepted Christ as your personal Savior? There is no greater day than to day to take care of this.
Would you accept Christ as your Saviour? If you have any questions, please give us a call at 336-993-5192 or visit our website at CurwinBaptastChurch.com. or visits that person at one of our three service times. We hope you have a great rest of your day. God bless you.
Yeah.
