-
Brethren, please turn in your Bibles
-
to Psalm 1.
-
Our brother Craig said he felt inclined
-
to preach from this psalm last week,
-
but he didn't, because
the week before that
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Brother Nathan Rages
-
brought us a message on stability
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or stay-bility.
-
And Craig felt that he didn't just use
-
this psalm as a launching point,
-
but kind of stayed here for quite awhile,
-
so Craig thought to move on,
-
but I think it's interesting
-
that three preachers in a row
-
have been impressed as I have as well,
-
even before Nathan brought that.
-
I've been thinking much about
-
the first psalm.
-
And I am inclined to take us there again,
-
even after Craig was
done preaching last week,
-
I told Craig, I believe I am
-
going to deal with Psalm 1,
-
and, God helping us,
-
let's look at it.
-
Let's read it
-
in its entirety.
-
"Blessed is the man..."
-
And I'll tell you, if we know Scripture,
-
there are one in a thousand such men.
-
"Blessed is the man
-
who walks not in the
counsel of the wicked,
-
nor stands in the way of sinners,
-
nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
-
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
-
and on His law, he
meditates day and night.
-
He is like a tree planted
-
by streams of water,
-
that yields its fruit in its season,
-
and its leaf does not wither.
-
In all that he does, he prospers.
-
The wicked are not so..."
-
In fact, in the Septuagint, this reads
-
as a double negative:
-
Not so the ungodly. Not so.
-
"...but are like chaff,
-
that the wind drives away.
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Therefore the wicked will not stand
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in the judgment,
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nor sinners in the congregation
-
of the righteous."
-
Churches here are mixed,
-
but as we heard in the first hour,
-
every church has at least one devil in it.
-
They're mixed here.
-
They won't be then.
-
"For the Lord knows
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the way of the righteous,
-
but the way of the wicked will perish."
-
This is a psalm.
-
It's the first one.
-
In it, you saw it,
-
there's two men.
-
There's one called (v. 1) blessed...
-
is the man.
-
And then when you look down in v. 6,
-
"The Lord knows the way of the righteous."
-
There's one man - the blessed man,
-
the righteous man.
-
And then there's another man.
-
And you see him here.
-
V. 4 - "The wicked are not so."
-
V. 5 "The wicked will not stand..."
-
V. 6 "The wicked will perish."
-
We're all here.
-
All mankind encapsulated
in this one psalm.
-
But see, I see a problem right off.
-
I mean, as I read this,
-
and I think about preaching it.
-
I recognize, you - as you process this,
-
that man has a built-in disposition
-
to deny and reject that he is wicked.
-
Nobody takes that term upon themselves.
-
I know you've got certain crazy people
-
out there that delight in such things.
-
But I'll tell you, when
really pushed to it,
-
as far as their eternal welfare,
-
as far as their standing before God,
-
men sarcastically will talk about
-
being wicked,
-
or in their pride,
-
they will try to outdo one another
-
in evil deeds,
-
but when they're pressed to it,
-
men say, well, in the depths of my heart,
-
really at the deepest level,
-
I'm a good person.
-
You see, I recognize
there's a disposition.
-
Why?
-
Because the word just sounds too horrible.
-
Wicked.
-
It's too heinous.
-
It's just too bad to describe me.
-
And here's what happens:
-
So, men think to themselves,
-
Ok, I'm about to hear the righteous
-
compared with the wicked.
-
Well, I know I'm not wicked.
-
So somehow or another,
-
what's said of the righteous -
-
it has to describe me.
-
Maybe not perfectly,
-
but I'm in there somewhere.
-
Because I'm not wicked.
-
I know I'm not that.
-
So, somehow I've got to fit in over here.
-
What's said of the wicked man
-
can't possibly be true of me.
-
You see, men, men... presuppositions -
-
their ideas about themselves.
-
In fact, what's interesting is how often
-
the Bible has to tell us who we are.
-
It's amazing.
-
It has to tell wicked people who they are,
-
and it has to tell the
righteous who they are.
-
Why?
-
Because we have a real hard time
-
getting that straight ourselves,
-
even as Christians.
-
Think about how often
-
the New Testament is simply
-
telling Christians who they are.
-
We don't get it right.
-
As Christians, we tend to think less
-
of ourselves than we ought to.
-
And as lost people,
-
we tend to think far more of ourselves
-
than we ought to.
-
We have a real hard time
-
getting this straight.
-
And so God comes along
-
and over and over and over again,
-
He is telling us who we are.
-
What we are.
-
This is why the Bible goes
-
to all these lengths
-
to define us over and over.
-
And you know what?
-
There's nothing that tells us who we are
-
like this book tells us who we are.
-
Nothing describes us like this book.
-
So, here's the thing,
-
v. 4, the wicked are not so.
-
You know what?
-
If we could just tear that out -
-
we don't want to do that,
-
but if we did, if we just replaced it
-
with "the man of the world..."
-
intelligent, intellectual, wise,
-
independent, fun-loving,
-
free-spirited, free thinking, witty...
-
you know what,
-
we might get more
people to be honest.
-
Because the problem is, as soon
as the word wicked comes up,
-
oh, that's not me!
-
But you know, if we
redefined it a little bit,
-
and put it in more acceptable terms,
-
people would let their guard down.
-
But that word wicked...
-
what about that?
-
It makes us think of wicked witches.
-
The wicked - like the devil.
-
But notice the simplicity of it all.
-
Look at v. 4.
-
"The wicked are not so."
-
Just think about that.
-
Think about the simplicity of that.
-
The wicked are not so.
-
There's no horns.
-
There's no pointed hat
-
and black cats here.
-
They don't torture people
in their basement.
-
What is it?
-
What's true of the righteous...
-
not so.
-
That's the wicked.
-
They're not pedophiles.
-
Pedophiles are wicked,
-
but you get my drift here?
-
This is just: show me
-
what the righteous man is;
-
the wicked man is just not like that.
-
He doesn't have to run around
-
being an axe murderer.
-
He's just not like the righteous.
-
You see, there's only
two categories here, folks.
-
And if you're not in the righteous,
-
the blessed man category,
-
you're in the other.
-
You're just not like the righteous.
-
That's it.
-
That's the wicked.
-
We need to see this for what it is.
-
The wicked are not so.
-
Brethren, this is God's teaching.
-
That's what Psalm 1 is.
-
What we come to right here -
-
it was spoken by David in the beginning,
-
but this is no invention of man.
-
This is inspired language.
-
This is God defining humanity.
-
There are only two alternatives here.
-
You see it.
-
Men are so disposed
-
to think in degrees.
-
Right?
-
It's not just black or white.
-
We like to think in degrees.
-
We like to think
-
somewhere in the middle.
-
That there's other alternatives.
-
But we're not given that.
-
There's no middle ground somewhere here.
-
See, we tend to think,
-
well, come on, are you
righteous all the time?
-
Well, you know, I'm a sinner,
-
but I'm not that bad.
-
I'm not wicked.
-
So, I'm somewhere in the middle.
-
Scripture doesn't allow that.
-
We tend to think that way,
-
but Scripture doesn't allow this
-
thinking in degrees.
-
It's pretty radical.
-
Boy, how often does Scripture do this?
-
It's everywhere - in the Old Testament
-
and in the New. Everywhere!
-
That Scripture comes along and says
-
Bang! Bang!
-
Two camps.
-
You're in one or the other.
-
Radical. No in-between's.
-
That is such the language of Scripture
-
over and over and over.
-
Only two men in this psalm.
-
No middle ground.
-
Either one or the other.
-
We're looking at two men.
-
Just two.
-
You're like one.
-
Or you're not so.
-
So, let's consider this.
-
Let's consider the first four words.
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"Blessed is the man..."
-
I've got five "P's"
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that I want to use to describe just this:
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Blessed is the man.
-
The first is this.
-
The first "P": Plurality.
-
There's a plurality of blessednesses.
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Martin Luther points out,
-
and I needed somebody else to tell me this
-
because I can make my way through Greek,
-
but Hebrew is out there.
-
Luther says in the Hebrew,
-
the word "blessed" is plural.
-
It's literally blessednesses.
-
All blessednesses are the portion
-
of this blessed man.
-
All things are well
-
with a man like this.
-
Spurgeon calls it
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the multiplicity of blessings.
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You want to be this guy.
-
This means everything is good.
-
Everything is blessed.
-
Blessednesses.
-
The second "P" is
-
the propensity towards blessedness.
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What do I mean by that?
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Propensity.
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The desire.
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We desire this.
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All men desire this.
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Brethren, as was mentioned by Craig
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last week, happy, blessed,
-
blessed is the man.
-
There are places such
as Deuteronomy 33:29 -
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"Happy are you, O Israel!
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Who is like you?
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A people saved by the Lord."
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Yes, this word can be translated
-
directly: "happy."
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The happinesses - it's plural.
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All the happinesses of the man
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that's described here.
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And here's the thing.
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You think with me here.
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Of all that God could have done
-
in starting out the book of Psalms,
-
the very first one,
-
the very first line,
-
He hits us with the thing
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that all men have a propensity for;
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that all men long after:
-
happiness.
-
We are all anxious to be blessed.
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When we hear Esau,
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remember how he was?
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With his father Isaac?
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"Bless me, even me also, O my father!"
-
Bless me!
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That's how we all are.
-
We want it!
We want it!
-
See, he was faced with the fact
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that he was losing it.
-
And he was desparate.
-
Bless me!
-
We all want that blessing.
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And you know what gives man
-
even the ability to make it
-
from one day to the next
-
is hope that ultimately,
-
he will receive that.
-
Hell is such hopelessness
-
because it's all gone.
-
The blessednesses - all gone.
-
But this is the longing
of the soul of man.
-
Right here at the beginning
-
of the very first psalm.
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The third "P":
-
The positivity of blessedness.
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What do I mean?
-
"Blessed is the man."
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Is. I put stress on "is."
-
It's not just that he will be.
-
He is.
-
The first psalm is God telling us
-
that blessedness is not
just for the future.
-
You can be sitting here right in this room
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in this world at this time
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and be a man or woman
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of all blessednesses.
-
I mean, you can sit here
-
and be the absolute envy -
-
if the truth were to be known -
-
the absolute envy of all mankind.
-
You have that which all men want.
-
There's a positivity here.
-
It's attainable.
-
In this world, it's attainable.
-
No matter if it's 106 degrees out.
-
It's attainable.
-
No matter if you're going through trials.
-
It's attainable.
-
That's the thing.
-
Go with David some time
-
and visit the nursing home.
-
Or, come with John Sytsma
-
when he goes over to Nepal,
-
and you look at one of these Hindi people
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in their seventies or eighties.
-
You look at the old people
-
there in the nursing home.
-
Their faces - empty, hollow,
-
and they're just sad.
-
Why?
-
They've lived their lives.
-
So many promises of happiness.
-
When we talk about
-
"blessed is the man,"
-
they're one in a thousand.
-
You know what the other 999
-
are doing all the time?
-
The pleasures of sin for a season.
-
And those little pleasures in sin,
-
they're saying, "Try me! You'll be happy!"
-
"Try me! You'll be happy!"
-
And you're grasping at the wind.
-
You're grasping at mist.
-
Because there's pleasure for a season
-
and then it's gone.
-
And you spend a whole life doing that
-
and all these promises of happiness.
-
And you get to the end
-
and their religions haven't done it.
-
Their false gods have not done it.
-
And in all their old age,
you look at them,
-
they're miserable.
-
They're out of their minds.
-
They just cuss and they swear
-
and they're mean.
-
You go there.
-
Isn't that how they are?
-
Just nasty old people.
-
Why?
-
Just hopeless.
-
They're getting to the end
-
and everything has proven empty.
-
It's just emptiness.
-
Only fear looms before them.
-
Happiness is one of
the most elusive things
-
in this world.
-
You have a world out there chasing it,
-
and few there be that find it.
-
Few actually lay hold on it.
-
But, the promise here is
-
that there is a blessed man.
-
It's attainable.
-
That's the thing.
-
And oh, brethren,
-
don't we hear it in the
very blood of Christ.
-
If anything whispers "blessedness,"
-
it's that blood.
-
The next "P" - the fourth:
-
The place of blessedness.
-
By "place," I mean,
-
where is it to be found?
-
Notice this:
-
Look at v. 2.
-
"His delight is in the law of the Lord
-
and on His law he
meditates day and night."
-
Now, brethren, hear me carefully.
-
There is not a text,
-
and you won't find it.
-
Never found it in my Bible -
-
not any of the Bibles I've ever owned.
-
You will never find a beatitude that says,
-
blessed is the man who hungers and thirsts
-
for blessedness.
-
You won't find it.
-
It's not there.
-
Where is blessedness to be found?
-
Happiness is not to be found
-
in just seeking to be happy.
-
Think with me here.
-
What does this man desire?
-
The law of the Lord.
-
He meditates on it day and night.
-
Why? Because in
that he finds his God.
-
In that he finds life;
-
he finds his Christ, his Messiah.
-
(Incomplete thought)
-
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
-
for righteousness.
-
They will be satisfied.
-
Brethren, think of this.
-
Think of this truth.
-
If you grab for happiness,
-
you miss it.
-
It just turns to mist.
-
It slips away.
-
It's only the man or the woman
-
who actually seek for something else
-
that find happiness.
-
Do you notice that?
-
Or listen to Psalm 119:2.
Don't turn there, but listen.
-
"Blessed are those who
keep His testimonies,
-
who seek Him with their whole heart."
-
You see?
-
We seek Him. We find blessing.
-
We seek His Word. We find blessing.
-
We seek His righteousness.
-
We find blessing.
-
We seek first the Kingdom.
-
We find all things.
-
Is that not how Scripture is?
-
Oh, brethren, that's a principle
you don't want to lose.
-
Because men desire blessing.
-
They desire happiness.
-
And most miss it,
-
because they look for
it in the wrong place.
-
Fifthly, the person of this blessedness.
-
Blessings and happiness
-
are not tied to the man's circumstances.
-
You need to see that.
-
See, the world tends to think,
-
blessed is the man that
gets a beautiful wife.
-
Blessed is the man that comes into money.
-
Blessed is the man that
can afford to get that car,
-
buy that house.
-
Blessed is the man that
(fill in the blank).
-
...gets the promotion at work.
-
But do you notice nothing in this psalm
-
has to do with circumstances?
-
It's the person.
-
It's who he is, not the
circumstances in his life.
-
That's critical.
That's crucial.
-
Blessings and happiness
-
are tied to who you are,
-
not what's happening in your life.
-
To who you are.
-
To what your relationship is with God.
-
What your relationship is with the Word.
-
That's the issue.
-
Now, there's those five "P's"
-
that have to do with "blessed."
-
Now, let's just broaden out
-
and think about the whole psalm.
-
Brethren, hear me carefully.
-
This psalm is an entire indicative.
-
There's no command here.
-
Now, I recognize Hebrew doesn't
-
necessarily have indicative verbs,
-
but in the Greek, in the Septuagint,
-
that's exactly what it is.
-
What am I getting at?
-
You don't want to know
all about Greek and Hebrew.
-
But what am I getting at?
-
My point is this:
-
This psalm doesn't command
you to do anything.
-
Look. Should you go to this psalm and say,
-
hey, I ought to be more
disciplined in the Word.
-
You know, when you get indicatives,
-
they do imply, they suggest imperatives.
-
When you're told a fact,
-
they do sometimes imply
-
a responsibility on our part.
-
That's true.
-
I don't deny that.
-
And there's many other places where
you find this to be a reality.
-
But hear me carefully.
-
I am not going to preach
commandments to you here,
-
because this psalm does not do that.
-
This psalm basically lays down facts.
-
Notice, nothing in this
psalm is telling you
-
or seeking to encourage you directly
-
to not walk in the counsel of the wicked
-
or to stand in a certain place
-
or to sit in a certain place.
-
It's not commanding you.
-
It's not encouraging you
to be in the Word.
-
It's not encouraging you to be a tree.
-
It's not encouraging you to be fruitful.
-
Not directly.
-
You hear what I'm saying.
-
It basically is a statement of fact.
-
You say where are you going?
-
I'll tell you where I'm going.
-
You know the problem too often
-
when you preach a text like this,
-
is people go away -
-
especially the wicked -
-
they go away thinking,
-
oh, I need to do better at that.
-
That's not what this is.
-
This is a statement of fact.
-
It's a description.
-
It is God coming along and He's saying
-
you want to know what
a righteous man looks like?
-
Here's what he looks like.
-
You want to know what a wicked man is?
-
He's not that.
-
That's basically what's happening.
-
Make sure you see that.
-
You say why?
-
Because this isn't a
pep rally to do better.
-
This is a searching.
-
This is a spotlight shining on all of us.
-
It's not an encouragement
to go out and strive,
-
or to go out and run better.
-
This is a spotlight shining on you
-
that proves who you are.
-
Make sure you see that.
-
The issue is not so much
-
that you need to strive harder,
-
as much as it is the living God telling us
-
what is true of all of us.
-
So, notice this.
-
V. 1 is, "Blessed is the man who
-
walks not..."
-
The negative.
-
Before you get the positive in v. 2.
-
"His delight is in the law of the Lord."
-
You get the negative.
-
The negative is first.
-
Isn't that similar to -
I think of Isaiah 55 oftentimes.
-
Let the wicked forsake his way,
-
and the unrighteous man his thoughts,
-
and let him return unto the Lord.
-
So you get the negative first:
forsake your way.
-
The positive: return to the Lord.
-
Or when Jesus came in the New Testament.
-
What did He say?
-
Repent!
-
Repent is a change of mind.
-
It is that change of mind about sin,
-
about Christ.
-
There's this turning from sin.
-
There's a reversal in life.
-
There's a forsaking and then believing.
-
Calling upon the Lord in faith.
-
We often get this negative
-
before the positive.
-
Why?
-
You know what the danger is?
-
You come along with just the positive
-
and people think I need
to tack that on my life.
-
Nope, that's not it.
-
That's never how it is.
-
There's first turning.
-
There's a forsaking.
-
There's things we step back from.
-
There's things that the blessed man
-
no longer involves himself in
-
before we get to the positive.
-
That's the way God often
does it in Scripture.
-
Man in this world - evil,
-
he's wrong; he's vile -
-
and God's way is essentially different.
-
And it's not just you
staying on your own way,
-
and your old way,
-
and then tacking on God's way.
-
There is a forsaking of your way.
-
And a coming to God's way.
-
That's the issue.
-
"Blessed is the man who walks not
-
in the counsel of the wicked,
-
nor stands in the way of sinners."
-
Not.
-
Brethren, this is desire
being described here.
-
God's not giving a commandment.
-
There's a desire.
-
And I know, someone says, exactly!
-
Negative.
-
Of course, that's how it starts out.
-
That's what Christianity is in
a lot of people's minds.
-
Of course, that's exactly
how Christianity is.
-
You can't do this.
You can't do that.
-
But, brethren, listen to me.
-
This is not a psalm of "thou shalt not's."
-
This is a man who desires the Word of God,
-
the law of the Lord.
-
This is a man who has a heart
-
that hungers after this.
-
He delights in it.
-
And because he delights in that,
-
he disdains what's against it:
-
the ways of the world,
-
the ways of the devil,
-
the ways that are wrong,
-
the ways of the scornful,
-
the ways of the sinner.
-
They're repulsive to him
-
because he delights in the law of God.
-
That's the idea.
-
Brethren, we have to
get this in our heads.
-
Christianity is not just this set
-
of external laws that tells us
-
don't do this, don't do this...
-
Christianity is a transformation of heart
-
where our delights are
now towards the Word
-
and we don't want that.
-
There's a distaste.
-
We don't love what we used to love.
-
Christianity is God changing us
-
so that we don't desire
-
the counsel of the ungodly.
-
We delight in the Word of Christ.
-
And brethren, we find His yoke easy.
-
That's the reality.
-
Notice the progressiveness
-
of this first verse.
-
He doesn't walk in the
counsel of the wicked.
-
And then it's "stand."
-
You've got a man walking,
-
and then it's like the man stops walking
-
and he stands.
-
And then the man sits.
-
It's progressive what?
-
(Incomplete thought)
-
It is a digression.
-
It's like there's motion and then he stops
-
and then he sits.
-
It's like this increasing grip of sin.
-
(Incomplete thought)
-
Lloyd-Jones called it paralysis of sin.
-
The blessed man avoids it.
-
And what is this?
-
What does he avoid?
-
You say, the wicked, the sinner,
-
the scoffer... brethren, where are they?
-
Think about your life.
-
There's voices,
-
We have these voices.
-
Things are coming in the eyes
-
and coming in the ears all the time.
-
We see things.
-
We hear things.
-
Where are these voices in this world?
-
We have means of commication today
-
like they never had in any other time.
-
Think of the channels through which
-
these things come.
-
Brethren, you know what they are.
-
Friends.
-
How often does Scripture
speak about companionship?
-
You want to be a fool?
-
Hang out with the fools.
-
Plain and simple.
-
Social media.
-
You can hang out with people.
-
You spend your time there.
-
Brethren, what kind of voices are these?
-
The wicked, the sinner, the scoffer...
-
they're voices that take you
-
off of running this race like you should.
-
They're voices that turn us away
-
from God and godliness.
-
They scoff. They mock
-
at the ways of the righteous.
-
They scoff and they mock
-
at the ways of Scripture.
-
It's all that's adverse to
-
and against and radically,
-
essentially the opposite
-
of what's in v. 2:
-
Loving the law of the Lord.
-
It's everything that's opposed to that.
-
It's everything that shuns that.
-
It's everything that smirks at that.
-
It's everything that
slights the ways of God.
-
That's what we're talking about.
-
What we're talking about here
-
is the blessed man;
-
is the man who looks at the friends
-
in his life and says,
-
you know what?
-
I am not going to spend time
-
with those people anymore.
-
Because you know what?
-
I want to spend time in the Word.
-
And there's something in their lives,
-
there's something in their words
-
that opposes this.
-
And I'm not walking there.
-
And I'm not standing there.
-
I'm not going to stop
-
and I'm not going to sit.
-
You see, it's almost more
-
of a progressive stagnation in sin.
-
I'm not going to do it.
-
I'm not going to go there.
-
I'm going to evaluate social media.
-
If that movie is going to take me somehow
-
away from what pleases God,
-
why am I going to go do that?
-
Why?
-
Entertainment?
-
Oh you're going to entertain yourself
-
by going and standing
-
in the way of the sinner.
-
Is that it?
-
You see, the righteous
man doesn't do that.
-
Now, brethren, hear me again.
-
I'm not saying, ok, you better size up
-
what you're doing on Facebook
-
and you better size
up what you're doing
-
with the TV and with movies
-
and with all the technology.
-
No commandments here.
-
Listen, brethren, what
you need to recognize
-
is God is telling you what we are.
-
See, if you're the guy that perpetually
-
has to look at your life and say,
-
well, I'm massively failing there.
-
Brethren, it's not God telling you
-
you need to get your act straight.
-
It's God telling you who you are.
-
Do you recognize that's what's happening
-
in this psalm?
-
He's saying look at your life.
-
If you walk in the way of the ungodly;
-
if you stand in this place of sinners;
-
you sit there among those who
-
slight the things that are godly -
-
He's telling you what you are.
-
Because if you say,
-
no my delight is in the Word.
-
Hey, this is all opposed to that.
-
And see, if you say,
-
no, I'm a blessed man
-
because I delight in the Word.
-
Ok, there's going to be proof.
-
And the proof on the negative side
-
is what you no longer do.
-
You see, there's evidence.
-
That's the point.
-
This is indicative.
-
This is indicating what is true.
-
I'm not here today to tell you
-
to clean up your act.
-
There are definitely texts
-
that talk about purging
that out of your life
-
which ought not to be there,
-
and cutting off and gouging out.
-
No question about that.
-
But brethren, what this is saying to us
-
is not so much that that's
what you need to do,
-
it's saying to us,
-
if you're the blessed man,
-
that's what you already do.
-
That's already true in your life.
-
That's already a reality.
-
Brethren, this is not commandment.
-
This is fact.
-
God is not admonishing us specifically
-
to be holier.
-
He's telling us the truth about
-
what holiness looks like.
-
And that holy man is that blessed man.
-
He's telling us that if
you're that blessed man,
-
you're not going to run with
that same crowd you ran with.
-
And you're not going
to do the same things
-
on the Internet you used to do.
-
And you're not going to do the same things
at the movie theater you used to do.
-
And you're not going to do the
same things in front of the television.
-
Because these are all the avenues
-
by which those voices come.
-
You're not going to do the
same thing with family.
-
You're not going to do the
same thing with friends.
-
You're not going to do
the same things with radio.
-
You're not going to do the
same thing with songs and music.
-
Why?
-
Because look, you've
got to bring this home.
-
The counsel of the wicked,
-
the way of the sinner,
-
the seat of the scoffer.
-
This is real.
-
You have to put familiar faces on this.
-
This is not just this
ambiguous thing out there.
-
This is your life.
This is my life.
-
And I'll tell you this,
-
what He's saying is the blessed man
-
is a man who suddenly is not
-
doing all sorts of things
that he used to do.
-
And one of the primary rationales,
-
one of the primary motivations,
-
one of the primary movers in all of this
-
is not external laws.
-
It's what he delights in.
-
He now delights in the Word of God.
-
And so, naturally, if
you delight in something,
-
you don't delight in
that which is opposed
-
to the something
that you delight in.
-
That's the reality here, brethren.
-
And notice this last one.
-
Because, I think this is key.
-
"Nor sits in the seat of scoffers."
-
You know what a scoffer is?
-
Or a scorner?
-
They're somebody who mocks.
-
And even in the church,
-
we get those who scorn
-
and they scoff and they mock
-
and they make light of
-
anyone they see who seems more radical.
-
You know what you get in the church?
-
You get these people
-
who they want to keep a clear conscience.
-
And they come to Scripture,
-
and they see something there,
-
like they look at modesty
-
and they think what that means
-
is I need to wear a dress that's down
-
to the floor.
-
And you know what?
-
They're not being legalistic.
-
They're not coming along
-
and they're not pressing
that on you and me.
-
They look at Scripture and they say
-
don't set anything that's vain or useless
-
before my eyes.
-
And they say, you know what?
-
I think TV altogether is vain and useless.
-
And so they're seeking to do it.
-
And if you're the guy
that's always out there
-
saying legalism, legalism, legalism!
-
You're likely in the seat of that scoffer.
-
When you look at people
-
who are trying to
keep a clear conscience
-
and they're eradicating things,
-
and they say my eye offends,
-
and so I'm getting rid of that.
-
I'm tearing it out and
I'm casting it from me.
-
And they're people of conscience.
-
And they're walking through their life
-
and they're going to the Word
-
and they delight in the Word
and they're looking in the Word
-
and they're saying my conscience says
-
oh, look what I find here.
-
Now look, you may look at them and say,
-
you know what?
-
Their conscience has not been
-
most accurately informed,
-
because if you think about other places
-
in Scripture...
-
And you know what,
that may be true,
-
but don't mock and don't
slight at such people
-
who are trying to
keep clear consciences
-
before God.
-
And they're meticulous
-
and they're diligent.
-
I remember one time when I was down
-
at Stockdale,
-
and a woman came and she had been
-
wearing a head covering before that,
-
and then she wasn't
wearing the head covering.
-
I said where's your head covering?
-
Did you study Scripture and
-
you came to another conclusion?
-
She said, no, just
because the people here
-
don't wear them.
-
I said you better get
that thing on your head.
-
Why? Because she thought
-
that's what the Lord wants her to do.
-
And if that's what you think the Lord
-
wants you to do,
-
and whether it comes down
-
to how you raise your children
-
or how you love your wife
-
or how you drive your car,
-
or what you do at work -
-
brethren, Spurgeon said it one time:
-
better to live according to this Word -
-
how you interpret it
-
and be wrong,
-
than to not do that.
-
You understand what he's saying.
-
He's not saying bad doctrine's good.
-
He's saying you need to live up
-
to the light of the lamp that is
-
shining at your feet from this book.
-
And how you look at it -
-
it's not what everybody else is doing.
-
You do what you believe that God
-
wants you to do from that book.
-
And you seek to live
with a clear conscience.
-
And you know who the scoffer is?
-
They're the people always shouting
-
"legalism" in the church.
-
Oh, that's legalistic.
-
They're just legalists.
-
You be careful.
-
You just be careful.
-
Because I tell you what,
-
if you're that person
who's always looking
-
and you're looking
down your nose
-
at other people who are really
trying to walk before the Lord,
-
and they're trying to walk
with a clear conscience,
-
and they're trying to please Him
-
and they're trying to be meticulous
-
to God's Word -
-
you look at them and
you call them legalists -
-
you have been sitting
in the seat of the scoffer.
-
Let me tell you.
-
I'm not telling you don't do that.
-
Repent of that.
-
Of course, there's a place for that.
-
What I'm telling you is this:
-
What God is doing is showing
you who you are.
-
Not what you ought to be.
-
He's showing you who you are.
-
So, notice his delight.
-
His delight is in the law of the Lord.
-
And on His law, he meditates
-
day and night.
-
Again, brethren, this is not a commandment
-
for the Word of Christ
to dwell in you richly.
-
There is a commandment like that.
-
There's instruction like
that in Scripture.
-
I'm not saying that there isn't.
-
I'm just saying this psalm
-
is basically - the gist of it
-
is that God is telling us the truth
-
about ourselves.
-
Oh, brethren, the blessed man
-
is that man who has come to this
-
entirely new relationship
-
with the Word of God.
-
Look, again, I'm telling you.
-
Brethren, I am not here to tell you
-
if you've not been in the Word,
-
you need to get in the Word.
-
What I'm telling you is
if you're not in the Word,
-
it's because you don't
delight in the Word
-
and Scripture is telling you
-
who and what you are.
-
That's the issue.
-
That's what's happening here.
-
The blessed man -
-
he's the man that it's just not theory
-
for him to say
-
that man shall not live by bread alone,
-
but by every word that proceedeth
-
forth from the mouth of God.
-
He knows that.
He believes that.
-
His life reflects that.
-
The exact same truth you heard
-
from our brother in the first hour
-
from John 8.
-
Listen, Jesus says it.
-
Again, it's not a commandment.
-
It's a fact.
-
He says if you abide in My Word,
-
you are truly My disciples.
-
He's not saying abide in My Word.
-
Yes, there's places where you can find
-
such statements,
-
but there are these factual statements
-
made all through Scripture,
-
that if you are His disciple,
-
His Word abides in you.
-
Not just that it should.
-
And if it doesn't, it shows who you are.
-
That's what He was saying to these people.
-
Listen, brethren, be honest.
-
This is the truth about the blessed man.
-
On the whole,
-
if you were to drag this man into court,
-
and accuse him of being a Bible lover,
-
guess what?
-
There's evidence to convict him.
-
Where are you?
-
Oh, isn't it amazing?
-
The first psalm - blessings
which everybody wants.
-
And it's got to do with where
-
the Word of God is in your life.
-
The first first is the negative of that.
-
It's the contrary.
-
You avoid all those voices that
-
are not like this.
-
But you delight in the Word.
-
You say, I've never killed anybody.
-
The wicked? They're not so.
-
In other words, if you take them
-
into the court room,
-
and you say prove that you're a lover
-
of the Word,
-
the wicked are not so.
-
And so if there isn't evidence,
-
the wicked is not so.
-
Well, I own a Bible.
-
In fact, I have three.
-
That's not what's being said here.
-
Do you delight in it?
-
You say, yeah, I delight in it.
-
Are you meditating on it day and night?
-
Can you go three days,
four days, five days, seven days
-
and you're not in it?
-
You see, again, brethren,
-
this is not telling you what you ought
-
to be doing.
-
This is telling you what you are.
-
This is the delight of the man.
-
Look, what you don't want to do
-
is walk away from this message and say,
-
well, you know what?
-
My delight is really in video games;
-
hanging out with my friends;
-
listening to the new music.
-
You know, what I find delight in
-
is sex and money and fun...
-
I guess I better start reading my Bible,
-
even though it's not what
you really delight to do.
-
You see, it's not doing that.
-
It's saying no, the truth is
-
if you can leave that Bible on the shelf,
-
there's not a panting
in your soul after it.
-
Look, I recognize there are dry seasons.
-
But do you hear what's being said?
-
On the whole, I don't have to
-
invent a bunch of exceptions here.
-
And I don't have to define this
-
in super amounts of detail.
-
Because God doesn't think it's
-
that necessary to do it.
-
He simply says this,
-
the blessed man delights
-
in the law of the Lord
-
and in that law, he
meditates day and night.
-
Period.
-
That's what God says.
-
I don't need to amend that.
-
I don't need to add to that.
-
And brethren, what you need to ask
-
is be honest.
-
Does that reflect your life?
-
Because if it doesn't,
-
the wicked are not so.
-
Like I said, the wicked isn't just wicked
-
because he's torturing
people in his basement.
-
The wicked is just the guy
-
that doesn't delight in the Word.
-
He's not like the righteous person.
-
That's what we have here.
-
The righteous man -
-
he hungers.
-
There's something desirable.
-
Why?
-
Why?
-
Because the Spirit has opened his eyes
-
and this Word is now living.
-
And when he looks into it,
-
it's like... Wow!
-
There's wisdom.
-
It opens the window to the glory of God.
-
And in these pages,
-
he sees Christ.
-
He's never seen anything like it before.
-
He might have looked
at it when he was lost,
-
but now it's just altogether new.
-
Don't fool yourself.
-
If you're able to be away from this Word;
-
it's just a dry, dead letter,
-
and basically being in it is a chore.
-
It's like you know when you assess
-
your Christian life,
-
it's like, well yes, I read.
-
Yeah, I've kind of got that in place
-
these last few days.
-
I've really forced myself.
-
I disciplined myself.
-
Although typically, I can go long seasons
-
with watching a whole lot more TV
-
than I ever get in the Word;
-
and be on the Internet a whole lot more
-
than I'd ever be in the Word.
-
Exposing myself to all sorts of voices.
-
Brethren, let's just be honest.
-
His delight is in the law of the Lord,
-
and on His law, he
meditates day and night.
-
And the wicked are not so.
-
So we have a picture here in v. 3.
-
The righteous man - the blessed man,
-
he is like a tree
-
planted by the streams (plural)
-
of water that yields its fruit
-
in its season.
-
And it's leaf does not wither.
-
In all that he does, he prospers.
-
The wicked are not so,
-
but are like chaff
-
that the wind drives away.
-
We're given this picture.
-
And again, brethren, I'm going to
-
keep emphasizing this.
-
This tells us the truth about ourselves.
-
Nothing tells the truth about us
-
like the Bible does.
-
Spiritually speaking,
-
all men are either (incomplete thought).
-
Have you ever been -
-
I don't know up and down
-
the San Antonio River -
-
I don't think I've seen much of the river
-
other than right here in San Antonio.
-
But I've been to different places
-
on the Guadalupe River.
-
Have you ever seen those cypresses?
-
Oh, there are some downtown
-
along the Riverwalk.
-
You know those cypresses?
-
Great big, massive trees.
-
And you know where they grow?
-
They only grow right alongside the river.
-
You can try to plant them other places,
-
but if you don't give them steady water,
-
they just don't make it.
-
Great big trees,
-
like a great big cypress tree
-
planted along the Guadalupe River
-
with roots that go down into soil
-
that's moist and life-giving
-
all the time.
-
That's what the righteous is like.
-
The unrighteous - a pile of chaff.
-
You know what?
-
When we look at each other
-
like we can look at each other right here.
-
I can't see that difference,
-
but it's true.
-
Spiritually speaking,
-
if we could pull back the veil,
-
some are these massive cypress trees,
-
planted along the rivers (plural).
-
Rivers.
-
Abundance.
-
And some are just a pile of chaff.
-
That's the comparison here.
-
Tree. Chaff.
-
You see the difference?
-
Your life. My life.
-
Tree or chaff.
-
What's your life like?
-
It's just radical difference.
-
You see, there's no shades here.
-
There's no degrees here.
-
It's not like, well, you've got
-
a chaff-y looking tree over there.
-
No, none of that.
-
You're one or the other.
-
People don't tend to realize
-
the radical difference between
-
the Christian and the non-Christian.
-
The roots of this tree go deep down.
-
This man whose heart and mind
-
and soul - the roots go down deep
-
into the words of Christ.
-
The law of the Lord.
-
They go down into His commandments,
-
His Word, and they're
pulling the nutrients up.
-
You see, didn't Christ say,
-
"Sanctify them by Thy truth.
-
Thy Word is truth."
-
The sanctifying power of the Spirit of God
-
comes through - his
delight is in this law.
-
And in this law, he looks in.
-
He sees the character of God.
-
He sees the beauties of Christ.
-
And it's transformative.
-
Those roots go down.
-
The chaff? The chaff has no roots.
-
You look at your life.
-
No real roots in here.
-
You don't memorize this.
-
You don't meditate on this.
-
The Word is not controlling.
-
Instead, you've subjected yourself
-
to worldly opinions.
-
Worldly counsels.
-
Worldly mindsets.
-
All the time, you're being bombarded.
-
So it's very easy to put
a little Christian title
-
on music that's otherwise just ungodly.
-
We can Christianize just about everything.
-
But the truth is,
-
the man who spends a lot of time
-
in this Word -
-
he can smell out the difference.
-
He's not just looking at the name
-
because you can be like Sardis.
-
You can have a name, but you're dead.
-
And the person whose heart
-
and mind and soul
-
are down in the depths of this
-
moisture-rich soil of the Word of Christ,
-
they can tell those things.
-
Because it gives them discernment.
-
They see.
-
Which are you?
-
A tree versus chaff.
-
They have nothing in common.
-
The tree is fruitful.
-
The fruits of the Spirit.
-
You see, there's a person
-
who spends a lot of time in this book.
-
Their roots are planted here.
-
And that Word abides in them.
-
It stays.
-
They're not hearers only.
-
But they're doers.
-
And they go forth
-
and as they do the Word,
-
this fruit of the Spirit,
-
they go up and it's rich.
-
By this, our Father is well pleased,
-
that we bring forth much fruit.
-
There's an abundance of fruit.
-
Love - the fruit of love.
-
And there's joy.
-
And there's the fruits of the Spirit.
-
Chaff is not fruit.
-
Chaff is the stuff on the outside
-
of the kernel or the grain.
-
It's the stuff that gets taken off
-
and it's winnowed away.
-
The wind blows it away.
-
You don't want it.
-
It's useless.
-
There's no good use for it.
-
Nothing like a tree at all.
-
It's entirely different.
-
There's no roots.
-
There's no fruit.
-
The fruit that it brings forth -
-
the fruit in this person's life
-
is really useless.
-
So, the question is this,
-
will you be honest with yourself?
-
Is the Word of God your light?
-
Your sustenance? Your love?
-
Your portal into the very mind of Christ?
-
Is that not what we're told?
-
We have the mind of Christ.
-
I can go into the recesses
-
of the mind of Christ in this book.
-
And the Spirit reveals and teaches me.
-
Brethren, is that what it is?
-
The window into the very glories of God?
-
The wicked are not so.
-
Let's be honest.
-
Be honest.
-
You say, wow, if I'm going to be honest,
-
I'm in the category of the wicked.
-
It makes me very uncomfortable.
-
I don't like that title.
-
But I don't know much how I can
-
put myself in this other camp.
-
How do I get to where
-
you're saying the blessed man is?
-
Notice v. 3.
-
"He is like a tree planted
by streams of water."
-
Isn't that interesting
-
that God moves David
-
(incomplete thought);
-
We know that some trees -
-
a seed falls.
-
It germinates.
-
And you get a tree.
-
But you know what's interesting?
-
That's not the picture.
-
The picture is of a tree
that gets planted.
-
I've planted a lot of trees.
-
Trees just don't end up there,
-
unless they get planted.
-
And a tree doesn't plant itself.
-
Someone puts it there.
-
And there's only one
way that you get planted.
-
See, this is what I don't
want to have happen.
-
Don't say to yourself
-
I'm not like that,
-
so I better get my act together
-
and get like that.
-
And so you know what I'm going to do?
-
I am going to go home
-
and even though I haven't been
-
in the Word much
-
and there's dust on the cover...
-
And Spurgeon said one place
-
many of you can write damnation
-
in the dust on your Bibles.
-
The way out of this is not to go home
-
and clean the dust off
-
and open it.
-
Reading Scripture is not
how you get planted.
-
I'm not saying it's a bad thing.
-
You can find the Christ in these words.
-
Undoubtedly.
-
But brethren, the ticket here...
-
The path
-
is not to say, well,
-
I better start coming to church more.
-
Better get in the Word more.
-
I better start doing, doing, doing.
-
Don't say that to yourself.
-
Though I would really rather play
-
video games and watch movies
-
and spend endless hours on Facebook.
-
And though I'd rather hang
out with my friends
-
and do a thousand other things.
-
I better force myself into the Bible.
-
Though I find it dull and lifeless,
-
for me - life, vigor, living it up...
-
it's watching the game.
-
It's in sports.
-
It's in freedom.
-
That's where it is.
-
Even though I really don't
-
have a love for the brethren.
-
I don't have a love for
-
the breaking of bread
-
and remembering Christ and what He did
-
and singing those songs.
-
I don't really have a love for all that.
-
I don't have a love for
the apostle's doctrine
-
and for that preaching
that goes on,
-
and for the Word,
-
and no love of prayer.
-
But I better get my act together
-
because I don't want to lose my soul.
-
Brethren, look, you don't need religion.
-
That's not how you get planted.
-
I think, "And can it be?"
-
You remember Charles Wesley?
-
John Wesley?
-
George Whitefield?
-
You remember where they were?
-
The holy club.
-
They gave their money.
-
They visited people in prison.
-
And you know what, in the end,
-
the Spirit of God convicted them all -
-
it was a hopeless path,
-
and they were helpless.
-
Religion is never the way.
-
We talked about Luther.
-
Blessednesses - Luther tried it.
-
Went to the monastery.
-
Religion never works.
-
That's not the ticket.
-
That's not how you get planted.
-
You say, how? Tell me.
-
Tell me.
-
The answer is this:
-
it's found in John 3:3.
-
It's, "Truly, truly, I say to you,
-
unless one is born again,
-
he cannot see the Kingdom of God."
-
Yeah, but you didn't
tell me anything to do.
-
Again, you're just stating the fact.
-
What does this look like?
-
Brethren, here's what it looks like.
-
Jesus said - same discourse -
-
When the Spirit comes,
-
He is going to convict men of sin,
-
of righteousness,
-
of judgment.
-
And you know what happens?
-
God plants us.
-
And you know what happens?
-
Sin. Something begins to happen,
-
and the Spirit causes it to happen.
-
You think about it.
-
Conviction.
-
Where does that happen?
-
You might say the conscience.
-
But it happens in the mind.
-
The Spirit begins to cause us
-
to think different.
-
Suddenly, sin... sin!
-
And maybe at first, you're even agitated.
-
That was what was true with me.
-
Not that I'm the standard,
-
but I remember in the very beginning,
-
this emptiness; this hollowness.
-
And I just wanted Him to leave me alone.
-
God, leave me alone
-
and let me go back and enjoy...
-
and much like Pilgrim
in Pilgrim's Progress,
-
you get worldly wise men.
-
Go try religion.
-
And that's where he went.
-
He went hiking up there.
-
Sometimes we get upset.
-
But brethren, I remember clearly
-
the night the Spirit of God showed me
-
my sin was wicked and I deserved hell,
-
and if God didn't put me there -
-
and you see, that's the
conviction that comes.
-
We start to feel this weight of sin.
-
Salvation has to do with sin.
-
And Jesus said that He did not
-
come for the well.
-
And it is not until we're unwell -
-
and it's the Spirit of God who causes
-
that to happen.
-
Not just to freak out
-
because we happen to hear a message
-
and it says I must be one of the wicked.
-
Brethren, it's when you want your sin
-
dealt with.
-
It's the Spirit of God causing
something to happen;
-
beginning to disturb us.
-
Sin becomes disturbing.
-
We can't just coddle with it anymore.
-
Something is happening.
-
Something begins to happen.
-
And maybe at first,
-
you don't know that
it's God that's doing it.
-
But something begins to happen to you.
-
And something that
never happened before.
-
Something that hasn't
happened like this before.
-
And then, righteousness...
-
there's this desparate sense -
-
this in itself isn't salvation,
-
because I have a feeling
-
the rich, young ruler felt this.
-
But you begin to get this sense:
-
something's missing.
-
I need more than I have
-
to get right with God.
-
Do we know that religion isn't doing it?
-
You see, that's what the Wesley's
and Whitefield were trying.
-
This holy club.
-
They were trying to do all their stuff.
-
But John Wesley looked at those Moravians,
-
and he said, I'm missing something.
-
Something isn't there.
-
You see, the Spirit convicts of sin,
-
and righteousness - or a lack
-
of our righteousness.
-
The fact we need more than we have.
-
The fact we need something.
-
And then judgment.
-
I'm not ready to stand before God.
-
I'm not ready for this.
-
I'm not ready.
-
And then something is
happening in the soul.
-
Brethren, it doesn't always look identical
-
in everybody,
-
but that's what Christ said
-
that the Spirit of God would do.
-
And that's what happens.
-
When people are being born again,
-
the Spirit of God is doing something
-
in the heart of men
-
concerning sin and righteousness
-
and judgment.
-
And then you know what happens.
-
He came to exalt Christ.
-
And there, in our despair,
-
is all the crutches, and all the counsels,
-
and all the things we rested on,
-
and all our hopes
-
and all that we put our stock in.
-
It's just crumbling away
-
and we can't find...
-
I need something else.
-
And sometimes the Spirit of God
-
lets people get to
-
an amazing place of despair.
-
But look, it doesn't matter how much.
-
That's not the issue.
-
The issue is that then
-
the Spirit causes the scales to fall off.
-
That's what happened to Paul.
-
The scales fell off.
-
Of you've got it in 2 Corinthians,
-
it's like the veil is pulled back.
-
And just like God said in the beginning,
-
let there be light.
-
He shows us this glorious light
-
in the very face of Jesus Christ.
-
And you know what begins to happen?
-
We hear this message of salvation
-
and the Spirit speaks to us.
-
It's for you.
-
It's for you.
-
It's relevant to you.
-
This crucified Christ.
-
And we see that.
-
We see that this message is for us.
-
We hear those life-giving words.
-
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
-
and you will be saved.
-
And like that lady,
-
we become convinced,
-
if I can just touch the
hem of His garment,
-
I'll be healed.
-
Brethren, that's what happens.
-
We accept the truth.
-
You accept the truth
-
that Christ Jesus came into the world
-
to die for sinners.
-
And that is music to your ears.
-
That there is a way;
-
there is a remedy;
-
there is a Doctor;
-
there is a way to be healed.
-
You believe that truth for you.
-
And you will come to look up and recognize
-
God has planted me
-
beside these waters
-
and I long after that book
-
and for the truths and the promises in it
-
and the Word of Christ.
-
Brethren, it's not a
psalm of commandments.
-
It's a psalm that says it like it is.
-
The Word of God shows us who we are.
-
Father, I pray
-
this message would
go deep into the hearts.
-
Lord, if there are imperatives
-
and responsibilities and instruction
-
for us to take practically
-
to apply to our lives.
-
Then may it be taken
-
and may it be practiced
-
and may it be applied.
-
But Lord, I pray that this Word
-
would be what it seems like
-
You intended it to be.
-
A light to shine and expose and reveal
-
the very character of every one of us
-
in this room.
-
And I pray that it would have that effect.
-
I pray it in the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ,
-
Amen.