Turn with me to the book of Proverbs,
chapter 12. Proverbs, chapter 12. Boy, I've thought a lot about what I just
preached on in the last 15 minutes. Brother Carl just said, you worship God. Now there's
a heart, there's a heart there. That's what I was talking about
this morning. The wonder of worship in the
heart. But I can tell you about evidence. I'll tell you the evidence
of true worship. Here it is. You believe God. There's the
evidence of true worship. A man believes God. And when
a man believes God, as our brother just said, You go where Christ
is honored. Our father said, this is my beloved
son whom I'm well pleased you hear him. You worship God when
you go where Christ is honored. You worship God when you ask
him to bless you. Ask. You worship God when you
seek him in prayer. You worship God when you make
much of his scriptures. Those are the evidences. There's
a heart work that goes, that prompts those things. There's the great mystery of
worship. Why do I want to do that? There's the mysterious
part of it. Well, you know why you want to.
Because it's God that worketh in you to do His good pleasure. Let's take Harvard Chapter 12. Let's look at verses 5 to 7. Let's read these three verses. The thoughts of the righteous
are right, but the counsels of the wicked are deceit. The words of the wicked are to
lie in wait for blood, but the mouth of the upright shall deliver
them. The wicked are overthrown and
are not, but the house of the righteous shall stand." As we go through every day, we
seldom think The things are not as secretive
as we think they are. Nobody really knows what I thought. Hebrews 4.12 says, ìThe word
of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and
of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and the intense of the heart. Oh, there's another scripture. So high, so wonderful, so magnificent. Almighty God, for every person
that's alive today, that's been alive yesterday, that will be
alive tomorrow. Almighty God knows the thoughts
and discerns between the thoughts and the intents of the heart. What they thought and what they
meant. Who are we going to hide from? This is the bottom line. We're not hiding from anybody.
Oh, I might hide from you. I got you fooled. You just think
you know me. Oh, you know a few things about
me, but think how much you don't know about me. Think how much
I don't know about you. But there's one that does. Our thoughts are not free, that
is free from observation, that's what I meant, under divine surveillance. And Almighty God makes judgment
concerning our thoughts. Let me reveal to you how we all
are. In Adam, we are. That is, as Paul the Apostle
says, in our flesh there dwells no good thing. You know that. You know that in Adam, born in
him, flesh, that which is flesh is flesh. It's not right. It's not good. It's not honorable. It does not look to the Lord. It doesn't seek Him. Almighty
God must. Give us a new heart. That old
heart is not cleaned up. It's not reformed. There is no
reformation of the old heart. There's one thing going to happen
to it. God's going to put it away. Listen to what Almighty God has
to say concerning those in His Son and the way that they think. Now listen to this. The thoughts,
the plan, the intention, the purpose, the thoughts of the
righteous are right. Their judgment is right. The
intention Those regenerated by God's Spirit
is a work of grace. That which is born of God sinneth
not. Now, I know that that's so. I
know it's so. I know that the life of Christ
resides, Christ in you, the hope of glory. And I know that here's a temple
in which God Almighty has been pleased to reside. And His residence wars against
the law of my old man. And they're contrary one to another,
and I know that. But I know that which is born
of God. I know that it does not sin. Somebody said, well, everybody's
a sinner. You're right. You're right. We say that we
have no sin. We make God a liar. We are sinners. But there's a
nature in every believer. It does not sin. There's a nature. And this is what God has to say
about their thoughts. The thoughts of the righteous
are right. He's not exempt. from the plague
of his old nature, not exempt from that. That law of his old
man, he sees and feels the evidence of his frailty, and he knows
something about the awfulness of the presence of sin in his
members. And he struggles with it and
strives against it, and he hates it. That's what Job said. I loathe myself." Here's the belief. Seeing the
frailty of your flesh, hearing the thoughts exhibited through
your mouth of the old man. Do you love those thoughts? Do you love the way we manifest
our old nature? We were talking last night in
the house and I remember saying this statement. I strive to be
so careful what I say because I'm going to tell you something,
I'm going to regret it in the morning. I'm going to wake up in the morning thinking
about this. I think I'll go to bed that night thinking about
it when I say that. All with the right thoughts. means that he doesn't rejoice
in the thoughts of his old man. I know that. His thoughts are viewed in the
glorious person of Lord Jesus Christ, and they're covered by
the blood. Those thoughts emanate from a ripe perception of Christ. I believe Him. I believe I do. I trust Him. I think I do. I do. I know, as Paul said, whom I
had believed. I'm persuaded that He's able
to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day. And
it's a marvel of God's grace that God would look upon a sinner,
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, And look at him, just
being faithful in Christ. Thy faith, he told that woman,
hath made thee whole. You think that woman struggled
with unbelief? We all do. But this is what God
has to say concerning His people, the thoughts of the righteous
and righteous, the counsels of the wicked and deceit, the plan. The counsels, the plan, the guidance
of the wicked are deceitful, they're fraudulent. Oh, how different
is the counsel of the wicked to himself and to others. As
hard as deceitful, therefore, his plan will be too. Men do,
as I said before, what they want to do. The Lord's honor, the Lord's
glory, worship of him is not of his mind. Listen to Jude 1.4. There are certain men crept in
unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation. Ungodly men. turning the grace
of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God
and our Lord Jesus Christ, the counsel, the plan, the fraud
of the wicked, deceitful. They want to lie. They want to
deceive. They have no desire whatsoever
to honor Christ. How do you know that? Scripture
says forth that they don't. They don't set forth salvation
to be all of grace. If I tell you that there's something
that you have to do in order to be saved, that's deceitful.
I'm lying to you. That's a lie. I told Brother Gary one day,
he made a statement to me, and it's one of those statements
I pray God will keep in my mind for the rest of my life. What's
wrong with God getting all the glory? What's wrong with that? Only a believer believes that.
What's wrong with saying, Lord, You decide. Lord, You choose. Lord, You show mercy. Lord, you
saved, and then you told me about it. That has such an honorable
sound to me. That has had such a sound consistency
according to these scriptures. The words, verse 6, of the wicked
are to lie in wait for blood, but the mouth of the upright
shall deliver them. The words of the wicked, everything
apart from God's honor. Wicked. Wicked. God saw that
the wickedness of man was great in the earth. The words of the
wicked are to lie in wait for blood. What makes this so arresting
to my mind is to know it doesn't matter, and I do. I'll tell you I'll do this. Glenda
will tell you I'll do this. I'll listen to it. I'll flip
channels and when I come to somebody that's religiously speaking,
I'll stop. And she'll ask me, why are you
doing that? Are you going to get mad? And I'll still listen. And I'll listen to the words,
and the words are so smooth. And they, if I didn't know better, I would
think, they really do care. They're really trying to help
you. They're wanting, number one, they're wanting you to get
some money. They want you to be prosperous and they don't
want you to get sick. They don't want you to be in
trouble. They want you to live in luxury like obviously they
are. Because everything around them
is expensive. And it would appear as though
smooth. how smooth the words seem to
be, how caring a man appears to be, how much he confesses
his love to others. The Scripture says that the words
of the wicked are to lie in wait for blood. They've got one purpose, the damnation of a man's soul.
That's it. That's it. Somebody said, Marvin,
you are so hard. They said, are you saying, are
you saying that everybody that does not preach the message of
God's sovereign saving grace, everybody that proclaims anything
other than grace, Sovereign grace. Are you saying that they're liars
and they're wicked? No. I didn't say that. God said it. Therefore, I voice
what He said. The words of the wicked are to
lie in wait for blood. No one has ever been converted
under a false gospel. No one has ever been converted. You say, I was converted under
Arminianism. No, you weren't. No, you weren't. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. If any man preaches any other
gospel than that which was preached, let it be a curse. Now, either we're going to believe
God, or we're going to believe a liar. The words of the wicked are to
lie in wait. What can I do? Brother Carl was
just saying, what can I do? What do you want to do? I'll
tell you what I do. I get under the sound of the gospel. I get
under a message where God was honored and man was not. I get
under a message where the flesh is not exalted. And I'd sit there, and I'd listen,
and I'd ask, Lord, would you have mercy on me? I'm telling
you, that's the safest place you'll ever be. I'm telling you,
the safest place you will ever be, and I'll tell you the most
damning place that you'll ever be, is sitting under a message
where men are exalted, and their free will is set forth, and God
is trying to save some soul-damning message. It's a
lie. It is a lie. It's a lie. And I've got God's Word on that.
Somebody may run me out on a rail, that's okay. Run me out. But if God keeps me faithful
to His Son, thanks be unto Him for that. The words of the wicked
are to lie and wait for blood The mouth of the wicked, deceitful,
the mouth of the upright delivers. It is not because the mouth of
the upright has the ability in itself to do anything for itself. No, what it is, is the mouth
speaks what's in the heart. O generation of vipers, how can
ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the
heart, the mouth speaketh." If you want to know what a man
believes, just listen to him. Eventually, he's going to tell
you. It might take a while, but believe me, he's going to tell
you. verse 7, are overthrown and are
not, but the house of the righteous shall stand. Overthrown, though wicked or
overthrown, is perverted. Perverted. The wicked are perverted and are not. In Exodus 14.5,
here is a scripture that sets forth this, that perverted They
are overturned. The scripture says, and it was
told the king of Egypt that the people fled, and the heart of
Pharaoh and his servants was turned against the people. And they said, why have we done
this that we have let Israel go from us? There may be an evidence of change
or overturning. But the overturning of this wicked
king's heart didn't mean that he was converted. The most obvious overthrown,
the wicked are overthrown and are not. The most obvious is
a change concerning morality. want to turn over a new leaf.
There may be a calamity, there may be a problem, and they're
going to straighten up the fly right. But going through the motions
of religion is not conversion. The heart must be changed, and
there's only one that gives a new heart. All of the sweet talk, all of
the sweet actions, all of the marvel things that are being
done does not mean that God has wrought a work of grace in a
man's heart. It comes right down to this one
thing. Does a man believe God concerning
God's message, God's Christ? The wicked are overthrown, and
that word doesn't mean there that they're going to be judged,
though they are. It means the wicked change their
heart's attitude morally, outwardly. They change their attitude concerning
what they fought before. That wicked king of Egypt, why
did I do what I did? He had a change with the righteous. The house of the righteous is
stable. Now I know, I do understand that
there's an old nature about every believer. I'm telling you, that
old nature just wavers and wavers and wavers. But there is a heart
in the upright that doesn't waver. It doesn't change. This is what
that verse is talking about. The wicked, like the wind, blow
that way, blow this way. I'll take this way one day, just
like, you know, just up and down, you know, double-minded and just
change. The wicked are overthrown. They're changing. This doesn't
sound right. Well, this sounds better. And
I've sat under that for a while now. That doesn't really sound
right to me now, but I'll tell you what, this sounds better
to me. I told you about my buddy, Garvin Pruitt, years ago. I gave
you this illustration. And his nephew asked him, he
said, you preach this, sovereign grace. These people over here
preach this. They say you're wrong, you say
they're wrong. How do I know? How do I know
the difference? And he said, but for the grace
of God you won't. And you'll listen to something
that sounds right to you. You know, I think that religion
sounds pretty good. Maybe you are supposed to speak in tongues. Maybe that
is right. No, I don't think that's right.
Maybe this sounds right, the wicked are overthrown, changing, shifting, and are not, but the
house of the righteous stands. Every time I stand in this pulpit,
you're listening. You're listening. for the glory
of Christ. You're listening for the honor
of Almighty God. You're listening and you want
to hear the same thing that I preached last week. Different verse, different
chapter. It's a book. Same message. Same message. And when you hear
it, But in the case of the righteous,
those made so by the grace of God, they stand on the rock. Teach me concerning my haven. Teach me about the one that God
Almighty said, that's my beloved Son. Tell me about the Son again. Tell me about the Lord. Tell me about Him who never changes. Tell me about God who has never
learned anything. Tell me about God Almighty who
has mercy on whomsoever He will. That's who I want to hear. And
my heart is rejoicing in that. My soul finds pleasure in hearing
all of Him. Tell me about the One game he is. Tell me about the
one who has always loved me, and the one who in spite of the
frailty of my own flesh, tell me about his longsuffering. Tell me about him who hung on
that cross, and just like Old Testament priest that had
those stones, those twelve stones that had the tribes written on
those stones. The Lord on his heart had a stone
on this shoulder and a stone on this shoulder. Six tribes
on this one. Six tribes on this one. And he
had that plate right on the front there on that mitre. And it said,
Holiness to the Lord. Tell me about the one that that
Old Testament priest, the Aaronic priesthood, tell me about the
one that he pictured. Tell me about the fulfillment
of that priesthood. Tell me about Melchizedek, the
Lord who is after the order of Melchizedek, who never changes.
Tell me about him, that when he went to the cross, He who
has everlastingly known my name. He said, I knew you before I
ever made you, before I ever formed you. I've always known
your name. Tell me about him who, when he
went to Calvary, knew Marvin Stocker and was dying
for me. That he died for me personally.
Tell me about him. Tell me about him who now, stands
before Jehovah as the Great High Priest and intercedes for me. Tell me about Him who told me,
He said, I'm not going to leave you. I'm not going to forsake you. Tell me about Him who, when
He's pleased, He's going to call me to Himself and say, come up
here. I've got a place I've prepared
for you and you're going to be with me. Tell me about him that I'm going
to one day see by sight and no more by flesh. Tell me about him who is God
Almighty, the righteous are not going to
be moved by the grace of God. He's going to keep me. One day, real soon, all of this
is going to be put away. I'm going to be changed. And
everything that he's ever said is going to be made perfectly
clear. And I'm going to see him like
he is. And the scripture says, I'm going to be like him. May God bless these words to
our hearts for Christ's sake.