Proverbs 20, verse five, counsel
in the heart of a man is like deep water, but a man of understanding
will draw it out. Now, counsel is something that
most people don't really have any interest in at all. We know
that from our own experience, our own nature. We know that
from the scriptures. Most people just live following their own
heart And by implication here in our text, they're fools. A
man of understanding doesn't do that. Here's what I'm talking
about, Judges 17, six. In those days, there was no king
in Israel, no authority, no consequences, no accountability. And every man did that which
was right in his own eyes. If there's no, guiding principle,
if there's no leadership, if there's no accountability, if
there's no law, if there's no, nothing to, no structure to regulate the
heart of man, to influence, to restrain, then we do whatever we want.
And that's a problem. Here's why that's a problem.
Genesis 6, 5. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great
in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil continually. That was a snapshot of mankind
throughout all ages. That's just us. We do nothing
but evil and we do it with both hands earnestly as the scripture
also says. Now, all of us left to ourselves
We'll show what we are. We're talking about counsel now
in the absence of it. We'll show what we are, Job 11,
12. For vain man would be wise. He would be considered wise.
He would be counted wise. He would be wise in his own eyes. But listen
to it. For vain man would be wise, though
man be born like a wild ass's colt. Now, I'm not a zoologist, but I'm
pretty sure the Lord is telling us there that we're stubborn,
rebellious, unruly, and dumb as a box of rocks. I'm pretty
sure that's what that means. Our hope is that we might be taught counsel,
to be taught Even a wild ass is cold, can be taught something. But I'll tell you this, we are
such that there's only one way we can be taught. Our hope is to be taught of Christ,
of his love, of his power, of his grace. In Romans 1 where
it says, it talks about heathen man, which is all of us as we're
born into this world. It says that we know that there's
a God. We know that the devil knows
there's a God. Believing that there's a God
is not salvation. But the problem with us by nature
is we won't glorify him as God. In other words, we're not gonna
submit to him. We're not gonna submit to him. The problem with
the Jews, Paul said, is that they have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God. They go about to establish their
own righteousness. Isn't that what Satan said? You'll
decide what's good and evil. What's the remedy? Counsel. You'll
be taught. You're gonna be taught or you're
gonna go to hell, stubborn, rebellious, unruly, and dumb, and evil. John 6, 44, listen carefully.
I'm gonna have you turn to some scripture, but I don't want us
to take too long. So I wanna read this to you,
but listen carefully to this, to be taught of Christ. Because
we read John 6, 44 a lot, but we don't go on to verse 45 very
often. No man can come to me. Now think about what it is to
come to Christ. It's to submit, isn't it? It's to admit that
I'm evil, I'm wrong, I'm a failure, I can't do anything right, I've
done everything I know, and it's all just made me more evil. Like the woman with the issue
of blood, she spent all that she had on doctors, and she was
worse than she was. She wasn't the same. She wasn't
a little bit better, but not all the way healed. She was worse.
And the more you do to establish your own righteousness, the more
you sin. The more you think you have established a righteousness,
the farther away from Christ you are. You've gotten worse
now. No man can come to me except
the Father which has sent me, draw him. And you can look up
that word, draw. It doesn't mean woo and try to influence. It doesn't mean, oh, the Spirit's
calling, knocking on the door. No, it means to take something
from where it is and move it somewhere else. That's what the Father has to
do. He has to take you from where you are in your sin and rebellion
and self-righteous evil and put you in His Son. All right, let
me read the rest of it. No man can come to me except
the Father which has sent me, draw him and I will raise him
up at the last day. If he does do that, then it's
not up to you from there. He just made it up to him and
you're in Christ now. And he said, I'll raise you up.
You're coming to be with me. Next verse, it is written in
the prophets and they shall all be taught of God. Every man therefore
that hath heard and learned of the father cometh unto me. That's the way the father draws
sinners to his son. By hearing, by teaching, by counsel,
by revealing the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to you in your
heart. Now we don't want counsel by
nature, but we need it. We've got to have it. Turn with
me to Psalm 73. Please Psalm 73 verse 16 When I thought to know this,
and you know, from the beginning of Psalm 73 is about how this
man that was a child of God, he was looking at how the evil
in the world are the ones that prosper. And he was envious at
the prosperity of the wicked. But then he says this about that. When I thought to know this,
it was too painful for me. It was tough to look at this
world doing great and everybody's having a big party and having
fun and God's people are afflicted and lowly and miserable as far
as the flesh is concerned. Often, it was too painful for
me until I went into the sanctuary of God. Now that picture's Christ,
until I was in Christ, but that's the place where you go and hear
from God. The sanctuaries where you hear
from God, where you see everything in there points to Christ, everything. Then understood I their end. Surely thou did set them in slippery
places, thou castest them down into destruction. How are they
brought into desolation as in a moment? They are utterly consumed
with terrors. As a dream, when one awaketh,
so O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image.
They're going to enjoy the things of this earth for a little while.
And like the rich man that the Lord said, your soul is going
to be required of you this night. And then who's going to have
these things? Who shall these things be then? You fool, you
fool. You live for the pleasures of
this life and you're a fool. And your soul is going to be
required of you. Look at verse 21. Thus my heart was grieved. I
was pricked in my reins. So foolish was I and ignorant.
I was as a beast before thee. When I realized how stupid I
was to be envious of them that don't know God, that don't have
any hope. But verse 23, nevertheless, I
am continually with thee. Thou hast holden me by my right
hand. Notice the contrast. Their feet
are slipping. You set them in slippery places.
You cast them down into destruction. How come I'm not in that same
situation? Because God's got a hold of me, that's why. Because
he has grabbed a hold of my hand like he did Simon Peter's as
he was sinking into the waves. And he lift he immediately. lifted
me up and saved me. I cried, Lord, save me by his
grace. I cried that and he saved me.
And look at it. Thou shalt guide me with thy
counsel. There's our text. Thou shalt
guide me with thy counsel. By the grace of God, I won't
be ignorant and foolish. I won't be as a beast from now
on because I see I believe you, I believe you. Now we're still gonna be, at
times we're still gonna, we're still gonna sink and get discouraged
and we're so full of unbelief. That's why we say, Lord, I believe
help. Thou shall guide me with thy
counsel and afterward receive me to glory. The, Mantra of the world is life
stinks and then you die. The mantra of the believer is
life is wonderful in Christ and then glory. Glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee
and there is none upon earth that I desire beside you. My
flesh and my heart faileth. The God is the strength of my
heart and my portion forever. My portion. You see where the
Lord took him? Oh, the wicked, they have everything
they want. Not only do I not have that stuff,
I don't want that. The Lord's my portion. I want
Him. I want His protection and care
and provision. I wanna have exactly what He
wants me to have. Nothing more and nothing less. Counsel comes from the Lord,
but where are you gonna find some of it? Where are you going
to get it? What well are you going to draw
out of? Our text says you'll find it in the heart of a man.
Now that doesn't happen by nature. Another man by nature has a heart
just as black and empty and foolish as mine. But by God's perfect design,
there is counsel in the heart of a man. Now, clearly Christ
is described here in type, because he's the man. He is the counsel
of God. In him are all the riches of
understanding and knowledge. But also, listen to Acts 8.20. Turn to Acts 8 with me. Let's
look at a couple more passages of scripture in the time we have
left. Acts chapter 8. Where has God purposed and ordained
that we're gonna get some of his wisdom from? This counsel
that's like deep water. And you know what water represents
in the scripture. It's our greatest need. We got
to have it. Where are we gonna get some water
in the desert of this world? Acts 8 26. And the angel of the
Lord spake unto Philip saying, rise and go toward the south
unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which
is desert. And he arose and went, and behold,
a man of Ethiopia, and eunuch of great authority under Candace,
queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure,
and had come to Jerusalem for to worship." One of the feast
days, one of the days of of worship, and he came there and then the
spirit said unto Philip, go near and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him
and heard him read the prophet Isaiah and said, understandest
thou what thou readest? And he said, how can I except
some man should guide me? Some man. Not just any man now,
but some man. Any man in the sense that it
doesn't matter which, but it's gotta be some man that has some
wisdom, has some counsel, knows something about what this man
was reading. And he desired, felt that he
would come up and sit with him. The place of the scripture which
he read was this. He was led, Christ was led as
a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb done before his shearer,
so opened he not his mouth. In his humiliation, his judgment
was taken away. And who shall declare his generation?
For his life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered
Philip and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet
this, of himself or of some other man? And then Philip opened his
mouth and began at the same scripture. And here's that some man, here's
the some man you're looking for. He opened his mouth and began
at the same scripture. Wouldn't have mattered where
that man was reading from, would it? He just happened to be in
Isaiah 53, as we call it today. He began at that same scripture
and preached unto him one word, one word, Jesus. He preached unto him somebody
now, and that's so important to realize and remember. If you
ever hear some man get up and presume to speak for God, remember
this one word, The rest of it is fluff. The rest of it is a
sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. And I'm not talking about
just using the name. I'm talking about all of our
preaching. This text, what's the message of our text this
morning? Counsel. Counsel from God is vital. It's
as necessary as water. Job said, your word is more than
my necessary food. That's counsel that God puts
in the heart. And here's how he does it. This
is the way that he does it. He preached unto him, Jesus.
What did Paul say? We preach Christ. And what he did for sinners.
What he accomplished on Calvary. Turn a couple of chapters over
to Acts chapter 10. There was a certain man in Caesarea
called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian
band, a devout man and one that feared God with all his house,
which gave much alms to the people and prayed to God always. He
saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day, an
angel of God coming into him and saying unto him, Cornelius.
And when he looked on him, he was afraid and said, what is
it Lord? And he said unto him, thy prayers and thine alms are
come up for a memorial before God. And now send men to Joppa,
and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter. He lodgeth
with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the seaside. He shall
tell thee what thou oughtest to do. Now here's an angel of
God standing before Cornelius. An angel from God. And Cornelius had been praying
to hear from God, hadn't he? Because that angel said, your
prayers are answered. How are they answered? Somebody's
gonna come preach the gospel to him, and all those that he
loves, they're gonna hear the gospel. But here's an angel from
the very throne of God now, perfect, glorious. But how's God gonna
answer your prayer? Go get Peter, the one that denied
the Lord three times, The one who was impetuous, stubborn
just like we are, rebellious, selfish. All these will deny
you, but not me. Proud, self-righteous. But God had put something in
his heart, a treasure. Paul said we have this treasure
in earthen vessels, in the heart of a man. There's the counsel
of God, not in every man, but in those whom the Lord has revealed
himself to, his people, his sheep, can tell you what you ought to
do. What must I do to believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ? You'll be saved. And in our text, it talks about
drawing water, drawing water from a well. That wasn't a matter
of just tapping a faucet. Now you can just go like that
and the water comes on, you know. Not at my house, but you can
do that. You had to stop everything you were doing, go out to the
well, rain, snow, sleet, hail, scorching heat, whatever, doesn't
matter if any of that's going on, and lower a bucket down into
a deep well, this is deep water, and then raise that bucket up
by hand. I've learned over my years that water is one of the
heaviest things in this world. Raise that bucket up by hand.
Why did people do that? Because they had to, they had
to. That's the same reason you have
to draw the counsel from the heart of a man that God has put
there. You gotta have it. A man called by God, a man who
has a heart given by God, a new heart, created in righteousness
and true holiness, you're not gonna find Christ in books of
theology, not in the way I'm talking about, not in the way
our text is talking about. If the Ethiopian unit couldn't
find him in the scriptures themselves, you're not gonna fare any better
than him. You will not find Christ in church programs, in rituals,
traditions, or ceremonies. Antichrist, free will, feel good
religion is the last place you're gonna find him. It has pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. That's
what happens right here. That's what happens wherever
God's people gather. That's what happens in this place,
like this, this way. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him
in whom they not believed? Unless you see who he is and
what you are, if you believe God, you're gonna cry to him.
But not until, And how shall they believe in him of whom they've
not heard? And how shall they hear about
a preacher? And how is anybody gonna preach
this gospel? You look around this world. How
is anybody gonna preach this gospel unless he's sent by God? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. I tell now and then the story
of the woman that, there was a woman where Vicki used to work
who told her one day, my son is in trouble. He's in bad trouble. And she said, I know your husband's
a preacher. Do you think your husband would
talk to my son? And Vicki said, yeah, he'd be
glad to, but I know what he's going to say. If you want to
know, I know what he's going to say. And she said, what? And Vicki said to her, he's gonna
tell your son that he needs to hear the gospel. And that woman
said to Vicki, he already knows that. You think about that for a while.
Everybody knows that. You know how many times in my
life I've heard, I know I need to be in church. I know I need
to be in church. I've heard it right here in this,
in that aisle right there, many times. I know I need to be in
church. Yeah, everybody knows that. Knowing there's water in the
well is one thing, drawing it out is something else altogether
now. You just need Christ, that's
it. You just need him. I know you want to do things
in this life. You got big plans and goals and all that. That's
all fine and well. You have one need. One need. He's going to
be found when you search for him with all your heart. And it's not a mystery. He's
told us plainly where and how he will be found. Plainly. God, give us grace to
hear This is my beloved son, hear him, hear him. Hear him
like your soul was hanging over hell because that's exactly where
it is if you've never heard him. Amen, let's pray.