All right, turn back with me
to Psalm 19. I've entitled this message, The
Perfect Message. The Perfect Message. I'll tell
you where I got that title from. Bruce Crabtree preached the message
one time and he said, now I'm gonna preach to you the perfect
message. I thought he was arrogant, but he wasn't talking about his
message. He was talking about the message he was going to tell
you about. It's perfect. The only perfect message. Now
in this psalm, we've got a division here. We've got in verses 1 through
verse 6, the psalmist, David, is rightly meditating and giving
praise to God for his creation. He is rightly praising God for
the wonders and amazement of creation. And he testifies of
this, that creation itself is a message. Creation itself. There are people, surely, that
have never heard the Word of God. They've never heard of this
book. There are places that this book had never been. But there
is a message that every man has heard, and it is the message
of creation. Look at this in verse 1, he says,
The heavens declare. You look at the heavens, look
up there and see, and they declare to you something. What? The glory
of God. Boy, the heavens are glorious.
I saw this documentary called The Privileged Planet, a very
good documentary. And it speaks of how special
Earth is in its place. That if it was anywhere else
in our solar system, we could not look into the heavens. You stood up on Mars or one of
the other ones and you looked into the heavens, you wouldn't
see many stars. The dust, the cosmic dust clouds
the vision. But here, we are able to see
past that into the heavens. And we see it as beautiful and
glorious. The stars we know now are suns. How many like our sun? And yet there are multiplied
billions of them. It's glorious to look at. And
so they speak of the glory of God, the firmament, showeth His
handiwork. Man, how in the world do we keep
oxygen in this planet? How is that possible? That's
just His handiwork. That's just like, you know, You
fiddle around, you whittle or something, Rick. That's just
kind of like his whittling. He just whittled this out. It
was his handiwork. It was nothing to him. Day unto
day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words
to the end of the world. Consider this message of creation. It has gone out and there is
nothing here. He tells you that the sun, it
rises in the morning and it runs its course like a strong man
to the end. And it does this every day. You know what, we set our clocks
to it. We set our clocks to that ball
of fire in the sky that we see running its course. It's an amazing
thing. And you know what? Nothing's
hid from it. Nothing's hid from it. You look, it's there. It's
constantly there. Even when the clouds are covering
it, guess what? It's still there. It's running
its course. The rain comes down from heaven.
It gives life to seeds. They bud, they spring forth.
We get food from these things. We eat, are nourished by it,
rivers. The rivers, get this, they run
into the sea all the time, every day. Right now, rivers are running
into the sea. Right now, they keep running.
They've been running for however long the world's been in its
orbit. Since God created it, they've
been running into the sea. You know what? It's never full. It's never full. It's an amazing
thing. It speaks. But not only does
this speak, listen, the events that take place on this creation
speak. We have troubles and tragedies
and sorrows and griefs, famines and earthquakes. We see the violence
of war. And these things, what do we
see? We see the wrath of God and the
sin of man. In the events of the world we
see this, these sorrows and tragedies, they're all warnings to us. They're
all warnings of impending judgment. Go to Romans, Romans chapter
1. Romans chapter 1, the apostle,
he says the same thing David does. Look at this in verse 18. He says, for the wrath of God
is revealed where from heaven against ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness because that
which may be known of God is manifest to them. You see, it's
talking, it's preaching. Creation is preaching something.
What is it preaching? Preaching the wrath of God against
ungodliness. That's what it's preaching. You
know, why is it that we naturally something bad happens to us?
And the first thing we ask, what we do? Why is that? Because,
you know, by nature, judgment is coming. This happens to people
who do not believe in God. That's the first thing they they
know they did something. They know that this has come
on me because of some bad thing that I've done. Why do they think
that? Because the law of God is written in their hearts. And what they know of God, listen
to what this creation does. He said, That which may be known
of God is manifest to them, for God has showed it unto him. For
the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made,
even the eternal power and Godhead. So that what? They're without
excuse. No one's without excuse. Everybody knows by looking at
creation there's a God. They do. I mean, I laugh, I really
laugh at the morons trying to prove evolution is how the world
came into existence. Somebody made a joke one time,
they said, a scientist said, well, I can create. God, I can
create. Watch this. And he grabbed a
pile of dirt. And God says, no, get your own
dirt. You see, God, they know that
God made this world. That's simple. A child understands
that always something has to come from something. You can't
have something come from nothing. And so we know this. Creation
speaks to us that there is a God. And what do we do with that?
Because when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God. See,
that's what creation will do. It'll tell you there is a God,
but it doesn't tell you how He's to be worshipped. It doesn't
tell you really who He is. It just tells you He's all-powerful
and He's judge. That's it. What do they do with
that? Because of the sinful nature of man, they rebel against what
they know. They rebel against what they
know. And not only this, but the law of God is written in
their hearts. Paul says that in chapter 2 in
verse 14. He says this, When the Gentiles, which have not
the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having
not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law
written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness,
and their thoughts, the meanwhile accusing or excusing one another.
Have you ever accused somebody of something? What gives you the right to accuse
somebody? Because that law is written in your hearts. You know
it's evil. Listen, we all know that adultery,
fornication, murder, theft, homosexuality, all of these are evil. We know
that. You see people yelling in the
streets. Why are they yelling in the streets trying to excuse
it? You see people excusing it. You
see people condemning it, and it is to be condemned. But then
you got people on the other side trying to excuse it. You see,
either way, it proves that there's a law written in your hearts.
Why would you try to excuse something that you just know is right?
You wouldn't need to, would you? But you're trying to excuse it
because you know it's wrong. Why do they spend so much time
on it? We know these things are evil
because the law of God is written. So then what does he conclude?
He said that in verse 1 of chapter 2, therefore you're inexcusable.
I don't care who you are. You're inexcusable. The creation
of God testifies of his deity, of his judgment. The law of God
written in your heart convinces you and knows this, that you
are full of sin, that you sin. But what these things cannot
tell you is how sin is pardoned. You can't look at the heavens
and see how sin is pardoned. You can't look at some other
man and see how righteousness is obtained. Why? We're all sinners.
You can't look at me and see how righteousness is obtained.
I can't obtain righteousness and neither can you. So by these
things that we see, We cannot ascertain who God really is or
what God really requires of us. They speak and you're without
excuse. But because of the depravity
of our hearts, we cannot know how a man can be accepted of
God. So now, David, in these next
verses, he changes from creation to something Something that's going to be
a better message. And he looked at verse 7. He
says, we know this, that this speaks to us, but it can't do
these things. I'm going to tell you what can.
He said, the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. Creation can't convert the soul.
The testimony of the Lord is sure. Is there anything in creation
sure? No. Making wise the simple. You can't
know, like I said, you cannot know God by the things of creation.
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing of the heart. The commandment of the Lord is
pure, enlightening the eyes. Fear of the Lord is clean, enduring
forever. The judgments of the Lord are
true and right altogether. He says this is the perfect thing.
What is he speaking about? He's talking about the gospel.
We're going to see this. The law of the Lord, the testimony
of the Lord, the statutes of the Lord, the commandments of
the Lord, the fear of the Lord, the judgment of the Lord. You
know what he's talking about? He's talking about the gospel
of Jesus Christ. This is the only thing that can
convert the soul. This is the only thing that can
make the simple wise. This is the only thing that can
enlighten the eyes of the blind. This is the only thing that makes
a man clean. It is the only thing that is
true and righteous altogether. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. No wonder Paul said, I determine
This is not this is on purpose, not accidental. I determined
not to know anything among you, but what? Jesus Christ and him
crucified, why? Because that's a perfect message.
This is the perfect message. I want us to see that this is
the perfect message. First of all, he says the law
of the Lord, and I want you to know he's not talking about the
law of Moses. How do I know this? We know that the law of Moses
is perfect. Is there anything wrong with
the law? Nothing, right? Paul said that the law is holy. The law is just and good. So what's the problem with it?
We're the problem. The law is not the problem we
are. The law is good. Is there anything you can point
in the law that's bad? No, it's all good. It's perfect.
There's nothing wrong with the law. But what's wrong is this,
it cannot save us. Because of our sin, the law is
never intended to convert the sinner. It is only intended for
one purpose, to expose him. When you read the law, Is there
any part of that law you can check off? You'll find an arrogant idiot
every once in a while trying to tell me you can check off
something. I don't commit adultery anymore.
All right. I don't know if you watch a commercial
every once in a while, I promise you it's going to pop in your
head. It does. Why? It's the law. It's it's
seeing in us nothing wrong with the commandment. The commandment
is good. Well, I don't lie anymore. OK, I think you just did, but. No, we're not. The law can do
nothing but condemn me, and that's all it does when I see it. All
I feel is condemnation. All I feel is my inadequacy to
obey it. It doesn't make me feel good
about myself. It really just exposes the sin
that's there. I remember every time I drive
down this road going to the doing some work out in Texas and they
had to sign the Ten Commandments God's road to happiness. Friends, that's nothing but stupidity
and arrogance. That's being dishonest with your
own conscience and your own heart. God's people know that the law
only exposes sin. Paul said this in Romans seven. He said that, uh, he said, I've
not known sin. I've not known lust except the
scripture said thou shall not covet. I've not known it except
the scripture said it except the law said it. Romans 3 it says for by the law
is the knowledge of sin Therefore all who desire to be
under the law Paul said don't you hear the law? Have you not
heard what it said? Cursed is everyone that continueth
not in all things Written in the book of the law to do them
cursed. See that's what the law says
cursed Curses everyone that continueeth
not in all things written in the book of the law to do them. And Paul tells us back in Romans
7, he said, well that's because the law is not just outward things.
This is what the Pharisees thought about the law. That if they just
performed them outwardly, that that was counted. That inward
didn't matter. Your thoughts didn't matter.
Your motives didn't matter. Paul tells us that it is the
thoughts and the intents of the heart that the law looks at. Would you like your thoughts
to be on a projector screen? Anybody? Anybody want to take
theirs and put it on a screen in front of everybody? Why? Because
you know they're evil. See, the law can only expose
sin. It cannot help us. And so this law in our text is
not the law of Moses. What is it? It is the gospel
of Jesus Christ. The law cannot convert. The law
of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. This word converted
means to rest. Does the law make you rest? Does
the law say, stop working? Is that what the law says? That's
what the word converted here means. It means stop, cease from
work, rest. Law can't do that. Law demands
you continue work. But so then this law is in the
gospel of Jesus Christ, and I want you to see this, above everything
else, that the law of the Lord, the gospel of Jesus Christ is
perfect. It doesn't lack anything. It's
not missing anything at all. It's perfect in its planning.
It's perfect in its planning. This gospel that I preach is
no accidental gospel. It's no roll of the dice. It was perfectly planned of God. Every aspect of it, every providence,
everything that happens in time and eternity was purposed of
God. God says, I do all my counsel. I do all my counsel, I do all
my will, my purpose shall stand. So this law of the Lord is a
gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ is
perfect in his purpose and planning, it's also perfect in its execution,
and it's perfect to convert the sinner. So see that the gospel
was purposed of God in perfection before the foundation of the
world. I had this thought of eternal,
our eternal election this week, and you realize that there was
never a time God didn't love his people. And we put it in
order. This is how we have to see things.
God loved us. Then God chose us. Then God put
us in Christ. See, we have to see things in
time. But you realize that there was never a time that you weren't
loved. There was never a time you weren't chosen. There was
never a time that you weren't in Christ. Because God is eternal
and his purpose is eternal and his purpose was to save his people,
his chosen people. So in the eternal love and grace
of the Father, He chose and elect people and purposed this, that
they should be holy, according as He had chosen us in Christ
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy. That's His purpose. His purpose
is perfect, and His purpose was for His elect to be perfect. He purposed that you be perfect
without sin. Isn't that what it is to be holy?
Without sin. That's what he purposed for you.
And then he said, in love, this is my this is my motive. I love
you. I love you. In love, having predestinated
us under the adoption of children. He not only going to make us
holy like angels, Angels are holy servants. But he says this,
I'm gonna make you holy sons. Isn't that much more perfect
than angels? I'm gonna make you sons. And
listen, I'm not going to do it based on anything you do. I'm
going to do it by Jesus Christ. That's how I'm gonna do it. And
I'm gonna do it for me. I'm going to do it for my glory
and you are going to praise the glory of my grace. That's what
God said. That's His perfect purpose, His
perfect plan. God's eternal election of grace
was perfect. So then who has God chosen and
purposed to be saved that will miss out on it? You see if one
misses out it's not perfect is it? If God purposed for a person
to be holy and without blame before Him, in love, purposed
him to be a son by Jesus Christ, and somehow that guy misses it. Is it perfect? Not perfect, is
it? I'm telling you, God's purpose
is perfect. And whatsoever God purposed to
do, that did He in heaven and in earth. Our God's in the heavens
and done what? What does He do? Whatsoever He
pleases. Can any stay His hand or say,
what doest thou? Anybody. Well, I did. I rejected Him based on my free
will. Okay. Oh, you just weren't in
the plan. You weren't purposed. And if
you are, guess what you're going to do? You're going to believe. Why, it's perfect. But not only
was the planning perfect, the execution was perfect. Consider
Christ is the object of this gospel. He is the centerpiece
of this gospel. The gospel of God centers around
Jesus Christ. In other words, everything hinges
upon the success of Jesus Christ. Everything. The perfect salvation
of all of the elect hinges on His work. What was His work? He said, Lo,
I come to do Thy will. In the volume of the book it
is written of Me to do Thy will, O God. What was the will of God? The will of God was to save His
people. Isn't that what the angel testified
of when he came into the world? He said, Thou shalt call his
name Jehovah Saves. Why? For he shall save his people
from their sins. Can you call him Jehovah Saves
if he doesn't? You would call him Jehovah Failed.
No, you call him Jehovah Saves because he shall save his people
from their sins. So Christ came into the world
and what was his delight? Every day of his life, what was
his delight? I delight to do thy will. You got that? When he came into
this world, all he delighted to do was the will of the Father.
In everything, he subjected himself to the law of God in every aspect. In thought, in motive, in deed,
he did everything that was pleasing unto God. He said to the Pharisee,
Which of you convinceth me of sin? Didn't they try? Didn't they try to catch it?
Man, there's some questions that they ask. And you've got to give
to the Pharisees. There's some questions there that we couldn't
answer. They threw that woman out committed adultery out there.
You see, Christ promised to show mercy to sinners. And yet, how
could he show mercy to sinners and be obedient to the law? They
threw that woman out there and said, look, there's a guilty
woman. You want us to stone her? That's what the law said. Or
are you going to show mercy? Boy, they had him. All right,
which of you, which of you is sinless? You that without sin,
you do the first throwing. But they had to leave. They couldn't
do it. They were just as guilty as she was. You know how he showed mercy?
Because he came to be her substitute. He came to offer himself to God
without spot, to offer his own life under the judgment and wrath
of God for our sins. You get that? Can you count how
many sins you have? If one sin is worthy of eternal
damnation, one, how many sins do you have? How many sins do you have just
in the last day? And yet the weight of our sins
God put on him, the guilt of our sins. He committed none of them. You
get mad when somebody condemns you and you ain't guilty. Somebody
tells you, you did this and you didn't do it. We get kind of
hostile. He did none of those things and
yet he willingly took our sin in his own body and the wrath
of God perfectly executed on him. Perfect. Every sin, every transgression,
God's wrath fully was executed perfectly on the Son of God so
that my sin did not escape. It was paid for. And when Christ said this, it
is finished, He said, My offering is perfect. My offering is perfect,
accepted of God. God proved it when he died. He did really die. They laid him in the tomb for
three days. And on the third day, God raised
him from the dead to show you this, that his offering was perfect. His offering was perfect. So
perfect that God sat him down on the throne of God. There's
a man. You can come up and you can touch
me. I'm a man. You can physically see me. There
is physically a man on a throne in heaven. And God give that man all power
in heaven and earth so that whatever is taking place in this world
is according to his divine decree. You got that? Everything. You
walk up and stub your toe. That is no accident. You think the minute things,
you think those things are outside of his purpose. No. Everything. In him we live and move and have
our being. You can't even be a being without
him holding you together. So then, it's a matter of salvation,
rest, and repentance. He provided righteousness for
His people. Shall He not then convert His
people? Will He not give His people rest? We know this, that since He has
provided perfect righteousness and perfect atonement, we know
that this, that by the power of the Holy Spirit, He will reveal
Himself to His people. None of them will miss it. He
said, this is the will of him that sent me, that of all which
the Father has given me, I should lose nothing, raise it up again
at the last day. And this is the will of him that
sent me, that everyone that seeth the Son and believeth on him
should have everlasting life. This is going to be the experience
of everyone he died for, everyone he died for. Now, who did he
die for? I don't know. I know he died
for me. So He died for me. How do I know
that? Because by His power, He gave
me a new heart. So I wish I now believed. He put His Spirit in me, so that
I would continue to believe. This is His will. This is perfect. Hold the perfection of this,
How then does he convince us of this? How does this conversion
come? By the law of the Lord. By the
preaching of the gospel. This is the means that God has
chosen to convert the sinner. The preaching of the gospel. Go to first Corinthians. First Corinthians chapter one. Verse 17, for Christ sent me
not to baptize, but what? What are ministers for? What do we do? Now baptized, if the Lord so
moves upon you that you have been converted, that you believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ commands you to the ordinance
of baptism, you should be baptized. I would love to do that. That
would be wonderful. It's an ordinance of His to show
forth another gospel picture. We give out the Lord's Supper. That's really not what I'm sent
to do. That's not my mission here. I'm sent to preach the
gospel. How? Not with words of wisdom. not to use wisdom of the world
in order to convince you. I saw a guy the other day going
on these college campuses, and man, they try to use earthly
wisdom to convert these atheists and students. Boy, they use all
kinds of tricks and gimmicks and intellect. They try to reason
with them. I don't try to reason with you. I've got this. I've got this.
Thus saith the Lord. Well, you know, Newton said this,
or somebody said that, and this philosopher said, I don't care.
God said this. See, that puts everybody else's
word under, doesn't matter. I like quoting some of these
older preachers. They say things, and I like the
way they say it. But really, if they're not saying,
thus saith the Lord, I don't really care what they say. Thus saith the Lord, that's part
of our message. We preach not the words of wisdom, lest the
cross of Christ should be made of none of faith. For the preaching
of the cross is to them that perish." What? What is it going
to be? Are they going to receive this message? Somebody said what I said yesterday
was harsh. Well, it's harsh in this. There's only one message, only
one gospel. That's pretty much it. It's strict. It's narrow,
isn't it? And so people say it's harsh. What are they telling me, really?
That's foolish. That's foolish what you say. Why? Because they're
perishing. Is that better? They just do not believe the
Gospels. They're perishing. They call it foolish. But what
is it doing? Is this not the most precious
gift ever? God knew my condition and still,
Christ still, knowing my sin, still died. Knowing my repentance, And to this day, he is still
keeping me. The only reason I'm here, the
only reason I'm not left and gone away is because of him. I don't see this position as mine. It is the power of God. But to us that are saved, it
is the power of God. The Lord has written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the blind. Isn't that good? I'm glad he
doesn't have it. I had some wisdom once. God destroyed
it. God showed me how foolish my
wisdom was. He didn't bring me nothing. The understanding of the prudent.
Where's the wise, where's the scribe? You know, if you're wise,
you're prudent, you're probably going to be able to tell. But
this is wisdom that you're not. Wisdom is that you're nothing. You see yourself as nothing. That's not
what the world tells you to see. Good. Launch yourself. Body positive. You gotta be body
positive. And you'll do nothing. Nothing. God shows you do nothing. But after that, the wisdom of
God, the world, We will never know God by the wisdom of the
world. We will never see God by the wisdom of the world. If
we believe God, by what men call foolishness, by the foolishness
of preaching to save them, that's the way, why do we preach? Because
we have the perfect message. The law of the Lord is perfect. Yes, it's perfect. Isn't that your experience? Or is it mine? Or is it mine? It's what God does. And I want you to see this, that
everybody, go back to what you texted me. I've got many more
points here, and it's going to leave you on that. I love that.
I see you on there. Why, it's perfect. I don't need
to keep going on. It's perfect. perfect. And listen to what he
said, verse 10. You need to believe it. What
does this gospel mean? This gospel is not just a list
of doctrines. It's not just an academic excellence. That's what, you know, schools
and theology schools, that's what they want. They want to
get the doctrine. They want it to be academic excellence. They want to know the doctrine.
Listen, the doctrine is a person. When you see Christ in a museum,
you can't see nothing. He's invisible. How can we know he's invisible? He's got an invisible man around
here. How can we know he's featured? Well, you put the clothes on
him. And the clothes will give him shape. They'll give him feature. That's what doctrine does to
Christ. Doctrine is just showing us the features of Jesus Christ.
He don't take the clothes and praise the clothes. He praises
the one who believes. That's what doctrine is. That's
what doctrine's good. All scripture is given of God
and profitable for doctrine. What does doctrine do? It tells
me who He is. It tells me what He did, and
who He is, and what He did, So what do I have to do? What do we have to do? When God saved
you, what did you have to go? Isn't that good? I don't want all, I want me. Yeah, me. This word is perfect. This gospel
is perfect. Why? Because it preaches the
gospel of the perfect salvation. And it is this gospel that moves
men to feel their duty. You need a new medium? I need a perfect salvation. I
don't need an incomplete one. I need a perfect one. Good, that's what you want. perfect
salvation. Creation teaches us how God then
teaches us really how to please what God has promised us. Perfect in His plan
by showing us He's perfect. Christ, perfect in His execution.
He's real as He is, saved as He can be. And He's perfect in
His experience. God's will comes every moment.
And he will literally save you. Pray God bless your heart. Because if you are
outside of Christ, I do hope that God will save you often.
If he would make you desire him, would you be willing to stand before him?