The latter end of Moses is an
intriguing one to be sure, and we see much in his death, in the Lord's ordination
of the manner in which he would die, in which he would not enter
into the promised land. We see the plain teaching that
is not by the works of the law than any flesh is justified.
The law can't do anything but condemn us. And Moses was, of
course, the epitome of the law, was he not? I mean, he was the
one to whom the Lord spoke the law and gave the tablets. And
he's the one who typified as a sinful man that he could not
keep the law. Didn't do what the Lord told
him to do. And he smoked the rock when the Lord told him to
speak to it. And the law is illustrated in
the, or the work of the law, is illustrated in what Moses
did. uh... what the law does is stirs
up sin within us and whenever we see when the law comes paul
said when the law came see paul was a righteous man and he said
he lived by the law for a long time but he said when the law
came that is when the lord showed him what the law was he said
sin revived now did he become more sinful because of the law
no But what he means is that when the law came to his understanding
and he saw what the law was, he realized how sinful he was. Sin revived within him. And he
said, oh, woe is me, for I'm a sinner. And he said that it's
not by the works of the law. Sin revived and I died. I came
to the place where I understood that it was not anything that
I could do that would bring me into the favor of Almighty God. And so it is fitting that the
Lord kept Moses out of the Promised
Land, lest men might think in time to come that by the works
of the law they could somehow or other enter there, but they
could not, and they cannot even in the present time. How wondrous
is the word of the Lord in all the things. Men, as you
look at the Scriptures and as the Lord is pleased to give you
an understanding of the unfolding of His purpose throughout the
book from the beginning to the end, of being to exalt the name
of Christ, and you see how the Lord worked all these things.
together, and it's a beautiful and wondrous picture. I remember
hearing a preacher one time, he was a black gentleman, and
he said that the Word of God is like digging sweet potatoes.
He says, you can dig them taters up, And you can think you got
them all out and he says, you can go out there tomorrow and
you can dig up some more. And so it is that, you know,
that's the way the word of God is. You can't exhaust it because
it has an inexhaustible subject. The riches of Christ, which are
there from beginning to end. And most assuredly, do we see
them here in the Psalms. And so we're, Looking here in Psalm 146, Psalm 146 says,
Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. While I live will I praise the
Lord. I will sing praises unto my God
while I have any being. Put not your trust in princes,
nor in the Son of Man, in whom there is no help. His breath
goeth forth, he returneth to his earth. In that very day his
thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God
of Jacob for his help. whose hope is in the Lord his
God, which made heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that
therein is, which keepeth truth forever, which executeth judgment
for the oppressed, which giveth food to the hungry. The Lord
looseth the prisoners. The Lord openeth the eyes of
the blind. The Lord raiseth them that are
bowed down. The Lord loveth the righteous.
The Lord preserveth the strangers, he relieveth the fatherless and
widow, but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. The Lord
shall reign forever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the Lord. And so this
psalm ends as it begins, praise ye the Lord. Even as we believe
these last six psalms, or David's psalm of praise, and surely praise
is comely for the upright. That is, it's a thing fitting
for those who've been made righteous in Christ to praise him, is it
not? It's comely, it's that which
fits us. It was no stranger thing in all the earth than a man who
professes to believe in the work of Christ, the finished work
of Christ, who does not also have praise within his very being
for that which Christ has done. Those two things go hand in hand. And where you find one, you will
find the other. Let the redeemed of the Lord
say so. Praise ye the Lord. Praise the
Lord, O my soul. Not just outwardly. See, you
can teach people songs. You can teach people that they
should praise God. And all men should praise. Let
everything that hath breath praise the Lord. See, it's incumbent
on men to praise the Lord. It's not an optional thing. You
don't, no man born into this world has the option of whether
or not to praise God. All men must praise Him. All
men shall praise Him. In whatever end they come to,
all men shall praise God. All things shall bring glory
unto His name because He's ordained all things to come for His own
glory. And there's not a thing in the
world that a man can say against that. And that's what causes
us to fall down and praise Him. I thank God that He's done all
things according to the good pleasure of His will. Because
as He reveals to us what the good pleasure of His will is,
what a glorious and merciful Savior He is, that He came to
save sinners, as Paul said, and I agree with him, of whom I am
chief. And so it is that we ought to
praise the Lord, not just simply with our lips, but with our very
soul, all that's within us. Let us praise him with our whole
heart, with that whole part of our being. Now, I've said this
before, and I believe it bears that we need to keep this in
mind, that we don't have a soul. but we are a soul. And when the
scripture speaks of praising the Lord, oh my soul, he means
with our being, what we are. See, the Lord breathed into man
and he became a living soul. Otherwise, we're just a lump
of clay. We are a soul, we have a body. We are not a body with a soul,
but we are a soul who has a body by the grace of God. He shows
us such things and gives us a heart and a mind to exalt and honor
Him. While I live, I will praise the
Lord. I will sing praises unto my God
while I have any being. Now see, the realm in which we
live is only a realm we know. I mean we can speculate upon
what happens after death, can we not? And we find a lot of
things in the word of God that teach us what happens when a
man dies. But we've not been there yet.
And so the only place that we have to praise the Lord is here
and now. You can't wait, well I'll wait,
I'll live my life and then I'll praise the Lord You know, after
death, I'll have plenty of time to do it. No, you have this moment. Today is the day of salvation.
Today is the day of praise. See, you don't have tomorrow,
do you? I mean, any one of us, this could
be the last time any one of us sees the other one. Now some
would say that's a morbid thought, but it's a true thought, dear
brethren, for our life's as a vapor. And so it is that we don't have
the promise of tomorrow, and so David says here, I will praise
the Lord while I live. What he meant was my life is
for the praise of God. I will live in praise to God.
You know, I won't wait. I'm not gonna put it off. Well,
I don't have time right now. I'll do it later. No, I will
praise the Lord while I live. That is, every moment of my life,
may I praise His name. I will sing praises unto God
while I have any being. Now, why do you have any being? See, a lot of people think they
just are. Well, you're not an R. You don't
have an R. You're not a being except by
the mercy and grace of God who made you so. See, you don't have
any power whatsoever in yourself. You don't have life in yourself. You have the gift of life which
is given to you according to the grace of God in his mercy. while I have any being. Put not
your trust in princes, nor in the Son of Man, in whom there
is no help. It takes us a long time to learn
that. Now, the one that we trust the
most, who's led us down the most, is our own self. Is that not
right? I mean, everybody's been disappointed by what other people,
what we wanted other people to do and they didn't do. We expected
them to do it and they didn't do it. And we've been disappointed
in that realm, have we not? But I venture to say nobody's
ever disappointed you as much as yourself. Put no trust in
it. I mean, our flesh is unreliable. Our flesh is a vain thing. the
heart of deceitful and desperately wicked, who can know it? Now,
modern philosophy and and the thought process people have,
that gun goes against the grain. Well, man's not, I mean, ever,
man, he's not just totally wicked. I mean, he's got some good in
him. See, most people figure that men have good and evil in
them, and we're just trying to get the good to outweigh the
evil. But the scripture says there's none good, no, not one. We've all gone astray. There's
nothing in us, dear brethren, that can recommend us even to
one another, let alone to the holy and eternal God. And so
it is that we put no trust in princes, and no powers. There's no power on earth. People
get all wound up in this political stuff. And I'm not saying you
shouldn't have some concern about these things, but there's no
help in the government. It doesn't make any difference
who gets elected or whatever. That's not where our confidence
is. You know, some people think, oh man, all our problems will
be solved if we can just get Trump back in there. Well, you
know, they wasn't all solved when he was in there and it won't
be solved if he gets back in and it won't make any difference
who gets in there, even if it's Hillary. It's not gonna help
you. That's not where our help is,
dear brother. I mean, those things pass away
in a moment. The Lord raises up kings and
puts down princes and does according to his will. He turns the heart
of the king with us every will. Some say, well, the president
we got, he's not really the president. Well, evidently he is. I mean, the Lord put him there,
did he not? I mean, he took the oath of office
and he's in there. You might not like him. That
doesn't make any difference. We don't have any confidence
in him or anybody else that might be in there. So that's not our
confidence, not our trust, nor in the Son of Man. in whom there
is no help. There is no help in men. His
breath goeth forth. This is the description of men.
This is just exactly what men are. His breath goeth forth,
he returneth to his earth. In that very day his thoughts
perish. Now that's a pretty bleak description
of the glory of man, is it not? I mean, people say, well, you're
gonna live on somewhere, or well, are you? I mean, is that really
what the scripture says? I never read anywhere where it
says that men are gonna live on somewhere. Now, I've read
that there are those to whom God is pleased to give eternal
life. Dear brethren, men are creatures
without life, except the Lord gives it to them. Job said, if
a man dies, shall he live again? Now you often hear that preached
on in funerals. As though what Job was saying,
that the answer is, yes, he shall. But actually what Job was saying,
no, he won't. He said, there's more hope of
a tree than there is of a man. I mean, a tree, you can take
and cut a tree down and it'll sprout up from the roots. You
cut a man down, he will not sprout back up. your brother he will
go back to the dust from whence he has come and so that's a bleak
outlook is it not for men by nature in their own power of
themselves if a man dies shall he live again no because in that very day his
thoughts perish you see all of the hopes and dreams of men die
with them do they not isn't that what uh... solomon said He said,
you know, men lay up treasures and they build barns and they
do all these things and somebody else comes along and takes it
when they're gone. And what was it? Think of all the hopes and
dreams that men have had to build great empires and all these things.
And what happened when they died? Their thoughts perished. All
those things went away. They were of no lasting value. Don't put your confidence there.
Happy as he, that hath the God of Jacob for his help. Oh, what
a glorious place that is. Because to trust in the arm of
the flesh is to fail. To trust in the arm of the flesh
is to be bereft of all hope. But happy, blessed, is him that
hath the God of Jacob. Now, not just any God. Now, some
folks, and the religious world, believes in general that just
any God will do. I mean, you know, faith. You
often hear people talk about all these various faiths and
you need to have, you know, you need to have some sort of faith.
Well, brethren, all of the faiths, if you want
to use that term, I don't really think that's a good term, but
if you want to use it that way, are The inventions of men, there
is but one faith. The scripture says, one Lord,
one faith, one baptism. And that faith is Christ. You
see, it doesn't make any difference what the faith of men is. Men
talk about, oh, well, I have faith. I've got plenty of faith.
I'm big on faith. You know, I really, Well, faith's
of no use whatsoever if it doesn't have the proper object. And all
faith is sure to fail that it does not have as its substance
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our faith. Happy is he
that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the
Lord his God. The one God, the true God, who
is he? He's that one which made heaven,
and the earth, the sea, and all that therein is, which keepeth
truth forever. He's that one who rules and reigns. All these things belong to Him.
Without Him was not anything made that was made. He is the
Creator, which executeth judgment for the oppressed. Give food
to the hungry. The Lord looseth the prisoners.
Now, let me back up a minute, because which keepeth truth forever? Now, truth, men think they discover
truth. Nobody ever discovered truth.
Truth has to be revealed. See, when George Washington Carver
He's given credit for all of these things that he invented,
most of them from peanuts. But he confessed, he said, I
never invented anything. He said, the Lord showed it to
me. I mean, how does a man know things?
How do you know anything? I mean, how do you know how to
get to your car when you leave here? How is that? Some folks don't. you realize
that you might come to the place where you don't know where your
car is. I mean, have you ever, you know
somebody as good as you know yourself, and you see them and
you can't even remember what their name is? Now you young
folks, y'all don't even know about that yet, but you know,
you learn, you look at them and say, you know, I know who that
is, who is that? So how is it that we know anything
except by the mercy of God, the teaching of God? Now that's true
for the wicked as well as the upright. We don't know anything
except that which the Lord is pleased to show us, dear brethren.
You can't discover anything on your own because the Lord is
the one that gives that understanding. He keeps the truth forever. The truth belongs to Him. The
Lord Jesus Christ said this, he says, I am the way, the truth,
and the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. He is the truth. If you would
know what the truth is, you must know him. Impossible to walk
in truth. I mean, there's been men that
have known a lot of things, but they didn't know the truth. You
see, you take like a man like, Gandhi over in India. Now he
was a man that, as far as men are concerned, he did a lot of
good stuff. And he knew some stuff. But the
one thing that he needed to know he didn't know, which was who
the truth was. And so it is, dear brethren,
that a man can know many things and never know the truth. Oh,
that he which keeps the truth may show it to us. Because if
he doesn't, we're going to be without it. Which executeth judgment
for the oppressed. Now he is that one who's the
defender of the oppressed. Now I want you to look here at
these, the ones whom the Lord says that he helps. He says the
oppressed. He gives food to the hungry.
The Lord looseth the prisoners. The Lord openeth the eyes of
the blind. The Lord raises them that are bowed down. The Lord
loveth the righteous. The Lord preserveth the strangers.
He relieveth the fatherless and widow. But the way of the wicked,
he turneth upside down. Now the Lord, all of those that
he mentions there, even the righteous, because if you understand who
the righteous are, you understand what he meant here. See, a lot
of people think that when the scripture speaks about the Lord
loves the righteous, they mean that He looks down and He sees
all the ones that's doing good. all the moral and upright people.
See, that's the righteous in the eyes of the religious world,
is it not? I mean, if you ask the religious
world who the righteous were, they would say, well, they're
those that try to do right. You know, they come to church
and they do all the things that they're supposed to do. They
abide by the law and they do good to their fellow man and
all that, and they're righteous. But I tell you, there's none
righteous. No, not one in themselves. The righteous are those who are
made righteous in Christ. And the Lord loves the righteous
because He sees in them the righteousness of Christ, His beloved Son in
whom He is well pleased. He's not pleased with you except
that you be in Christ. See, He sees us in Christ and
therefore we're pleasing in His sight because He loves His Son. Oh, what a glorious thing it
is that the Lord He helps those that cannot help themselves.
He executes judgment for the oppressed. Now, all of us have
felt like we've been oppressed from time to time, have we not?
And we've just, maybe we even ask the Lord, Lord, I wish you'd
just give them what they deserve. Have you done that? You never
did that, did you? But no, you know, we feel that
way. And you know how, if you ever
wondered how quickly such thoughts arise in your mind, I mean, just
as something as simple as driving down the road and somebody pulls
out in front of you. I mean, and just that quick,
you've called down the fires of heaven upon them, huh? Why
you sorry thing, you know, what are you trying to do? Where does
that come from? I'll tell you where it comes
from. It's the work of the law written in our heart. And we excuse one another, or
accuse or excuse one another according to what we think. See,
that's the work of the law. An eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth. Everybody's born with it. You don't believe it? You know, watch two children
playing, and one of them gets a toy, and the other one says,
well, I want that toy. And he says, well, no, you can't
have that toy. That belongs to me. And so he
hauls off and hits the other one, and what's the other one
do? He hits him back. Why is that? Because he believes
in a lie for a nine, a tooth for a tooth. I mean, you can't
escape that there, brethren. It's written in your heart. But the Lord executes judgment
for the oppressed, those who are truly oppressed. See, those
who are hated by the world for Christ's sake, He executes judgment. He does. Now, that judgment might
be slow in coming, but it's sure and steadfast. He gives food
to the hungry. Now, where do people get food
from? Have you ever thought about that
very much? I mean, I know you have probably, as we all give
thanks to the Lord for our food. We realize that he provides it. But do you realize how fragile
the food supply is? I mean, we live in a land of
plenty. And we've never, probably none
of us have ever really had to do without much. I mean, we might
have did without things we would have liked to have had, but I
mean, as far as really being in dire straits and hungering
and being without food of any kind and no way to get it. But
you realize how quickly that we could all be in that situation.
I mean, how much food do you have? You know, you might have
a bunch of stored food. I remember one time we decided
we were going to prepare for the hard times to come. And so we said, well, what we
need to do, we're going to get us a bunch of fish, and we're
going to salt them down. And then we'll have these fish
to eat when times get hard and everything. Well, a bunch of
us did all this. We bought all this salt and these
fish, and we stacked them all up and got them all. really well.
But a year later, hard times hadn't quite hit yet, and so
we decided we would look and see how, you know, eat some of
these fish. And they had all rotted. I mean, even our best efforts,
we didn't do something right, I guess, because I know people
have done that. There is a way to do it, but
we didn't know how it was. But how foolish it would be for
men to think that because you've got some food stored up in some
cans or whatever, that you're good. We don't need to trust
the Lord. I mean, we got this food stored up. You can go in
there and that stuff will be bad. They say it lasts 25 years.
How do they know? You know, it's like these, you
go to a funeral home and they'll say your casket's got a lifetime
guarantee. I mean, you know, what is that? I mean, who's ever going to check
it to see? You can give somebody a lifetime
guarantee on something you're never gonna see again, right?
I mean, what would you ever know? But how foolish are the ways
of men? The Lord, how'd I get on that?
The Lord gives food to the hungry. He's the one that provides these
things. The Lord looseth the prisoners. He sets men free.
But you see, those that are hungry and thirsting for the kingdom
of God are those whom he feeds, are they not? I mean, a man who
hungers and thirsts after God will be fed. There's just no two ways about
it. Why? Because the Lord's the one that causes him to hunger
after these things in the first place. And if the Lord causes
a man to hunger and thirst after righteousness, he will be filled.
He does feed the hungry. The Lord looses the prisoners.
He sets those free. who, remember those that were
in the prison with Paul and Silas when they were in Philippi. And the Lord came, sent an earthquake
in the middle of the night and loosed all the chains of all
the prisoners that was in there. He set them all free. Now, we
don't know what happened to the rest of the prisoners. I don't
know if they let all of them go or what happened, but the
Lord loosed the prisoners, did he not? And he loosed Paul and
Silas. And so it is that the Lord looses
men from the darkness in which they're bound. See, men don't
think they're in bondage. The Jews didn't, did they? They
say, we're not, we're free men. I mean, you can't call, we're
the sons of Abraham, we've never been in bondage to anybody. How
foolish was that? They didn't realize that the
bondage that they were in was the bondage of their heart. Men
think they have a free will, but see, the will of man is not
free. What do we mean by that? I mean,
can you decide what color socks you're gonna put on? Well, sure
you can. You got a free will, don't you?
You can put on any color socks you want. But what you can't
do is love the truth of God. Because your heart's bound by
sin. Your will is in bondage to the
wickedness of your own heart. And you can't seek the Lord apart
from the Lord seeking you. Oh, what a good God He is that
looseth the prisoners. He opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord raises them that are bowed down. The Lord loveth the
righteous. The righteous, those who are
made righteous in Christ. He is our righteousness. The
Lord preserveth the strangers, those who are sojourners in this
world. These all died in faith. not
having received the promises, but they made confession that
they looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder
and maker is God. See, they were strangers. You
ever feel like a stranger in this world? I look around myself
sometimes and I say, what in the world is going on here? And
this is especially true when I see some people nowadays, I'm
just amazed at some of the you know, crazy stuff that men will
do to themselves, people will do to their bodies. I mean, disfigure
their self and think it looks good. I mean, I don't get it.
You know, I'm going to be put out to pasture pretty soon. I
mean, it's just beyond my thought, but that's just a simple thing.
All that stuff is going to perish with the flesh anyway. That's
not even what I'm talking about. But I, you know, the men of this
world don't love the gospel. They don't love the God of glory. And I find myself a stranger
because I don't, you know, it really bothers me to hear the
language of people when they speak about the name of the Savior. Because they don't speak of Him
and use his name as an act of worship. But they use his name
as an expletive. They use his name in a manner
that sends chills up and down my spine. I hate it. Dear brethren,
we are those who are strangers in this world. We have no communion
or fellowship with the darkness of this world. He relieveth the
fatherless and the widow, those who have no power to take care
of themselves. But the way of the wicked, he
turneth upside down. I was thinking of Psalm 1 when
I read that. Blessed is the man that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is
in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day
and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers
of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His
leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
Now I believe that is a description of the children of God as they
are in Christ, because this is actually a description of Christ,
is it not? He's a man that did all those
things, and he is blessed, and our blessing comes to us from
him. But listen to what it says here. But the ungodly are not
so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore
the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. nor sinners in
the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way
of the righteous. Now, what is the way of the righteous?
Is that one way? The Lord said, I am the way.
That's the way of the righteous. But the way of the ungodly shall
perish. What is the way of the ungodly?
Well, it's a thousand things. See, a man can, there's only
one way to be right. There's a million ways to be
wrong. And men will choose those wrong ways every time, except
for the grace of God. The way of the wicked, he turneth
upside down. He hates the way of the wicked.
He hates workers of iniquity. He will by no means clear the
guilty. He shall slay the wicked. The Lord shall reign forever,
even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the Lord. oh what a comforting thought
to the man who has fled to Christ for refuge that he will reign
forever see he's not one with an empty promise now I don't
know exactly how much confidence that the Philistines had in their
god Dagon I think probably actually they probably didn't have much
but it was just kind of a thing they did you know it was accepted
and it was comforting call me and always like a god to be right
where you want they they like a god who is doing whatever you
want you know if you just come to him in and you just uh...
uh... whenever you get ready he's standing
right there he just wants you to do good he just is hoping
you'll you'll straighten up and and all of that and you just
know that he's always there well dear brethren the god of
whom we read about in the scripture He's indeed everywhere at all
times, but he's not everywhere you want him to be. He's always where he wants to
be. And he desires to dwell with
those who are in Christ. What a glorious thing. Because
you see, he's the one that puts men in Christ. Men don't get
in Christ by their power, they get in Christ by the mercy of
God. Oh, to be found in Him. He's the Savior. And He saves those that call
upon His name. He'll help those that can't help
themselves. He has no help at all for those
that would approach unto Him with anything in their hands.
pleading any righteousness of their own. Our righteousness
is Christ.