In number 68, we'll be singing
this hymn to the tune of How Firm a Foundation. How happy are we, our election
Lucy. And venture, O Lord, for salvation
on Thee. In Jesus approved, eternally
loved. Upheld by His power, we cannot
be moved. "'Tis sweet to recline on the
bosom divine, And experience comfort peculiar to thine. While born from above, and upheld
by thy love, With singing and triumph to Zion we move. Our seeking Thy face was all
of Thy grace. Thy mercy demands and shall have
all the praise. No sinner can be beforehand with
Thee. Thy grace is eternal, almighty
and free. Our Savior and Friend, His love
shall never end. In whom no beginning and never
shall end. Whom once He received, His serenade
ne'er leaves. nor ever repents of the grace
that he gives. This proof we would give, that
thee we receive. Thou art precious alone, To the
souls that believe, be precious to us. All beside is as draws. Come paired with Thy love, and
the blood of Thy cross. the invisible feast, the bread
of the kingdom, the wine of the blessed, who grants us to know
His drawings below, Will endless salvation and glory bestow. Let's look at hymn number 206. 222. 222. That last one was done in, the
meter was 11s, but it was 11s at regular, so some of that didn't
quite line up, and I didn't seem through the whole thing this
morning. I just went through the first couple of lines and said, well,
that matches, so I didn't get to the part where I could see
where it would line up, but this one ought to line up pretty good
right here. Hymn number 222, Because I Say I'm Rich, there's a lot of false understanding
of things by a lot of false religionists. And one of the things is they
think they're rich because they have a lot of things. But that's
not necessarily true. We'll sing this to the tune of
Amazing Grace. What makes mistaken men afraid
of sovereign grace to preach? The reason is, if truth be said,
Because they are so rich Why so offensive in their eyes Does
God's election seem? Because they think Themself so
wise that they have chosen Him Of perseverance, why so low? Are some to speak or hear? Because as masters they vow to persevere. When sin's imputed righteousness
appoints so little knowledge, Because men think they all possess
some righteousness their own. Not so the needy, helpless soul
prefers his home He looks to Him that works the whole and
seeks His treasure there. His language is, Let me, my God,
On sovereign grace rely, And own tis free, Because bestowed
On one so vile as Thine. Election tis a word divine, For,
Lord, I plainly see, Had not Thy choice prevented mine, I
ne'er had chosen Thee. For perseverance, strength I've
none But would on this depend That Jesus, having loved His
own We'll love them to the end. Empty and bare I come to Thee. Righteousness divine, O may thy
matchless merits be by imputation mine. Thus differ these, yet
both be neat, Make salvation sure. Now, most men will approve
the rich, but Christ has blessed the poor. Or a great hymn. All right. Well, how about you turn over
in the old school hymn book For y'all that was raised Southern
Baptist like me, there's gonna be a word change down at the,
on the first verse, down on the next to the last line. And saw
the victory, grew up singing and won the victory. We didn't
win diddly-squat. Jesus won the victory, not us. But we are given to see the victory
that was given for us and made for us. So let's make sure that
we make that notation as we sing. Victory in Jesus. I've heard
an old, old story. how a Savior came from glory,
how He gave His life on Calvary to save a wretch like me. I heard about His groaning, of
His precious blood atoning. Then I repented of my sins and
saw the victory. Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior
forever. He sought me and bought me with
His redeeming blood. He loved me ere I knew Him, and
all my love is due Him. He plunged me to victory beneath
the cleansing flood. I heard about His healing, Of
His cleansing power revealing, How He made the lame to walk
again, And caused the blind to see. And then I cried, Dear Jesus,
Come and heal my broken spirit. Then somehow Jesus came and brought
to me the victory. Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior
forever. He sought me and bought me. with His redeeming blood. He loved me ere I knew Him, and
all my love is to Him. He plunged me to victory beneath
the cleansing flood. I heard about a mansion He has
built for me in glory And I heard about the street of gold Beyond
the crystal sea About the angels singing And the old redemption
story Oh, victory in Jesus, my Savior
forever. He sought me and bought me. With His redeeming blood He loved
the air I knew Him And all my love is to Him He's plunged me
to victory Beneath the cleansing flood If anybody else has a request
they can make to Steve Booth here after the break a little
bit. Good. All right. Well, turn with me, if you would,
this morning over to Jobe, Booker Jobe. Good morning. Good morning. Have a seat. Good to
see you. In the book of Job, we have been looking at our series
on the doctrine and studies on grace. We have been looking now
for many weeks at the different aspects of God's grace. We began our series quite a while
back now talking about the fact that we are sinners and that
we have an inability spiritually to do anything Godward, anything
spiritual. We are dead in trespasses and
sins. We are destitute of the Spirit
of God. We are destitute of any faculties
that can do anything of righteousness. We are unable to keep the law
of God. We are unable to do the things required of God. We are
completely and totally unable enabled, depraved. And so we looked at that for
a few weeks. And then we looked at God's sovereignty. We spoke about God being the
sovereign, not only the Creator, but the sovereign ruler over
all things. We looked at His sovereign work
in all the things that He has done, the end from the beginning.
We looked and seen how He has predestinated all things whatsoever
shall be. We've seen that not anything
happens without his decree and that nothing is escaping God,
nothing is getting away from Him, nothing is happening. He's
not reacting to other things and kicking them back in play.
God is doing His will, working out His purpose by His providence. And so we spent a few weeks looking
at sovereignty predestination and providence and how that works
in not only the work of God but also in our lives. And then we
begin to look and see that because of our inability and because
of God's sovereignty, We come to this issue of salvation and
we look at that and see that the Bible is clearly and overwhelmingly
teaching that all salvation comes because God has elected to choose
a people for himself and to save those people and that that Election
is an unconditional election. There's nothing you can do to
be elected or to keep from being elected. And that this election
is a personal election, individual election. And we talked quite
long about that as well. That election in Christ Jesus
had to be warranted by justice. There had to be a just reason
that God could love sinners, that God could save sinners.
The age-old question, how can a man be justified before God? That was the issue. And so the
next topic that we looked at is the atonement of Jesus Christ. The only way that sinful man
could be redeemed and reconciled to God, could be brought into
relationship and communion with God is for an atonement for sin,
for there to be a substitutionary death, but also a substitutionary
obedience applied to them. Imputed righteousness is the
term, is the phrase that we use. There had to be a righteousness
imputed to us because there is no righteousness in us. And so,
as we learned in our inability discussions, we've seen that
there is no one righteous, no not one. However, those elect
of God have been imputed the righteousness of Jesus Christ,
that righteousness of His. is laid to their account. And
so God reckons them just and righteous because of the work
of Jesus Christ. It's all based upon His blood,
His righteousness. He obeyed the law for us. He
kept the law completely. And then He paid the penalty
that was due us because of our sin. And so we looked and seen
that that atonement was made by Jesus Christ. And we learned
two words as we studied that over the course of the weeks.
and that that atonement was efficacious, meaning that it had an effect,
and that it was vicarious, meaning that it was for specific people. It wasn't just for people in
general. If it was for people in general, then they would receive
the effects of that atonement. But that atonement we've seen
had an effect. Because of that atonement, God
did certain things or accounted certain things and granted certain
things because of Christ's atonement. and we see that not everybody
receives that benefit. And so thus we understand that
the Scriptures firmly teach that this work of atonement is a work
for a particular people. And so we looked at particular
redemption. And then we just finished looking
at overcoming grace over the last two or three weeks. And
we've seen that God's grace overcomes our inability and what a blessed
doctrine that is. The fact that we are unable to
do anything spiritual but God in grace and mercy comes to sinners
who would never come to Him, who would never love Him, who
would never worship Him, who would never look to Christ alone
and trust and believe in Christ alone for righteousness. We would
never do that, yet God in grace and mercy has come and changed
our heart, given us a new heart. born us from above and give us
spiritual faculties, spiritual capabilities, a capacity to know
and understand spiritual things and to, as we sang on that hymn
just a few minutes ago, to be able to see the victory that
was won to us. My mind keeps always going back
to that passage in Timothy that we looked at that says, He has
saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to His grace and mercy which He gave us in
Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world. but now has been
made manifest in the appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ who has abolished sin and death and has brought life
and immortality to light through the Gospel. That salvation that
was secured for us by Christ comes to us by the Gospel. We
hear that victory. We see that victory. Why? Because
we've been given spiritual life, spiritual eyes, spiritual ears.
And so we can receive those things. We would never have been able
to do that unless God in sovereign grace and mercy gave us overcoming
grace. And that is the most beautiful
thing. And as I mentioned in those deals,
I hated that doctrine for many, many years. I hated that, that
God would come and save somebody without their permission. But
yet God is gracious. The reason that we think that
that doctrine is egregious is because we don't truly believe
what the Bible teaches about our inability. If people knew
what the Bible teaches about our inability, then they would
run to the doctrine of overcoming grace. And so what a beautiful
thing that is. But we concluded our talks on
overcoming grace last week. And today I would like for us
to begin to look at another part of God's grace and that is His
preservation of His people. His preservation of His people. Some call it perseverance of
the saints. Some call it the preservation of God. I prefer
the preservation of God because sometimes whenever you say the
perseverance of the saints, that can be misunderstood. Some people
look at that, especially those who don't believe or understand
the doctrine of grace. think that there is something
that we do inside of ourselves that keeps ourselves saved. That
we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, or we can hang on,
or that we can do all these works of sanctification that keeps
us saved. I remember growing up, and of
course I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, and we believed
in the doctrine of once saved, always saved. That's what they
called the doctrine at least. Once saved, always saved. Now I don't
particularly care for that phrase much more because it is problematic
in some areas but the belief behind it I definitely believe
and that is that once Christ saves a person that can't ever
be lost. I understand it more fully now
and why that's true. There it was just an issue of
after you get saved, or after you choose Christ, then you can't
ever go away. Now I look back on that and I
thought how crazy it was for me. I didn't believe that God
could sovereignly save somebody without their choosing, but yet
I believe that He could keep them sovereignly and they could
never go away no matter what they did. They couldn't go away. God kept them sovereignly and
kept them to be Christians. And so that was kind of a fallacy
on my belief system at that time. However, we see that it is God
who preserves us. The only reason that we continue
to stay in faith stay in as a Christian is because of his preserving
power in us. Salvation has nothing to do with
what we do. It has everything to do with
what Christ did. And because it had nothing to do with us
to get it, there is nothing that we can do to lose it. Now, again,
I always qualify this so people don't misunderstand. I'm not
saying go live the way you want to live and you just go out and
sin all you want to sin because you can't lose your salvation.
I've never even heard anybody, even Southern Baptists, I've
never heard anybody preach that doctrine, okay? I've never heard
anybody preach that. That's just a straw man that
people like to build up and knock down. Those who are born again,
they desire righteousness and holiness. They desire the things
of God. They desire those things. But
the reason that we stay and don't apostatize is because of the
preservation of God, and so we persevere. Now, just like with
all the other things that we're just going to go through, and
there are probably a lot of scriptures that I could add into these that
we'll look at over the next few weeks. And if any come to your
mind, you're welcome to share those. Any comments that you'd
like to make, you're welcome to make those, men, if you would. But we're going to start back
in Job, and we're going to kind of work our way from the Old
Testament to the New Testament. I'm sure there's some before
Job, but just some that are sticking out in my mind. And we're going
to kind of look at this at some different angles. We're not only
going to look at it in its basest form of where the scriptures
just overtly say that God is doing this, but we're going to
look at some other scriptures that kind of bear some of this
out, and it may take a little bit of expounding and expositing
what this verse means. So, again, as with all the other
things that we've done, We'll go through these verse by verse
and we'll look at these places where this is found throughout
the Scripture. In Job chapter 17, and if you would look with
me at verse 9. Job chapter 17, and we're going
to look at verse 9. It says, "...the righteous also
shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be
stronger and stronger." Without an overall knowledge
of the Word of God, you probably won't pick up necessarily on
this. First of all, we need to know
who the righteous are. We're not talking about people who
do good works. We're not talking about people
who are obeying the law. That's kind of the first thing
that comes to people's mind is whenever the Bible speaks of
the righteous, that it's talking about those who are faithfully
keeping the law of Moses or whatever, you know, that they're faithfully
keeping that. If you'll remember, the Bible says there are none
righteous, no, not one. Okay? If anybody is righteous,
it's because there's been a righteousness imputed to them. laid to their
account. It's a foreign righteousness.
It's not their own righteousness. It's the righteousness of Christ.
The righteous is the same as saying the saints. Lot of people,
you know, we talk about Catholics and about how they talk about
saints and everything. And because of their misuse of
that, people tend to shy away from using that term. But the
Bible clearly says that everyone who is born of God is a saint.
It isn't just the ones who do the best, all right, who do the
most good works. And those people, a lot of times,
and I would say the majority of times, that they call saints
aren't saints just because Mother Teresa did all those good humanitarian
efforts that don't make her nothing. She didn't gain salvation by
that. If she never did come to know Christ and believe the true
gospel of Jesus Christ, all those works were works of the flesh
and the Bible says that those works of the flesh are as filthy
rags. Even though she was a good humanitarian, she was an offense
to God because all those deeds were of the flesh. And that's
hard for our minds to understand that kind of stuff. So whenever
we talk about the righteous or we talk about the saints, we
talk about this, we're talking about the people that Christ
has purchased, those who He has laid His righteousness to their
account, and they are considered the righteous of God. Okay, they're
considered the righteous because of Christ, not because of their
own good deeds. Now, does God work in us to willing
to do His good pleasure? Absolutely. Does God have works
that we are to walk in? Absolutely. He said that He,
before the foundation of the world, that He had predestinated
us to be conformed to the image of Christ and that He has ordained
good works for us before the foundation of the world that
we should walk in them." Listen, and I make this comment quite
frequently here. Every work that God has ordained
before the foundation of the world that you should walk in
as a child of grace, you will walk in no more and no less. You're not going to walk in any
more than God's ordained, and you're surely not going to walk
in any less because He said He's ordained that you shall walk
in them. So every work that God has ordained, you're going to
walk in. And so here, we see that it says, the righteous also
shall hold on His way, meaning continue on. The righteous shall
continue to be the righteous. They shall continue on in that
way. I'm thinking of the verse in
Revelation, Brother Larry, you actually quoted it a few weeks
ago and off the top of my head it's escaping me. But paraphrasing
that, it said, let those who are righteous be righteous still
and let those who are filthy be filthy still. Whenever we
come before God at the last day, those who have been laid, the
righteousness of Jesus Christ has been laid to them, they will
continue to be righteous and they continue to be righteous
until that time in God's sight. But those who are filthy, they
will be filthy still. There's no changing in this lifetime,
there's no changing in that lifetime. A lot of people preach this,
you know, second chance thing after Christ comes. The Catholics
have their purgatory. A lot of people have, and dispensationalists
have their time of the millennial reign when people will be saved
during this time. I know this, that the last day
is the last day and what is done is done. Okay, so whatever your
eschatology is, whenever we come before God, the books will be
opened and what is there is going to be there. And there will be
no erasing and rewriting. It will be what it will be. And
it says here that the righteous also shall hold his way and he
that hath clean hands, again, who are the ones that have clean
hands? Well, none of us have clean hands. As a matter of fact,
the Bible says that in our nature, in Adam, that we are all swift
to shed blood, so we have bloody hands. The Bible says that we
are of our father, the devil, and he's a liar from the beginning.
So in the nature of Adam, we are all liars, and so we have
lying mouths, you know, so we're not clean. The scriptures that
says, you know, how can a clean thing come out of an unclean
thing? Apart from Jesus Christ, the new birth, that new creation
that's not, and again, I don't mean to get too far off on a
tangent here, but remember, brethren, whenever we are quickened by
the Holy Spirit, whenever we are born again, Because of the
connotation of the theological term used of regeneration, which
I believe is a misappropriated word, but whenever the term is
used, it brings to people's mind that the old nature is reworked
and made into a new nature. The Bible is very clear that
it's a completely different one. It's a new creation. And the
Bible says that it was born from above. The nature that we have
here is born of the earth. It's earthy. It's the natural
nature. And so what we see here of this
is a totally different thing outside of ourselves in Adam.
It's something new. And so to have clean hands, we
must be born from above. And so this again is speaking
of those who have been quickened of God, who are born again. Those
who have clean hands shall be stronger and stronger. The Bible
says that we will grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Bible says that we shall
all be taught of God. As we are born again, the Holy
Spirit comes and teaches us the things of God in this Scripture.
The Holy Spirit comes and works in our life. And I'm not saying
we become holier and holier, I'm saying that we gain more
understanding of who we are. And our faith grows stronger,
not because of what we do. We can't exercise our faith to
make it strong. The Bible says that God, that
Christ has given to each man a measure of faith. The disciples
knew that to be true. They asked Christ, hey, we believe,
help thou our unbelief, increase our faith. We can't increase
faith on our own. Christ increased our faith. God
is the one who does that. And so through the Word of God,
through the Holy Spirit, through Him living in us, working in
us, conforming us to Christ's image, we grow stronger and stronger
in the faith as He gives us that. I can't just take this book and
go out and say, I'm determined I'm going to, you know, next
week I'm going to be stronger in the faith because I'm going
to go and spend, you know, 96 hours straight reading this Bible,
okay? That's not how that works. I
know men who have laid passages upon passages upon passages to
memory. That means they've had to pore
over those scriptures for hours and hours and hours to memorize
that and they know more or closer to God than anybody else. That's
a misnomer that we hear in a lot of religion, is that the more
that you partake of these means of grace, the more that you become
holy. And that's not true. Matter of
fact, I have found that the more I come to understand the scriptures,
the more vile I find that I am of myself, because I didn't realize
how sinful I was, and I see that I'm more and more sinful. Not
that I want to sin, But I find out I didn't know that was sin
on my part. I didn't know that that was wrong.
I didn't know that that was lacking. But as I grow in the grace and
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, that just shines more light upon
me in my own nature and how enabled I am and how much I need Him.
Brother, that's what this is all about. It's all about showing
how abased man is and how we need the Lord Jesus Christ. But notice if you will there,
like I said in passing, the righteous, the ones with clean hands, those
who have been born from above, they will hold on their way,
they shall be stronger and stronger. Now that goes against a lot of
teaching that some people teach that a Christian once they come
to Christ that at some point they might just go away, they
might just leave the faith, that they might apostatize. And if
you look everywhere in Scripture you'll see that there's places
of apostasy. Those places of apostasy were
people who never was truly born from above. They had a religion,
they had a form of godliness, they had a outward show, but
they didn't have anything inward. We learn that by the parable
of the sower and the seeds. We see that seed falls down,
but sometimes there is a slight look of something healthy, but
it's only the one that the ground was made good that it ever takes
root and produces fruit. And so that is, well, of course,
again, then there's the passage, I believe it's Peter that said
that if they go out from us, they never were of us, for if
they were of us, they never would have left us. So we see that
that apostasy is of those who never really was of us. Any questions
or anything on that statement? Turn with me, if you would, over
to Psalms chapter 1. Psalms 1. We're going to see
that the Bible gives evidence that the children of God will
continue until they die or until Christ comes again. But we're also going to see that
they do so because of God, not necessarily because of their
own abilities. Psalms 1, a very familiar verse. Look with me, if you would, at
verse 3. Well, I'll tell you what, let's
go back up and just start at verse 1. It said, 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." So here again we see,
not to break down everything in this verse, but you'll see
here that the people of God are going to be have longevity. This is basically kind of what
this is talking about. They're going to be rooted. They're going
to be flourishing. They're going to be prosperous.
Now, that doesn't mean we're going to have money, okay? I'm
a working class guy. You know, I can honestly say
I don't have money. Now, I've got more money than
some people do, and I'm thankful that the Lord is blessed in that
way. The TV preachers are lying to people whenever they tell
them that if you're a Christian, you're not going to be sick,
you're not going to have any bad days, you're not going to, as
long as you have your faith getting up there and getting it done,
you know, that's a lie. Go over and tell that to the
Christians in some of these third world countries who are being
beat down by Muslims, that are being beat down by communists,
that are, you know, that are living in shanties made of cardboard
with trash and sewer in the street. Go tell that to the Christians
there that your best day is now. Okay? Go tell them that. Listen,
there are some of those people over there that are faithful,
that the Lord has given them to be faithful to Him despite
their circumstances. And if the modern-day Christians
in churches today would be living like that, they wouldn't survive.
As a matter of fact, you'd see a culling of the herd very quickly,
I think. You would see that that would
eventually find out that there are more goats than sheep in
the masses. But here we see that the prospering,
the flourishing, the bringing forth fruit, all of this comes,
if you remember Jesus said, if you abide in me and I abide in
you, you shall bear much fruit. Remember The branch doesn't hold
on to the vine. The vine supports the branch.
If you remember, the branch doesn't do anything to produce fruit.
It's the life of the vine that brings the fruit out of the branch.
The branch doesn't do anything to abide. I grew up teaching,
actually, that we had to abide and that abiding was a cognitive
choice to stay in Christ. Well, that's about as far from
scripture as you can get. Abiding doesn't take any effort
at all. Abiding is just resting. The branch rests in the strength
of the vine. The fruit flows from the vine
and the branch is only the bearer of that. It comes out and is
shown in the branch. But the branch didn't do anything
for that at all. And so we see here that this
whole picture that we see in this third verse here is that
there is a life that will be given to the child of grace that
will continue and continue and flourish and it will be watered.
You know, you have some of these trees that go down. Any of y'all
ever been down to Louisiana, down to the swamps? It may even
down in anywhere down in the south where there's a lot of
swamps. We've been down there in the swamps, and you see these
trees out there in the swamp where there's water all the time.
And I mean, the root systems just go forever, and these trees
along the base of these trees are just huge that you see. And these trees just keep growing
and keep growing and keep growing and keep growing, and they're
just alive all the time. And it's just amazing to see
this network of growth down in there. Why? Because they're there
where they're watered all the time. They have a lot of sun
all the time. And so we see, this is kind of
the picture that we're seeing. This is a plant that is being
nurtured and nourished. My wife grows plants at the house
and she'll go out and she'll sprinkle a little fertilizer
stuff in there and she'll cultivate that stuff and water it and all
this kind of stuff and it grows sometimes. She does pretty good, a lot better
than I do on growing stuff. But anyway. It grows and it flourishes. And as long as that is cultivated
and tended to and nourished and cared for and watered, it continues
to grow and to grow and to grow and to grow. This is what it's
talking about. But who is the one who is doing
the tending, the nourishing, the cultivating? It's the Lord. He's the husbandry, right? He's the one that is over the
vineyard. And He's the one who is coming
in and breaking off the branches that need to be broken off. He's
the one that is cultivating this. So this is a lifelong thing.
They're going to prosper. Beautiful promises here. They shall be as a tree. They
shall be, not they might be, He shall be. He shall be. While we're in Psalms, we can't
ever pass up the 23rd Psalm. And this may be to some a strange
place to go for looking at preservation or perseverance, but I think
you'll see why I've added this into the list. In the 23rd Psalm,
David writes this. He says, The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. Now at face value, that might
not seem like preservation, but if someone is never in want,
they continue on. While we were moving in the heat
the other day, I didn't eat any breakfast before we went out
into the heat to start moving my aunt and uncle. By the time
the heat got there, I was in severe want of water and food
and was getting dizzy and a little sick in my stomach. I was in
need and want. I couldn't go on without it.
I mean, I was pooped and that, you know, But if I would have
been nourished and if I would have been hydrated and I could
have kept going and kept going and kept going and kept going.
This is kind of the thing here. The reason that he doesn't have
any want is because the shepherd is providing everything that
he needs. to continue on. He says, He maketh me to lie
down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still
waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness for His namesake. Yea, though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort
me. thou preparest a table before
me in the presence of mine enemies, thou anointest my head with oil,
my cup runneth over, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me." Now,
basically, David is lining out here that the shepherd is providing
for every need that he has, come what may. Everything that he
needs. And he says, surely goodness
and mercy shall follow me. But look how he ends this up.
He says, all the days of my life. The Lord is going to continue
to be the shepherd and provide everything that I need. He's
going to be these things for me, provide these things for
me all the days of my life. Not as long as I'm faithful to
Him. Not until I've sinned so much and then He's going to cut
me off and then I've got to get saved again. Okay? He's going
to continue these all the days of my life. And He says, And
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Now David believed that his salvation
from Christ, his salvation from Messiah to come would be an everlasting
one. I will dwell in the house of
the Lord forever. So many people think that they're
going to dwell in the house of the Lord till they've apostatized. I used to work with a gentleman,
and I'll say as far as guy working buddies goes, this guy was a
fine man. He was a very moral man, a very
religious man. He was a member of the Pentecostal
Holiness Church there in the town where I grew up. And I mean
him work together and working among a lot of the other heathens
that was in that plant where I worked. You know, there's a
lot of junk goes on, a lot of filthy talk going on and just
a lot of backstabbing going on. And to have him there, he worked
right beside me, was actually nice because, you know, Of course,
he was working his way to heaven, because if he didn't, he would
lose it. But we had these conversations, because he knew what I believed,
and we had these conversations quite often on our breaks or
at lunchtime. And one of the times we were talking about that,
he was talking about, you guys are silly to think that you can't
lose your salvation. And I told him, I said, well,
at what point do you lose your salvation? And he says, well,
whenever you sin too much, then, or if you stay away too long,
I said, well, at what point is that? How many and how long? Well, we don't know that. And
I said, well, how do you know that you've reached that point
then? How do you know you've lost your salvation? You cannot
say, is it just up to your pastor, or do you determine yourself
that that guy over there has sinned too many times? Well,
I'm just going to say he's not saved anymore. I mean, how do
you know that point that someone has reached where they are no
longer saved? And you have to say, because
if you are honest, all of us sin quite often, and where does
that sin stop? and righteousness continue. I mean, I see the warfare every
day. I see righteousness, I see sin. I see righteousness, I see sin.
I see righteousness, I see sin. Our hope then would be in us
to keep righteousness. That's what it boils down to.
And David here is saying God is providing that. The Shepherd
is providing that. And I know that He is going to
do these things all the days of my life and that I'm going
to dwell in His house forever. So we see that the child of grace
will dwell in God's house forever. Look with me over at Psalms 34
if you would. Read a couple more here and then
we'll take a break. Psalms 34. Down to verse 7 it says, the
angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and
delivereth them." I guess there can be a lot of
discussion about who the angel of the Lord is in this particular
verse. I tend to lean towards this is
the Lord Jesus himself. He is often referred to as the
angel of the Lord or the messenger of God. And so I would tend to
believe this is true. As a matter of fact, the Bible
talks about how Christ was with these people throughout the Old
Testament. But anyway, we won't get into
that discussion for now, but we see here that He encampeth
around His people, and those who fear Him, He delivers them. So we are encamped around by
Christ. He is protecting us. He is keeping
us. He is the one who is delivering
us. And if you'll look back in... Well, I just lost the verse where
I wanted to go. Well, I didn't mark it down.
I'll come back to it maybe. But anyway, we see here that
the Lord is the one who delivers us. Now, is there a point that
He stops delivering us? Does He deliver us up until a
certain point and then He quits delivering us? Well, I'd say
no, that He will continue to deliver His people. Look at chapter
48, if you would. Chapter 48, verse 14. Notice the confidence, and I
would even say assurance, that these people had. Look, if you would, down at verse
14. It says, For this God is our guide forever and ever. He will be our guide even unto
death. Okay? These Israelites knew that
God was their God. He knew that for a fact. He had
told them that He was their God. He said, I will be your God and
you will be My people. He told them in Malachi, He told
them that I have loved you above anybody else. Well, wherewith
have you loved us? Did I not love Jacob and hate
Esau? He said, I've loved you. I've
elected you. I've chosen you. And so we see
that they knew that this was their God and that He said that
He will be our guide even unto death. The Lord continues to
guide His people, lead His people, direct His people, work in His
people until their death. In Psalms 92, Psalm 92, verse
12. Again, this is similar to the
first psalm. Psalm 92, verse 12. It says,
The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree. He shall
grow like a cedar in Lebanon. I did some reading on the cedars
of Lebanon. They were very big trees. They were very old trees,
very hard trees. They say sometimes that the trunk
of the tree would be over six feet in diameter. The cedars
of Lebanon were the same trees that they used to build David's
palace, the temple both times, and Solomon's palace. So they
were precious. wood, but they were sustainable
wood. They were hardened wood. They
were flourishing everywhere. They were in plenty. But yet
they were very strong. They were very fertile trees. And so we see here that the Lord
again makes that comparison, that the righteous shall flourish
like a palm tree, and he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. You think about palm trees, most
of the time we see palm trees in arid situations, right? You'll see a palm tree out in
the middle of the sand or in a desert type environment and
how that palm tree with just a little nourishment can flourish
even though it's out in an arid situation. The child of grace
is going to be in some arid situations a lot in their life, but yet
the Lord strengthens and nourishes them, and while everybody around
may die off, the child of grace continues on. And so that's why
these comparisons are being made. There's another passage that
I'm reminded of in the 125th Psalm, first verse. Psalms 125 verse 1. It says, They that trust in the
Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abideth
forever. They that trust in the Lord shall
be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed. As sure as Mount
Zion is going to stay, the child of grace will persevere. It abideth
forever. Look at the 138th Psalm, verse
8. We'll read this one and take a break. 138, verse
8. The Bible says, The Lord will
perfect that which concerneth me. Ain't that a wonderful promise? I don't know about you brothers,
but as I've been on this road for a few years now, I realize
that there is much failing in me. But yet there is the promise
that the Lord will perfect. The Lord will perfect that which
concerneth me. Now, is He going to do that or
not? I mean, that's His promise. That's not a condition either.
He's not conditioning that on anything. There's no conditions
tied to that. The Lord will perfect that which
concerns Me. Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever. Forsake not
the works of Thine own hands. We are the work of His hands.
Remember, the Bible says, for we are His workmanship created
in Christ Jesus. Ain't that what the New Testament
says? We're the work of His hands. We are a new creation. We are
born from above. We are His creation. Not just
in Adam. We're that in Adam. We were created
here. But we're talking about the new
man. We're talking about that which was born from above, the
spiritual man. That is the one who is created
of God and we are His workmanship. And He says that He will perfect
that which concerneth Me. Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever."
Did you sin 10 times? His mercy endures forever. Did
you sin 25 times? His mercy endures forever. Did
you just blow it all week long? His mercy endureth forever. Do you remember whenever we were
talking A while back about grace and just the word and the things
it meant, and I explained to you that there is a connotation
in the Greek that that word has elasticity to it. It's an elastic
love. We talked about the different
kinds of loves, and the agape love is a love that is an elastic
love. It means that it stretches. And
I shared with you how my grandpa used to always mention that agape
love always stretches around the faults of another. Okay? If a brother and sister in Christ
sins against me, my love for them, if it's a godly love, will
stretch around that sin or that whatever it is that
might come between us. It will stretch around that.
The more that that might happen, the more my love stretches around
that. Why? Because we've been given
the love of God. And the love of God for His people
is the same way. And while we are yet sinners,
Christ died for us. He loved us with an everlasting
love. He continues to love us even
whenever we are who we are. And so we see that the love of
God is always enduring forever, is always gracious, is always
extended to His people forever. And here we see that the Scripture
says that His mercy endureth forever. As long as there is
mercy in God, His people will receive that mercy in their failings. Again, that's not a prescription
to go and sin where grace may abound. I'm not saying that.
I'm comforting you, brethren, because if you're like me, you
know the struggle we have with sin. We know the struggle that
we have to keep God's commands. We know that we have those issues,
but knowing that God has said, my mercy endureth forever, is
comforting things. But how do we see this as far
as perseverance? Meaning that they aren't going
to go away. There is no way I can lose my salvation because God
takes it away from me. Because His mercy endures forever.
All right. Any questions or any comments
to make on that? All right. We'll take a pause.