Let's turn to Psalm 37. Read
here in Psalm 37 verse 32. The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him. The Lord will not leave him in
his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged." Brethren, have you ever been
watched by men and charged and condemned, been unable to defend
yourself Here's the word of comfort for every child of God. This
is the word that our Lord gives us. The Lord will not leave him
in his hand nor condemn him when he is judged. Our Lord Jesus
Christ has made every one of His people the righteousness
of God in Him. That's what He has accomplished
for His people. And for Christ's sake, He has
saved us, He shall save us, and He will not lose one of His people.
He will not condemn His people for the sake of the Lord our
righteousness. The wicked watcheth the righteous,
and seeketh to slay him. The Lord will not leave him in
his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged. Now first of all,
the righteous is the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ
is the righteous. He's the one man who God looks
to and accepts His people in. He has from the foundation of
the world. We are in Christ and one with
Christ. When our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, came into this world, He was holy in the womb. And
all His people were holy in Him in the womb. We had to be holy
from the womb. And all His people were holy
in Him from the womb. And when our Lord Jesus came
forth, made of a woman, as a man, made under the law, He obeyed
the law perfectly. He was perfectly obedient to
the Father from the first breath He took to when He gave up His
Spirit. And all His people obeyed the
Lord God in our Lord Jesus Christ in perfect righteousness in Him. The righteous are God's elect
made righteous by the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Born
of His Spirit, we're made to see that we don't have any righteousness
in ourselves, and we can't produce a righteousness. We cannot produce
a righteousness. You might be a little better
than the fellow next to you, but that's not going to cut it
with God. God requires absolute perfect
righteousness. And that righteousness is His
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only one in whom God
accepts His people as righteous. But through God-given faith,
God imputes to His people the obedience, the righteousness
of our Lord Jesus Christ, because Christ really and truly made
us the righteousness of God in Him. Now, the wicked is the devil. The wicked is the accuser of
the brethren. and his seed, all the devil's
seed, the wicked plotteth against the just," and verse 12 says,
"...the wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him
with his teeth." And that's always the order, brethren. The wicked
plotteth against the just. Our Lord is the just. Our Lord
Jesus Christ is the just, and His people are the just in Him.
It's the wicked who is the aggressor. plotting against Christ and His
people. Our Lord was never the aggressor when He walked this
earth. He said, God sent not His Son into the world to condemn
the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. And
He teaches you and me as His children not to be the aggressor.
Whenever James and John saw that there were some that didn't receive
the Lord Jesus, You remember how they asked the Lord, they
said, without that we command fire to come down and consume
them? And the Lord told them, He said,
you don't know what spirit you're of. And He said, the Son of Man
has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save. He was not
the aggressor when He walked this earth. Sheep are not aggressors. You know a deer, they're kind
of like a deer, a deer just grazes, but a deer can actually rear
up on its hind legs and hit with its paws. A sheep doesn't even
do that. A sheep doesn't have offensive
weapons and it don't have weapons to defend themselves. The Lord's
people are sheep, and we're trusting our Great Shepherd to defend
us and provide for us, and He teaches His people not to be
the aggressor. The wicked who plotted against
our Lord Jesus were self-made religious men. Scribes and Pharisees,
they were always the aggressor, just like Ishmael persecuted
Isaac. Those born after the flesh are
always the aggressors toward Christ and toward His people.
As then, he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that
was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. When the just walked
this earth, when our Lord Jesus walked this earth, the devil
used his wicked servants to watch our Lord constantly and try to
seek something with which to accuse Him and slay Him and condemn
Him. Luke 6, 7 said the scribes and
the Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the Sabbath
day. Now think about that. He's going
to heal somebody. that's been sick all their days,
and they're watching him to see if he would do that on a day,
so they could condemn the Prince of Life for healing somebody.
Luke 20, 20 says, they watched him and sent forth spies which
feigned themselves just men, that they might take hold of
his words, that they might entangle him in his words, so that they
might deliver him to the power and authority of the governor
and condemn him. That's the fallen nature of every
sinner. That's the fallen nature in self-righteous
sinners. That's what we are by nature.
Full of enmity against God, enmity against Christ. And what's the
enmity really? We despised and we rejected Christ
and we oppressed Christ because God the Father determined the
end from the beginning. And He determined it by choosing
His Son. and choosing a people in His
Son by free grace and sending forth His Son to be the salvation
of His people. That's the enmity in a natural
heart. It's because salvation's of the
Lord. It's of God's will, not man's
will. The enmity is because Christ
came forth and declared that He's salvation. He did the works
no other man ever did, and by that exposed Our sin and our
so-called righteousness is not being righteousness. And our
Lord Jesus Christ declared he's the only one who could redeem
his people from the curse of the law and give to God the righteousness
that God demands and make us accepted of God. And this is
the offense of the cross. This is what offends men that
salvation is entirely of the Lord. So when the wicked couldn't
find a charge against Him, they tried and they tried and they
couldn't find a charge against our Lord. Nobody could charge
Him. He's sinless. And so they trumped up charges
against Him. They falsely accused Him. But
when they brought Him before the judges, do you know what
our Lord did? Look over with me at Isaiah 53.7.
This is what our Lord did when they brought Him before this
kangaroo court. They brought Him before. This
is what he did. Isaiah 53, verse 7. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth
not his mouth. Pilate said to him, he said,
here's thou not all these charges they're making against you? And
he answered him, never a word, insomuch that the governor marveled
greatly. That would have been the end
of it for you and me, wouldn't it? We just can't hardly keep
silent. Just can't hardly keep silent.
We saw Sunday our Lord Jesus is the only one who had the right
to make himself of reputation. He is the Son of God in human
flesh, and yet he made himself of no reputation. And he could
have opened his mouth and defended himself and declared himself
innocent of every charge laid against him. And he was silent
and opened not his mouth. Why? Why did our Lord not open
his mouth? Our Lord Jesus Christ came to
redeem His bride. And the Lord laid on Him the
iniquity of all His elect. And if our Lord Jesus Christ
opened His mouth and defended Himself, He's going to condemn
His bride. the sin of his people, and he
bore the curse and condemnation under the fierce anger of God's
wrath because he would save his bride from our sin. He remained
solid. But while he remained solid,
he did something else. Turn over to 1 Peter chapter
2. 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter 2 verse 21 says, "'Even
hereunto were you called, because Christ also suffered for us,
leaving us an example that you should follow His steps. Who
did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. Who when
He was reviled, reviled not again, He opened not His mouth. When
He suffered, He threatened not, but here's the other thing He
did. While His mouth was silent, He committed himself to him that
judgeth righteously. who his own self bare our sins
in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live
unto righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. For you were
a sheep going astray, but are now returned to the shepherd
and bishop of your soul." Be sure to understand this. Just
as necessary as it was for the Lord Jesus Christ, the spotless
Lamb of God, to be made sin for us, so that God would be just
to condemn him, to pour out wrath on him in place of his people,
as necessary as that was to declare God just and the justified of
his people. It was just as necessary that
while Christ bore the curse and condemnation of his people, he
was perfectly faithful to the Father, looking to him alone
to save him. That is the obedience by which
we're made righteous. That's the positive and the negative
at the same time on Calvary's cross. While He's bearing our
sin and paying our sin debt to God, justifying us, He is perfectly
obeying the Father, trusting the Father's promise. He said
this. This was His perfect faith. He
said this in Isaiah 50 in verse 8. He is near that justified
Me, who will contend with Me. Let us stand together. Who's
my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold,
the Lord God will help me. Who is he that shall condemn
me? Lo, they shall wax old as a garment. The moth shall eat
them up." While he hung there, forsaken of God, his disciples
had fled, they'd left him. You talk about somebody that
was absolutely all alone. Our Lord Jesus Christ was bearing
that curse God was not answering him and he had none to take pity. And our Lord Jesus suffered in
silence all the while perfectly committing himself to the Father,
trusting the covenant promise the Father made. When he satisfied
justice and redeemed his people, the Father would justify him
and raise him from the dead. And that's what our Lord did.
The wicked sat down beneath that cross and they watched him. Our
text says, verse 32, the wicked watcheth the righteous. Verse
33, the Lord will not leave him in his hand or condemn him when
he's judged. Now indeed, when our Lord was
on the cross, He bore the condemnation that His people deserve. He bore
the condemnation. He willingly bore our sins and
He bore our curse. And the just judge, though, did
not leave our Redeemer. He did not leave our Redeemer.
in the hand of the wicked. He did not suffer, His Holy One,
to see corruption. What He was bearing on that cross
wasn't because of those false charges those people made against
Him. What He was bearing on that cross
was because He willingly took the sin of His people, and God
justly condemned Him in place of His people. He gave Him what
we all deserve. But God did not suffer His Holy
One to seek corruption. When He satisfied justice, just
as the Father promised, the Lord raised Him from the grave, set
Him at His own right hand, gave Him all power over all, and gave
Him to be the head over all things to the church. And our Lord Jesus
Christ, right now, from the throne of glory, is the one who is filling
all in all in His church. And because he suffered and because
he's been through what he went through as he walked this earth,
not only has he made reconciliation to God and reconciled us to God,
he is also able now to succor us in all the trials we're going
through. He knows. He knows exactly what his people
suffered in this world. Now, that brings us to this last
point. I want you to hear Christ's promise
now to every one of you here that believe Him. Verse 32, the
wicked watcheth the righteous and seeketh to slay him. The
Lord will not leave him in his hand nor condemn him when he
is judged. Now brethren, you know this is
so. It's not that we're without sin. It's not that we're without
sin. We still have a sin nature. We
hate sin and we try not to sin. But we have a sin nature and
we do fall. We do fall. But Christ is our
Master who makes His child stand. Look back up there at verse 23.
The steps of a good man. I had never looked this word
up. You see the word good is in italics. You know that's added by the
translators. Now look this word up. The word here, it really
shouldn't be good at all. The word here is, the steps of
a conqueror. That's what it is, the steps
of a conqueror. We're more than conquerors through
Him that loved us. That's what the Scripture said.
The steps of a conqueror are ordered by the Lord. He delighteth
in His way, though He fall. We still fall. We still are able
to fall. But we shall not utterly be cast
down. We shall not fall away. For the
Lord upholdeth Him with His hand. We shall fall, but we won't fall
away. The Lord upholds us with His
hand. The Lord will not leave us in
the hand of those that condemn us. When the accuser of the brethren
comes before the Father, like He tried to accuse Joshua the
high priest, Christ Jesus is our intercessor. He took all
the sins away so that the accuser of the brethren has nothing with
which to accuse us before God our Father. He will not leave
us in his hand. And because you're given faith
in our Redeemer, because you're the righteous by the obedience
of our Lord Jesus Christ, there is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. He will not permit his child
to be condemned. Now, this is what John said.
He said, my little children, these things write unto you that
you sin not. Brethren, sin not. When we preach
this, we're not saying it's okay to sin. We're not saying that
we're making excuses for sin whatsoever. We know, as the children
of God, we see our sin. We don't see it in a totality
of it, but we see something of it. But what we are declaring,
brethren, is when we sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous, and He's the propitiation for our
sin. He's the propitiation for the
sins of His people all over this world. You ever notice in John
when he said, here in His love, not that we love God, but that
He loved us and sent His Son, He sent His Son, the propitiation
for our sins. He is the propitiation for our
sins. He expiated the sins of His people,
made perfect atonement for the sins of His people, brethren,
so that in all our unrighteousness and our sin and our transgression,
God is satisfied toward His Son and therefore He will have mercy
on us in Christ Jesus, our mercy seat. This is the word from Psalm
85, 2. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity
of thy people. Thou hast covered all their sins. God in Christ forgiveth all thy
iniquities and healeth all thy diseases. He forgave our original
sin, the sin we committed in Adam in a garden, and He's forgiven
all the transgressions you and I have committed ourselves. Secret
sins, open sins, past sins, present sins, future sins, sins of omission,
sins of commission. They're sins that that we are
guilty of for omitting things we're supposed to do that God
tells us to do. But all thy sins are forgiven
for Christ's sake. If you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, if God has made Christ your only hope, He declares all
your sins are forgiven for Christ's sake. And I pray if you haven't
believed on Him, that God would speak this word into your heart
tonight and bring you to believe on Him. This is the only way
we'll be accepted of God. The only way sins are forgiven
is by our Lord Jesus Christ having put them away by His precious
blood. God will only receive us in the
Lord Jesus, our righteousness. And I pray our Sovereign Lord
is doing this right here tonight for one of His saints. When we
fall, When the wicked condemn you, our merciful Lord comes
to us through the gospel, and He speaks into our heart, and
this is His promise. He said, I'll be merciful to
their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I'll
remember no more. and He comes to us and He speaks
to you in your heart, and He says, I have blotted out as a
thick cloud thy transgression, and as a cloud thy sins, return
to Me, for I have redeemed thee. That's how repentance is given.
It's the Lord speaking that to you. And while the wicked are
condemning and are speaking evil, our Lord speaks affectionately
into the heart of His child in verse 5. Look at this. He teaches
us to do just what our Lord did when He walked this earth. He
says, commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in Him and He
shall bring it to pass. And He shall bring forth thy
righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday. He makes you behold Christ suffering
in silence. He makes you behold Christ committing
all His cause to the Lord. He makes us behold how God the
Father justified our Savior and didn't suffer Him to rest in
the hand of the wicked, but raised Him from the grave. And that's
how He shuts our mouth. to bear silently what we're bearing,
and that's how He gives you the grace and the faith to commit
it all to Him, and trust Him to please your cause, and to
save you in whatever it is you're in. He brings you to say just
what the Lord said when He looked to the Father, He's near that
justifieth me, who will condemn me? The Spirit bears witness in our
hearts just what Paul said in Romans 8. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God select, it's God that justifies. It's
Christ that died, yea, brethren, that's risen again, who's even
at the right hand of God, who makes intercession for us. This
is what Micah said in Micah 7, 8, because of this word the Lord
spoke into his heart. Micah 7, 8, he said, Rejoice
not against me, O thine enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord
shall be light unto me. I will bear the indignation of
the Lord because I've sinned against him until he plead my
cause and execute judgment for me. He will bring me forth to
the light and I shall behold his righteousness." That's where
the Lord's going to keep his job. Our merciful Redeemer commands
us to commit our way to Him and trust Him, and He shall bring
it to pass. Let's read a few verses here
in verse 7 through 11. I want you to see something here.
Verse 7, he says, Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.
fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because
of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. Cease from anger
and forsake wrath, for fret not thyself in any wise to do evil,
for evildoers shall be cut off, but those that wait upon the
Lord." Now listen to that. Those that wait upon the Lord,
they shall inherit the earth. Yet a little while, and the wicked
shall not be. Yea, thou shalt diligently consider
this place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit
the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of
peace." You recognize those words? This is the psalm our Lord Jesus
preached from when He preached the Sermon on the Mount. That's
the third beatitude. Blessed are the meek, they shall
inherit the earth. And if you go home tonight, you'll
read Psalm 37. and hear our Lord speak to you,
you will hear Him declaring to you what it is to be made meek.
Verse 1 is to fret not because of evildoers. Verse 3 is to trust
in the Lord. Verse 4 is to delight thyself
in the Lord. Verse 5 is to commit thy way
to Him. Verse 7 is to rest in the Lord
and wait patiently for Him. Verse 8 is to cease from anger
and wrath and fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. In other
words, don't take matters into your own hand. Commit it to Him
that judges righteously. The Lord will not leave you.
He will not leave you in the hand of the accuser. nor condemn
you when you're judged. He's already condemned the condemnation
for his people. Brethren, it's the Lord's mercies.
It's his mercies to us. It's his forgiveness to us by
which he grows us in reverence to him That's what it is. It's His mercies and His forgiveness.
I've heard men talk about that woman that they brought to our
Lord. that they call it an adultery.
I read that back in years past, there were pastors and preachers
who wouldn't preach on that because they said it would just leave
folks thinking they can sin because there was no discipline in that
passage. And the Lord didn't discipline
that woman. Oh yes, He did. Yes, He did. He forgave her. When you see your sin, And God
let you know he put your sin away and forgiven you. That's
the greatest disciplinary is. You won't. You won't. You see
your brother falling. You want to help your brother?
You're not going to help him by going to him with the law
and condemning him. Judgment against judgment. You remind
Him of what Christ has done for us. And you forgive Him. And you remind Him, more importantly,
that God, for Christ's sake, forgives His people. That's what
broke Nathan's heart. When the Lord said, Nathan, the
Lord has forgiven your sin. That's what brought David to
cry out and say, Lord, please have mercy on me. Let's go over to Ephesians 4.
Ephesians chapter 4. It's the Lord's mercies and it's
the Lord's forgiveness that makes us cease to speak evil of one
another and makes us willing to forgive one another. Now,
I'm talking about when you're coming fresh from the trial and
fresh from seeing your sin and seeing your total unworthiness
and you have experienced freshly how the Lord has forgiven you
for Christ's sake. That's when you'd like to be
merciful. That's when you'd like to forgive
your brethren. Ephesians 4.31, Let all bitterness
and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away
from you with all malice. And be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's
sake, hath forgiven you. You know why we're giving this
exhortation? Because we still have sin nature. And our sin
nature, our old man is nothing but a Pharisee and a judge that
wants to try to climb up in the judgment seat and condemn our
brethren. And this is why the Lord will permit us to fall,
He'll permit us to be judged, He'll permit the wicked to condemn
you, and then He'll save you out of that. And He'll show you,
I've forgiven all your sin for Christ's sake. so that He keeps
you humbled. That's how you'll shut our mouth
so that we stop speaking evil of our brethren and stop condemning
our brethren. And that's what will bring you
to rejoice, to be merciful and forgive your brethren. If our
Lord, if God, holy God, Holy God, who requires perfection,
if for Christ's sake He's forgiven me, that should make me willing
to forgive my brethren without limit. Does He not forgive you
every day? Is His mercy not constant to
you every day and His forgiveness to you every day? The more we
see that, the more willing we'll be to forgive one another. That's the only thing that'll
do it. That is the only thing that'll do it. You know, when
we're not forgiving and we're having a condemning spirit, all
that we're really proving by that is we don't see what a great
sinner we are, and we don't see how much the Lord has forgiven
us. It's those precious times, and
I know we get in those places where we want to do that, and
we want to condemn, and we want to speak, and we want to run
our mouth, and that hurts. That's hurtful. That hurts your
brethren when you do that. It starts out as, well, this
is what I think. It's evil surmising. I just surmise.
I don't know the facts. I don't know what happened. I'm
talking out of my neck right now. This is what I think. Then
the next person that says it says, well, this is what I heard.
And the next person that says it says, this is what happened.
It's like they're getting telephoned, you know. And that hurts. That
hurts, brethren. That hurts you, brethren. That
hurts somebody Christ died for. I've done it. You've done it.
We have all done it. And our Lord has forgiven us
that, and keeps forgiving us that, and keeps showing us over
and over and growing us over and over to see what great mercy
He's had on us for Christ's sake, and forgiven us such great, great
sins for His sake. And I pray that He'll keep renewing
us and teaching us this and make us truly tender-hearted. Make us truly want to be kind
to one another and forgive one another. We have so much reason
to do it. God has forgiven us for Christ's
sake, brethren. Now, I want to read the last
two verses. This sums the whole psalm up, and this is our hope
and stave. Psalm 37, verse 39. The salvation
of the righteous is of the Lord. He is their strength in the time
of trouble, And the Lord shall help them and deliver them. He shall deliver them from the
wicked and save them because they trust in Him. He'll never betray you for trusting
Him. He'll honor your trust. He will
save you because you trust Him. I pray the Lord bless that in
our hearts, brethren.