Proverbs chapter two. No matter what truth it is, wherever
there's a truth, There's a lie. There's also a lie. No matter
the truth that the Lord tells us, Satan and man and the world
will fabricate a lie to try to counteract it or to try to disinvolve
it. But the Lord told us you shall
know the truth and the truth shall make you free. This isn't
something new. We know this to be true from
the very beginning. The truth was, the day that you
eat of the tree thereof that's in the midst of the garden, you
shall surely die. And the lie was, God knows that
the day you eat of that tree, you shall not surely die. For
the day that you eat thereof, you'll be as God. You'll be as
God. Anytime God gives a truth, there's
always a lie to try to contradict it. It's just how it is. The
issue is, our flesh will always choose that which makes us feel
the best. Our flesh will always choose
that which makes us look the best. Our flesh will always do
that which causes us to be seen, causes us to be heard. And this
is where the good news of the gospel is, because when the Lord
births you into his family, when he makes you alive, we say with
Paul, in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Lord,
don't leave me to my choice. Don't give me a choice. No, you
make the choice. Lord, you're going to have to
save me by your grace, just as we heard that song. The flesh is enmity against God,
hostile towards him. He cannot mind the things of
God, for they are spiritual. Cannot understand the things
of God, because they are spiritual. So what is our hope? What is
our hope? Well, he said, they that are
in the flesh cannot please God. Well, our hope is but God, who
is rich in mercy, wherein his great love hath he loved us.
He sent his son to do what? To be the propitiation, for our
sin, that's our hope, that everything God required, he provided in
his son, everything he required for our salvation, the salvation
of God's elect, he provided in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Everything pertaining to godliness,
whether it be holiness, whether it be righteousness, whether
it be even salvation, must be understood by God's enlightening
and quickening power. It's not something we can attain.
It's not something that we can merit. How are we going to understand
holiness? We understand that God is holy,
but we don't understand holiness. We know that it's other than
us, that's all you can say. It's impossible to know because
we have this creature on our back that's full of sin. It's not holy at all. So everything
pertaining to God, if you wanna know what righteousness is, look
to Christ, he's righteousness. And he's made his people the
righteousness of God in him. But in order to understand those
things, or at least believe them, whether we understand or not,
we don't understand hardly anything we believe. It's the truth of
the matter, isn't it? We just believe it by faith.
But in order to understand it, God has to be the teacher. He
has to be the one that gives understanding. He has to be the
one that gives wisdom, which is Christ. He has to be the one
that gives enlightening. It all comes through and by him
saying, just as he did Lazarus, come forth, come forth. He says, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. You know the difference between
a believer and a non-believer? You've heard me say this before. A believer
believes. That's the difference. The believer
believes all the time. We believe that Jesus Christ
was the son of God sent from him for the purpose of salvation
for his people, and he was 100% successful on the cross. Not
one sinner that Christ died for will ever see the flames of hell
because of the finished work of Christ. The sin was completely
put away. The Lord has to enlighten us
with his quickening power, making us know the truth. What did Christ
say? I said it already, but ye shall
know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Then what
did he say? I am the way, the truth and the
life. No man come to the father, but by me. And he told us also
in John 17, Father, thy word is truth. That's the Lord Jesus
Christ. In the beginning was the word,
the word was with God and the word was God. So the truth of God
is the word of God, is the wisdom of God, is the person and savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who it is. That's who
it is. He is the cause, his choice, his redemption, his blood, all
by his power. He is the cause. He's the first
cause and he's the last cause. He's the alpha and omega, the
beginning and the end. This is how he saved his people
from their sin. This brethren, that salvation,
that is the blessing of the Lord. That's what I've titled this
message, the blessing of the Lord. Let's read our text together. We're gonna read 10 verses 12
through 22 of Proverbs chapter 10. And you'll see some words that
were mentioned, and I will circle back to him from Psalm three,
where he talked about the blessing of the Lord is with the Lord's
people. I have that written down where it said salvation belongs
to the Lord, thy blessing is upon thy people. Let's read this
10, Proverbs 10, 12 through 22. hatred. Well, let me, let me
say this before, before I read this, we are having a lot of
similar, uh, um, opposites again, just like last week, a lot of
comparisons again, just like last week, same thing. You continue
in all that thought, but he says something totally different in
verse 22. Then he he's compared everything
until verse 22. I want us to know that let's
read this. Hatred stir up strife, but love can covereth all sins. In the lips of him that hath
understanding, wisdom is found, but a rod is for the back of
him that is void of understanding. Wise men lay up knowledge, but
the mouth of the foolish is near destruction. The rich man's wealth
is his strong city. The destruction of the poor is
their poverty. The labor of the righteous tendeth the life, the
fruit of the wicked, to sin. He is in the way of life that
keepeth instruction, but he that refuses to approve erreth. He
that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a
slander is a fool. In the multitude of words, There
wanteth not sin, but he that refraineth his lips is wise. The tongue of the just is as
choice silver. The heart of the wicked is little
worth. The lips of the righteous feed
many, but fools die for want of wisdom. The blessing of the
Lord is the blessing of the Lord. It maketh rich and he addeth. no sorrow with it, he addeth
no sorrow with it. The blessing of the Lord, it
maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it. Here is the comparisons,
after comparison, after comparison, they're all conjunctions, they're
divided by either a but, or by a colon, and they're all comparisons. Until you get to that last one,
and it talks about the blessing of the Lord. So tonight we're
gonna look at the blessing of the Lord. This is where we find
the gospel, if the Lord would be our teacher, if the Lord would
show us. This is telling us it's his blessing. Notice that first,
it's his blessing. He owns the blessing. It's his
to give. Did you know that you, Nobody
can bless you and you can't bless anybody. Did you know that? That's
a true story. I can say bless you, but it doesn't
bless them. Only God can bless someone. Only God can bless someone. You know the whole thing after
somebody sneezes, everybody says bless you or God bless you or
whatever they say. That was superstition. They thought that the soul left
the body for a second when they sneezed. So they didn't say God
bless you, the soul, the demons just grabbed the soul, run off
with it. That's how silly people, and we're no different now. I
know people that won't cross a path with a black cat and go
underneath the ladder. I mean, it's just all superstition. That's
what Paul was talking to the church. And he said, he talked
to the men, it wasn't the church, I'm sorry. He went up to He went up to Athens and he says,
men and brethren, he said, I perceive that you're very superstitious
because you have 11 statues up there and the 12th one that you
have says to the unknown God. So you have 11 gods that you
do know and one that you don't know. So just in case there's
one out there that you need to worship him too, you just put
to the unknown God. Well, he's the one I'm going to tell you
about. He's the one I'm going to tell you about. So this superstitious
notion of bless you is not, That's it. It's just there's no good.
You can't bless somebody. It's just that simple. The Lord
has to be the blesser because it's his blessing. It's his blessing. Why do we know it's his blessing?
Well, because it was bought by his blood. He purchased the blessing. And he is the blessing. That's
the glorious part of God's gospel. Jesus Christ is salvation. He didn't just make a way for
salvation to be possible. He is the Lord's salvation. He is. Psalm 3.8 tells us, salvation
belongeth unto the Lord. You remember us reading that?
Salvation belongeth unto the Lord. He owns it. Thy blessing
is upon thy people. And it has that word selah after
that. We don't read that most of the
time because it was something to do with the stanza of the
song. Psalms are music. But what it means is it pauses.
We have pauses in our music. But the Lord did that so you
and I would stop on purpose. He did that to make us stop so
we could think about that a little bit. Thy blessing, thy blessing
is upon thy people. Your salvation is upon your people.
Your righteousness is upon your people. Your justification, your
sanctification, your blood is on my soul. That's the blessing. I'm one with the Lord Jesus Christ
and one in God by being in Christ. All the Lord's elect get to say
that's their blessing. That's what the Lord has done
for them. In another Psalm it tells us this, the secret of
the Lord is with the righteous. This mystery, this secret, this
blessing, it's all the same thing. These are the dark sayings of
our Lord. These are the proverbs of our
Lord. The blessing is none other than
the Lord Jesus Christ and his finished work on the cross of
Calvary. That is the blessing. There will be no, there may be
physical things that you might call a blessing. And I think
we could say that we're blessed by what the Lord's given us in
life with family and we have food, the things we need have
been met, but the blessing is Christ. The blessing is Christ. Are the people that have the
food and have the families, are they blessed if they don't know
Christ? They're cursed. They don't even
know it. They don't know it, so the blessing can't be something
you can see. It has to be something that's
seen by faith alone, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the blessing of the Lord. The blessing is being made to
know the wisdom of God, being found in him, not being left
to self. That's the blessing. Not being
left to self, to man-made devices, but give an understanding. He's
God, and I'm not. He's holy, I'm full of sin. He's
truth, I'm false. And you can keep contrasting
that all you want to. He's the wise man, I'm the fool,
as he just talked about for 10 verses, just about. This is what
it is to understand the blessing. First thing we have to see is
that we're sinners. You want to appreciate what the Lord Jesus
Christ did. You're going to have to be made a sinner first, aren't
we? If we're never made a sinner, we won't need a savior. If we're
never made a sinner, we won't need the Lord Jesus Christ. But
the moment he makes us a sinner, we need the Lord Jesus Christ. And he becomes the fairest of
10,000 to our soul. Scripture talks about. Lord teaches us this simple truth. This is a blessing. This is a
blessing. Salvation is of the Lord, freely
given by His grace to His people. Freely given by His grace to
His people. This is where the blessing comes from. James 117
says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and
cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow of turning. This is God's blessing. This
is the perfect gift. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the good gift that came down from heaven. There's nothing
good in this world. This world is full of sin. All
that's good is the Lord. That's it. He was the good one
that came down from heaven. He even told the man, man came
to him, Lord, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Give
me a work to do. Tell me how to merit this. What'd
the Lord tell him? Why did thou call us me good?
There's none good but God. That's the truth, isn't it? None
good but God. And yet the blessing is, he hath
made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be
made the very righteousness of God in him. So we're no longer
seen as sinners in God's eyes, we're seen as righteous. We're seen as perfect. We're
seen as holy because of what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished.
That's a blessing. That is the blessing of the Lord. Now, I said this before, every
time that there's a truth, there's gonna be the lie. Men talk about
God blessing you. I have a family member one time
look at my sister and said to my sister, if you would start
going to church, God would give you a husband. I was like, chapter
and verse, where are you getting that from? You obligate God? Okay, that's not gonna work.
But that's the foolish mind of those who are in false religion.
They believe in doing God will reward them. The blessing and
the reward is the same thing. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He
is the blessing. He is the reward. We're not going
to get The robe that the scripture talks about, that's the robe
of righteousness. The crown that the scripture talks about, that's
the crown of righteousness. We're bearing that right now.
We're not gonna have rubies and jewels and a crown when we get
up to heaven and dance around like we've done a great thing.
No, we're gonna be at his feet saying holy, holy, holy is the
Lord God Almighty. He's the blessing. He's the reward
to the Lord's people. The amazing part is we didn't
do anything to earn him. He did everything for us to call
him our reward. Think about that. He earned it. The blessing of the Lord is the
first lie that men say is it's health. Well, if you get your
life right with God, You be healthy. I heard a preacher on TV talks
about health, wealth, and prosperity. And I say that sometimes, but
I've never really delved into it very much with any of you
all. But the message he was preaching, the title was Health, Wealth,
and Prosperity. And the idea was, is if you serve God, you'll
be healthy, you'll be wealthy, and you'll be prosperous. And
I was just shocked. I didn't get very far through
it. Don't worry, I can't stomach
that for too long. Anyways, I'll tell you this.
There's two things that I can't take credit for this. Greg Elmquist
said this the first time, two things that made me want to preach,
good preaching and bad preaching. That's the two. The blessing of the Lord is not
health. Everyone is born dying. Everyone is born sinners dying.
From the moment you take your first breath, a clock starts
ticking. And that clock will expire. It
says it is appointed. We have an appointment. Everyone
in here has an appointment. Everyone that hears this, hears
my voice, has an appointment. It is appointed unto man, wants
to die. And after this, the judgment.
The blessing is that the Lord's people was judged in Christ on
the cross of Calvary, never to be judged again. When he endured
the wrath of God and the justice that we deserved and satisfied
the law's demands, satisfied justice, satisfied that wrath,
now there's no condemnation of the Lord's people. The blessing's
not a long life. It's not living a long time. What is your life? It is even
a vapor that appeareth for a little time, then vanisheth away. James
4.14. And it's not wealth and prosperity. The promise of the blessings
of God was not to the flesh. It wasn't to the flesh. It was to the spirit, the inward
man. The flesh is carnal. It cannot receive the things
of God. The blessing is heavenly things
in heavenly places. The blessing is the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's not of this world. Heaven and earth shall pass away.
What good's it gonna do if I live a long life and I live and I
have everything that my heart would desire? What does the scripture
say? What profit a man if he gained
the whole world and lose his own soul? What would he give
in exchange for his soul? See, the blessing is not external. That's what Paul's talking about
in Galatians, and that's what we're talking about here in Proverbs
too. The scripture doesn't change, does it? The blessing of the
Lord is in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But because the blessing was
not for the flesh, the flesh despises it. You remember, I'm
getting ahead of myself, but that's okay. Remember Jacob and
Esau? Esau knew what the birthright
meant. The promise came to Abraham.
Abraham told Isaac the promise. Isaac told his sons, Jacob and
Esau, the promise. The firstborn was the one that
was to receive the birthright. And in receiving the birthright,
he received the promise that the Messiah would come through
his lineage, would come through his seed. That's the promise.
Esau had no respect unto the promise. Esau was more concerned
with the things of the flesh. He goes to his brother's house.
His brother has a bowl of porridge on the table. And his brother's
hungry. Esau's hungry. And he says to
him, give me the porridge. He said, I will, but you have to give
me your birthright. And he said, well, he literally says, well,
what good's a birthright going to do if I die of starvation?
So you can have it. And eats the porridge. Do we see how severe
that was though? He was literally saying, I don't
need this man to reign over me. I don't need this promise. I
don't need this savior. I don't need this blessing. This
food is blessing enough for me. And this is where men in false
religion, they are constantly telling people about prosperity
and things and about their wealth and things as if it's the blessing
of God. When you see in scripture plainly
right there that God looks upon the heart God was pleased with
Jacob. Why was he pleased with Jacob?
Well, first of all, Jacob was given to Christ before time ever
began. That's why he was pleased with him. But second of all,
he gave him faith to believe the promise, faith to desire
the blessing, faith to desire Christ. That's what the promise
was all about to Abraham, was Christ is gonna come. He's going
to redeem. Yeah, he promised him that he's
gonna make him a great nation, but that was a spiritual promise
too. I mean, Israel became a big nation, but there, That wasn't
what he was talking about the church. He was talking about
the church. They are not all of Abraham that are Abraham.
It was by faith, his seed by faith. The flesh despises it because
it doesn't benefit the flesh. As a matter of fact, it shows
us that we're sinners. It shows us that we're incapitant. It
shows us that we're incompetent. It shows us that we're unable
to come to God, unable to choose God. It renders us useless, is
what it does, and the flesh hates that. You don't tell me I'm useless,
I can do something. Not when it comes to spiritual
things, we can't. No, the Lord has to be the one
that gives faith, that looks to Christ, if we're gonna do
anything unto the Lord, anything. The next thing that the blessing
is not, is it's not peace with family, or a peaceful life. The
blessing is the peace found in Christ. The blessing is not peace
with family. Peace with family is nice, but
that's not the blessing. That's not the blessing. The
health and peace that God promised is eternal life. It's eternal
life. Listen to this, Mark chapter
10, verse 28. I was gonna have you turn, but
for the sake of time, I'm just gonna read it. And Jesus answered and said,
verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house
or brethren or sisters or fathers or mothers or wife or children
or lands for my sake and the gospels, but he shall receive
a hundredfold now and in this time, in this time, houses and
brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions
and in the world to come, eternal life in the world to come eternal
life. So if the Lord, if the Lord causes
us to forsake Brethren, sister, father, mother, wife, children,
lands for my sake in the gospels. He says, you're gonna receive
all that back in this life. What is he talking about? I'm
looking at my brothers, and I'm looking at my sisters, and I
guarantee that if you needed a place to stay, you know that
you could call me, you could come stay at my house, at your house,
and I believe you'd do the same for me. That's what he's talking
about there. But in the life to come, here's the blessing.
Eternal life. There's the blessing found in
Christ. Then he tells us what eternal
life is in John 17. You want to know what eternal
life is? This is life eternal, that they might know thee the
only true God and Jesus Christ, whom thou sent. That is life
eternal, to know Jesus Christ, to know the only true God and
Jesus Christ, whom God hath sent. If you know him, you have eternal
life. Not about him, not doctrine,
not theology. I'm talking about the person.
the person, the Lord Jesus Christ, to know him. And if you know
him, he will teach you sound doctrine. He will teach you the
truth of what the scripture says. He won't leave you to yourself.
He'll teach you. The Lord said, they all shall
be taught of me. They all shall be taught of me.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the blessing. Do we see that? To
have him is to have eternal life. How does he teach us sound doctrine?
By the preaching of his word. by the preaching of his gospel,
he teaches us. This is the blessing. You have
ears to hear, you have eyes to see, you have feet to walk to
him, you have faith that believes him. That's the blessing. That's
the blessing. I believe the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord asked the disciples, he
said, who do men say that I am? And they said, well, some say
that you're Elijah, some say you're one of the prophets. He said, well, who do you say
that I am? Peter is always the one that
talked. Sometimes it wasn't good to do
that, but he said something really good this time. He said, I believe
that thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And he
said, blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood
hath not revealed this to you, but my Father, which is in heaven.
That's the blessing, the revelation of Jesus Christ, who he is, what
he's accomplished, why he accomplished it. That's the blessing to know. Paul said that I might know him.
I might know him, not of him, not about him. He said, I know
whom I have believed. This is the blessing. That's the wealth God promised.
Did you know that? Men say God promised wealth.
Well. Not physical wealth, he didn't, but he promised that
we're heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. He promised
us that we would never go hungry. David said, I've never seen the
righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread. The Lord promised
to keep us. He said, not one sparrow falls
to the ground unnoticed. He said, you're worth many, many
sparrows. The Lord values his children,
doesn't he? That's a blessing. God would
value this, me? God would value me. The blessing of the Lord. So
as I just said, the wealth that the Lord promised is the blessing.
Look at that verse again, verse 22, the blessing of the Lord,
it maketh rich. Do we see that? This is the milk
and honey, the milk and honey. This is the wine and the bread. This is the fountain of living
water. That's where our richness comes from. That's the marrow,
if you will, this life-giving sustenance to the Lord's people.
That's what the richness is that the Lord gives to his people.
And if you have that richness, you're not worried about the
other kind. Christ is the blessing, and we've
been given everything in Christ. We've been given life. We've
been given peace. We've been given hope. We've
been given grace. What about grace? How about that
for a blessing? Grace and mercy? We have grace
and mercy. How about this? The Lord said,
I've loved thee with an everlasting love. He don't just favor his
sheep. He don't just favor his elect.
He loves them with an everlasting love and nothing can separate
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. That's a
blessing. That means I can't mess it up.
And I love saying that because I know I would if I could, but
I can't. He keeps his people by his own
power. The blessing is not things seen,
but things not seen. That when he lived, we were alive
in him. That whenever he became sin for
us, we became the righteousness of God in him. That whenever
he died, I died in him. And that whenever he was resurrected,
I was resurrected in him. His people, his elect, were resurrected
in him, and now they're seated in the heavenlies because he
by himself purged our sin, and after that he sat down. We're
still in him. That's the blessing. That's the
blessing. See, death doesn't have anything
to say, neither does hell or the grave to the Lord's people,
because the Lord conquered it in our room instead as our substitute
surety. This is the blessing of the Lord. I mentioned Jacob and Esau. I
said I'm getting ahead of myself, but I stopped long enough to
make sure that I didn't get to the second part. The second part
was Jacob and Esau. Well, Esau didn't get the birthright.
Jacob did. You know the story. I'm not going
to be able to go into the story tonight. But Esau chases after Jacob. Jacob
runs away because he's afraid he's going to get killed. Well,
years pass by. He goes down to Laban, which is his mother's
father, his uncle, and sees Leah and Rachel. He favors Rachel.
So he works seven years to marry Rachel. But when he woke up the
next morning, they had put Leah in the bed instead of Rachel.
So now he has to work seven more years and ended up getting Rachel
finally. So now that's how much time has
passed, 14 years plus. Because he had continued working
for Laban after that. I don't know how long exactly.
Because he kept asking him, give me my, it wouldn't have been
inheritance, but give me my reward. Give me what I've earned, basically. And finally, Laban agrees to
it and he leaves. And as he's leaving, or as he's
on the way, he gets word that Esau's coming to him. Esau's
bringing a band of men to him. He thinks, okay, I'm going to
die. That was his thought. I'm going to die. And what happened
was, is he became distressed and went and prayed unto the
Lord and the Lord appeared unto Jacob. And the scripture says
that Jacob wrestled with the Lord all night long. Now, I want
to be very clear about this, and I've said this before, but
in case somebody wasn't here when I said it before, I want to make
sure I'm clear on this. That word wrestle, that doesn't
mean combat. That doesn't mean a back and
forth struggle. Wrestle literally means cleave to, hang on to for
dear life. He was begging the Lord to save
him. That's how we come to Christ.
Mercy, begging sinners. And he said, you come to him
that way, he'll in no wise cast you out. What did the Lord give
him? Gave him the blessing. He gave him Christ. That's what
he gave him. He gave him hope. He gave him peace. He gave him
his word. He took care of Jacob. It cost him his life. Cost him,
he had a bad hip. Cost him, that's a picture of
the Lord breaking that flesh, is what that's a picture of.
Flesh ain't gonna get any glory in this. You ain't gonna get
to go tell anybody that you earned this from me, no. That's exactly what
that is. Here's the difference in our
gospel and others, brethren. Our gospel says that salvation's
all by grace, through faith bestowed, not of yourself, but it's the
gift of God. Every other gospel in the world, every single one,
no matter where it is, the religion that it's in, whatever they believe,
their gospel says, do this, fill in the blank. Do this in the
flesh and the Lord will save you. You will be saved. And that's
not true. This is the lie. So we have the
blessing, which is that we're saved by grace through faith
in that not of ourself, and we have the lie. In order to be
saved, you have to do. That's the lie. The blessing is in the heart.
The blessing is in the inward man. Though the outward man perisheth,
the inward man is renewed day by day by the bread of life.
That's a blessing, isn't it? That is the blessing. This is
the blessing. We were elected by the Father. We were redeemed by the Son.
We're regenerated by the Spirit. He didn't stop there. We're kept
by His power until the day of His glorious return, or if we
die by physical means, whatever it is. That's the blessing. He
said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. I'll go with you
all the way, even to the end. He cannot lie. This is the blessing
of the Lord. Freely given by his grace and
only given to his people. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you for the blessing. Of the Lord. That you freely
give it to your people. Causes to remember. In Christ
name, Amen.