We're gonna be in Proverbs chapter
eight, if you would like to turn there. Proverbs chapter eight. Kind
of amazing, we went all the way through Hebrews, and we're in
the third chapter of Galatians. We're just now in the eighth
chapter of Proverbs. There's a lot in Proverbs. There's a lot. Lord's
words, unexhaustible or inexhaustible, isn't it? Well, here in our text,
our Lord gives a simple truth, a simple truth about who he is
and about who we are, about who he is and about who we are. Here
we see the totality of his sovereignty and our utter impotence, our
inability, our depravity. How do we see that? Well, when
you see the Lord high and lifted up, you'll see your depravity.
When you see the Lord as he is through the eyes of faith, and
we see ourself as being, well, we see our depravity. We see
our undone-ness without him, without him. The believer's life is a life
of, we sorrow over our sin, but we also rejoice in the finished
work of Christ. So we're, believer's life is
constantly, if we look to ourself in any way, we're discouraged
every time. But when we're looking into the
Lord Jesus Christ, we're rejoicing. Every time. And that's why we
come to here, to rejoice in the finished work of the Lord, to
see Him high lifted up. And when we see that, we'll notice,
oh, we'll see our depravity. We'll see our undone-ness, but
we'll see His finished work and how that erases all the bad that
we are. I wrote an article It'll be in the bulletin this Sunday,
and it talks about my sin cannot change salvation. It's accomplished. My works cannot change salvation. It's accomplished. My unbelief
cannot change salvation. It's been accomplished. And that's
good news if the Lord has ever made you a sinner, if you've
ever seen yourself as undone, seen your unbelief. Oh, brethren,
this is the Lord we see here in this chapter. And all throughout
Proverbs, we see the Lord and here he is. He is our God. And besides him, there is none
other. There's no other name given among men whereby we must
be saved. He is, he is, uh, well, none
can dictate his purpose. None can challenge him. None
can say unto him, what doest thou? He's God. When we see that,
When we see that, we'll see, I'm not, I'm not God in any way. Now our flesh thinks that it's
God. It's born thinking that it's God by nature. We talked
about that recently. When we see God, we know I'm not, I'm
not God. He is, he is. All right, let's
read this together. Proverbs chapter eight, verse
12 says, I wisdom dwell with prudence and find out knowledge
of witty inventions. The fear of the Lord is to hate
evil, pride, and arrogance in the evil way. In the froward
mouth do I hate. Counsel is mine in sound wisdom. Now I want you to look what he
says right here. I am understanding. I have strength. By me kings
reign and princes decree justice. By me princes rule and nobles
even all the judges of the earth. I've titled this message to know
I am to know I am. He says, I am knowledge. He didn't say I have knowledge.
He does. He didn't say that he's going
to teach knowledge, but he does. But he said, I am knowledge. Well, who could that be? It has
to be the Lord Jesus Christ. This isn't Solomon, it's prophetic. It's Solomon writing, but it's
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Lord speaking. I was gonna
have us read Psalm 22 to give another example of it being prophetic
because it talks about our Lord on the cross where he says, I'm
a worm and no man. And then he goes on to say that
they parted my garments and they cast lots on that. Well, David
didn't have that happen. He was speaking prophetically
about Christ. Well, this is the same thing here where we see
our Lord in his splendor and his beauty as being wisdom as
being understanding, not just something that we learn, but
he is understanding, he is all these, he is understanding. Don't you love that it's not
controversial whenever the Lord speaks? You ever thought of that
before? Men may not like it. but they
can't change it. They can't change it. Scripture
even says, great is the mystery and godliness without controversy
is how that starts. Great is the mystery and godliness
without controversy. The Lord is not, who can be controversial
with God? Think about that. That's the
whole point I'm trying to make here. Nobody can, nobody can. The Lord's people, we love his
mediatorial role, his rule, his reign. He's our mediator. He's
our seated Lord and Savior. We love that about him. We love
who he is, being the I am. Whenever Moses asked the Lord
with the burning bush, The Lord said, I'm going to send you to
Egypt to tell Pharaoh to let my people go. And of course,
Moses did exactly what you and I would do. And he said, you
got the wrong guy, because he was afraid. He was full of unbelief.
The Lord said, who taught the lame to walk, the blind to speak,
the dumb to speak, the blind to see? And he said, did not
I? Now go, and I will be with you, Moses. when we were moving
up here, those words right there were what I needed to read in
order for me to feel the Lord was in it. And so we came, and
here we are. By the way, when we hit August,
this'll be, that'll be the fourth August we've been here. That's
how fast time's flown by. I can't believe that myself,
but. No, I was saying the Lord told Moses to go, and Moses said
to him, Lord, who shall I say sent me? When they ask me, they're
gonna ask me, what's your name? And he said, I am that I am. Now somebody might say, well,
that doesn't make any sense. That makes perfect sense if you're
a believer, because he is what he is, other than what we are.
That makes perfect sense to me. He's totally opposite of me,
totally opposite of you. He's God. He is what he is. I
am that I am. He says, I am knowledge. He doesn't say I'm the giver
of knowledge. We know he is, but he doesn't say it. He doesn't
say here like he has in the past. Listen, for I'm going to tell
you knowledge. He says, I am knowledge. If you know me, you'll
have knowledge because you'll have Christ. If you know him.
then you'll have wisdom because you know Christ. This is who
he is. This is our righteousness. He is righteousness. He is wisdom. He is our sanctification. He
is our justification. The Lord is. He's the I am. That's
why he said I am, because if he told you everything that he
was, we wouldn't leave tonight. We wouldn't ever run out. There's
not enough time to talk about everything that he is. So I am
covers it all. He is. the eternal sovereign
God and Savior of his people. Nothing brings a sinner true
hope but seeing, being made to believe God's free and sovereign
grace. There's no hope in the false
gospel that has works that need to be done. We've been looking
at Galatians and even in Proverbs, we've been looking at some of
the things that when men say, oh, you need to do this and not
do that. And they put men under the law. And the law can only
do one of two things. It can either make a rebel or
a Pharisee. That's it. That's all it can create. But
we preach Christ. We preach Christ. And the Lord
is the one that does the work in our heart. And if he so chooses
to, he does the work in our heart, gives us faith to believe him.
And therefore we see him as I am. We see him as sovereign. We see
him as holy. Otherwise, we won't see him that
way. This is the interesting part
of what's being written here is we're talking about not just
a name where the Lord said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No man come to the Father but by me. He's the truth, that's
His name. He's the embodiment of truth.
He is the way, not a way, the way, the only way. Christ is
the way. Not coming to Christ, He is the
way. No man come to the Father but
by me. And He's the life. In Him was life. In Him was light. And that light was the life of
men, what they say in John. What John said in 1 John, I'm
sorry, John chapter one. But if he doesn't give life,
there'll be no life. There'll be no life. The question
is, have you seen him that way? Have you seen him as everything? Everything you require for your
salvation? Do you see him as all in salvation? Because he is, whether we see
it or not, he is. May the Lord be merciful and
enable us to see him as he is. Question I wrote down is, do
I know him as the holy sovereign I am? Do I know him? To know
I am is to know truth about God and about self. It's to know
Christ, the successful redeemer of his people. To know I am is
to know that every one of his characters, every one of his
attributes can never be compromised. He can never change in any way. He's the same yesterday, today
and forever. So he's eternal. So if he loves me now and he
loves you now, he's always loved us. He's always seen us in Christ.
That means I can't mess that up. That's good news for me.
We're going back to the where I said being depraved and our
hearts deceitful of all things and desperately wicked. I need
a substitute and he's the substitute. He's the Savior. All this revolves
around who he is as God. Something we men don't realize
is the Lord, and you read it with me in Psalm 24 where he
says he founded the earth and made everything, it's his. Well
he said the same thing in John, all things were made by him and
without him there was not anything made that was made. This is part
of his isness, this is part of him declaring I am, I am the
beginning. I am life, I am truth. I'm sovereign,
I am holy, and we see these attributes, these characteristics of our
Lord. There's only one way to know
him, and it's in Christ. There's only one way to approach
him, and it's in Christ. It's not in what I do or don't
do. It's not in what I say and don't
say. There's only one way to approach God, and that is in
the Lord Jesus Christ, by his grace alone. No man is able, no man is capable,
and no man is willing to come to God. No man is able, no man
is capable, and no man is willing to come to God. That's what the
Lord said when he said, you will not come to me that you might
have eternal life. But you know what the sovereign
I am did? He became a man. He became a man. Robed in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the
flesh. Why did he do that? To save sinners. He's elected
his predestinated sinners to save us from ourself. Do you
need to be saved from yourself? Boy, I need to be saved from
myself. Somebody said, how often? Well, right now, and right now,
and right now. And here's the good news, the
scripture already tells us, if the Lord gives us the faith to
believe it, it says there is now, therefore, no condemnation.
Right now, right now. I need to be rescued right now.
Well, there's now no condemnation. That's good news, isn't it? It's all His will, His work,
His purpose and grace. If we're going to come to God,
He's going to be the one that does it. Now notice the description
of the Lord here in verse 12, I wisdom dwell with prudence
and find out knowledge of witty invention. That word prudence,
I wrote the definition down here. It says the quality of having
or showing good powers of judgment. Our Lord's judgment is good all
the time. This is what he's saying, that
Man believes that they're intelligent. Man believes they're intelligent.
But compare the intelligence of a man to God, we don't know
anything. And the example I wrote down
is, think about a worm, the worst, well, a maggot would be the worst
worm you could think of. How intellectual is that creature
compared to a human? But that pales in comparison.
to the absolute sovereignty and awesomeness of our God. In our
minds, our little men think they're intelligent. No, our judgments
are not good. His judgments are good. Our judgments
are not righteous judgments. His judgments are righteous judgments.
They're good all the time. So many people get caught up
on what they know. I know everything you're saying
about descriptions of the Lord. You're talking about him being
righteous and being holy. We can know all the facts and
still not know the person. Do I know I am? That's the question
tonight. Do I know him? If I don't, I
want to. I need to. But he's got to be
the doer of it. To know I am is to be fully persuaded
of God that he is right and you and I are wrong. He is right
and you and I are wrong in every single way and every single sense
of the word. To know him is to say, truth, Lord, I am a dog,
but the dogs desire the crumbs that fall from the master's table.
To know him is to be like Job and say, behold, I am vile. I'm
gonna put my hands over my mouth and I'm not gonna talk anymore.
To know him is to see him as Isaiah saw him, seated high and
lifted up, and his train filled the temple. To know him is to
cry out for him, have mercy on me, the sinner. If you know him,
you've seen yourself as a sinner, and you see him as the only hope
of salvation. To know him, he makes us to know
that his ways are right, and our ways are not right. Our ways
are not right. His thoughts are above our thoughts.
His ways are above our ways. You know, men look at the Lord
as if he, and I want to say, let me say this first. The Lord
has never taken a risk. I want you to think about that.
The Lord has never taken a risk. How many risks have you taken?
Well, you kind of took a risk driving here, right? I mean,
don't look at it that way. God has never taken a risk. But
men preach him as if he took a risk on the cross of Calvary
by sacrificing his son. They act like that when the Lord
made his soul an offering for sin, that was a risk that may
or may not have a certain outcome. Think about the blasphemy in
that. He's never taken a risk. He's God. Everything he's purposed
will come to pass. As far as he's concerned, and
that's how it is, he's finished. He's seated. Our problem is we
have a hard time believing it because our flesh can't comprehend
it for one, but our flesh can understand it. The Lord's work is not dependent
upon man in any way. That's what men preach. That's
what makes it a risk for God. He didn't risk anything. He doesn't
need us to help him out. He don't need us to make the
work effectual. He finished the work. See, this great Lord and
Savior that I'm describing tonight, he doesn't make mistakes. He
doesn't fail. He can't. He's the same yesterday,
today, and forever. He cannot lie. He cannot change.
He cannot. You remember I preached a message
many months ago. It was on the seven things God
cannot do. And there's more than that. But,
um, Only because of his character, only because of his nature, that's
why he can't do it. Because he can't go against his
nature. If he would, he was not God,
he's changing then. Likewise, you and I can't go
against our nature, our flesh, our flesh will not choose God,
it will not choose the things of God, our flesh chooses self.
That's why the Lord had to become a man in order to satisfy God.
God had to satisfy God and he did that. The eternal God became
a man and satisfied himself on the cross of Calvary. The God
of the Bible doesn't want for anything. He can't be dictated
to. You know, he can't be helped. Think about that. He doesn't
need my help. Well, let's remember here in different services we
were in. It's like, well, let's help God
out. Let's give him a hand. I remember them saying that I don't really
understand what all they were saying. Everybody's clapping whatever else I get
the idea. God doesn't need my help. God
doesn't need my God doesn't need your help. He's not wringing
his hands wondering if you're going to do what he wants you
to do. He's God. This is It's such simple truth
and yet the flesh hears that and you know what the flesh says?
Your flesh right now says this. I will not have that man reign
over me. But the Lord gives you faith
that believes, faith that looks to Christ. And it just believes
God. He can't be threatened, he can't
fail, he can't change, he alone is the supreme being. He has
all the power in heaven and earth and hell. There's nowhere that
he doesn't have all the power. How much does that leave me?
Leaves me none. I don't have any power. I don't
have power to save. I don't have power to do anything.
He has all the power. Notice verse 14 through 16. Counsel
is mind and sound wisdom. I am understanding. I have strength. I have strength. This is an expression
of his power, his power. He can't be contested. By me, kings reign and princes
decree justice. By me, princes rule and nobles
even all the judges of the earth. Every king that has ever been
or every king that ever will be, every president, every prince,
every senator, every individual that is elected into an office
was purposed by God. It's that simple. It doesn't
matter whether you like them or not. God's the one that put them there
for his own glory and purpose. My problem is sometimes is I
get, you know what it's like whenever you don't like a particular
person or whatever, and I'm not getting political. I'm just simply
making a point that if we don't like something, we're blaming
God for our circumstance. It's not, he's right and we're
not. And that's what it is to see
the I am. It's to see him as, as right in everything and me
wrong in everything. That's what it is. And what the
Lord does is he gives us repentance, causes our minds to change, causes
us to have a different understanding. Well, to have understanding,
period. We don't have understanding of God before he gives life. Somebody said, well, okay, every
king was ordered by the Lord. This one, that one. So yeah,
I can't really wrap my brain around it. I understand that,
but it's true. The Lord's purposed all things. Every raindrop that's
ever fallen, it fell at the exact moment in time that God purposed
it. Think about that. The hairs of your head are numbered,
the scripture said. The Lord didn't count them, he made them
the exact number he wanted them to be. Think every gust of wind, everything
in the world, God has purposed for his own glory and for the
good of his people. This is who I'm talking about
tonight, I am. He's hard to describe because
he's so wonderful. He owns it all and he makes all
things bow to his will. To know the I am is to be made
to believe, made to believe him, made to believe he is good. I'm
not, I'm not good. There's nothing he hasn't purposed.
Somebody said, well, what about catastrophes and different things
like that? There's nothing he hasn't purposed. Nothing called
him off guard. Nothing called him off guard. When the Lord
leaves a man to themselves, they do exactly what the Lord knows
and purpose for them to do. He leaves them to their self.
That's it. No man is... able to say unto
God, it's your fault because you've made me this way. No,
God has them charged with the sin because they're choosing
to do that according to their will. Our only hope is that the
Lord gives us a new will, a new breath, a new life in Christ
Jesus and gives us faith to believe. It changes everything, doesn't
it? By our God, he has ordered all
things, and they are sure, and they are steadfast, and they
can't be thwarted. They can't be threatened. They
can't be challenged or changed. He ordered it, and it's finished.
It's finished. When did he do that? Before time
ever began. Before time ever began. This
is the I am of the scripture. This is our savior that we worship. Do I know I am? Do I know him?
Do I know the Lord Jesus Christ? If I do, then I know the fear
of the Lord. Look what he says here in verse
13. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride, and arrogancy
in the evil way, and the forward mouth do I hate. What is it to
know I am? It's to fear the Lord with God
given fear. This is not something that we
naturally can learn. This is not something where we
wake up and we say, okay, I'm afraid of God in the regards
of this fear. This is a reverential fear. This
is a, this is a bowing. This is a worship type fear.
This isn't just, oh no, I'm afraid of him. No, no, no. Now, you
know, as well as I do, whenever you see your sin, you are paranoid
at the slightest thought of standing before him without Christ. There
is a dread, a terror that comes over you there. That's not what
he's talking about here. He's talking about reverential,
reverential fear, worshiping, worshiping, bowing unto the Lord.
He says here, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and
arrogance in the evil way. That's four things. That's four
things. But Pride, arrogance, evil way,
and a forward mouth. They are the definition of those
who have a righteousness outside of Christ. This is the characteristic,
all four of these, and I guess this could have been its own
message probably, but it's too late now. These four, these four
things describe every single person that has a righteousness
outside of Christ. They're prideful, They're very
prideful, and what did the Pharisee do in the temple? He said, Lord,
I think thee that I'm not like other men. That's arrogance and
pride. That's what it is, isn't it? He's just boasting of himself. That's the arrogance. That's
the arrogance. Well, what's the evil way? Choosing
my own righteousness over the righteousness of Christ. It's
the same as the way of Cain, the error of Balaam, and the
gainsaying of Korah. We've talked about that before.
You know, Cain offered up the fruit of his hands. Balaam would
not bow to the Lord. And Korah was the one that stood
against Moses and said, well, if you can offer sacrifice, we
can do it too. And Lord opened up the earth and swallowed up
400 of them right there on the spot for it. And the Lord said,
no, you need a priest. You can't be your own priest.
Lord's very serious when it comes to this, because those are the
individuals I'm describing as being prideful, being arrogant,
going the evil way, and having a forward tongue. Well, what
does he mean by a forward tongue? Well, if you ever talk to somebody
that's in religion, You ever talk to them? They're very forward
with their mouth. What do they say? And I want to think about
this just a minute because the Lord's people, we are taught
of God to say, Christ is all. And we mean that. We don't, that's
just not something on our lips. That's our only hope. Christ
is all. May God get the glory. That's
what we say. But those who are prideful, those
who are arrogant, those who have forwardness of lips, they say,
I, and you can fill in the blank. I did this. I do that. I don't
do this. I don't do that. I know this.
I know that. I was talking to a guy last Saturday,
I guess it was, and he found out I was a pastor. And he asked
me, where did you go to seminary? And I said, well, I sat at the
School of Hard Knocks is what I told him. But I explained being
under Greg Unquist for some time and some others. Well, he told
me that he went to seminary for 10 years and that he has a doctorate
and a master's and that he told me this, and this broke my heart.
And when I bring these things up, I'm not picking on anybody,
but I want you to understand the sadness that came over me
whenever he said these words. He says, I know a lot of things. I know a lot of things. And I
thought to myself, but do you know him? Because if I don't
know him, I know nothing. If I don't know the Lord Jesus
Christ, if I don't know God, the God of this Bible, I know
nothing. It doesn't matter how many details
I know. It doesn't matter how much I
have the Bible memorized. It doesn't matter. None of that
matters. Paul said, I'm determined to
know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Why?
Because He's the one thing needful. He's the only remedy for our
sin. This God that I'm describing, our God, the only one, what I'm
describing to us tonight, He saved sinners of whom I am chief. That's what Paul said. He finished
the work. He didn't try. He finished it.
No, we don't know a bunch of things. Do I know I am? Do I
know him? Because if I don't know him,
I don't know anything. Knowing about I am and knowing
the Lord Jesus, knowing about them, and here's a lot of people
that can tell you the Christmas story, can't they? They know
about him. They know about the crucifixion. They know about
the words love and different things. Maybe they can quote
scripture, but knowing about Him and knowing Him is two totally,
entirely different things altogether. And that's what he's saying here,
to have a knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, doesn't it? What does
that mean? You ever heard somebody talk about having a big head?
Puffs up? It's pride. Pride and arrogance. That's what that is. To have
a knowledge of God, but deny the power thereof. It's just
going to lead to pride. That's all it can do. If you're prideful in what you
know, then you're going to be arrogant toward God. It's to offer yourself
up to him rather than needing a substitute. Instead of believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the evil way he's
talking about here. And the last thing is the forward mouth. This
is what they confess. They say, I gave my heart to
Jesus. I surrendered my life. I made
Jesus Lord of my life. You ever heard somebody say that?
I made Jesus Lord. You can't make him Lord. He already
is Lord. It wasn't yours to give. He's already got it. He can't
make him King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That's his title. It's
his birthright. But yet we water God down. Some men water God
down, or think they are in their messages. They're not preaching
His sovereignty, His holiness, His true person and character.
They make Him palatable to the flesh. We can't do that, brethren. We have to preach Christ. We
have to preach the truth, the truth of the gospel. Thank God
the Lord's people, we don't say, look at me, I did this or that.
We say, Christ is all. Christ is all. We're made to
know. We're not just made, so they
know knowledge, but we know the Lord Jesus Christ knowledge.
We know him. Remember he said, I am knowledge.
So they know ahead knowledge. We know the man knowledge. Do
you see the difference? We know the man, the Lord Jesus
Christ. He is the knowledge of God. He is the wisdom of God
and we know him. We are made to know our great
I Am, made to confess Him as all of our righteousness, all
of our wisdom, all of our sanctification, all of our redemption. To know Him is to be made to
believe that He satisfied all the demands of God for my salvation. In order for me to know Him,
He has to make me believe that. I can't know Him otherwise. If
He doesn't cause me to believe Him, I don't know Him. We don't
come to a doctrine. We don't come to a decision.
We come to a person. We come to a person. the woman that had the issue
of blood, she didn't press through the crowd to have a debate. She had a need. She had to get
to Christ. She didn't ask, debate with other
people. She, she had a need and that's,
she needed him. And that's what he does for his
people. He makes us need him. We grow so weary in this world
and we have this issue of blood, don't we? This sin problem. And
yet the Lord gives us the grace. We have to, I don't even think
we're crawling. I think he's carrying us. That's
what I believe. That's right. He's carrying us to himself.
And then he says, touch me. And then we touch him. Why? Because
he told me to. He has to do it all. He has to command me too.
And that's what he does. Freely by his grace. The Lord by himself
purged our sin. He took the handwriting of ordinances
that was written against us. It was contrary to us. The scripture
says he took them out of the way and nailed them to his cross.
That handwriting of ordinances, all those words that said, Caleb's
guilty of this and guilty of this and guilty. He took those
and nailed them to his cross and they're gone. They're gone.
This is who I am is. This is what God has done. He alone has the power to save.
And I'll say that in closing. Look at verse 14. He alone has
the power. Counsel is mine and sound wisdom. I am understanding. I have strength. That means I have none. He has
all the strength. He has all the power. He has
all the will that can save. My will won't save me. My will
will just condemn me more because it's bound to this flesh. He
hath power over all flesh. You know what the Lord said in
John 17? He hath power over all flesh to give eternal life to
as many as the father hath given him. He has the power to do that.
Many as the father gave me, he said, I have power to give life. as many as the Father give me.
To know I am is to be given the gift of grace. It's to know knowledge,
the person, not an ideal, not facts, not memorization, not
biblical precepts. No, it's to know him, to know
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the gift of grace is to
know him. It's to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, not having
our own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness,
which is through the faith of Jesus Christ. That's our righteousness. We know him. Hawker said this. Manifest, Lord, Thy sovereignty
by reigning in me and ruling in me and bringing every thought
and imagination of my heart into subjection to the scepter of
Thy grace. This is God, and this is what
we need, to be brought to the scepter of grace over and over
and over again. We need to be made to rest in
Christ alone, His blood and His righteousness alone. To know
the I am is to rest. It's to rest in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word.
We ask that you would bless it according to your will for our
good and all your glory in Christ's name. Amen.