Tonight, our text is found in
Proverbs chapter eight, if you would like to follow along. Proverbs
chapter eight. It's been said that something
that is true is not new, and something that is new is not
true. That's the truth, isn't it? Something
that is new, pertaining to God, pertaining to man. Something
that is true is not new. As far as God's sovereignty is
concerned, His love, His power, His holiness, His truth, it's
always been the same. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
today, and forever. And equally as true compared
and pertaining to man, his depravity being born to pray, being born
dead in sin, being a sinner by nature, a sinner by practice,
a sinner by choice, that never changes, does it? It never changes. Man are totally spiritually dead,
which brings us to our title. titled this The Plain Truth.
The Plain Truth. Last week, we were able to look
at Herod's question to the Lord, what is truth? And he walks away
from him at that time. He asked God, what is truth? And walks away from him. What
a sad soul, what a sad situation. That makes me cry out, Lord,
leave me not to myself. What is truth? Well, I'm not
gonna preach that same message. This is different. But it is
the same. Because nothing new, there's nothing new under the
sun, scripture tells us. There's nothing new. This is
all the Lord. This is all his doing. This is all his gospel.
This is all by grace. This is his salvation for his
people. And just as Solomon continues to build on this foundation of
truth, my hope and prayer this evening is that the Lord will
enable us to build on what we have learned in all eight chapters.
How many times have we heard the word wisdom, the word righteousness? How many times we heard the word
truth? How many times we heard the word knowledge? That's what
Solomon's relaying and conveying is all of the truth of God, that
he is true and we're not. installed a door yesterday and
we had trouble with the door closing at the end. The door
wasn't true. The door had to be adjusted. Nothing about our
Lord has ever had to be adjusted. He's true in all things. You
and I need to be adjusted. You and I need to be fixed a
lot, don't we? Well, let's read this text, Proverbs chapter eight,
verse eight through 11 says, all the words of my mouth are
in righteousness. There is nothing forward or perverse
in them. They are all plain to him that
understandeth. That's why I'm titled this The
Plain Truth. They are all plain to him that understandeth and
right to them that find knowledge. Receive my instruction and not
silver and knowledge rather than choice gold for wisdom is better
than rubies and all the things that may be desired are not to
be compared to it. First notice verse eight says,
all the words of my mouth are in righteousness. There is nothing
forward or perverse in them. Forward means to twist or to
change. There's nothing twisted about
the gospel. There's nothing that's going
to change about the gospel. It's going to remain the same.
No, man is the ones that do the changing, not God, not God. Man wants to change the truth,
but the truth remains. The truth is what? Forever settled
in heaven, the scripture tells us. What is it to twist and change
the truth? Well turn with me to Romans chapter
one, we'll look at that. Look at verse 18 through 25.
For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
hold the truth in unrighteousness, they hold the truth in unrighteousness. Because that which may be known
of God is manifest in them, God hath showed it unto them. How
did he show it to them? He's gonna tell us. For the invisible
things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal
power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because that
when they knew God, or they knew of God, Neither were thankful,
but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed
the glory. of the uncorruptible God into
an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed
beasts and creeping things. Wherefore, God also gave them
up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor
their own bodies between themselves, who changed the truth of God
into a lie. and worshiped and served the
creature more than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen.
It says in verse 23 that they changed the glory of God. How
did they change the glory of God? These that the Lord have
left to themselves. How do they change the plainness
of the truth? How did they change that? Well,
they changed the offense of the cross. That's how they do that.
They changed the offense of the cross. Paul told us, if I preach
circumcision, why would I be persecuted? Because the offense
of the cross is no more. If I preach works, gospel, if
I preach salvation by works through the law, the offense of the gospel
is gone. The offense of the gospel is
that Christ Jesus saved his people from their sin without our input,
without our doing anything by himself. Hebrews chapter one
verse three says, when he had by himself purged our sin, he
sat down on the right hand of God. So to change any bit of
that, to change his accomplished work, to water it down, to not
speak it plainly and clearly, that's to change the Lord's glory.
That's to change the Lord's glory. To change the offense of the
cross would cease to make salvation all of grace. It ceases to make
salvation all of grace. That's all we have to do is add
one work to the gospel, one work to salvation, and it has been
changed into the lie. It's been changed into the lie.
It would fail to be plain truth at that time. Notice verse 25
says, who changed the truth of God into the lie and worshiped
and served the creature more than the creator who is blessed
forever, amen. They served the creature. Who
is the creature? Who is the creature? The creature
is not a basketball player, a football player. It's not the president. It's not those that have high
authority or power. It's not those that are rich.
It's not anybody that has knowledge, a professor perhaps. No, this
is the creature, brethren. This shell, this flesh, this
body of death, Paul called it. That's what it is. That's the
creature. So I'm going to serve self. and
whatever self wants. See, we don't need help being
with our narcissistic victim mentality. We're narcissists
by nature. Every person that's ever been born is a narcissist
by nature. We're stuck on ourself. We're worried about ourself.
A baby wants what baby wants. Baby ain't worried about what
mom is feeling. That's just how it works. And when we don't get our way,
we play the victim card. Well, I've done this and this,
and I deserve better. Is that not the truth? This is what serving
the creature looks like. So we don't need help by doing
that. What we need is God's gospel. You know what it does? It saves
us from ourself. It saves us from our sin, and
it saves us from ourself. And in doing so, we no longer
look to self. We no longer serve self. But
the only thing that can accomplish that is the gospel of God preached
in power by his spirit. And when he does that, it just
shuts us up, doesn't it? It just quiets us. There's nothing
that quiets us, the Lord's people, more than the gospel does. You can be having a very difficult
day. You can be having a very hard
time. You can be wrapped up in emotion. You could just had some
terrible news. You could be battling your sin
in your mind. Battling is meaning feeling guilty for it. But as
soon as you hear the gospel and the Lord says, seek ye my face,
every bit of it's gone. Isn't that right? Why is that? Well, because the Lord has took
our focus off of self and put it back on his plain truth, the
gospel, the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why did
they leave? Why did they serve self? Well,
they were left to self. And it will always result in
remaining our own God. We're born our own God. When
Adam came to Eve, he didn't come to her with enticing words of
a whole lot of untruth. He told her the truth and added
one word to it, which made it a lie. He didn't come and promise
her this and promise her that and lie to her in that regard.
He said, no, the Lord knows the day that you eat of that tree,
you shall be like God. That word is God's, but it's
the same word as he said before. God said, and then God's at the
other. It's the same exact word. Translators
just put an S on it. Now he said, you know, the day
that you eat of that, you'll be God. And she thought, huh? That sounds
like something I might like. I'd like to have power. I'd like
to be like God. How did corruption all start? It started in glory with Lucifer,
didn't it? What did he say? I will ascend
above the heavens. I will be like who? The most
high. I'm going to be like God. This
is our problem by nature. It's not just that we that we
have a sin problem. We don't even know we have that,
but we're so self-absorbed because we want to be God. That's what
it is from nature. So what do we need to have to
happen? We need God to come and say, you're not God, I am. Where
were you when I laid the foundation of the world? Where were you
when I hung the stars in the sky? Where were you whenever
I divided the waters from the land? Where were you whenever
I put the moon around the Earth spinning, and I put the Earth
spinning on its axis at exactly, what is it, exactly 10,000 something
miles an hour? How could we calculated that?
I mean, we can now, I guess, but my pea brain didn't know
anything about that information. It's never sped up a bit. It
just keeps doing the same thing it's always done. Why? God did
it. Who taught the sun to rise upon the Earth? This is the creation
that he's talking about here. And when we see, if our focus
is taken off of self, if the Lord causes our focus to be taken
off self long enough and causes us to see him, we'll be like
Job and say, behold, I am vile. And I put my hands on my mouth
and I will not talk again. That's what the Lord does. That's
what the Lord, we need the Lord's plain truth, his gospel to save
us. from ourself to save us from
ourself. And you know what he does when
he reveals his truth? He reveals God is on his throne
as the sovereign creator of this universe, as the sovereign sustainer
of all life, as the one that's purposed everything in time and
eternity, as the one that made this ball that we're walking
on for the singular purpose of the salvation of his elect, for
his glory, He's still seated. It's still finished. There's
nothing left to do in salvation. He accomplished everything he
purposed to do. This is his plain truth. But
without him giving us eyes to see and ears to hear and legs
to walk and life and heal our leprosy, we will not come to
him that we might have life. God is absolute. And the lie
changes that. The lie says, no, he's not. Yeah,
he's sovereign. Yeah, he's absolute, but fill
in the blank. Well, that's a lie. That's not
true. He's absolute, period. He's sovereign, period. He's
successful, period. He's not wanting for anything.
He's not begging men. He's not wishing men would do
something. He's not asking anybody to let him do anything. He's
God. He's God. And he's our God. He's
our God, who chose to become a man and redeem his people from
the curse of sin, from the curse of the law, to save me from the
creature. So save me from the creature. Well, the law changes the truth
about who God is, and it twists it, as we read earlier, it convolutes
it, it waters it down, it takes the offense of the gospel out
of it. But the truth, the simple truth remains, he is God and
besides him there is none other. There's none can stay his hand
or say unto him, what doest thou? He will remain supreme over all
heaven and earth and hell forever, for all time and eternity, for
all time. It's his time and it's his eternity. He's the one that created all
things and without him there was nothing made that was made.
This is a simple truth, he's over, He's sovereign over man. He's sovereign over Satan. He's
sovereign over the world. There's nothing that can challenge
him or threaten him. There's nothing that affects
him in the way of taking him off guard. He already knows what's
gonna happen before it happens. Why? He purposed it. He purposed
all things for his glory and for our good, for his people's
good, for the salvation of his elect. He and his glorious salvation
are never threatened. Nothing created, nothing created,
and he is the only one that wasn't created, mind you. Nothing created
can challenge his salvation. It's finished. It is finished. His choice alone is the determining
factor in His salvation for His people. His choice alone. Yet man chooses to believe the
lie, and what do they do? They worship and serve the creature
more than their creator. What does that look like? I made a good choice. I did this. I prayed a prayer. I walked an
aisle. I got baptized. That's a work. If you let it be, it's a work.
Baptism is something that's commanded because it's an outward confession
of what we believe inwardly. And so it's one of the practices
that we do here, one of the ordinances that God has told us to. We have
two of them, baptism and the Lord's table. But you can take
the Lord's table in vain. You can not believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and believe that that is part of your salvation.
Do we see what I'm saying? That's serving the creature.
This is what the flesh wants. It wants some glory. Well, I've
taken communion at the Lord's table 1,500 times over my life. I know I'm good. No. No, if you're
not confessing the blood and the body, don't take it. Don't
take it. If you're not confessing that
when Christ died, your only hope is that you died in him, don't
be baptized. That's what baptism represents.
No, people, they worship and serve the creature more than
the creator. Why do they do that? They're bound to their nature.
Now, brethren, we often talk about others, but were we not
the same way? Had it not been for the grace
of God, would we not have continued to be the same way? So what is
the good news? The Lord saved his people from their sin. The
Lord saved his people from their self. The Lord says, you're not
gonna serve yourself anymore. You're gonna serve me. I'm God,
you're not. What glorious hope there is in
knowing that the Lord arrests us where we're walking. Just
like he did Saul, beautiful example, even though we don't hear an
audible voice, we don't see a bright light, we see the light in the
heart through faith. We hear the voice, the call through
faith, but we don't audibly hear it or see it. Somebody ever tells
you that they saw Jesus? No, they didn't. Paul said, last
he was seen it me, that's a lie. Paul was the last one to see
the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't know why that was brought
up, but I guess it's important. There's no manifestation of the
Lord. You know how he's seen now? Through the preaching of
his word, by faith alone. That's it. That's it, the preaching
of the gospel. Saul was on the road to Damascus.
He was happy, minding his own business. He had a righteousness
that was as, it was thicker than a phone bill. I mean, he, a phone
book. He had, you turn every page and he would tell you something
else that he did. I did that, I did that, I did that. I mean,
it was just the book, it was a massive book. You know, if
he'd have wrote it all down. What'd the Lord do? The Lord
said, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he got knocked off
his high horse, both physically and mentally, spiritually, all
of it. Lord knocked him down on the
dirt, in the dirt. That's what he does. He says, no, you're
not God, I am. And Paul said, what would you
have me do, Lord? He immediately recognized he
was talking to him. Never had met him before, but
he knew that's not just anybody, that's God speaking. This is
how he speaks now, and when he comes to you, he knocks you and
I off of our high horse, into the dirt, revealing his plain
truth. I am God and you are not. Salvation
is by my doing alone, not your doing, not what you do or what
you do not do, not what I do and what I do not do, what he
has done, what he has accomplished. Men are bound to their nature
and will not come to him unless he makes them. They don't have
a new man, a new nature created in Christ, created in true righteousness
and holiness, Ephesians 4.24. That's the free gift of God.
We heard about that Sunday. It's the free gift of God. One
that looks after him, one that looks to him as all their hope,
all their hope and salvation. It's only given by grace. Because they're bound to their
nature, they cannot receive the things of God. If we are not
born again, born from above, we can't receive the things of
God. We can't believe this plain truth that I'm talking about.
We can't believe it. We hear it. And we may have understanding
a little bit of it, but we can't believe it, not by faith. Not
by faith. Well, look at verse 22, these
sad individuals. It says, professing themselves
to be wise, they became fools. They're going around saying,
I am wise. I know this, and I know this,
just like Saul. I know this, but you know what
Saul said? He said, if any of you had glory, in the law, he's
speaking about the law, he said, whereof, if you were able to
glory, I more. He said, I was born, I'm a Pharisee
of the Pharisees. I was born in the tribe of Benjamin,
circumcised the eighth day. He says, I learned under Gamaliel,
did this, did that, did this. And he said, and I want to tell
you exactly how I feel about all that now, just so it's clear.
He tells them, he says, I count it but dung. We all know what
that means. I mean, he counted it as nothing,
counted it as waste, counted it as useless. Why? That he might
win Christ and be found in his righteousness, not having his
own righteousness, which is of the law. No, they became fools
just like, so if the Lord leaves us to ourself, we'll be made
a fool. And if the Lord comes to us, we'll realize we're a
fool. We see the difference? Either
way, we're a fool, but it's when the Lord brings the truth of
his gospel to us and shows us that we're a fool. Then we say,
Lord, you have to be my wisdom. You have to be my knowledge,
just like we have in our text. You have to be my righteousness.
I don't have any. It's not that I have a little
bit. I don't have any. I don't know nothing. That's what Paul said. He said,
I intended to know nothing among you, say Jesus Christ and him
crucified, that's it. That's the plain and simple truth. Why did they become fools? Well,
Satan, and I've mentioned this already, I got ahead of myself,
but Satan, when he enticed Eve, he changed one word. And that's
so important because if a man changes one thing about the gospel,
he's changed the whole gospel. Somebody said, yeah, well, they
preach sovereign grace at this church, but they also preach
this. They don't preach the gospel then. That's according to the scripture.
It's that simple. I'm not being rude. I'm not being
mean. It's just facts. This is the truth, the plain truth. You
preach the full truth of God and you will be hated for it.
You will be hated for it. They changed the truth of God
into a lie by just adding one word. That's all it took is one
word. How frightening is it to think of that? That if we just
change one little thing, not even mean to, we just change
one thing. Well, that's what Galatians, they wrote an entire
book on it in Galatians, didn't he? It was circumcision, that's
all that it was, one thing. One thing, it's going to the
law for righteousness. Lord said, I'll disannoy your
covenant. You've made a covenant now. And he says, it will not
stand. You're not righteous. You have a righteousness outside
of Christ. We have no righteousness then. But if our righteousness
is in Christ, we've been saved by grace alone, by grace alone. Here's the plain truth brethren.
He is all in salvation without his doing, without his doing,
we will remain dead. Dead. Is that your hope? Is that
it's all by his doing? That's got to be your hope. If
it's not, we don't have a hope. If he hasn't revealed to us that
we are the fool. needing the Savior, needing the wisdom of
God, the knowledge of God. May it be right now. That's the
prayer, isn't it? Lord, if I don't believe, cause
me to believe now. It's like what the man said to
the Lord. The Lord said, if you believe all things are possible,
do you believe? And he said, Lord, I believe, help thou mine
unbelief. I feel that, don't you? I believe,
help thou mine unbelief. Interestingly enough, if you
ask the child of God, the elect child of God, A born again believer,
do you have any confidence in your flesh pertaining to spiritual
things? Did you know the answer will
always be no? If it's not no, then they're
not, they haven't been called out of darkness into light yet.
Because when the Lord saves you, he strips you of every bit of
your righteousness. This is true all throughout scripture.
We have example after example after example. completely stripped
of no righteous, having no righteousness whatsoever, completely. And 100%
naked before the Lord, before the law, everything. We see the
ugly that we are. It's like looking in a mirror.
And I guess some people are vain. I don't know. I don't enjoy looking
in a mirror. I never have. I don't know why I need to tell
you that. I guess just because I want you
to understand the point. If you look in the mirror, that's good
for you. It's not my business. I don't care. So I guess I was
trying to say I'm not picking on anybody. But my point is,
When you look into the mirror, it shows you all your blemishes.
And the older that you get, the more blemishes you get. Am I
wrong? And as you start seeing more and more, you're like, okay,
I need to start doing something to fix it. Well, that's what
it's like looking at the law. It's just gonna show you the
blemishes. What am I gonna do to fix it? Well, let me rub some
cream on it. That blemish is still gonna be there. You understand what
I'm saying? It's not gonna do any good. No, we need a new man. We need a new body. That's coming,
that's coming. We need a new man created in
righteousness. We don't need, the mirror's not
gonna help you. The mirror's not gonna help you.
That's the plain truth. Without the Lord's doing, will
remain dead. We have no confidence in our
flesh pertaining to salvation, pertaining to spiritual things,
pertaining to the things of God. We don't look at what we do day
to day as part of our righteousness. We don't look at what we don't
do as part of our righteousness. We look at what Christ did on
the cross of Calvary for his people by shedding his blood,
by dying for them in their room instead and putting away their
sin forever. Was the Lord satisfied with that sacrifice, that offering?
He offered himself to the Father, not to men. He said, unto his
Father, Father, into your hands, to thy hands I commend my spirit.
He cried with a loud voice, it is finished. Was the Lord satisfied
with that? Yes. He said he was raised because
of our justification. The Lord's people has been justified,
made the righteousness of God in him by his perfect sacrifice. This is the plain truth, brethren.
This is the plain truth. All our hope is in Christ alone.
His life is my life. His death, I died with him. That's
my only hope. When he was resurrected, I was
resurrected with him. Is that your hope? That's my hope. That's
every one of the Lord's people's hope, isn't it? God's elected,
predestinated children have but one righteousness, one hope,
and one plea. And this is the plain truth.
It's the Lord Jesus Christ alone. It's the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ alone. It's him. Everything that he
is, it's him. Everything that he did, it's
him. That's it. Let's go back to our
text, Proverbs chapter eight. Let's read this again, chapter
eight, Proverbs verse eight. All the words of my mouth are
in righteousness. There is nothing forward, or
perverse in them. They are all plain to him that
understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge. How are
we gonna find knowledge? It's the same way Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord, because God gave it to him freely
by his grace. If you find knowledge, it's because
the Lord revealed it to you. He's the knowledge giver. For
wisdom is better than rubies, and all the things that may be
desired are not to be compared to it. I think I skipped some, didn't
I? Let's just start over, verse
eight, I'm sorry. All the words of my mouth are righteousness.
There is nothing forward or perverse in them. They are all plain to
him that understandeth and right to them that find knowledge.
Receive my instruction, and not silver, and knowledge rather
than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies,
and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared.
Now, at this time, and I always try to take the verses that we
have, if the Lord be our help, and elaborate on those verses.
We're not trying to skip anything. So why did he talk about gold?
Why did he talk about silver? And why did he talk about rubies?
Well, at this time, gold was the most precious element, just
like it is today. Well, I guess there's others
that's more precious, but gold was the most precious element.
It was used, think about what they put on the mercy seat. for offering. It was overlaid
with gold, overlaid with gold. Think about what they put in
the temple. It was used gold. So it was a reflection of it
being very valuable, being very valuable. Silver at this time
was associated with material wealth, material wealth. If you had silver, silver would
have been more of the, a king would have had gold and working
men would have had silver. So you have a lot of silver, you'd have material
wealth. That's how it was viewed. Rubies, represent health and
beauty. So that's what they were viewed
as. They're associated with health
and beauty. So what's the Lord teaching us here? The Lord's
instruction is telling us His knowledge, His wisdom, His truth
is better than the most precious substance in the world. It's
better than all the wealth in the world. And it's better than
the health and beauty that's outwardly. This is all inward.
What the Lord gives is a new man. What the Lord gives is eternal
life. There's a message being preached
right now, brethren. It says, if you serve God, you'll
have good health, you'll be wealthy, you'll be prosperous, health,
wealth, and prosperity. That's the three points that
I heard made on a message. You won't find that in the Bible.
I don't know where they're getting that from. God didn't say that.
He said, in this world, you shall have persecution. That's what
he said. But be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. We don't
serve God as his people to gain things in this world. As a matter
of fact, the longer we live in this world, the more it stinks
to us. The more we see sin everywhere,
the more we love coming here to hear the good news of the
gospel where we can, where the Lord washes our feet once more. We get a drink because we're
thirsty. The world makes us thirsty long after him. The world makes
us, there's no bread out there. It's Lodibar. where Mephibosheth
was, there's a land of no bread. And we come here to eat, we come
here to drink, we come here to, and we come here to love on each
other too, don't we? Encourage one another. But this
is our place of rest. This is our, where we hear the
gospel. That's where the Lord's made
a place of refuge for his people. That's the only refuge we're
gonna have. Everything else is gonna be pain and sorrow and
hurt and there's gonna be no place of rest. But what did the
Lord say? Come unto me, all you that are
labored and are heavy laden, I will give you what? Rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart and you shall find what?
Rest to your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden
is light. You that desire rest, come to
Christ. Come to Christ. The Lord's teaching us that no
matter what, is in this world, no matter what you see, no matter
what you have, there's nothing, nothing that compares to the
wisdom of God found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing compared
to the knowledge of God that's given by God freely by his grace.
There's nothing, nothing that surpasses his instruction. How
precious is it that he came to a sinner like you and said, believe,
live. How often we forget He chose
to come to you who could not get to Him. He chose to come
to you whenever you were at the pool of Bethesda. You couldn't
help yourself and get in the water just like that man, but
He walks past everybody else and comes to you, not because
of anything good in you, not because of anything good in me,
but because of His own purpose, His own pleasure, His own glory,
that's why. All that was given to his people
before the world began. Second Timothy one nine. How precious is it that the Lord
would instruct us not leave us to ourselves. Hmm. Heaven and earth shall pass away
and all things therein, but his word shall not pass away. His
word shall not pass away. Is that your hope? His word,
his truth? Does your heart rejoice knowing
that it is finished? Yes. Yes, it does. Does your
heart rejoice in the Lord's plain truth? I just quoted part of
that, I'll quote the rest of it. God saved us. God called
us, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace, given to his people before the world ever began,
but is now made manifest by the gospel, by the gospel. That's
good news, isn't it? That's good news. Here's more good news, 2 Timothy
2.13 says, if you believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot
deny himself. That's simple truth, that's plain
truth. If you believe not, yet he abideth
faithful, he cannot deny himself. He'll cause you to believe, that's
what he's saying. You're not gonna be able to not believe
forever. You might have moments of unbelief, you might have moments
of weakness, but because of what the Lord's done inwardly, You're
gonna believe by faith. You're gonna believe by faith.
He remains faithful. You're born of his incorruptible seed. This
is the truth of his faithfulness. His finished work on Calvary,
we were saved from ourself, from the creature that we are. The
creator saved the creature. Think about that. The creator
had to become the creature in order to save the creature, and
that's what he did. That's... I love my dogs, but I wouldn't
become a dog to save a dog. I mean, you think about that.
I just thought, I don't want to change my nature. I'm not
saying the Lord changed his nature. I mean, he changed his countenance
on the cross of Calvary, didn't he? But he didn't change his
nature. No, he was still 100% God. But I would have to change into
a dog. No, I couldn't do that to save my dog. But he became
the worm. That's what he said in Psalm
22. I am a worm and I am no man. That's the Lord prophetically
on the cross. All the terrors of God were come passing him
about when he's dying for his people, burying our sin in his
own body on the tree. Is his finished work your only
hope? Or do you have something to glory
in, in yourself? Do you see something good in
you? Are you serving the creature? Are you serving the creature?
Do you seek the lie that you have something to do with salvation? Look at verse eight, all the
words of my mouth are in righteousness. There is nothing forward or perverse
in them. Can you say that? Can you say all the words of
your mouth are not perverse? No, I can't say that. My lips
deceive me. Does your lips deceive you? Some
things come out of my mouth sometimes, like why did I say that? Have
you ever done that? Well, you know the statement, putting your
foot in your mouth, that's what it is. But how many times do we dishonor
our Lord by the things we say and do? I mean, it's all the
time, is it not? I need a substitute. No, the Lord didn't fix this
nature. He didn't change this nature. This is still full of
sin. He just gave us another one that
looks to him. These that seek their own righteousness.
Let's read verse nine also. They are all plain to him that
understandeth and right to them that find knowledge. Now they
that seek their own righteousness, their lips are perverse. And
what that means is, is they're perverting the gospel. How do
they do that? They're denying the finished work of Christ.
They're denying that we're saved by grace alone. That's what we
rejoice in. That's what our hope is. That's
our greatest refuge, is that we're saved by grace alone. For
by grace are you saved through faith, in that not of yourself,
it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man boast. He's
God and we're not. He's righteousness and we're
false. He's true and we're the lie. That's what that song was
saying, Jesus lover of my soul. False and full of sin I am, thou
art full of truth and grace. He's all our righteousness, all
of our justification. He's our only hope. We're sinners
in need of a Savior. A Savior to save us from the
creature, ourself. A Savior to save us from our
sin. A Savior to save us from what we are and what we do and
what we think. Save us in every way. We don't
need a savior to give us a choice. We need a savior to save us.
It's a big, well, you'd be the choice giver. Then if he was
to give us a choice, he wouldn't be the savior, would he? A savior
does what? Saves. That's plain, that's plain
truth. I mean, that's not complicated.
It's plain truth. The savior saves. No, he's not the choice
giver. He's the savior of his people. The good news is God does all
the saving, all the calling, all the keeping for all of his
people, all the time. All the time, all for his glory.
Galatians 6, 14, this is what we believe and preach. God forbid
I should glory save the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Save
the finished work. This is plain truth, brethren.
It's our only hope. Christ is our only plea. Thank
God for plain truth, amen. Let's pray. Father, we love your
truth, cause us to rest in your truth and look to you, not self.
In Christ's name we pray, amen.