Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 25. Psalm 25, and reading
for our text, verse 12. What man is he that feareth the
Lord? Him shall he teach in the way
that he shall choose. Psalm 25 and verse 12. This Psalm of David is really
an encouragement to all that want to know the ways of the
Lord, who want to be taught in the Lord's ways. And whether
it be in the very beginning, just coming to faith, not knowing
anything of the Christian faith or the ways of the Lord, or about
our Lord Jesus Christ even. And for those also who may have
been in the way, who've known the Lord for many, many years,
and yet still feel to need to be taught, still feel ignorant
in themselves, still feel very dark as to the truths of the
gospel and the teaching of the Word of God. And this psalm,
the Psalm of David, a man after God's own heart, is very encouraging
in this way. May we be able to join in the
prayers of the psalm. In verse four, show me thy ways,
O Lord, teach me thy paths, a beautiful Prayer in itself. Verse five
as well, another prayer, lead me in thy truth and teach me. Maybe you can't add the last
part of that verse, for thou art the God of my salvation,
on thee do I wait all the day. But it shows that even those
who are able to say that God is the God of their salvation,
that they still need to be led by the Lord, they still need
to be taught. We won't wear out the prayers
of David, the prayers that are here. But we are told also the promises
of teaching in this psalm. It's not only prayer without
any assurance of there being any prospect of the Lord teaching
at all. We have this in verse eight,
good and upright is the Lord, therefore will he teach sinners
in the way. The Lord himself will do it,
Jehovah God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We have it in
verse nine, the meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek
will he teach his way. Set forth as a declaration of
the holy, infallible word of God what the Lord will do. God
speaking through his word, through his servant, David. Then we have
it in our text. What man is he that feareth the
Lord? Him shall he teach in the way
that he shall choose, may teach, might teach, know where the fear
of the Lord is, he will teach. There is an assurance of that. But how will the Lord teach? In what ways does he teach his
people? Certainly not just in a letter
way, in word only, but also an experience in the heart, effectually,
and the various ways that he uses to teach them. And what does he teach? About
themselves as sinners, about himself as God, the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Saviour, the Holy Spirit, the Teacher and Instructor
and Guide of his people, to teach them what they should do, how
they should live, where they should go, to guide them, instruct
them, teach them about the things of God, opening up the doctrines,
the truths, not just of time, but of what God has prepared
in heaven what he has done and what he will do. When we begin in the ways of
the Lord, we know nothing but the Lord will teach. And when
it says the Lord will teach, the things that are taught are
the things that are in this blessed book, in the inspired word of
God. But though it be written there,
They must be taught. We think even in a natural way. If we were given a study book,
a medical journal, or in my field, original teaching in engineering,
and told here is this, you must do it. I remember when we first
started to learn or training in engineering in one of the
subjects in mathematics, I'd never ever known what calculus
was before. And that particular instructor,
he came in and he gave us his textbook. He said, here's a textbook
on calculus, page such and such, read it, do the examples. And he basically got us to teach
ourselves. Later on, he did teach a bit.
But it was very difficult just to be thrown a book and just
to be saying, well, here it is. You learn it. Where the Lord
has given us his word, the holy infallible word of God, but he's
also given us the promise that he will teach us and that he
will use means as well. And he has appointed the means
to be taught. And that is what is before us
here this morning, this beautiful psalm of assurance of the teaching
and instruction of the Lord. And if you were like I was when
the Lord first began with me, I felt so painfully my ignorance,
my emptiness. I'd been brought up under the
sound of the truth, but didn't know it in the heart, knew it
only in the head. And that very, very imperfectly. And when the Lord convinced me
of that, how you brought me to be so teachable. I wanted to learn, I wanted to
be taught. And if that's where you are this
morning, may this word be a help to you. What man is he that feareth
the Lord? Him shall he teach in the way
that he shall choose. In order to properly open up
the where that is before us, I want to use three points. The description, firstly, of
those that he will teach. Our text says, what man is he
that feareth the Lord, him shall he teach. So I want to look at
the description of those that God will teach. Secondly, what
the Lord shall do for them that fear him. Our text says clearly,
him shall he teach. The Lord shall teach him. And
then thirdly, how the Lord shall teach. Because our text doesn't
just say that he shall teach, but in the way that he shall
choose and what that means and means to us. Firstly, the description
of those that the Lord will teach. Actually, in this psalm, there
are three descriptions. We have in verse eight, good
and upright is the Lord, therefore will he teach sinners, sinners
in the way. Well, we all are sinners. All
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But not all
feel that they are sinners. All do not know they are sinners. All won't receive the word that
they are. They believe that they are not
so bad after all. There is some good in them. A sinner is one who has transgressed
the word of God, the law of God. Sin is the transgression of the
word of the law of God. The word of God is clear on that. That is not then to be determined
by man as to what sin is or what it is not. The word of God is
the word of God. And a transgression of that,
a going against that, brings us to be a sinner. And if the
Lord then has convinced you and I that we have broken God's law
and that we are indeed sinners, then the description here in
verse 8, if we are a feeling sinner in that way, that God
will teach us. Really, the beautiful thing about
this is, if any is feelingly a sinner and it burdens them,
they have already been taught. The Lord has already taught them
that. That is not a lesson that one
learns and is taught themselves. It is the work of God, the work
of the Spirit to convince of sin. To make us fall down as
guilty before God. So there's an encouragement.
If you already feel a sinner, the Lord has already taught you
in that way. So you're in verse 8. But then we have in verse 9 that
it is the meek, the meek will he guide in judgment and the
meek will he teach his way. It is said of Moses that he was
meek above any man. In other words, was ready to
receive and to bow before whatever was set before him, not aggressive,
not resistant, but in meekness. You know, if we had a child and
they'd done things wrong, and we started to set those things
before them and they received everything that we told them
and agreed with what things were said against them and then when
we set them tasks and things that they had to do or perhaps
in a way of chastening us to go to their room that they accepted
it and they just meekly and quietly went to their room, how different
that that would be, to be all the time argumentative, questioning,
arguing, reasoning, disagreeing, and perhaps doing what was told
them, but doing it in a very rebellious way. That would be
the opposite to meekness. Here is one that is pictured
that When the things are spoken to them, when they are taught,
they are receiving those words, bowing before the Lord. It is
those that are spoken of as being the character that are being
taught in verse nine. But then we have in our text
that it is those that fear the Lord. And the question is asked,
what man is he that feareth the Lord? Or what woman or what child? What one is it that fears the
Lord? You might, when we have read
this text, thought, well, am I in this text? Do I fear the
Lord? Am I this character? The question
is actually asked, how then can we answer it? What is this fear that is spoken
of here? We read that the devils, that
they believe and tremble. The devils, Satan himself is
in no doubt about the existence of an almighty God and of his
power and of his might. And they believe that and they
tremble, but not in a saving way, not in a gracious way at
all. man by nature, he says, like
Pharaoh, who was over the children of Israel when they're in captivity
in Egypt. When Moses was sent and to work
the signs of the wonders of the Lord to let the children of Israel
go, he says, who is the Lord that I should serve him? And
all the time he stood against him. And though God said trial
after trial and pestilence after pestilence, he still would not
bow, still would not let the children of Israel go, still
would not obey the Lord or acknowledge his almighty hand. We read that the transgression
of the wicked, it tells us this, there is no fear of God before
his eyes. The fear of the Lord It has many
aspects to it. It's not a slavish, terrible
fear, but it has the aspect of believing that God is. It recognises His presence, His
all-seeing eye, His almighty power, His ability to actually
do things, to speak, and to bring things to pass. The fear of the
Lord, it speaks of the realising the accountability that we have
to the Lord as our creator, as our maker. There will be a mixture
of reverence of the Lord God is greatly to be feared in the
assembly of the saints, to be had in reverence of all them
that are about him. There'll be a sense of an awe
of his knowledge, of his power, something of which the psalmist
David again speaks of in Psalm 139. He says, O Lord, thou hast searched
me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting
and mine up-rising. Thou understandest my thought
afar off. Thou compass my path and my lying
down, and art acquainted with all my ways. There is not a word
in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. thou
hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high I cannot attain
unto it." And right through that psalm, David is in a real awe
of the Lord, the greatness of the Lord and how much the Lord
is acquainted with him. and knows him through and through
a sense of reality that God is God. Hagar, when she fled from
her mistress, Sarah, Abraham's wife, the Lord found her and
she said, thou God seest me. The Lord saw her, he knew her,
and so When we have what man is he, that fear of the Lord,
is a man to whom the Lord, the God of heaven and earth, is a
reality to them. In Mr Ransbottom's book, Bible
Doctrine Simply Explained, he speaks of a man, an ungodly man,
He was ill in hospital and he had put a sign over his bed,
a terrible sign. He put the sign and it read this,
God is nowhere. God is nowhere. And his little
grandchild came in just beginning to learn to read. So he asked
her to read that sign. where she read the sign but put
the letters in different places. So what she read was, God is
now here. And the Lord blessed that to
that man and made him tremble that God was there. God is everywhere. There is no place, and that is
what David in Psalm 139 found. There's no place hidden from
him. When Jonah fled from the Lord,
what a thought that one of the Lord's servants could think that
he could run away from the Lord. Don't ever think that you can
go into a place where the Lord is not. Read that Psalm 139. Think of Jonah, who was cast
out of the sight of the Lord in the depths of the sea, swallowed
up by the whale. He said, I'm cast out of thy
sight, yet will I look again toward thy holy temple. But the
Lord knew where he was. The Lord had prepared the fish.
The Lord spake unto the fish and vomited him out into dry
land. And in that great city trembled
when that one that was supposed to have died was suddenly alive
and preaching to them. the same as the New Testament
church were also wrought upon when he that was crucified and
died was suddenly raised from the dead and with great power
through the apostles the gospel was being preached. The psalmist in Psalm 34, again,
David, He says, come, in verse 11, come
ye children, hearken unto me, I will teach you the fear of
the Lord. He says, O fear the Lord, ye
his saints, for there is no want to them that fear him. Those
that know the fear of the Lord know the truth of that in Proverbs,
the fear of the Lord, is the beginning of wisdom. But those that despise the Lord,
that treat him with contempt or familiarity, or thinking that
he's just like ourselves, they do not obtain the blessing. In the great revivals in the
Church of God, in the history of the Church, always, there
is the fear of the Lord that is taught. When David was to
bring up the ark and bring it into Jerusalem and set it in
his place, he began at first in following the practice of
the Philistines who had put the ark when it came into their country,
when they'd taken it in battle, and they sent it back to Israel,
and they sent it on a cart pulled by oxen. But when the Ark was
made in the wilderness, when the children of Israel were going
from Egypt to Canaan, then God commanded that it should only
be carried on the shoulders of the Levites, and none other should
touch the Ark. That is the Ark of the Covenant.
The ark that had the mercy seat over the top of it, that had
the two tables of stone inside it, that had the manna, the pot
of manna, laid up, and Aaron's rod that budded. Those things
were in the ark. That was the ark of the covenant,
a symbol of the Lord's presence. Well, when they moved that ark
and it was on a cart, they started with great joy and great gladness. But then the oxen shook the ark
and Uzzah that was driving the ark put his hand out and touched
the ark to steady it and the Lord slew him. He died on the
spot. And we read that David then feared
the Lord And he feared to bring the ark up to Jerusalem. He said, who can stand before
this great God? And so the ark was put in the
house of Obed-Edom. But when it was there, and it
was there for three months, God blessed that house. And when
David heard that, then he was able to bring the ark again to
Jerusalem. And we have there an illustration
of the fear of God. On one hand, where things are
not done as God had prescribed and commanded that they should
do, then God dealt with them. He chastened them. He punished
them. And David had a sight of that.
And he took away all carelessness in worship. Next time they brought
up the ark, he said, we did it not as it was prescribed in the
beginning. Therefore God made a breach on
us and he commanded the Levites that they should do it in a proper
way. We need to be very careful about
everything that we introduce into the worship of God. Many
seek to have innovations like that, not realising that God
has prescribed in his word how we are to worship him. It has
pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. And the commission was to go
into all the world and to preach the gospel to every creature,
teaching all nations. That was the commission. Well,
David then feared the Lord. When we come to the New Testament,
when we come to how the gospel was than preached in the early
days of the church. It had such a profound effect
that many, they sold their lands that had much property, and they
distributed to the necessity of the poor brethren. It loosened
their hand on the things of this world. When they had a real clear
view of heaven, and what God had provided for them and what
he'd done for them upon the cross, then it loosened their hold of
temporal earthly things. It's often a good test to us
as to whether we truly know the blessings of heaven. A Christian
prospers laying out the worldling by laying up but those Worldly
riches shall all pass away one day. But there was one Ananias
and Sapphira, his wife. They wanted to be seen as if
they were serving the Lord and giving just the same as others.
But they didn't want to give everything. But they wanted to
appear that they had given everything. So they agreed between themselves
they would sell some land And they'd make out to the apostles
that they were giving all of the money to the Lord, when in
actual fact, they were keeping half back to themselves. And
that deceit was discovered. Peter said that they'd lied not
to men, but to God. He told them that while the land
was theirs, they could do what they like with it. Really, if
they'd have sold it, and then told the apostles, we are giving
half to the Lord, that would have been quite all right. But
they didn't. They said that they were giving
it all. And they were struck down dead,
the man first and then the wife coming in later and being complicit
in the deceit. And we read that great fear fell
upon the church. when they heard those things.
But it didn't stop many thousands believing. It didn't stop many
being brought to the Lord. But it did mean that they knew
that God was a God that was not mocked, was not lied with, that
was not trifled with. And we need that. We need the
fear of the Lord to truly believe that He is. that he is a rewarder
of them that diligently seek him, that he is able to do far
above all that we can ask or think, but that he also is a
holy God, a righteous God, a God before whom not only we, but
all mankind, shall stand at the last great judgment day and give
account at his throne. is a blessing if while we are
in this life we truly fear God and look upon Him and reverence
His great and holy name. It is a great difference to those
who can stand in the pulpit and make all manner of jokes and
talk about the things of God in a light and careless way. The things of God are most solemn
real things, are things that concern time and eternity. And a God who is infinitely holy,
a God against whom we have sinned, and a God rather than just pass
by transgression, he sent his only begotten son, that he should
suffer and bleed and die on Calvary's tree, endure the wrath of God,
to put away the sins of his people and that he would then send the
Spirit and convince those, yes, he convinced those even that
had crucified him of their sin and bring them to believe and
receive the mercy that God delights in giving to sinners. If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us. from all unrighteousness. So here is the character that
is here. Our text says, what man is he
that feareth the Lord? Is it you? Is it me? Are we this man? Are we this
character? Do we know something of the fear
of the Lord? You may really think that Though
we may testify that we do know the fear of the Lord, yet it
is with a very small apprehension. And it may be that we know enough
to ask the Lord that He would truly teach us His fear, solemnise
our hearts and our minds, and make the things of eternity very
real to us, the worth of our soul great to us, and the need
of teaching to be a pressing need to us so that the prayers
of this psalm and the promises of this psalm are precious to
us, we value them. May we be able to answer then,
not only as to the description in an intellectual way of what
the fear of the Lord is and who it is, but be able to say this,
is me, I am one that doth fear the Lord. Well secondly, what
the Lord shall do for them that fear him. Simply it is this, what he will
do for them is to teach them, he will teach them. How do we know that? Well, we
are certainly told that in this psalm here. But not only in this
psalm. We have a promise in the prophecy
of Isaiah of what shall happen and what did happen in gospel
days. We read in chapter two, in verse
one, the word that Isaiah The son of Amos saw concerning Judah
and Jerusalem, it shall come to pass in the last days, that's
these gospel days, the days from Christ's first coming to his
second coming, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be
established in the top of the mountains, that is the church
of God shall be established, shall be exalted above the hills
and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go
and say, come ye And let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways. And we will walk in his paths.
For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord
from Jerusalem." And the word of the Lord is the gospel that
goes both to the Jews and to the Gentiles. And we have later
on as well, in the prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 48, another word, verse 17. Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer,
the Holy One of Israel, I am the Lord thy God, which teacheth
thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest
go. It is the Lord that does teach
and though there may be and there are means that are used yet we
must hold fast to it that it is the Lord that does teach. In Jeremiah chapter 31 verse
34-33 this This shall be the covenant that
I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith
the Lord. I will put my law in their inward
parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God,
and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more
every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying,
Know the Lord, For they shall all know me from the least of
them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord. For I will forgive
their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. And we see the teaching of the
Lord is bound up with forgiveness of sin, and with sin being blotted
out and put out. And that then is spoken by the
apostle in Hebrews chapter 8, where it is quoted in the 11th
verse and 10th and 11th verse, virtually word for word from
Jeremiah. And they shall not teach every
man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the
Lord, for all shall know me. from the least to the greatest. And this is the new covenant
and the promise, not just to Jews, but to the Gentiles as
well. And indeed, this is the commission
that the Lord commissioned his servants and the apostles to
go forth and to preach, was that they should have this authority
from him Go ye therefore, the end of the Gospel according to
Matthew, and verse 19 of chapter 28, go ye therefore and teach
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you, And lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world. It is the Lord himself in the
gospel that has ordained the preaching and teaching of the
word. Even going back to dear Job,
we have the realisation of the teaching Job, he says, and it's a beautiful
prayer that Job makes. We have the prayers in the psalm
where our text is. But Job, he says, that which
I see not, teach thou me. It's a beautiful prayer in Job
34, verse 32. And so may we be mindful of the
Lord being our Teacher, especially in the gift and blessing of the
Holy Spirit. In that beautiful chapter, John
chapter 14, the Lord gives promise in the 26th verse of the gift
of the Spirit, the Teacher, And he says this, these things have
I spoken unto you being yet present with you. And you know, right
through our Lord's ministry, he taught them again and again. This was the real mark of his
ministry. But he says in verse 26, but
the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send
in my name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things
to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. That is
the Word of God brought to your remembrance, opened up, sealed,
instructed. This is what we have in our second
point, that the Lord shall teach, and this should be a great comfort,
great reassurance to us that we are not dependent upon man. If you and I have the Holy Word
of God, if we have the Bible, a faithful translation in our
own tongue, we may read it and pray that the Lord will teach
us through the Word of God. Don't by any means despise the
other means that the Lord uses. And this is where we want to
look in the third place. But the important thing is that
whatever means God uses, it is God that is doing the teaching
of us. And where it is essential that
we always receive that teaching as through the word of God. If any man is used, if any other
means is used, we should do like the Bereans and search the Scriptures
daily whether these things are so. If any man teaches contrary
to the Word of God and especially undermines the Word of God, some
whenever they find something they don't understand or a seeming
contradiction from one part of the Word of God to another, seems
that the very first thing that they try and do is to undermine
the Word of God. They say, that's a mistake, that's
translated wrong, or that's written wrong, or John or Peter or Mark,
they recorded that wrong. It was a recall to their memory
wrong, they put it down wrong. Never ever go down that way. If you and I are to be blessed,
We esteem the Word of God as true from beginning to end, as
the inspired Word of God. And we don't be like that ungodly
King of Israel who, when the Word of God was sent to him,
he took a penknife and he cut it up. He had no fear of God
at all. What a solemn thing for a poor
sinner who needs to be saved to take upon himself to cut abound. the Word of God and to injure
it instead of falling beneath it and asking to be taught. I want to look then lastly at
how it is, if God is to be teaching us, if he will instruct us and
how, how the Lord should teach. The words of our text say that
it shall be in a way that the Lord thy God shall choose. It doesn't say that, does it?
It says, him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose. But it does mean what I've just
said. It's not in a way that we should
choose. Sometimes at school, perhaps,
The teacher might ask the students how they want to be taught, but
generally, it is the teacher that decides whether they're
going to learn from a book, whether it's going to be something on
the whiteboard, whether it's going to be a PowerPoint, or
whether they're going to go out into the playground and they're
going to learn out there in nature or whatever it is. And so what
is here? is not you and I choosing how
that we are to be taught, but it is the Lord. And we are not
to learn God's truths as schoolboys learn their task, but we are
to be taught in the way that God chooses. And when the Lord
says in Deuteronomy 8, concerning his people going through the
wilderness, that they were to remember all that way, in verse
2, Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led
thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee and
to prove thee to know what was in thine heart, whether thou
wouldest keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee and
suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou
knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, and listen to this,
that he might make thee know, that man doth not live by bread
only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
the Lord doth man live." So what the children of Israel went through
in the wilderness, what they experienced, was that man might
know that he didn't just live by bread only. but by the Word of God. That lesson is to be learned
by us as well, through afflictions, through trials, through troubles,
through sorrows. Solomon, when he dedicated the
temple, specifically prayed that the people of God might be taught,
they might learn through the things that they went through,
the famines, the pestilences, May the Lord teach and use these
things that we are going through at this present time to be taught
and to know. We think of Nebuchadnezzar in
his kingdom and how he gave all the glory at first to himself
for his great kingdom. But God brought him down, afflicted
his mind and for seven years he was as a beast in the field
and afterward then he testified of the greatness of God. He said,
excellent majesty was added unto me. And he finishes that account
in Daniel chapter four with saying that those that walk in pride,
he is able to abase. The Lord using not just a word,
not just the word from Daniel, but an affliction that lasted
seven years. The Lord uses these things to
humble us, to teach us, to instruct us, and yes, he uses teaching. The Lord, right through his ministry,
he taught by parables, an earthly story with a spiritual meaning. And the apostles, we've always
mentioned the Commission they had to preach and to teach. When
they worked the miracles, when they were teaching about the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Jewish leaders moved with envy. They
commanded them not to teach or preach in the name of the Lord. But they continued to do so. That was their commission, that
they should teach. In the Church of God, the ministry
is to be a teaching ministry. opening up the Word of God. And
this is, if we have a desire to learn, we should attend where
the Gospel is faithfully preached. We should ask the Lord to bless
that and to help his servants to teach and instruct in the
ways of the Lord. When the eunuch was Returning
from Jerusalem, from worshipping, he was reading in the prophet
Isaiah. And God sent to him Philip, and
to ask him the question, understandest thou what thou readest? He said,
how can I, except some man guide me? And as he read that, he was
led as a lamb to sheep before her. Sheer is his dumb, so open
not his mouth. He is led as a lamb to the slaughter. Who speaketh a prophet of this
man, of himself or of another man?" And Philip, he came up
into the chariot, and Philip asked him to teach him. And he began at the same scripture
and preached unto him, Jesus. And you know from not knowing
what that passage meant or who was being spoken of, He is brought
to true faith in the Lord Jesus through that one sermon and brought
to desire to be baptised, and he was baptised by immersion
by Philip. You can read of that account
in Acts chapter 8, the end of that chapter. The Lord uses his
servants to preach, to teach, but alongside that, He uses those
things that happen in our lives through disappointments, through
sorrows, through afflictions, through illnesses. He used those
things to open our hearts to receive the Word and to be taught
by real experience. We have a beautiful word in Psalm
32, And verse 8, I will instruct
thee, and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go, I will guide
thee with mine eye. Be ye not as the horse or as
the mule which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with
bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee. And we have a
picture with the horse, the rider, He's using his eyes as to where
he wants to go. But with the horse, he pulls
the reins and pulls the head of the horse round, and the horse
changes direction. The Lord says, you are not to
be like that. You're not to be forced as to
which way to go, but I'll be like that rider. And I will use
my word. It's like a rider who doesn't
have any reins at all. He just sits on the horse. And
he says to the horse, turn right, turn left, stop, go. And the
horse obeys the word that is given. It doesn't happen in nature
like that. But the Lord said it will be
like that for you. The Lord instructing through
the word of God. As we read the word of God, as
we hear it preached, we have the understanding open We are
taught the Lord's ways. One of the qualifications for
those that preach is apt to teach. And we need that teaching ourselves. But it is in the way that the
Lord shall choose. And he deals differently with
all of his children. But one thing is certain. It
will be in a very real practical way. Remember when I was at school,
we did sailing. We did the theory in the class,
learning how to sail a small sailboat. But then we put it
into practice on the sea. I thought I'd learnt the lessons
well. And there was one time that I'd
been entrusted and I had one in the boat with me that didn't
know how to sail at all. And I was in charge, and we were
heading out, right out to sea. And I tried to turn that boat
back again to land, and it wouldn't go back. It turned so far, and
then it blew straight to go out to sea again. And I started to
get very, very concerned. I couldn't turn the boat to land.
What was happening? The master on the land, he could
see exactly what was happening. I was not heading up into the
wind, tighter and tighter, because I was trying to go from so far
away from being straight into the wind. By the time I got into
the wind, the boat had lost all way. It couldn't cross the wind
and change tack. So it blew straight back out
to sea again. Well, it gradually got closer
and closer to the wind, and so I was able to turn it. just not
by my knowledge, but while I was thankful to the Lord, I didn't
know the Lord at that time, and got a right telling off when
I got back to land, and explained what had happened and why. I'd
never ever forgotten the instance, a natural instance, but never
forget it. We don't forget the lessons we
learn when the Lord teaches them, and when they're very often very
humbling lessons, Lessons that the Lord does. Observe all we're
doing. He is not mocked. He is to be
feared. And that in those things we're
brought through, He seals those lessons into our hearts. Seals the truths of God into
our hearts. Sometimes it will be the things
that have gone on before in the week prior to hearing a sermon,
the day after, and the Lord will join together what
has happened as to what we hear, or sometimes it'll be the word
that we hear on the Lord's Day and several days later, something
that we'll go through and the Lord brings the two things together
and He'll teach us through that means. that they are the teaching
of the Lord, and we are to observe that. Whoso is wise, we read
at the end of Psalm 107, and will observe these things, even
they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord. So watch Providence. Watch what the Lord uses to teach
you about the things of God. And then we shall have the comfort
of seeing ourselves in this verse, that the Lord is our teacher
and the Lord our instructor. What man is he? That feareth
the Lord, him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose.
And you see what follows that? His soul shall dwell at ease
and his seed shall inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord
is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant,
show them his salvation, show them their interest in the Lord
Jesus Christ as their saviour, their redeemer, that they are
those whom the Lord has chosen and therefore has made them teachable
and taught them and opened up to them the precious truths of
the everlasting gospel, not as those that are hearing it that
others have been a benefit, had the benefit of, but that they
are hearing it as something that the Lord has blessed them with.
I am able to say with Thomas, my Lord and my God. May the Lord add his blessing.
Amen.