Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 62 from the Hardback Temple,
number 62. In the second hour, we will sing
the hymn on the back of the bulletin, so make sure you get one from
the back for the second hour. Number 62. Yeah. Crown Him with many crowns, the
Lamb upon His throne. Hark how the heavenly anthem
drowns all music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing. of Him who died for thee, and
hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity. Crown him the Lord of love, behold
his hands and side. Rich wounds yet visible above,
in beauty glorified. No angel in the sky can fully
bear that sight, But downward bends his wandering eye at mysteries
so bright. Crown Him the Lord of life, Who
triumphed o'er the grave, Who rose victorious to the strife,
For those He came to save. His glories now we sing, Who
died and rose on high, Who died eternal life to bring, And lives
that death may die. Crown him the Lord of heaven,
one with the Father known, one with the Spirit through him given
from yonder glorious throne. Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to
be in Psalm 119. for the first hour this morning,
beginning at verse 49, Psalm 119, verse 49. To quote Brian, he said, we are
crawling toward the finish line. We have to have a final survey
of the property, of the whole property, before we can get our
CO. And a surveyor cannot be there until this coming Friday,
which means it will be next week before we get our CO. So we won't
be having services over there next Sunday, but maybe the next. Maybe, maybe. Something else I was going to
say about that. Forgot what it was. Oh, we're going to start moving
some, and this is more for the people that are watching, but
we're going to start moving some of our equipment. this week,
because it's going to take a couple of weeks to get it all over there
and get it hooked up and working properly. So there may be some
disruption in our broadcast, or at least a change in it. And
probably we won't have these speakers next Sunday, so I'll
have to speak louder, or we'll... Adam, did you bring that amplifier? Adam's got an amplifier. We'll
try to figure out how to hook this up to that and So we can
have some some sound in here while we're getting everything
moved over to the new building Our daughter Jennifer had to
go get a chest x-ray this morning she has pneumonia and and bronchitis
and You know, she had surgery just a little less than three
weeks ago and she hasn't recovered from that yet. So I'd like for
us to pray for her this morning. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
thank you once again that you've blessed us with the opportunity
to gather together in this place. You've promised your presence
where two or three are gathered together in Thy name, there I
am in the midst of them. Lord, what great hope we have
in believing that you are faithful to all of your promises. We ask,
Lord, that you'd be pleased to make yourself known to our hearts
and teach us and cause us to find our hope and our rest in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we pray for Jennifer
and ask Lord for your hand of strength and healing to be upon
her. We pray Lord that you would cause her to have comfort in
Christ and rest in him and Lord that you would recover her body.
We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. I've titled this message. How
do we know God? How? Do we know God? Another way to ask that question
is, how is it that men come to the conclusions that they come
to about God? There's different methods that
people use to try to figure out who God is. Men use reason. They use feelings, they use experiences,
they use traditions. These are all methods that people
use and rely on for their knowledge and for their information about
God. The problem with all of those
methods is that they are man-centered, they are fallible, and they're
unreliable. What method or means does the
child of God use to know God for sure? The Lord Jesus said
in John chapter 17, this is life eternal, that they might know
thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. The Lord Jesus Christ said in
John chapter 14, when Philip asked him, show us
the father and it's suffice of us. Lord, just show us your father,
reveal to us the heavenly father, reveal God to us. And the Lord
Jesus looked at Philip and the other disciples and said, Philip,
have I been with you so long that you don't know that if you've
seen me, you've seen the father? for I and the Father are one."
Now, everything that God's going to reveal, the final means or
method of knowing God is divine revelation. Divine revelation
through the Word of God. We believe that the Word of God
is inspired, and we believe that it's written in order to reveal
the glory of God in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Someone
might say, well, how much of the Bible do you have to believe?
Well, I would ask you, what part of it have you decided not to
believe? When God makes a person a believer,
They believe every word that he has spoken. They believe all
of it. And as a believer, God uses his
word to lighten the eyes of their understanding and to reveal to
them the glory of Christ and the truth as it is about God. We don't look to any of those
other means. Now, that introduction could be used for the entire
Psalm 119. How many times we've seen in
Psalm 119 that David is rejoicing in the Word of God. And that's why we rejoice in
the Word of God, because if we did not have the Word of God,
if we did not have the revealed truth in God's Word, the oracles
of God, we would be, we would not know, we would not have any
other reliable source other than our own feelings, our own experiences,
our own logic and wisdom, and we would come to the wrong conclusions. So look with me. This is my hope. My hope is that the Lord will
just confirm to our hearts once again that his word is true. His word is reliable. His word
is the is the means of revelation that he's given us? Because if
we don't know God, we're without all light. One of the prophets said, if
they speak not according to this law and testimony, in other words,
if they If they speak of God by some other means other than
the scriptures, it is because there is no light in them. Not that they had a little bit
of light. He said if they speak not according to this law and
this testimony, it is because there is no light in them. Men are either in the dark or
they're in the light. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the light of the world. how hopeful we are that he will
shine the light of the gospel in our hearts and reveal to us
the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
have no light otherwise. Look with me in verse 49 of Psalm
119. Remember the word unto thy servant
upon which thou hast caused me to hope. Lord, Speak to my heart. My hope is in your word. And
Lord, if you don't, if you don't reveal yourself to me by your
word, I have no hope. This is my comfort. I have no
comfort outside of the truth that you have revealed by your
word. This is my comfort in my affliction. Oh, and life is full of affliction,
isn't it? It's full of troubles. It's full of trials. It's full
of questions. It's full of uncertainties. We're
in the midst of some of those uncertainties right now, and
we're having to We're having to navigate around all the false
information that is being given to try to figure out what the
truth is. But the greatest affliction that
the child of God experiences is the shame and separation of
their own sin. And the only comfort that they
can get is when God speaks, not some, you know, we talk about
God speaking and someone said, someone has said, are you talking
about an audible voice? And my response to that is, no.
It's louder than that. It's louder than that. It's louder
than an audible voice. You can get confused about an
audible sound, but when God speaks by his word to the heart, it's
crystal clear. There's no confusion about it.
You know, it's true. and you just respond by saying
amen. That's why the prophets, they
just said, thus saith the Lord. And God's prophets still do that. God's preachers still do that.
We don't try to defend God's word. We don't try to to try
to explain it. We just declare it. Just declare
it. And those whom God gives ears
to hear, and eyes to see, and faith to believe, just rejoice. And they rest in what God has
said. That is their hope. Lord, this
is my only comfort. I've got no comfort outside of
this. I can find no comfort in the voices of this world. Lord, if you don't speak, if
you don't speak, I've got no place else to go for the guilt of my sin, the putting
away of my sin. This is my comfort in my affliction,
for thy word has quickened me. Of his own will, that's what
James said, of his own will, of God's own will, begat he us. That's what this word quicken
means. It means to be made alive. Of his own will, begat he us
with the word of truth. There's no salvation apart from
the preaching of the gospel. Apart from the revelation of
the Lord Jesus Christ made in the word of God, there's no hope
of being quickened or being made alive. You who were dead in your
trespasses and sins has he made alive. And this is the means
by which he gives us life. We have no spiritual life. We
may have physical life. We may be walking around in this
world like everybody else. But to have spiritual life is
to know God. and to be right with God. And apart from his word and apart
from the preaching of the gospel and the revelation of Christ,
there is no life. Look at verse 51. The proud have
had we greatly in derision, yet have I not declined from thy
law. Lord, let the world listen to
the to the voices of reason, the voices of logic, the voices
of experience, the voices of tradition, whatever they want
to listen to to discern their truth about God. We live in a
world where men are not ashamed. They're not ashamed to say, well,
you know, everybody's got their own truth. And the problem with
that is that God only has one truth, and the Lord Jesus Christ
is God's truth. He said, I am the way, the truth
and the life. No man, no man can come to the
father except by me. I want to know what God's truth.
I don't care what anybody else's truth might be for them or whatever
other false hope or comfort they might take in their own opinions. I want to know what God's truth
is. And if we're going to know God's truth, we're going to know
it from his word. And so what does David say here? Let the
proud come to their own conclusions. I'm gonna stick with God's law.
And the law and the precepts and the testimonies, all the
words that are used, we've seen that over the weeks. In Psalm
119, our reference to the scriptures, which is a revelation of the
Lord Jesus Christ. How many times we've been reminded
of what the Lord said to those Pharisees. They were students
of the Bible. They were students of the Bible.
They studied it for the purpose of history and theology, and
they studied it for the purpose of elevating themselves to a
position of intimidation over their peers, and men still do
that in religion. And the Lord said to them, you
search the scriptures, you're very diligent, because you think
In them, you have eternal life. You think you're going to get
eternal life by just your knowledge of the Bible. And then he went
on to say, but these are they which testify of me. So we don't
see Christ in the scriptures. We have not rightly understood
the scriptures. And we have no hope of life.
These men were in darkness. They were diligent students of
the Bible. but they had no light as to who
the person of the Lord Jesus Christ was and what he had come
to do. That's our hope. Lord, shine
the light of the gospel through your word in my heart in the
face of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at verse 52. I remembered
thy judgments of old, O Lord, and have comforted myself. Oh, we meditate on God's Word. We reflect upon what God has
done. And, you know, that's really
all we know about what He's done. Faith is not believing that God's
going to do something that we just believe strong enough for
Him to do in the future. You know, you hear people talk
like that. Well, I believe this is going to happen. I believe
I'm going to get this or I'm going to get that. And if I just believe hard
enough, it's going to happen. And they proudly convince themselves
that they have faith in God. That's not faith in God. That's
presumption. Faith in God is believing what
He has done. We don't know what God's going
to do. You want to know what God did yesterday? Just read
the newspaper. That's what He did. But we don't know what He's going
to do tomorrow. We know he's coming again, but faith is looking
back to what God has done. What did he do? What did he do? He sent his son into the world
as a sacrifice for sinners. And the Lord Jesus Christ willingly
laid down his life for his people, for his sheep, in order to satisfy
the demands of God's holy justice. We look back to the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We look back to what God did
in raising him from the dead, being satisfied with what he
accomplished. The father raised him from the
dead and ascended him back into glory. We look to where the Lord
Jesus Christ is right now. seated at the right hand of God,
interceding on behalf of his people. That's what God's done. And faith is believing that. Why do we believe that? None
of us were there. That happened 2,000 years ago. We've had enough experience with
man-written history to know that history can be, what do they
call it? It can be adjusted or changed
or there's a word for that. I can't think of it right now.
But history is rewritten a lot of times, isn't it? And we discover
new things and we decide, well, you know, what we thought really
happened back then didn't happen. This is not a history book. This
is a, this is a God inspired testimony of who the Lord Jesus
Christ is and what he did. And we don't try to rewrite it.
That's why we don't, we don't go for any of the modern day,
um, uh, paraphrases of the Bible, men trying to make the Bible
more, more palatable and more more adaptable to modern culture. And people say, well, why do
you read from the King James? It's such a hard language to
understand. It's, it's what God has given
us as the revealed truth of his word. And we don't need to try
to, to try to make it any, the spirit of God will open the eyes
of our, he will reveal to us what the Lord has given us to
know about him in his word. So, um, We don't, faith doesn't, faith
doesn't try to figure out, we weren't there 2,000 years ago,
but the penman of scripture were, and they gave us a record, a
testimony. Peter put it like this, he said,
you remember the time when Peter, James, and John were taken up
on the Mount of Transfiguration, and the Lord's, the veil of his
humanity was taken away for just a moment? And the radiance of
his deity shined forth like the noonday sun and blinded the eyes
of the disciples so that they found themselves in the dirt.
And the father was speaking to the Lord Jesus Christ on that
Mount of Transfiguration. It was an audible voice. And
the father said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him. Now that was an
audible voice that Peter, James, and John heard when the radiance
of the glory and deity of Christ was revealed. And there with
the Lord, Jesus Christ appeared Moses, which represented the
law. And Joshua, or Elisha, which
represented the prophets. So you got Moses, I think it
was Elijah actually. Moses and Elijah, the law and
the prophets. And they talked with him of what
he would accomplish at his death. What was he going to accomplish
at his death? He was going to fulfill the law. And he was going
to answer all the promises of all the prophecies that God had
given. So everything in the scripture
was going to be fulfilled when the Lord Jesus Christ went to
Calvary's cross. And that's exactly what he did.
And when Peter writes about that experience later on, he says,
we did not bring to you cunningly devised fables. We didn't make
these stories up. We handled the word of God and
we were on the Mount. When we heard the voice of God
speak and when we saw his glory, we were there. I mean, you talk
about a mountaintop experience. Did Peter rely upon that experience?
No. In the next verse, he says, but
we have a more sure word of prophecy. For the word of God came not
by private interpretation, but holy men of God wrote as they
were moved by the Holy Spirit. So what was Peter saying? We're
relying upon the revealed truth of God's word more than that
experience. And that was a real experience. What comfort we have. No, we
weren't there 2000 years ago, but we have the written record
and testimony of God to reveal to us and faith just believes
God, just believes everything God says. We're not here to try
to convince anybody that the Bible is a word of God. We're
here to declare that it is. And we know that the Holy Spirit
will make his people just bow to it and believe God and rejoice
in what he's done. Because the only other option
you've got is human logic and reason, feelings, emotions, experiences,
and traditions. That's the only other, how are
you going to rely upon those things for what you know about
God? What means do men use to come
to the conclusions that they come to about God? Someone says, well, I believe,
I believe in God. Well, you would have to be, you
would have to be unreasonable and illogical not to believe
in God. Someone says, I believe in God,
my response is, good, I'm glad you're not stupid. Everybody
knows there's a God. You look at creation, you can
come to that conclusion by logic, you can come to that conclusion
by reason. Turn with me to Romans chapter
one. A person who claims to be an
atheist, get this and you can quote me
on this, they are either an idiot or they are a liar. That's it. They're either an idiot or they
are a liar. You know that there is a God.
So either you've got no sense whatsoever to come to that conclusion
Or you've lied to yourself and to others enough to where maybe
you believe the lie, but you're still a liar. Because God says
that every man knows in his heart that there is a God. But how
can we come to the right conclusions about God? Look at Romans chapter
one at verse 20. 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 before God. They may make their
excuses to men, make their excuses to one another, But before God,
they're without excuse because the revelation has been given
to them about the eternal power in Godhead. Now here's the thing
about it. That revelation is not sufficient
to save a person. So a person may look at creation
and they come to the right conclusion. Oh yeah, there's got to be a
creator. There's got to be a supreme being.
There's got to be an eternal Godhead. And there's got to be
omnipotence controlling all of this. But don't fool yourself
into thinking that if you believe that, that you believe in God. James put it like this, the devils,
the devils believe in God and they tremble. He said, you believe
that there is one God, good. The devils believe that there
is God and they tremble. Do they know God? Saving? We're
talking about knowing Him savingly. Knowing Him savingly. For that
to happen, the Spirit of God has to take the Word of God and
reveal the Son of God to our hearts. So the Lord makes it clear here,
look at verse 21. Because, Romans chapter 1, because
that when they knew God, They knew that there was a God. They
glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain
or empty in their imaginations and their foolish hearts were
darkened. In other words, God gave them
the light of creation and they refused to believe that light
and God turned the light out. God turned the light out. And
they became idiots and liars. And that's what happens when
God turns the light out. There are a lot of people in this world
like that. They knew there was a God, but they refused to bow
to him. And so the Lord darkened their
hearts. Oh, that's the worst thing that
can happen to a man is for God to turn lights out. If you will respond in faith
to the light that God's given you, he'll give you more light. If you will respond in faith,
believe the light that God has given you, he'll give you more
light. If you turn away from the light that God's given you,
that light will become darkness. And there's nothing more dark,
there's nothing more hopeless and desperate than when God turns
out the lights. And that's exactly what he's
saying here. Lord, shine the light in my heart and give me
faith to bow to the light that you've given me. Look at verse 22, professing
themselves to be wise. Oh, and they do. They've stood
in judgment of God. They stand over God. They say,
well, I can, I can discern better by my own logic and by my own
reason. I don't have to I don't have
to bow to the Bible. Don't you know that's an archaic
book? You know, I'm educated. I'm,
you know, I've arrived at some position of knowledge in my life,
and I can stand in judgment over the things of God. And they profess
themselves to be wise, but they've become fools. They've become
fools. They're just foolish. For they've changed the glory
of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible
man and birds and four-legged beast and creeping things. They've
set themselves up on the throne of God and they've stood in judgment
of God. You see, believers either believe. Believers believe, unbelievers
don't believe. That's just it. Do you believe God? Do you believe
everything God says? You have any place else to go
in order to, in order to discern and discover and to know the
truth of who God is and how it is that God saves sinners other
than the inspired word of God. That's what David's singing.
That's what he's rejoicing all through Psalm 119. Go back with me to our text in
Psalm 119. You know, there are men who call
themselves Christians who use reason and logic in order to
try to convince unbelievers to believe in God. There's a whole group called
the Creation Foundation or something. They built a great big ark up
in Kentucky. You've seen that Noah's Ark up
there? And their whole agenda is to prove the existence of
God with science and logic and reason. And we won't do that. All you're going to do is come
to the conclusion, well, yeah, there's a God. But you're not
going to come to the revelation of Christ, who's the only one
who can make us right with God. put away our sins. Look at verse
53 in our text. Horror hath taken hold upon me
because of the wicked that forsake thy law. Lord, we look at this
world and the conclusions they come to, and it's horrible. It's just blackness. It's hopelessness. Are you horrified
by the conclusions that the world comes to about the things of
God or do you entertain them as possibly true? And it's not just the things
of, it's believing God's word. This past week I was, I had an
experience I never had before, I was standing in line with men
and women for a public restroom. And over the door of the public
restroom, it said, it said, all, what did it say? All. All genders. All genders. All genders. And I looked it up. I asked the woman next to me.
I acted kind of ignorant. I said, what does that mean if
they're all genders? And she said, well, you know.
I said, I thought there were just two genders. She said, no,
there's three. There's male, and there's female,
and there's transgender. And I said, transgender, what
is that? She said, well, that's, what do they call it, non-binary. She said, well, it's
non-binary. And I said, what does that mean?
And she said, well, they've just decided that they're not going
to be put in a position to decide whether they're male or female.
Well, I've looked it up. According to the internet, which
I don't know how reliable that is, but there are 50 options
that you can choose on your website page to determine what gender
you want to be. Now, you can entertain that as
a possibility and think, well, you know, let's be tolerant of
everybody. You know, let people do whatever foolishness they
want to do. God says in Genesis chapter 1 verse 27, and God made
them in his image, male and female made he them, period. So, you know, do you want to
entertain the possibility that there's 50 different genders?
You know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to let people decide
that whatever foolishness they will let them live in that darkness.
I'm not here to, to say that they don't have equal rights
or anything like that. I'm just here to tell you that
God says one thing and our world says something else. And we're just going to believe
God? Or are we going to entertain
the opinions of the world and think, well, maybe there's something
about that? You see, when God makes you believe,
you just believe everything God says about everything. About
everything. the horrors of this world. I
thought, how horrible. I mean, my heart goes out to
a person who can't decide what gender they are. I really do.
I'm not standing, I'm not looking down my nose self-righteously
at them and thinking, well, you know, glad I'm not like you.
I'm thinking, how sad. How sad it is. You know, it's
not what God says. But you have to bow to what God
says, or you have to bow up in rebellion against God. Verse 54, thy statutes have been
my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. All thy statutes, Lord, that's
my song. That's my hope. That's my comfort. There's no truth anywhere else.
And the world's not, listen, men are not evolving. You think
40 years ago that anybody would have thought that there's 50
different gender choices? The world's not evolving, it's
devolving. The world is moving farther and
farther with each generation. Matter of fact, I was talking
to some middle school kids the other day, or a few weeks ago,
and they were telling me that their generation has taken it
to the next level. Now they've got what they call
furries. You ever heard of them? Furries. That's where a child
decides which animal he's going to be. And he acts like that
animal. They said, yeah, in our middle
school, we've got kids that walk around barking and kids are crawling
on their hands and knees and doing all kinds. That's what's happening now.
So where's the next generation going to take it? My point is we're not evolving.
We're devolving. We're getting further and further
away from God. And the only thing, the only
thing that brings us back is the revealed truth. This ancient
book reveals to us the truth about
who God is and what we're to believe. So we can, we can believe
the world. We can believe God. I have remembered
thy name, O Lord, in thy night, and have kept thy law. How do
we keep God's law? By believing it. The Lord Jesus
Christ, the only one that kept all the law of God in heart,
and in mind, and in soul, and in attitude, and actions, He
kept it perfectly. And that's what we need. We need
a perfect righteousness before God, and that's only to be found
in Him. And we keep God's law. when we believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and rest our hope in Him. This I had because I kept thy
precepts. What are we going to believe?
We're going to believe our logic? When men, 1 Corinthians chapter
1, when men by wisdom knew not God, God, by the foolishness
of preaching, was pleased to save them. Witch belief. Men
by wisdom, you're not going to discover God by wisdom or logic.
What about experience? Well, you know, I just, you know,
I have this warm feeling. And the sights and the sounds
of nature or my religious experiences, you know, they just, it makes
me feel good. Now, everybody loves feelings. Everybody loves
experiences. They've got their place. But
if your experience doesn't square up to the Word of God, get rid
of that experience. You know, the same day I saw
a lady. This was in Highlands. No, it was in Asheville, North
Carolina, this past week. And we were walking by this Catholic
church and this woman was praying to a statue of Mary. And my heart
gently went out to her. I respectfully went over to her.
I said, could I give you this? Maybe you could look up the website
and perhaps you could find what you're looking for. And she looked
at my card and she said, well, I am ecumenical. Thank you. I'll
do that. But I think I found what I'm
looking for. This is the experience that I'm... And she's praying
to a stone statue of a dead sinner in hopes of knowing God. Reason, logic, experience. You remember when Elijah told
Naaman the leper, he said, go down to the And Leper, Naaman
became rough, he became angry at the prophet. And he said,
I thought that he would come out and he would wave his hands
and he would have some sort of religious ceremony for me to
participate in. We've got better rivers than
this back in Damascus. Well, that's your problem, Naaman,
you thought. You thought that you were gonna
get some sort of religious experience in order to hang the hat of your
hopes on. No, the prophet told you what
to do. You just do what he said to do. Go bathe in the Jordan. And he came out, the skin was
like a baby's skin. Why? Because he obeyed God. He just believed God. People look at experiences, they
look at tradition. Matthew chapter 15, the Pharisees,
why do your disciples not follow the traditions of the elders
in washing their hands? And the Lord said to them, why
do you forsake the word of God? Now relying upon the traditions
of men, for you've turned the truth of God into nothing more
than a tradition. But men love traditions. They,
you know, they feel safe with tradition. That's the way it's
always been. And they rely upon their religious experiences and
they rely upon their confessions and their denominational views
and positions and their creeds and all those sort of things. David is saying, I've got no place else to go
to know God other than God's word. And I believe everything
he's revealed about himself in his word. That's what believers do. They
just believe. They just believe. There's no
place else to go. There's all these other things
they exalt man as the source of knowledge. reason, emotions,
traditions, they are all mutable. They're all changing. People
change their traditions, they change their views, they change
their logic, they change their feelings. There was a time when
I thought it was reasonable to think that man had a free will,
that Christ died for a bane, God wanted everybody to be saved.
That sounds reasonable to me. And I'd come to that conclusion
by pure reason and by pure logic, not by the word of God, which
said it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. And these things are insecure. People are desperately insecure
because they don't know God. They don't know God. They're
grasping for straws. They're believing everything
the world has to offer them. What assurance and what hope
we have when we just believe God. Hey, Lord, your word, your
word is the truth. And I've got no place else to
go. Don't want to go anywhere else. Wouldn't, wouldn't even
think going anywhere else. All right. Let's take a break. Thank you.