Let's open up tonight's service
in the hardback hymnal number 485, number 485, revive us again.
If you could please stand, 485. Praise ye, O God, for the Son
of thy love, for Jesus, who died and is now gone above. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, thine the glory. Revive us again. ? We praise thee, O God ? For
the Spirit of light ? Who has shown us our Savior ? And scattered
our night ? Hallelujah, thine the glory ? Hallelujah, amen
? Hallelujah, thine the glory ? Revive us again All glory and
praise to the Lamb that was slain, who has borne all our sins and
has cleansed every stain. Alleluia, Thine the glory. Alleluia, Amen. Alleluia, Thine the glory. Revive us again. Revive us again. Fill each heart with Thy love. May each soul be rekindled with
fire from above. Hallelujah, Thine the glory. Hallelujah, Amen. Hallelujah, Thine the glory. Revive us again. Thank you, Bert. That is an appropriate. Prayer and him. To have on our
hearts at all times. Every time we come before the
Lord, we're in need of being revived. I'm very, very suspicious
of the things that men refer to as revivals. Historically,
I doubt very seriously anything of any. real significance took
place. But every child of God knows
how desperate they are, always for the Lord to revive them again. Turn me again, oh Lord, and I
shall be turned. That's our prayer tonight, isn't
it? Lord, turn us. We grow cold so quickly and we
get distracted so easily. Let's open our Bibles together
to Psalm 102. Psalm 102. A prayer of the afflicted. And I would capitalize the T
on thee. This is a prayer of Christ who
was afflicted for our transgressions. But it's also our prayer when
we suffer the afflictions. David said, before I was afflicted,
I'd gone astray. Lord, you used my afflictions
to revive me again. Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let
my cry come unto thee. Hide not thy face from me in
the day when I am in trouble. Incline thine ear unto me in
the day when I call. Answer me speedily, for my days
are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as a hearth. My heart is smitten and withered
like grass, so that I forget to eat my bread. By reason of
the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my skin. I am
like a pelican of the wilderness. I am like an owl of the desert.
I watch. and him as a sparrow alone upon
the housetop. Mine enemies reproach me all
the day, and they that are mad against me are sworn against
me. For I've eaten ashes like bread
and mingled my drink with weeping because of thine indignation
and thy wrath, for thou hast lifted me up and cast me down."
The Lord Jesus Christ was on Calvary's cross. The Father lifted
him up. The Father did. My days are like
a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like grass. But thou, O Lord, shall endure
forever, and thy remembrance unto all generations. And thou
shall arise and have mercy upon Zion for the time to favor her. Yea, the time is come. We'll stop there. Let's pray
together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
we come. Into thy presence. Thanking you
that we have. The Lord Jesus Christ. In whom
we have all our acceptance in whom we have our righteousness.
In whom we have. Access to the throne of grace.
Lord, we pray that this would be the time that would come our
time of love. The time Lord, when you would
send your spirit in power and and draw our hearts and our attention
and our affections back to thy dear son. Lord, we confess that
we. Are so prone to wander were so
prone to forget the God that we love. Thank you for. giving us these opportunities
of public worship. And thank you for the promise
of your presence. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. You may remain seated for this
next hymn. We're going to sing an a cappella number two in your
spiral number two. Lord, we come before thee now. At thy feet we humbly bow. Oh, do not our suit disdain. Shall we seek thee, Lord, in
vain? Lord, all Thee our souls depend,
In compassion now descend. Fill our hearts with Thy rich
grace, Tune our lips to sing Thy praise. In thine own appointed way, Now
we seek thee, here we stay. Lord, we know now how to go,
Till a blessing thou bestow, send a message from thy word,
that may joy and peace afford. Let thy spirit now impart Christ's
salvation to each heart. Send thy spirit from thy word.
Will you open your Bibles with me to Psalm 101, Psalm 101. I'll occasionally go on to sermon
audio and try to find messages from men that I respect on a
passage of scripture that I'm about to preach from. And I did
that this week with Psalm 101. And I was amazed at the sermons that
were preached from this passage. None from anyone that I respect. But a lot of servants preach
from Psalm 101. And I'll give you a few of the
titles. The TV hinders kingdom work,
living in a demonic society. One guy preached a whole series,
about six or seven sermons on the evils of Hollywood and the
effects that it had in the home. Pursuit for personal integrity,
principles for godly living. Well, needless to say, I didn't
listen to any of the messages. The titles told me everything
I needed to know. And when I looked at the text,
I saw where these self-righteous, works, free will religionist
would have come up with these sermons from this passage of
scripture. Because nine times in seven verses, David says,
I will, I will. Look at verse 1, I will sing
of mercy and judgment unto thee, oh Lord, I will sing. I will
behave myself wisely in a perfect way. Of whom wilt thou come? Oh, when wilt thou come unto
me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will
set no wicked thing before mine eyes. I hate the work of them
that turn aside. It shall not cleave unto me.
A forward heart shall depart from me. I will not know a wicked
person. Whoso privately slandereth his
neighbor, him will I cut off. Him that hath a high look and
a proud heart will not I suffer. Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful
of the land. They that dwell with me, he that
walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me. He that worketh
deceit shall not dwell within my house. He that telleth lies
shall not tarry in my sight. I will early destroy all the
wicked of the land that I may cut off all wicked doers from
the city. Now certainly, the child of God
doesn't want to be influenced by the evils of this world. We
want our testimony to be honorable. We don't want to shame the gospel.
And there are things that we can say, I don't want to behave
that way. I don't want to have these things
in my home. But who can declare these I wills
other than the Lord Jesus himself? I've titled this message, Christ,
the master of his home, the church. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
master of his home, his church, his body, his family, his children. And these I wills are his declaration
of what he will do for his people. And our encouragement comes not
from saying, well, I will, you know, I'm gonna renew my commitments
and I'm going to revive my dedication and I'm not gonna do this and
I will do that. To see the Lord Jesus Christ
declaring what he promises he will do is a great comfort to
the child of God. And in truth, in truth, the men
who interpreted these passage as a free will determination of
their own religious commitments are not going to be led into
any sort of of fellowship with God or any sort of holy living
as a result of that. These things come when we see
what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. This passage reminds me
of Exodus chapter 15, when Moses prays after they crossed the
Jordan, turning me to Exodus chapter 15. Verse 9, the enemy said, now
this is what the Egyptians said, this is what the enemies of God
said, this is what those who trust in their own will and their
own determination and their own commitments would say, I will
pursue. And that's what the religion
says, isn't it? I'm gonna seek after God. I'm gonna pursue that
which is right. And I will overtake. When I get a hold of God, I'm
gonna make a decision and let him come into my heart. I will
divide the spoil. I'm going to take the very thing
that the Lord Jesus Christ got the victory for it. I'm going
to divide it among myself. I'm going to rob him of my glory.
I will. Notice how many times, six times,
by the way, in this one verse, we read the words, I will. And
what is the number for man? Six. I will, I will pursue, I will
overtake, I will divide this spoil. My lust shall be satisfied
upon him. I'm going to, I'm going to be
gratified by What I, what I accomplish in this, in this pursuit, I will
draw my sword. And what's the sword a picture
of the sword of the spirits, the word of God. And when we
see the Lord Jesus Christ wielding his sword, it's symbolized as
a flaming tongue. Isn't it? And so what is the,
what is the free will to say, I will, I'll, I'll speak to God
and God will answer me. I'll use my, by your words, you
should be justified. And by your words, you should
be condemned. But this is, this is exactly how, I mean, I read
the titles of probably 40 messages on sermon audio. And you can
go there and look at them, Psalm 101 and every one of them without
exception. It's all about what I will do,
what I will do. And look at the rest of verse
nine. I will draw my sword and my hand shall destroy them. Now,
what is the hand a symbol of? It's of works, isn't it? I'm
going to present my works. I'm going to pull out my sword.
I'm going to divide the spoil. I will, I will, I will, I will. And you give men something to
do. and they will leave doing it. What do you think that self-righteous
lawyer did in the story that we looked at last Wednesday night
on the Good Samaritan? The Lord sent him off. Go and
do likewise. Don't you know that he found
somebody in need probably that very day and did what he could
to help them? What was he doing? I'll do that. I'll do that. I
can inherit eternal life. Look at verse 10. Thou didst
blow with thy wind. Now we've turned from man. In
the next several verses, instead of the I wills of man, which
are mentioned six times in verse nine, thou and thy, is mentioned seven times in the
next few verses. In other words, let man boast
in what he thinks he's going to do. This is what I'm going
to do. I'm going to blow the wind of
my spirit. I'm going to stretch out my right
hand, verse 12. I'm going to show my mercy is
going to be led forth to my people that I have redeemed, has to
redeem, past tense. Let's go back to Psalm 101. I
just wanted you to see the contrast there. It's, it's law and grace. It is, it's, it's, it's either
God does the work or man does the work. And, and, and God's
given men enough rope in his word for them to take the very
word of God and hang themselves with it. And the strong delusion
that God has sent that men should believe the lie is His Word. It's His Word. They take the
Word of God and they twist it. And without the Spirit of God,
they take God's Word and they say, well, I will do that. I
will do that. And all those sermons that I
read the titles of today and all the people that listen to
those messages, Left determined, I will, I'm not going to watch
that anymore. I'm not going to do this anymore.
I'm going to have this way. And, and, and they were strengthened
by the chains of the law, put back into bondage with a, with
a renewed commitment to, to do something to earn favor with
God. Now we can read Psalm 101 like
that, or we can understand it for what it is, the prayer of
the Lord Jesus Christ. I will sing of mercy. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is
called the man of sorrow, and yet he is a man of great rejoicing. Happy, how many times we saw
last Sunday, happy is the man who has God as his Lord. Happy is the man, the Lord Jesus
Christ is the man. He was perfectly content, he
rejoiced. You remember when he sent out the disciples two by
two and they came back rejoicing because the demons were subject
unto him and he said, rejoice not that the devil is subject
unto you, but rejoice rather that your names are written in
heaven. And then the next verse says,
in that hour, Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, Father, I
thank thee that thou hast hid these things from the wise and
the prudent and revealed them unto babes. Even so, it seemed
good in thy sight. The Lord Jesus Christ rejoiced
in his father. and in his relationship with
his father and had the full power. He was the one came in the power
of the spirit. He's the Christ, the anointed
one, anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows. Oh, he suffered great sorrow
over the sins of his people and yet he rejoiced greatly always
in his fellowship with the father. And he's the only one that can
say, I will, I will. I will sing of mercy. I will sing of mercy. Turn with
me to Isaiah chapter 54. There's a, there's a great, a
great passage here in Isaiah 54. I want you to see. Look at Isaiah chapter 54 beginning
at verse 7. I'm sorry, I was in Isaiah 44.
Isaiah 54 at verse 7. For a small moment have I forsaken
thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. Now, that
was just a brief period of time. I would say it was eternal suffering,
infinite. And yet it was but a moment,
wasn't it? When the father forsook his son
and the Lord Jesus Christ knew that even in that forsaking that
he was going to enjoy the mercies of his father. And so he says,
for a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies
will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face
from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have
mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is as
the waters of Noah unto me, for as I have sworn that the waters
of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that
I would not be wroth with thee nor rebuke thee. For the mountains
shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall
not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace
be removed, saith the Lord that have mercy on thee. Now these things can be rejoiced
in as they apply to the believer, but this first and foremost is
speaking of Christ. This is the father's promise
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's the good news, brethren.
Whatever the father has promised to his son, we enjoy the benefits
of that. We're the recipients of that
blessing, that covenant promise that the father. So here we have
the Lord Jesus Christ in covenant relationship with his father
being forsaken for a small time, relying on the mercies of God
to withhold from him the pains of death. He's got. He's not
going to let his holy one see corruption. He's not gonna be
forsaken forever. He's the Lord Jesus Christ, depending
upon God's mercies. And so here in Psalm 101, he
says, he says, I will sing of thy mercies and of thy judgments. You see that? Go back with me
to Psalm 101. And of thy judgments. There's
no mercy without justice. The law of God had to be kept.
It had to be honored. The righteousness of God had
to be established. The Lord Jesus Christ said, I
did not come to destroy the law, I came to fulfill it. Came to
fulfill the law of God. And what do you say to John?
John, suffer to be so. When John said, I'm not worthy
to baptize you, I need to be baptized of you. Suffer to be
so. Well, this is necessary that
we might fulfill all righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
fulfill all righteousness. He came to satisfy God's justice. And now here he's praying in
Psalm 101 verse one. He says, I will, I will. Let's go back to Psalm 101. I will
sing. of mercy and judgment unto thee,
O Lord, will I sing. Let me ask you a question. You
talk like that to God. When we come together for your
worship, you walk in here, I'm going to worship God. I will
sing of his mercy and of his judgment. We don't talk like that. We don't
have those feelings in our hearts. Lord, would you enable us to
worship you? I mean, we can open the hymn
books and we can read the words and some may even be able to
carry a tune, but to be able to sing from your heart to the
Lord, that's a work of grace. We don't say, I will do something
in terms of worshiping God. We come into his presence pleading
for his mercy and for his grace for the ability to be able to
worship him. Making melody in our hearts to
the Lord, that's a work of grace. For the word of Christ to dwell
in us richly, that's a work of grace. Admonishing one another
in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in
your heart to the Lord, You see, that's a work of grace. We have
to plead with God for the grace and mercy to be able to sing. I remember we can sing audibly
and we can raise the roof, but to be able to sing from the heart,
we don't, we don't come into the presence of God and say,
I will. Lord, I desire to worship you,
but you're going to have to make me a worshiper. You're going
to have to put the song in my heart. You're going to have to
enable me to hear. I mean, I'm dependent upon you
for ears to hear. I can't come in here and just
say, you know what? I'm going to hear the gospel
tonight and I will understand what's being said and I will
leave here and I will put into practice everything that I hear.
We don't talk like that. And yet all these men that read
this passage of scripture and preached on it, sent men out
saying, go do it. Same thing the Lord did with
that self-righteous lawyer. Do this and you'll live. But here's the glorious truth,
brethren. The Lord Jesus Christ was able to say, I will sing
of God's mercy. I will sing of his judgment. Because my will is able to please
God and I can come into the very presence of God based on my will. And when he came into God's presence,
we came into God's presence. We don't, we don't encourage
ourselves with a false hope by bolstering our will. But we,
but we know that his will was perfect. His will was, was holy. His will was powerful and he
was able to enter into the presence of God by his will. Look at, look at verse two. We,
you know, we, Believers, we don't want our behavior to dishonor
the Lord. We don't want other men to have
ammunition to blaspheme God because of something that they see in
our lives. We want to behave ourselves in
a way that's going to be honorable. What Peter said, those who speak
evil of you, let them be ashamed that falsely accuse your good
conversation in Christ. Let them be, you know, let your
conversation, let your behavior be such that those who say false
things about you would be ashamed. They wouldn't have the truth
or the ammunition to use. Now that having been said, look
at verse two. I will behave myself wisely in
a perfect way. We don't talk like that. Do we?
Lord, I want you to work in me, causing me to will and to do
of thy good pleasure. Lord, restrain the evil from
me. Keep the evil one away from me.
Lord, I'm depending upon you for that. Only the Lord Jesus
Christ was able to come into the presence of his father and
say, I will behave myself wisely. And only the Lord Jesus Christ
was able to say to his accusers, Anybody here accused me of sin and their mouths were shut. They
couldn't, they couldn't. He's the only one that could
say, and his sinlessness and his determination to behave himself
perfectly. And that word perfect in that
verse means without spot. without spot. It's the same word
used to describe the lamb that was without spot before God. The perfect lamb. That's what
God requires. He requires our behavior to be
done wisely and perfectly before God. And in Christ, it is. He's the one who said, I will
behave myself wisely. And he did. And all of my, all
of my words, all of my actions, everything I do, every thought
and intent of my heart will be done perfectly and wisely before
God, because I will to please God, to honor God, to obey God. And he did. You see this Psalms about Christ.
Who's the master of his house. Now we could leave here saying,
well, you know, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to watch
that anymore. I'm not going to listen to that anymore. I'm not going
to do that anymore. And there's some things we ought not to be
watching. We ought not to be doing. Places we ought not to
go. That's certainly true. But that's not what this psalm's
about. Us bolstering our will and our commitment to go out
and say, well, I'm going to do better. I've got one. I've got an advocate with the
father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. And he willed to behave
himself wisely and perfectly. And he did. And God was pleased with him. I will behave myself wisely in
a perfect way, in a perfect way. Oh, when will thou come unto
me? The Lord Jesus Christ longing
for the Father to justify him. Lord, when will you, when will
you show them, when will you, when you will reward me for my
perfect behavior? You see, the Lord Jesus Christ,
the only man that was able to obligate God to reward him for
his perfect behavior. And we're rewarded for the perfect
behavior of Christ. And look what he says, when will
thou come unto me? Oh, the Lord Jesus Christ longing
for his father and for that fellowship, for him to be restored back to
his rightful place at the right hand of the majesty. I will walk
within my house with a perfect heart. Now I can just imagine,
I'm not going to go back and listen to any of those sermons,
but I can just imagine some of the things that those preachers
said as if they were able to walk in their house with a perfect
heart. The Lord Jesus Christ, the only
one that did that. And then when men tell you to
walk in your house with a perfect heart, they're implying that
they're walking in their house with a perfect heart. Turn to me to Psalm 78. I'll
maybe one of those preachers would go on sermon audio after
this message gets posted and, and uh, Psalm 78, look at verse,
look at verse 72. So he fed them according to the
integrity of his heart and guided them by the skillfulness of his
hands. He fed them with the integrity
of his heart and with the skillful works of his hands. These preachers
that tell you to go out and have a perfect heart and tell you
to do works that somehow is going to earn you favor with God. They
put in burdens on you that they themselves cannot carry. This
is what the Lord Jesus Christ did. Now, do we, do we want to
bear evil thoughts in our hearts? Do we want to be doing? No. Like
the, The guy said, the preacher said, if I believed what you
believe, I'd do whatever I wanted to do. And the preacher responded
by saying, I wish I could do whatever I wanted to do. Cause
I want to, I want to live in a way that's perfect. I want
to, but I can't never have been able to. I will set verse, verse three. I will set no wicked thing before
my eyes. Now I looked up that word, wicked
thing, and it's the word Belial or Baal, the God of Babylon. And in that regard, the child
of God says, Lord, I'm not, I'm not going back to that. I'm not
going to go back and listen to that Babylonian babble, that
confusing language of works religion. I'm not going to do it. I can't. Or keep me from that. But here's the Lord Jesus Christ
saying, I will set no wicked thing before me. There's a lot
of wicked things in this world we ought not to be in the presence
of. We ought to do everything we can to avoid. No question
about it. But the guys that are preaching
to people to make this a commitment of what you watch and where you
go and what you do are actually violating the very thing that
this passage says because they're worshiping the God of Baal. They're
setting before them the God of Baal while making it forbidden
to do, you know, something else. Preaching against... One sermon was all about, from
the title, best I could tell, was all about, you know, not
watching TV. And preaching against watching TV
while fully immersed in the religion of Babylon setting before them the most
wicked things of all while denying themselves other things. I hate,
look at verse three. I hate the work of them that
turn aside. And that word translated is fall
away. They have no interest in the
things of God, the things of the gospel. They've chosen a
false freewill works religion as the means of their salvation.
And the Lord Jesus Christ is saying, I have no pleasure in
them. I hate their works. I hate their
works. Isn't that what the Lord said
in Matthew chapter seven, but Lord, when he separated the sheep
from the goats on the day of judgment, but Lord, what the
goats say, but Lord, We've cast out demons in your name. We've
done many wonderful works in your name. We've been down to
the soup kitchen, and we've been helping the old lady next door,
and we've been doing this and been doing that. We've been traveling.
We've been traversing land and sea to make one disciple and
turn him into twice the devil of ourselves. And what's the
Lord say to them? Depart from me, you workers of
iniquity. I never knew you. And that's
what he's saying here. Look, I will set no forward thing before
my eyes. I hate the work of them that
turn away. It shall not cleave to me. I have no part in it. Look at verse
four, a forward heart. I looked up a lot of these words,
that word forward means twisted, distorted, perverted, or made
crooked. And what are the heart? What's
the heart of the, of the, of the free will the man who reads
this and says, I will now I'm going to do it. And he, then
he goes to the scripture and he, and he rest the scripture
to his own destruction. And he twists it. To, to, to
bolster his own self-righteousness and to encourage his own free
will. A forward heart shall depart
from me. The Lord speaking. He said, those who would take my word.
It's like I said, Sunday, when, when men stand up against God,
that's bad enough. When they say, well, that's not
fair, or they say that, you know, what do you mean Christ only
died for the elect? What do you mean God chose a particular people
before the foundation of the world? That's not right. That's
bad enough to stand up against God. But then when they take
scripture and use scripture to defend their position, they're
only hardening themselves more and making their judgment greater. And that's what the Lord saying
here, a forward heart, a man who will take the scriptures
and twisted and distorted and perverted and make it to mean
something. It doesn't mean shall depart from me. I will
not know that person depart from me. You workers of iniquity.
I never knew you. I never knew you. You see, this is all about turning
grace into works. How many times we've seen in
God's word, it always comes back to grace and works, doesn't it? It's law or grace. There's only two messages of
salvation, only two religions in the whole world. There's only
two, only two, no more. Verse five, who so privately
slandereth his neighbor, him will I cut off. Him that hath
a high look and a proud heart will I suffer. And how many of us have said
things? Well, not to set about someone
behind their back. Every one of us. Slanted our
neighbor, hadn't we? He that cover it, the transgression
seek it's love, but he that repeated the matter separated friends.
How many times things have been said? About one person to another,
about a third person, and it just separated friendships. It ought not to be, but it's
happened to every one of us, hasn't it? May God keep us from it. May
he teach us and make us more merciful and gracious towards
other and guard our lips better. This word, oftentimes in the
Hebrew language, when the word ends with E-T-H, you see the
word slanderous? It's a continual action. There's no end to it. It just,
you know, it just continues, continues. This is a behavior
where he's slandering his neighbor. And I thought, you know, We looked
at this last Wednesday night of the good Samaritan. And what
did that lawyer say when the Lord said, love your neighbor
as yourself? What did he say? Who's my neighbor?
And what was the answer to that question? The Samaritan, he's your neighbor. That's what the Lord was saying
to that man. They hated the Samaritans. The
Lord was saying to him, he's your neighbor. And who was that
Samaritan? It was Christ. It was Christ. Here's a, here's a picture of
a, of a person who continually slanders the Lord Jesus Christ. Slanders his character, his work,
his means of salvation, his, his efficacy of his blood, slandering
Christ. And why do they do it? Because
they have a high look. They have way too high a view
of themselves. That's the problem, isn't it?
Men have too high of an opinion of themselves and too low of
an opinion of Christ. Mine eyes, look at verse six.
This is so comforting, brethren. This is Christ, the master of
his house. What does he say? Mine eyes,
mine eyes, the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the
whole earth to show himself strong toward them whose heart is perfect
towards him. And in that regard, the new man
does have a perfect heart. You believe with all of your
heart, don't you? that Jesus is the Christ, the
son of the living God. You believe that all of your
hope for righteousness is in him. You believe that he actually
accomplished the work of redemption by the sacrifice of himself on
Calvary's cross, don't you? You may doubt from time to time
whether it was for you, but you believe. And the Lord says here
in second Chronicles, he says, my eyes go to and fro throughout
all the earth. And I set my affections on those
whose hearts are perfect towards me. The eyes of the Lord upon
the righteous, Psalm 34, verse 17, and his eyes are open to
their, his ears are open to their cry. And now here he says in
verse six of Psalm 101, mine eyes shall be upon the faithful
of the land. God's made us to be faithful.
We don't promote our faithfulness in terms of, you know, being
able to have a perfect heart or being able to have perfect
behavior and all those sorts of things, but we are faithful. And you're a good and faithful
servant. Every believer is going to hear
that. Why? Because he's made us people of
faith. He's caused us to believe and
we can't not believe. And so he reckons that Abraham
believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. So
our righteousness is counted as a result of the faith that
God's given us. And now he says, mine eyes shall
be upon the faithful of the land that they may dwell with me to awake with his likeness. We
shall be satisfied. He that walketh in a perfect way. Now, a better
translation there is perfect in the way. And Christ is the
way. And when we're looking to Christ,
which the believer is always doing, his new nature, his faith
is always looking to Christ for the hope of his salvation. He
doesn't look anywhere else. Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful
of the land, they may dwell with me, he that walketh perfect in
the way, he shall serve me. He will serve me. You see, you
don't have to, you don't have to shame people and step on their
toes and fleece the sheep in order to get them to serve God.
Tell them what Christ has done. Tell them how this passage is
about what he will do. And you know what? Nothing will
inspire them more to not have a forward heart, to not have
those things of the world before their eyes. And nothing will
inspire them more to serve God than to see what Christ has done
for them. You kick people out into the
world, tell them to do better, be better. All they do is become
more pharisaical. He that worketh deceit shall
not dwell within my house, He that telleth lies shall not tarry
in my sight. Now, the truth is you and I have
never spoken a word that we didn't veil something. We're always
promoting ourselves with the way we speak and what we say
and what we hold back from saying. That's why the scripture says
every man's a liar, God alone tells the truth. But we don't
lie about the gospel. We don't stand up here and tell
lies about, we don't send men out to be more committed to what
they watch on TV and all that sort of stuff in order to make
this apply to them. We tell the truth about what
we are, we're sinners. We tell the truth about who Christ
is and what he's done and how he's accomplished our salvation.
That's why Isaiah said, my children won't lie. They don't tell lies
about the gospel. They don't tell lies about themselves.
And here the Lord says, he that worketh deceit shall not dwell
within my house. I'm the master of my house and
my children are going to tell the truth. I will early destroy all the
wicked of the land that I may cut off all wicked
doers from the city of the Lord. It's the master of his house.
His house is the church. It's all about his work. His
perfect heart. His perfect integrity is his
perfect behavior. What he will do is perfect singing. It's perfect joy to the father.
And here's the good news, brother. Everything that he did perfectly.
We did in him. We did in him. That doesn't,
that doesn't become a cloak of righteousness to hide our evil
that that becomes our liberty, doesn't it? That becomes our
liberty. That becomes our motivation for, for service and for love. Our heavenly father, we're thankful
for your word. We pray that you would always
lead us to thy dear son for it's in his name we pray. Amen. 296 let's stand together I Yeah! All the way my Savior leads me,
what have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy,
who through life has been my guide? Heav'nly peace, divinest
comfort, here by faith in Him to dwell. For I know what e'er
befall me, Jesus, do it all things well. For I know what e'er befall
me, Jesus, do it all things well. All the way my Savior leads me,
cheers each winding path I tread. He'll be grace for every trial,
feeds me with the living bread. Though my weary steps may falter,
And my soul a thirst may be, Gushing from the rock before
me, Lo, a spring of joy I see. Gushing from the rock before
me, Lo, a spring of joy I see. All the way my Savior leads me,
O the fullness of His love. Perfect rest to me is promised
in my Father's house above. When my spirit, clutched immortal,
Wings its flight to realms of day, This my song through endless
ages, Jesus led me all the way. This my song through endless
ages, Jesus led me all the way.