Good evening. Let's open tonight's
service with hymn number 23 from your hardback hymnal, number
23, Come We That Love the Lord. Let's all stand together. ["Come We That Love the Lord"] Come we that love the Lord, and
let our joys be known. Join in a song with sweet accord,
and thus surround the throne. Let those refuse to sing who
never knew our God, but children of the Heavenly King may speak
their joys abroad. The hill of Zion yields a thousand
sacred suites Before we reach even heavenly fields Or walk
the golden streets Then let our songs abound and every tear be
dry. We're marching through Emmanuel's
crown to fairer worlds on high. Please be seated. Good evening. Our scripture reading
for tonight will be from Psalm 38. If you'd like, turn with
me there in your Bible, Psalm 38. And before we read that,
I'll let you know that Dean Menino had surgery today. I guess he
had some kind of abscess or infection in his abdomen from the last
time he was in the hospital. And they had to go in and do
surgery, and he's recovering from that. He's in the hospital. What is that hospital, Michael,
you were in? Health Central. Health Central in Ocoee. What a beautiful picture this
is of the Lord taking the sins of His
people and owning them as His own. Psalm 38, verse 1, O Lord, Rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither
chasten me in thy hot displeasure. For thine arrows stick fast in
me, and thy hand presseth me sore. There is no soundness in
my flesh because of thine anger, neither is there any rest in
my bones because of my sin." Now all these Psalms are to be
understood first coming from our Lord and This was his heart
from Calvary's cross as he suffered the wrath of his father For mine
iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy burden. They are too
heavy for me Look at verse 17 for I am ready to halt and my
sorrow is continually before me for I will declare mine iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin. There's something in each one
of us that continues to think that if I could just be sorry
enough that God would forgive me. That's how we relate to one
another isn't it? And in our twisted way we make
God to be like ourselves. And in our relationships with
one another, if a person is sincerely sorry for their offense, we forgive
them. If their sorrow is shallow or
insincere or hypocritical, we can tell. And yet, we could never ever
be sorry enough for our sin before God. The Lord Jesus Christ is
the only one that was able to feel that sorrow. Making our
sin to be his own, he presented himself to the Father as the
man of sorrows. And the Lord forgave him. Look
at verse 11. My lovers and my friends stand
aloof from my sore, and my kinsmen stand afar off. Surely this is
the Lord They also that seek after my life lay snares for
me, and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things and
imagine deceits all the day long. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
what great hope and comfort we have in knowing that we have
an advocate One who felt the full burden of our sin. One who
expressed to you a sincere sorrow that satisfied your justice. One who spilt his precious blood
in order to put away our sins once and for all. Lord, forgive
us for thinking that we could do something to satisfy your
holy justice and your holy law. And thank you, Lord, for revealing
to us in thy word the glory and the accomplishments of thy dear
son. We pray that your Holy Spirit
now would come and would lift up our eyes, cause us, Lord,
to look to thy son, to behold the one who is right and mark
the perfect man. We thank you for the successful
surgery that you gave to Dean today, and we ask, Lord, for
your hand of strength and healing to be upon him and to recover
his full strength. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 340. 340. Let's stand
once again. Nearer, still nearer, close to
thy heart. Draw me, my Savior, so precious
thou art. Fold me, O fold me, close to
thy breast. Shelter me safe in that haven
of rest. Shelter me safe in that haven
of rest. Nearer, still nearer, nothing
I bring, not as an offering to Jesus my King. Only my sinful, now contrite
heart, Grant me the cleansing thy blood doth impart. Grant me the cleansing thy blood
doth impart, nearer, still nearer, Lord, to be thine. Sin with its follies I gladly
resign. All of its pleasures, pomp and
its pride, Give me but Jesus, my Lord crucified. Give me but Jesus, my Lord crucified. Dearer, still dearer, while life
shall last, till safe in glory my anchor is cast. Through endless ages, ever Nearer, my Savior, still nearer
to Thee. Nearer, my Savior, still nearer
to Thee. Amen. Please be seated. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Psalm 37, please? We looked at the first, oh, 14
verses or so of this Psalm last Wednesday night. And there's
a verse in this Psalm that just struck me that I want to try
to preach from tonight. It's found in verse 37. And it's
just another way for God to say to me and you, look to my son. Look to my son. Look to Christ. Set your affections on things
above. Rest all the hope of your salvation
in him. Notice how David is inspired
to write this phrase, verse 37, mark the perfect man. Mark the perfect man, that's
the title of this message, and behold the upright, for the end
of that man is peace. Oh, there's but one perfect man. I looked up that word perfect,
it means undefiled. It means complete, lacking nothing,
morally innocent. And there's but one perfect man
that fits that qualification. And I was thinking this week
about John chapter 9, John chapter 8 where those Pharisees brought
that woman caught in adultery before the Lord, caught in the
very act. And they're trying to trap the
Lord. The law of Moses says that she should die. What do you say?
And the Lord bent over and began to write on the ground. And then
he looked up, and what did he say? Let him that is without
sin cast the first stone. The only one that met that qualification
was the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And then they began to depart
one by one from the oldest to the youngest, being convicted
by their conscience, knowing that they weren't without sin.
And the Lord looked to her and said, where art thou accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? And
she said, none, Lord. Neither do I condemn thee. I've
got the right to condemn you because I am the perfect man.
I'm without sin. But I condemn thee not. Go and
sin no more. Mark The perfect man. Behold the upright. You know
what that word behold means. It means give your undivided
attention to him. When John saw the Lord Jesus
coming, he said, behold, look, don't look at me. I must decrease.
He must increase. Behold the Lamb of God. He's
the one that's going to take away your sins. When Job saw the Lord Jesus Christ
and he did through the preaching of the gospel he saw Christ and
what was the first thing Job said behold behold I see something
that I've never seen before I am vile and we saw what Daniel came
to conclusion didn't we when Daniel saw the Lord his comeliness
turned in him into corruption that's When we behold Him, we
behold ourselves. And we come to this conclusion,
we have no righteousness. When John was caught up into
heaven and received the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
in Revelation chapter 5, he saw God holding a scroll. And it
was sealed on the inside and on the outside. And the Lord
asked, any man worthy to open the seal? This was the book of
life. If that book's not open, no one's
going to be saved. And John began to weep because
there was no one in heaven, no angel in heaven, no man in heaven
that was able to unlock the seals of the book. And finally the
angel said, John, weep not, for the lion, behold, that's what
the angel said, behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed. He hath prevailed and He is able
to unlock the mystery of the book of life. Behold Him. Mark the perfect man and behold
the upright. Turn with me to Revelation chapter
6. Revelation chapter 6. This is the call of God to every
one of us. And it's repeated over and over
and over and over again. It is not an oversimplification
to say that the conclusion of every gospel message is look
to Christ. That's the conclusion. Look to
Him. Revelation chapter 6 verse 1,
And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard
and it was the noise of thunder, one of four beasts saying, come
and see. And I saw and behold, behold,
a white horse and he that sat on him had a bow and a crown
was given unto him and he went forth conquering and to conquer. And that's exactly what he did.
The revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, this book of revelations
is not pointing to future events. It's pointing to what's already...
Revelation chapter 6 right here is what was accomplished on Calvary's
cross. He came to conquer and that's what he did. He destroyed
the works of the devil. He set the captive free. He went
in to the very gates of hell. He said the gates of hell should
not be able to prevail against this gospel. And I'm going to
lead captivity captive. I'm going to take those who are
blinded by the God of this world And I'm going to bring them out
because that's what I came to do, to conquer, to conquer. Behold, the one who rides upon
the horse, the white horse, the one who's got a crown on his
head, the one who's got a bow and shoots the arrows of his
grace into the hearts of his children. And he conquers them. He causes them to put down their
swords. Their swords are made into plowshares,
aren't they? You remember what the Lord said
to the writing that was on the wall, Belshazzar in Daniel chapter
5? And the Lord said, you've been
weighed in the balance and your kingdom has been brought to an
end. And that's exactly what the Lord says to each one of
his children. You've been weighed in the balance. You've been found
wanting. You don't measure up. And I'm bringing your kingdom
to an end. And God's children, when their kingdom is brought
to an end, they bow. They're made willing in the day
of his power. They bow before him and they submit. They submit
to his authority. And they rejoice in his lordship. Mark the perfect man, behold
the one who is upright. Now this word that's translated
Mark is found 460 something times in the Bible, but only eight
of those times is it translated Mark. And I looked up those times where
it was translated Mark because I wanted to understand what the
fullness of what the Lord was saying here. And one of them
is found in Psalm 130 verse 3, if the Lord should mark iniquity,
who should stand? If the Lord took notice, that's
what the word Mark means. If the Lord took notice of one
sin, one sin, a sin that you and I would consider
to be insignificant, a minor offense. If God was to mark,
if He was to take notice of one of our sins, we would not be
able to stand in the presence of a holy God. If the Lord should
mark iniquity, who should stand? It is a rhetorical question.
The answer is clear. No one. No one is going to be
able to stand if God marks one sin. One iniquitous act, one
thought, one time when I failed to do what I should have done,
sins of omission, sins of commission, sins of thought, sins of attitude. We can't think or act without
it being sinful, can we? If the Lord should mark one of
those, Man at his very best state is altogether vanity. If God
took the best thing that you and I ever did and took notice
of it and considered it for what it really was, we would not be
able to stand in the presence of a holy God. And that's why
the Lord's saying here, mark the perfect man. There's only
one man that's perfect. and that's what God requires.
It's amazing to me. I know this is not true of anyone
here tonight, and I don't know who might be listening, but it's
amazing to me how many people I've heard say, well, you know,
I'm just doing my best, doing my best. God's not satisfied with your
best. Your best is iniquity. Your best
is sinful. God requires perfection. That's why he's saying, take
notice, mark him, look to Christ. He's the only one that's perfect.
Mark the perfect man. What forgiveness? Someone said, I'm having a hard
time forgiving. If a person looks at an offense
from another and tries to muster up a dutiful attitude of forgiveness
in their heart, you're not going to be able to
do it. You're not going to be able to do it. If you're trying
to muster up a dutiful attitude of forgiveness, You're going
to be focusing on that offense and you'll never be able to forgive.
Forgiveness is the byproduct of being forgiven. It's just
that simple. Don't look to the offense. Don't
try to muster up an attitude of forgiveness. Just look to
how much you've been forgiven. Look to the one who has not marked
your iniquity. Look to the offense that you've
had toward him. And you won't have any trouble
forgiving anybody else. Forgiveness is the byproduct. It's the natural result of having
been forgiven. That person says, I'm having
a hard time forgiving. They're looking at the wrong
thing. They're not beholding the perfect man. They're not
marking the perfect man. They're not beholding the one
that's upright. They're looking somewhere else.
Another place where this word mark is used is found in Psalm
56 verse 6. And it's a word of prophecy speaking
about the Lord Jesus Christ and his enemies. And it says this,
they mark my steps when they wait for my soul. And that's
what the enemies of Christ did. They watched him. They tried
to catch him. They marked everything he did.
They marked my steps that they might wait for my soul. Well, marking the Lord's steps
is a good thing to do, isn't it? Not trying to find some offense
with him. marking his steps that we might
be like that ambitious little boy on the beach who's following
his father down the beach and desperately attempting to stay
in the footsteps of his father. That we might mark the steps
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the reason that that the
Lord washed the disciples' feet. They were competing about who
was going to be greatest among them, and the Lord took the lowest
position of a servant, a foot washer, and He washed their feet. He said, Mark my steps. Mark
my steps. As I have done for you, so do
ye for one another. Mark the steps of the Lord Jesus
Christ. In his prayers, the disciples
observed, they marked his steps, they looked at the way he lived
and what he did, and they said, Lord, teach us to pray. Teach
us to pray. We want to be able to talk to
the Father like you do. The Lord loved his enemies. He
forgave those who offended him. And when one man said, Lord,
I'll follow you, what'd the Lord say? Foxes have holes and birds
have nests, but the son of man hath no place to lay his head.
If you're gonna follow me, you're gonna mark my steps. This world
is gonna be secondary to you. And then mark the steps of the
Lord Jesus Christ as he walks up Mount Calvary. Growing up Roman Catholic, we
had in the church building what we called, what they called the
Stations of the Cross. I don't remember how many of
them there were. I think there were 10 or 12 of them. There's
little plaques on the wall and they had pictures of the different
moments in the life of Christ as he was walking towards Mount
Calvary and we would bow and say a prayer and make a light
a candle or something to each one of those things. It was awful.
But that was their attempt to get us to mark the steps of the
Lord Jesus Christ going to Calvary. These are something you mark
in your heart, isn't it? Oh, notice. And the Lord said,
one of the stations, I remember as a child thinking, you know,
you see Jesus on the cross, you see him in these agonizing, and
you felt sorry for him. You felt sorry for him. You really
did. And when the Lord was carrying that cross after having been
flogged and going to be crucified and those women were weeping,
what did the Lord say to them? What did he say to them? Don't
weep for me. Don't feel sorry for me. Weep
for yourselves and for your children. You're the ones who need to be
pitied, not me. I've got a purpose here. I'm
following my father's will. I'm bearing the sins of my people.
I'm expressing the sorrow that they're not able to express.
Mark his steps as he goes to Mount Calvary and as he lays
his life down willingly for his sheep. And mark his words when
he cries from the cross and says, Father, forgive them. They don't
know what they're doing. They have no idea what they're
doing. And that's still true of me and you. We have no concept
of sin. But we have an advocate with
the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one, and we're to mark
the perfect man and know that he intercedes on our behalf and
the forgiveness of God is extended to all of his people because
of the intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ. Mark his words
when he when he cried, it's finished. It's finished. Everything that
God requires of you has been accomplished by my work of redemption. It's finished. Father into thy
hands, I commend my spirit. The Lord saying to me and you,
mark the perfect man, uphold the upright. Rejoice in the success of that
path to Calvary's cross. This isn't a time to feel sorry
for God. This is a time to feel sorry
for ourselves and to rejoice in the accomplished work that
the Lord Jesus Christ was successful in doing for the forgiveness
of our sins. And most of the time that this
or not most of the time, but more times than it's translated
mark, it's translated observe, observe. This word that we find
in verse 37, the first word, mark, the perfect man. It's translated
observe and always in relationship to the law. We find observe to
do all that I have commanded thee. Observe my statutes and
keep my law. And then David says in Psalm
119 verse 34, Lord, give me understanding and I shall keep thy law. Yea,
I shall observe it with my whole heart. Now how are you and I going to
observe the law of God? How do we keep the law of God? With all of our heart. Only by marking the perfect man.
That's it. That's it. Only by beholding
the one who is himself upright, and that word upright means he's
righteous. He kept the law. He satisfied
the demands of the law. And do we spurn God's law? No.
No, we keep God's law. The Lord said, I did not come
to destroy the law. I came to fulfill it. And when
David says, give me understanding that I shall keep thy law, the self-righteous, the lawmongers
are the ones trying to satisfy God's justice by their own law-keeping. We're not looking to our law-keeping
as a hope of our righteousness. We're looking to the one who
kept the law. Mark, the perfect man. Behold, the upright one. Look to Christ. He's the one
who kept the law. Most of the time, the vast majority
of the time that this word mark is found in the scriptures, it's
translated keep, keep. The very first three times that
it's mentioned, first one is in Genesis chapter 2 verse 15,
the Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to
dress it and to keep it. To keep it. And then in Genesis
chapter 3 verse 24 is the second time this word is found in the
scriptures and it says that God drove man out of the garden and
stationed a cherubim at the east gate of the garden to keep the
way of the tree of life, to protect it, to guard it, to not take
his eyes off of it, to keep it as if his life depended upon
it. That's the meaning here. The Lord is not saying mark the
perfect man, take notice of him, mark that spot, don't forget
it. No, you remember in Genesis chapter four, after Cain killed
his brother Abel and the Lord confronted Cain and said, your
brother's blood cries out of the ground. What a picture of
the gospel. Our brother's blood cries out
of the ground to God. And we're the ones that killed
our brother on Calvary's cross. And what did Cain say in justifying
himself? When the Lord said, Cain, where
is thy brother? He said, am I my brother's keeper? Am I responsible for my brother?
Yeah. Yeah, you are. You are. Dress it and keep it. Keep the
way of the tree of life. Am I my brother's keeper? This speaks to us of our responsibility. for marking the perfect man.
And we know that it's God's sovereign election and God's sovereign
grace that must enable us to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if we're able to believe, we give him all the praise and
all the glory, but that in no way takes away the responsibility
of every man to mark the perfect man. What the scriptures teach very
clearly is that if we're saved, it's all God's fault. And if
we're not, it's all our fault. We bear full responsibility for
not coming. And God gives all the glory when
we do come. Now that's just the truth. But
when God says mark the perfect man, He's saying the same thing
that He that he said to Cain, when Cain said, am I my brother's
keeper? Am I responsible for him? Yes.
Yes. He's saying the same thing he
said to Adam when he says, mark the perfect man. He said to Adam,
Adam, you keep that garden. You're responsible for it. You
take care of it. And when God said to those cherubims
who had a flaming sword at the gate of the garden of Eden. You
keep that tree of life. You're responsible for it. There's something very powerful
about naming something. When you name something, you
have authority over it. And you remember when Jacob was wrestling with the Lord all
night long thinking that the next morning his brother was
going to kill him. He'd already divided up his family
and his herd and tried to protect, at least I'll protect some of
them. Maybe he won't kill us all. And he wrestled all night
with the Lord Jesus Christ. His hip was out of joint when
he woke up, I mean, when he was finished in the morning and he
limped the rest of his life as a reminder of that night. And
Jacob said to the Lord Jesus Christ, what is your name? And the Lord said to Jacob, why
are you asking me my name? And the Lord blessed him and
changed his name. He said, Jacob, you're not gonna
have authority over me. I'm gonna name you. You're going to be, you're going
to submit to me. What about your name? September
the 1st, 1954, right in the middle of a hurricane, Hurricane Carol,
Norfolk, Virginia, I came into the world. Power was out in the hospital
and I don't know when my parents decided they were going to call
me Greg. But I know they put on my birth certificate that
my name was Greg. Why did they name me that? There's nobody in my family with
that name. I have no relatives with that name. Why did they
name me Greg? I'll tell you why they did. Because
God had already named me and put my name in the Lamb's Book
of Life. They didn't have a choice about it. You see, they thought
in naming me that they were having authority over this baby. But
they were just obeying what God had already decided. The Lord
had already decided my name. My name had already been indelibly
written. It's etched into the Lamb's Book
of Life. They didn't have a choice about
it. But we name things in order to have authority over it, don't
we? You remember when Rachel died in giving birth to Benjamin? And she, in her last words, recorded
in the scriptures, her last words as she was expiring after giving
birth to this baby, she said, calling Benoni, the child of
my sorrow. And Jacob said, no, his name's
gonna be Benjamin. The right hand of his father.
And that's what his name was. She didn't have the authority
to name him. But Jacob did. You remember when
Zachariah, who was serving as a priest in the temple, was offering
up incense and prayers and and the Lord told him in a vision
that his wife Elizabeth was going to have a child and they were
both old. They were old. Late in years. And Zacharias didn't believe
the Lord. He said, how is it we're going
to have a child? What's the sign that this is
going to come true? And God said, I'll give you a
sign. And he made him dumb. He couldn't speak. He couldn't
speak. And God told him right there,
you're going to name him John, for the Lord is gracious. Now
the scripture says that Elizabeth, Zacharias' wife, never had a
child. They never had any children.
They're old in age. And the natural thing would be
to name that child. Zacharias didn't speak for the
next nine months. And when the child was born,
all the family gathered around and they were so excited. And
they all said, he's going to be Zacharias. and Elizabeth said no his name's
gonna be John Zachariah got his voice back
he said name him John God's got authority over him and our God
is a gracious God and this child is not going to carry on my name
this child's gonna point to the to the perfect man naming something
You name your pets, you have authority over them. Naming things
gives you, say, what does this have to do with where we're going
on marking the perfect man? You and I live in a culture where
men have gotten the impression that if they just can name something,
then they're not, we live in a culture of victims We live
in a culture of, you know, everybody expects something,
you know, you have an addiction, you have a phobia, you have an
obsession, just put a name to it. Put a name to it and then
you'll have authority over it and you won't be responsible
for it. Isn't that the way it is? I mean, every week it seems
like they're coming out with a new name for something. Just
because you name something doesn't mean that it's true and doesn't
mean that you have authority over it. I mean, the truth of it is, but
people deceive themselves in thinking that, don't they? When God says, mark the perfect
man, He's saying you have a responsibility.
You have a responsibility to come to Christ. God calls all
men everywhere to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Mark Him. Mark Him. Look to Him. Keep Him. God saying also that you and
I are responsible for all of our sin and all of our unbelief,
aren't we? No victim here. Believers aren't victims. No,
they've been brought to accept full responsibility for all their
sins. James said, let no man say when
he sins that God made him do it. No, every man sins when he's
enticed by lust and lust when it conceives bring forth sin
and sin bringing forth death and every man's responsible.
We're responsible to come to Christ. We're responsible to
keep an eye on the Lord Jesus Christ. I've heard believers
say, you know what, you know, that was just my flesh. You know
what the operative word in that statement is? My. My. Don't say that was my flesh as
if your flesh didn't have anything to do with you. That was my flesh
that did that. Mark the perfect man. Keep him. Keep him. There's complete responsibility. Mark the perfect man and behold
the upright. Now notice the last phrase in
verse 37 and we'll finish. For the end of that man is peace. We have peace with God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord said in Jeremiah chapter
29 verse 11, I know the thoughts that I have for you, thoughts
of peace and not of evil. to bring you to an expected end. What is our expected end? To
have peace with God. That's our expected end. In Isaiah
chapter 26 verse 3, thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose
mind is stayed on thee for he trusteth in thee. Marking the perfect man is keeping
him, keeping him in your heart, before your eyes, trusting him. For the end of that man is peace. Oh, what peace there is. in all
the turmoil and all the conflicts of this world, of our flesh,
and of our encounters with Satan and sin and all the troubles,
we have peace with God. We have an advocate with the
Father. He hasn't marked a single iniquity. They've all been put
away by His shed blood. And now He says to me and you,
You mark the perfect man. You mark him. And you behold,
you behold, you look to the one who is upright. For the end of
that man is peace. Let's pray. Our merciful Heavenly
Father, oh, for the simplicity and the clarity of the gospel,
Lord, we know that we are responsible. But Lord, we're not able. I know
how we depend upon you. To move our hearts by the preaching
of your gospel and by the declaring of thy word. Move our hearts,
Lord, and cause us to come. But we ask it in Christ name.
Amen. Number 24, let's stand together. Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord our
righteousness. We love to call you by that name,
our Savior Christ Jesus. Jehovah Sidkenu, The God-man
lived for us, bringing eternal righteousness, which God imputes
to us. Jehovah Sidkenu, our substitute
who died. Your blood has put away our sin,
and we are justified. Jehovah Sidkenu, Your love has
won our praise. Trusting your blood and righteousness,
we're saved by your free grace. Jehovah Sidkenu, we stand in
you alone. Our only fitness before God is
in our Lord, His Son. Jehovah Sidkenu, the Lord, our
righteousness. Christ Jesus, you alone we call
the Lord our righteousness.