go into the house of the Lord.
I'm not interested in any sort of feigned gladness. I'm not interested in people
pretending that they're rejoicing when they're not. I want our
young people to be able to say, I was glad when they said unto
me, let us go into the house of the Lord. I was thinking about
how proficient we become as adults in the art of hypocrisy. We really do. We know how to
play the game. We know how to act socially to
be acceptable. We know how to impress one another,
or at least try to. Young people haven't become very
proficient at that art yet. I'm sure they will as they get
older. But young people are pretty transparent. We may be able to fool ourselves
and say, and I was glad to go to church this morning, but our
young people, oftentimes, they're not glad to be here. They're
just, it's a real joy, and they'll let you know. I want them to
be glad to be here. Not to pretend, but to hear a
message that gives hope to their souls. And if that happens, oh,
We'll be able to say with David, let us go into the house of the
Lord. I need to hear, I need to hear
from God why it is that we should fear no evil. I need to hear
from God that though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
And that's where we're walking. We often quote Psalm 23 in reference
to physically dying and departing from this world. But the believer
who has his life in Christ knows that every day of his life, he's
walking through the valley of the shadow of death. And oh,
that God the Holy Spirit would speak peace to our hearts, causing
us to believe that all our hope is fulfilled in the accomplished
work and the glorious person of his dear son. That the law
has been satisfied, that justice has been fulfilled, and that
we have a place of rest so that we can say, I fear no evil. Fear no evil, for God is with
me. His rod and his staff, they follow
after me. We looked at one of the Psalms
Wednesday night and we're just encouraged to where David said,
and this I know, this I know, God is for me. I want you to hear that. I want
to hear that. I want to believe that God is
for me. That he will never leave me nor
forsake me. In all the uncertainties of this
world, I need to be assured of that. And I don't want to be
assured of that from your voice, and you don't need to be assured
of that from my voice. You know, we don't need to pretend
or to try to convince one another that all is well. But if God
speaks peace to our hearts, you know, we can say to one another,
you know, all things work together for good for them who love God
and those who are called according to His purpose. And that's true
statement. But if all you hear is that from me, it's not gonna
be very much comfort to you in the midst of your trials and
troubles. But if the Spirit of God speaks that to your heart,
oh, you'll find rest for your soul, you'll find comfort, and
you'll be able to say, I was glad when they said unto me,
let us go into the house of the Lord. This is the place where
he's promised to meet with his people. This is the place where
he's promised to save sinners. This is the place where he manifests
himself. Our God is omnipresent. We know
that. We know that. The presence and the power of
God, apart from his grace and apart from his mercy, will actually
be that which will fuel the fire of hell. There's no place where
our God is not. He's in all places. But he's
promised where two or three are gathered together in my name,
where my word goes forth, where my gospel is preached, Lord Jesus
Christ said, and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to me. So I'm not interested in trying
to shame people who have a take it or leave it attitude about
church. I'm not interested in that. I see Psalm 122 more as a burden
to my soul in being prepared to preach the gospel. And I know that if that happens,
that God's people will be comforted and they'll just want to be here.
They'll just want to feed on the bread of life. There's no
food out there in the world. And they know that. They know
that. There's nothing to satisfy their
soul. There's no rest in the world. In Genesis chapter 8,
after the floods began to subside, and Noah opened the window of
the ark, and he let the dove out. He let a dove out and he
let a raven out. The raven, the scripture says,
never came back. He just flew off and never came
back. Why? Because that raven found plenty
of dead flesh floating in the water to feed from. The dove,
on the other hand, the scripture says, found no rest for the sole
of her foot and came back to the ark. Isn't that the believer's
life? We just, you know, we smell the
rotting flesh of this world, where our rotting flesh is somewhat
attracted to the rotting flesh of this world. But if God's done
a work of grace in our hearts, we know that those things just
don't satisfy. And like that dove, we can find
no place to find rest for the soul of our feet. And so what
do we do? Come back to the ark. Come back
to Christ. Come back to where God's people
are gathered together. Come back to that place of safety,
that place of hope, and that place of peace. That's my hope
for you. That's my hope for me, for our
church, and for our young people. You have your Bibles open to
Psalm 122? I was glad. The word glad there
is the same word translated rejoice in the scriptures. As I said,
I'm not interested in us faking some spirit of gladness and acting
religious to one another. Tricia had an experience this
week where she was talking to somebody and as soon as they
found out she was a pastor's wife, all of a sudden they became
syruply religious. Is that a word? I don't know.
But you know what I mean. You've seen it. They just started
talking about how spiritual they were. Rejoicing is a work of grace
that God does in the heart. And that's the kind of rejoicing
I'm interested in. I was glad. I rejoiced. Why? Because the Spirit of God
did a work in my heart. If we have to prove to ourselves
or to others that we're rejoicing, we're probably not. Rejoicing
is a genuine work of grace. And it doesn't have to be faked.
Scripture says that we're to rejoice in the Lord. That's where our rejoicing is.
By virtue of our union with Him, by virtue of the faith that He's
given us to trust Him, by virtue of the work that He's accomplished
for us, we're able to say, all is well. All is well. I'm able to rejoice in Him. My sins are forgiven. No, if
your interest in God is only based on being delivered from some temporal
trouble in this world, then when that trouble passes, and it eventually
will, then you'll have no more need for Him. And that's, you
know, that's how a lot of people are. They become religious when
they get in trouble. And oftentimes that which is
born in a storm dies in the calm. And if that storm alone was the
only reason that you had an interest in God, then when the storm's
over and the seas calm down, then you'll have no more need
for Him. On the other hand, if through the storm the Lord reveals
to your heart your real need, your real need, I promise you
this, that trouble will never go away. That trouble will actually
get worse. That trouble will cause you to
need Him more and more every day. What trouble am I talking
about? I'm talking about the trouble of your sin. It never
goes away. It only deepens, it only gets
darker, it only becomes more of a struggle, and you find yourself
in need of Him. Now, if the Lord makes you to
be a sinner, you'll always need a Savior. You'll always need
Him. I was glad when they said unto
me, I rejoiced. I rejoiced in the Lord. How did Paul put it in Philippians
chapter 4? Rejoice in the Lord when? Always. I can always rejoice in the Lord
because I'm always a sinner. Sin is not an occasional problem
for me. Sin is something I deal with
every minute of every day. Sin is something I bear in my
body. Paul said, in me that is in my
flesh dwelleth no good thing. We carry around this body of
death, rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, what? Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known
unto all men. Don't be prone to extremes. Why? Because God is at hand. The Lord is near. And then he
goes on to say, and be careful for nothing. Don't be anxious
about things. Don't, don't, don't do that.
But in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving,
let your requests be known unto God, and the peace of God which
passes understanding will keep your heart and your mind. Where?
in Christ Jesus. Finally, my brethren, whatsoever
things are true, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are
honest, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue
in them, now those words that I just quoted from Philippians
chapter 4 can only be applied to the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the only one that's true. He's the only one that's
lovely. He's the only one who has any
virtue about him and he's all virtuous. He's the only one who
is of a good report. And how does that verse end?
Think on these things. Set your affections on things
above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Oh,
He is our hope. He's our light. He's our life. And that's what we've come to
do. We've come to preach Christ, to lift Him up, to open His word. And we don't separate the living
word, the Lord Jesus Christ, from the written word. We know
that in the volume of the book it is written of Him. And so
we open this book and we look for Christ. Why? So that God's
people will have a reason to rejoice, to be glad, to be here. to hear about Him and to find
in this world of uncertainty, this world of sin. The Lord said
of those Pharisees that was a wicked and perverse generation, every
generation has been wicked and perverse. And that's what we
live, a dying world. And I stand before you as a dying
man, preaching to dying men. And I hope that the Lord will
show us our life in Christ. Christ in you is your hope of
glory. I was glad when they said unto
me how I pray again for our young
people. Oh, it's Sunday. We get to go
to church today. Oh, I'm glad. I'm glad. There's my hope. I was glad when
they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Now, this word house comes from
a word that means shelter. Shelter. It also translates dwelling place. The Lord said, in John chapter
14, he said, he said, in my father's house are many dwelling places. There are many mansions. If it
were not so, I would have told you. I go and prepare a place
for you. The house of the Lord spiritually
and ultimately is that place where He manifests the fullness
of His glory in heaven. And we long for that house. In
the meantime, in the meantime, He's provided us a house, a place
where we can come. And though we look through a
glass dimly, though we only see glimpses of His glory, it's enough. It's enough. to excite our souls
and satisfy our hearts to know that one day we'll see him in
the fullness of his splendor. I was glad when they said to
me, let us go into his dwelling place. This is where he dwells. And it's his house. It's his
house. This is not your house, it's
not my house, it's his house. It's where he's pleased to walk
among the candlesticks, where he's pleased to make himself
known, where we come together with an audience of one. It's his house and he's the audience. He's the one who enables us to
worship. He's the author and the finisher of our faith. He's
the cause of our worship. He's the object of our worship. So he says, let us go, let us
go. Let us go into the house of the
Lord. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Now in
Isaiah chapter 6, when the seraphim were hovering over the throne
of God, crying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. Know
that these were the angels of angels, if you will. These are
sinless creatures. who have been assigned for the
rest of eternity to fly over the throne of God and point to
Him as the object of worship and praise. And what do we see
them doing? What do we see them doing? They
had six wings. With two they covered their eyes.
Why? Because the radiance of His glory
was too great for them, though they were sinless. They're not
like us. They're sinless. Yet they were
creatures. and creatures, all creatures
in the presence of God, cover their eyes. And what did they
do with two of their wings? They did cover their feet. Why? Because our feet are a picture
of our creatureness. We have feet of clay. Our feet are what we stand on,
and our stand is so unsteady. It's so wobbly, isn't it? And here David says, our feet
shall stand within thy gates. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is
described as the one who has feet of brass tried in a fire. His feet aren't like our feet.
His feet doesn't have feet of clay. His feet were tried by
the fiery wrath of God's judgment and he came out of that furnace
purified. And so when we stand within the
gates, We're speaking of our union with Christ. Now we have
feet that are like brazen brass that are able to stand within
the gates in the holy city, in Jerusalem, the city of peace.
And these gates are a picture of Christ. The Old Testament,
you remember when Nehemiah came back from the Babylonian exile
and they rebuilt the wall and the last thing he did was he
set the gates. He set the gates. And those gates
represent two things. They represent entrance into
the city, and they also represent protection. The enemies of Israel
were going to attack the city, and the strength of that city
were going to be seen by its gates. And so the gates had to
be set, and they had to be put on bars, the scripture says.
And so we see the inclusion and the exclusion of the gospel.
It includes all of God's elect. It includes all those who are
enabled by God's grace to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And
it excludes the enemies of God. And then in Revelation, we see
the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven. And
how many gates are there? There are 12 gates. Four to the
east, four to the west, four to the north, four to the south.
Speaking of, if you're not part of this city, and every one of
those gates were of one pearl, the pearl of great price, the
Lord Jesus Christ is the only way into the city. He said, I'm
the way, the truth, and the life. No man can come into the Father
but by me. I am the door to the sheepfold. Entrance into the city is in
the person of Christ. We stand in the city in the person
of Christ. We have peace with God in the
person of Christ. That's what Jerusalem means.
It means the city of peace. Salom is the word for peace in
the Hebrew, and Jerusalem is the city of peace. We have peace
with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's all about Christ.
If you're not in the city, It's not because the Lord held you
out. It's because you had no interest in Christ. Oh, Lord,
give me an interest in the gospel. Give me an interest in Christ.
Give me faith. Bid me to come unto thee. Lord,
cause me to enter in. Lord, if you cause me to come,
I'll come. I'll come. The natural man won't come. He
will not come. Our feet shall stand within thy
gates. That's where I want to stand.
I want to be able to stand firm within the gates of Jerusalem,
in the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jerusalem is builded
as a city that is compact together. Turn with me in your Bibles to
Ephesians chapter 4. Let me show you. I've pointed this out, but
it's been some time ago. And this is a beautiful picture. Jerusalem is built as a city
that is compact together. This I'm sure of. If the gospel
of God's grace is preached, if Christ is lifted up, the Lord
will be pleased. to show himself through the preaching
of the gospel. And that will be the bond that
binds God's people together. I mean, the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ It's not like the religious organizations of the
world that, you know, in church growth, men target certain groups
of society and that becomes their their target market, you know,
just kinda like you were in business, you know, you've got a target
market and that's who you're presenting your product to, and
that's the way it is in religion. But not in the church of the
Lord Jesus Christ. God calls His people from every
walk of life, from every nation, every tongue, every tribe, every
people, and we all come from different places. And yet, and
yet, there's a unity that God's people have together. He said
Jerusalem is built by God. What did Abraham say? Abraham
looked for a city whose builder and foundations were God. He's the foundation of the city.
He's the builder of the city. And it's fitly joined together.
And now in Ephesians chapter 4, the Lord likens the church
to a body, to our physical bodies. And look what he says. Verse
14, that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro
and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight
of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Now that's the religious world. And one of the most miserable
places most of us have been there. Perish the thought. Perish the
idea. But I'm sure of this. I'm just
sure of it. I'm completely dependent upon
God keeping his hand on me every moment of my life. And if he
doesn't, I'll fall. But if he takes his hand off
of me and I do fall away, there's one thing I'm pretty sure of.
I'm not going back to religion. I'm just not going to do it.
It's the most miserable place in this world to be. Man-made
religion. where you have false hopes, and
everybody's playing the hypocrite, and everybody's pretending to
be spiritual, and everybody's pretending to love each other,
and all along they're stabbing each other in the back, and holding
themselves over one another, and intimidating one another.
It's just a miserable place to be. And then when you get in
reformed religion, then you've got the law to deal with. And
they hang that over your head, and it's just terrible. And that's what he's describing
here. He says, don't be tossed to and fro. Don't go to that.
But speaking, look at verse 15, but speaking the truth in love. We're speaking about Christ.
We're telling who he is. We're telling what he's done.
And we're doing it in the spirit of grace as the Lord enables
us to love Christ and to love one another with an unfeigned
love. and esteeming one another. Here's
the evidence of God's love for his people. They are able to
esteem one another more highly than themselves because every
one of God's people believe themselves to be the chief of all sinners.
They believe that. If you believe yourself to be
the chief of all sinners, and I believe myself to be the chief
of all sinners, then who's going to be looking down their nose
at one another? Who's going to be trying to control
one another? Who's going to be trying to intimidate one another
or impress one another? It's just the way it is among
God's people. This city of Jerusalem is fitly
joined together. It's compact together. Look where
it says, Verse 15, by speaking the truth
in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head,
even Christ. That's what we're interested
in. We're interested in growing in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ, growing up in him. So the more we grow
in grace, the more of a sinner we become, the more glory he
gets. Look at the next verse, from
whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that
which every joint supplieth. Now, if we were able to see it,
we would know that everything that God created is a commentary
in the physical world, is a commentary on some spiritual reality of
the gospel. Everything he created. As I understand
it, when children are growing, their bones, the growth plate
on their bones are where the bones join together. So the bones
grow at the joint. That's why young people, when
they have a growth spurt, they talk about their joints hurting. It's like an early stage of arthritis
young people have. Why? Because their bones are
growing right there at the joint. They don't grow in the middle.
They grow at the joint. That's where the growth plate
is. So as he say, from whom the whole body fitly joined together
and compacted by that which every joint supplieth according to
the effectual working in the measure of every part, making
increase of the body into the edifying of itself in love. Where do we grow? Where do we
grow? We grow as we interact, don't
we? We grow in our relationship to
one another. We grow as we pray for one another. We grow as we encourage one another.
And oftentimes, oftentimes, we grow like those bones who aggravate
one another at the joint. That pain sometimes that we experience
as a result of our sin is a means by which God's church grows. When God's people sin against
one another, when they offend one another, they don't walk
away, they don't get, they forgive one another. And eventually they
grow as a result of that experience. Here's how the church, this,
oh, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house
of the Lord. My feet stood within the gates of Jerusalem. And this
city is compacted together and builded by God as the city of,
there's no place on earth like this. There's no place in the
world like the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, no place. Speaking of our young people,
Unfortunately, I know that some of them will try to find a better
place than what they have here. Mark my words. I pray the Lord
will bring you back because it's not out there. We've looked. We've looked. And if God gives
you grace and wisdom, you won't have to touch the fire in order
to know that it's hot. Verse four, whether the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord unto the
testimony of Israel. Now that's the, this is the testimony
of Israel. The testimony of Israel is the
gospel. That's what we come here for.
That's what we're glad to hear. We're glad to hear about a God
who sovereignly chose a people according to His own will and
purpose before time ever began. A God who wrote their names in
the Lamb's Book of Life and established a covenant of grace whereby He
sacrificed His own Son for their salvation. We're glad to hear
about that. We're glad to hear about the
Lord Jesus Christ who condescended from his rightful place in glory
and came into this world and lived among his own. And his
own received him not, but to as many as received him, to them
God has given the power to become the sons of God. Oh, here he
is. the incarnate Son of God, the
sinless Son of God, the one who came into this world and did
what you cannot do, what I cannot do. What did He do? He satisfied
the demands of the law. He kept the whole law. He kept
the whole law. Contrary to what most people
think, God never said, do your best and I'll be pleased with
you. God requires perfection. That's why the only way to stand
within the gates of this city are to be standing in His feet.
He's the only one. His feet were tried with fire.
And they came out purified. What a glorious Savior. He suffered. He suffered the
wrath of His Father. in order to put away once and
for all, all by himself, all the sins of all of God's people. He put them away. Let me ask
you a question. When did God forgive the sins
of His people? When did He forgive them? When
did He forgive your sins? Did He forgive your sins when
you asked Him to forgive you? Somebody told me recently, he
said, well I know I make mistakes, but I ask God to forgive me.
if God's obligated to forgive you based on your asking Him
to forgive you? When the Lord told Adam, that's
the first sin, don't eat of the tree in the midst of the garden,
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He did not say,
for the day that you might eat of it, He said, in the day that you
eat of it, you will surely die. God knew Adam was going to eat
of that fruit. That's why he slayed the lamb
before the foundation of the world. When does God forgive
your sins? He forgives you of your sins before you commit them.
Before you commit them, He's forgiven you. And if the Lord's pleased to
give you faith to look on Christ and to trust Christ, all you're
going to do is not be forgiven, but discover your forgiveness. You're going to discover what
God has already done. It's the testimony of Israel.
That's what we're here for. That's what you need. And that's
what I need. We need a savior who's already finished the work. He's already done it. Everything. He's ascended back into glory.
He ever lives to make intercession for us. He keeps us from falling
and one day he's going to present us faultless before the throne
of God. One day we're going to walk from
this city to that city. What a glorious day it's going
to be. Might he be pleased to keep us joyful, glad in the house
of God. Let's take a break. Thank you. Well, one thing we can do is
we can have some examples. Let's do it.