Good evening. I was very encouraged
to listen to the messages from Sunday, and so thankful for Michael
and for Dennis. We had good services, I thought,
in Lexington, and so thankful for your prayers. The Lord's
faithful to provide for His sheep. Richard and Trish, it's good
to have you all with us tonight. Glad you're here. I want to read
a passage of scripture from Psalm 54, if you'll turn with me there
in your Bible, Psalm 54. The other day, I had a light
fixture at my house that would not come on. We have a box of bulbs in our
laundry room and sometimes used bulbs get tossed into that box
so I changed out the bulb in the light fixture and it still
didn't work. Well I figured it was a bad bulb so I put another
bulb in and it didn't work. Third bulb I put in. Then I started
looking at the switch and started looking at the wiring and trying
to figure out what was wrong. Finally the light came on in
my dull mind that perhaps the breaker had been flipped. Sure enough, went back to the
breaker box and there was no power coming to the light. I share that illustration in
order to say that too much preaching and too much emphasis is placed
on living the Christian life in religion today. And it's impossible
to live the Christian life if you're not a Christian. The message that needs to be
preached is the message of salvation. If the power's on, if you belong
to the Lord, your light's going to shine. There's no question
about it. It may be but one watt, It may
be 40 watts, it may be 60, it may be 100, but light is the
absence of darkness. That's the definition of light.
And if you have one watt of light, there's no darkness there. So,
our emphasis needs to be what David's emphasis was here in
Psalm 54. And I pray the Lord will give
us grace to put our emphasis not on changing out the bulb,
trying to fix the light fixture, but making sure the source of
power is on, and crying from our hearts for the Lord to just
save us. Lord, would you save me? Would
you save me? Would you put away my sin? Would
you look to the Lord Jesus Christ for all my righteousness? Would you be pleased with the
sacrifice that He made on Calvary's cross for the punishment of my
sin? That's what we need. We need
to be saved. We don't need to be putting all
of our attention on how to live a Christian life. That'll come.
That'll come. We just need to be saved. Lord
save us. We preach Christ crucified is
what Paul said. We profess to know nothing among
you save Christ and him crucified. David cries in Psalm 54, save
me O God. Just save me. Save me by thy
name. By the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, who is the Lord our righteousness, save me by His name, Jesus, for
He shall save His people. Save me by Thy name and judge
me by Thy strength. Judge me by Thy strength. Judge me in Christ. Christ is
the strength of God. When we were without strength,
Christ died for the ungodly. We have no strength. Save me
and judge me by thy strength. Hear my prayer, O God. Here's
my prayer to save me. Give ear to the words of my mouth.
For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after
my soul. They have not set God before
them. My flesh Satan, this world in which I live, all the oppressors
of the gospel that would distract me from Christ. Behold, God is
my helper. The Lord is with them that uphold
my soul. He shall reward evil unto my
enemies, cut them off in my truth. If the Lord's pleased to reveal
to us the gospel of His free grace in the finished work of
the Lord Jesus Christ, then all the enemies of our soul will
be cut off in hearing the gospel. I will freely sacrifice unto
Thee, I will praise Thy name, O Lord, for it is good. That's the sacrifice of the heart,
the fruit of our lips, giving thanksgiving to the Lord for
what He's done. It's his accomplished work. For
he hath delivered me out of all trouble, and mine eye has seen
his desire upon mine enemies. Greg Crocker, Sister Christy
Her husband, Steven, who's been here a time or two, Steven Tomlinson,
lives in Spanish Fort, Alabama, just between Pensacola and Mobile. 47 years old, was just diagnosed
with lung cancer and had some pretty radical surgery yesterday
and is going to be going through chemo. I pray the Lord will give us
an opportunity to speak to him about Christ. Let's pray together. Merciful Heavenly Father, how
reminded we are of our need to be saved. Lord, if you save us,
if you really save us, truly save us, put away our sin, reckon
us to be perfect in Christ or to all as well. For the sufferings of this world
cannot be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us.
We pray that you would bless your word to our hearts and that
you would cause us to look up and to to see our salvation seated
at the right hand of the majesty on high. See it in our Lord. Lord, would you be pleased to
just open the windows of heaven and enable us to gaze upon Christ
and to set our affections on Him. We pray for Stephen and for Christi
and for their children We ask, Lord, that you would be merciful
toward them. We pray for you to open their
hearts to Christ. For it's in His name we ask it.
Amen. Let's stand together. After I titled my message this
evening, I thought Well, that could be the title of every message
we ever preach. From Psalm 19, a portrait of
Christ. A portrait of Christ. I hope
that every message we preach is just that, a portrait of Christ. But I want you to see from Psalm
119 how this 14 verses just portrays the Lord Jesus
Christ in all His glory. And I want you to see how the
person of Christ cannot be separated from the Word of God. The scripture
says, in the volume of the book it is written of me. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself
is the Spirit of Prophecy. We believe that. And so we don't
take the Word of God, the written Word of God, and make a rule
book out of it. We don't make precepts out of
it. Isaiah chapter 28, the Lord said,
I gave you my word, but you did nothing more than just make it
precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a
little, that you might fall. And we don't want to do that. We want to look at this word
and understand how it portrays the Lord Jesus Christ, who is
the living word of God. Now, in verse 1, we read, "...the
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth
His handiwork." Paul put it like this in Romans chapter 1, "...that
which may be known of God was manifest in them." They were
given a conscience. They came into this world knowing
that there is a God, for God has showed it unto them, for
the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen." The invisible things of God from the creation
of the world are clearly seen, being understood by those things
that are made. Even the eternal power, and Godhead,
so that they are without excuse." Now this psalm begins by letting
us know that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is declared in creation,
in the firmament. Look what He says in verse 2,
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth
knowledge. There is no speech nor language
where their voice is not heard. How many languages do you think
there are in the world? 100? 500? 1000? Actually there's almost 7000
distinct languages in the world. And not a single one of them
are without the revelation of God in creation. Men, all they
have to do is look up. All they have to do is look around
them. And they can see that day unto day uttereth speech, night
unto night showeth knowledge." What a reminder of the covenant
that the Lord made with Noah after the great flood. When he
said, while the earth remaineth, now here's what God said to Noah
6,000 years ago. While the earth remaineth, seed
time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night
shall not cease. That was God's covenant promise.
These seasons are going to come and go. Let the prophets of doom
predict global warming. Let them predict the melting
of the polar caps. Let them predict the oceans swallowing
up the state of Florida. Let them predict whatever they
want to predict. It's not going to happen. It's not going to
happen. God made a covenant promise day
unto day. Night into night, cold and hot,
summer and winter, seed time and harvest shall not cease. Now when that ceases, when all
these predictions of global calamity come to pass, then that's when
the covenant of salvation will cease for men on the earth as
well. The Lord gave this covenant promise
in creation in order to confirm the covenant promise of salvation
that he has for his people. And one's not going to cease
without the other. When one comes to an end, so
will the other come to an end at the same time. And that's
what he says, day unto day, utterance benighted tonight, showeth knowledge.
There's no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.
their line has gone out through all the earth and their words
to the end of the world in them he hath set a tabernacle for
the sun." So now the Lord is going to liken the rising and
the setting of the sun to the Son of Righteousness, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he's saying that this earth
is like a tabernacle in the same way that the physical earth is
a tabernacle for the rising and the setting of the physical sun,
so is the covenant of grace a tabernacle for the rising and the setting
of the Son of God. And one correlates with the other. One will come to an end the same
time the other comes to an end. not one before the other. Which, verse 5, is as a bridegroom
coming out of his chamber. What a glorious picture we looked
a couple of weeks ago at the Lord Jesus Christ as the bridegroom,
as the husband of his wife. And he said, as a bridegroom
comes out of his chamber. You remember the parable the
Lord told about the ten virgins. They were waiting for the bridegroom
to come and for the consummation of the wedding to take place.
And here is the bridegroom. This rising of the sun ought
to remind us every day of the bridegroom. who has come and
like a strong man he's running a race. You're not going to stop
the sun. The sun's going to follow its
course. You're not going to slow it down.
You're not going to speed it up. You're not going to stop
it. It's like a strong man running a race and there will come a
day when the sun will set and the end will be. The end will
be for The salvation of men, the end will be for the creation
of the world. The only reason that this world
exists, the only reason it exists, the only reason that this globe
is here, this earth is here, and the sun is there, is for
the salvation of God's people. It's the only thing that's important.
It's the only thing that's going to last. What a reminder of us to
know that this is all about the Lord saving His people. It's
all about the bridegroom bringing His wife in. And when it's done,
then it'll be done. Notice verse 6, His going forth. His going forth. He's talking
about the Son, but He says, His going forth. is from the end
of the heaven and his circuit unto the end of it, and there
is nothing hid from the heat thereof." Just as the sun covers every part of the earth,
so the Son of God. Nothing can be hid from Him.
Turn with me to Romans chapter 1. These verses we just read,
you say, well, the heavens declare
His handiwork and the sun is a testimony of who He is and
that's so true. Well, what about, and God has
put this knowledge in the hearts of men, is there any such thing
as a true atheist? Two things I would say about
that. Number one, atheism is absolute, total lunacy. It's
a denial of the obvious. Is it possible for a person to
lie to themselves long enough to where they can believe the
lie? I mean, truly believe it? Sure it is. Sure it is. Are some atheists sincere in
their atheism? Yeah. And they've, they've just,
they've just lied to themselves so long that they've, they, well,
they've been turned over to a reprobate mind. They can't, they can't
tell the difference. That's what he says here in Romans chapter
one, look, verse 24, the invisible things of him from creation of
the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that
are made, even his eternal power in Godhead so that they are without
excuse. All men are without excuse by
the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ in creation. God holds men responsible for
what he's revealed about himself in conscience and in creation
because that when they knew God They glorified him not as God,
neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and
their foolish hearts were darkened." Here's the person who denies
the existence of God. The fool has said in his heart,
no God, there is no God. He's just a foolish man, professing
themselves to be wise. Who are the smartest people in
the world? I see where Horton, Stephen Hawking, has just recently
come out and declared himself to be an atheist. He would, by
all standards, be considered the smartest man alive. And here's a description of him,
professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed
the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to
corruptible man. Now you don't have to be an atheist
to be doing this. It's what we did in religion.
We made God to be altogether as we were ourselves. We fashioned
God into a man. and thought that he was like
us. And to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things, wherefore
God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own
hearts to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, changed
the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the
creature more than the Creator." Oh, a lot of that going on in
there. A lot of nature worship going
on. Mother Earth worshippers. All right, let's go back to our
text. So these first verses in Psalm 19 are telling us the same
thing that the Lord tells us in Romans chapter 1, that He's
made Himself known in creation and men have denied the revelation
that He's made of Himself as clear as it is. They've denied
it. Is the revelation of God in creation
enough to save a man's soul? No. It's not. It's not. Special revelation has to be
given. The truth of the gospel, though it's typed and pictured
and shadowed in creation. I love that illustration Clay
Curtis gave in Lexington. He pointed a chair and he said,
if I sat in the shadow of that chair, it wouldn't hold me up.
And that's true. You can't sit on a shadow. It
won't hold you up. The reality of the existence
of Christ is but shadowed in creation. It won't in and of
itself support the weight of a man's soul. He has to hear
the gospel. He has to hear about the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so now the psalmist turns
to Christ. I remind you what John, what
the angel told John in Revelation 19, he said, the testimony of
Jesus Christ is the spirit of prophecy. And to go back to the
comments I made in the introduction, we don't separate the written
word from the living word. And so when God says the law
of the Lord is perfect, we could take the law of the
Lord and change that to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is perfect,
converting the soul. The instructions of the Lord,
that's what the word law here means. And you understand that
the words that are used here, law and testimony and statutes
and commandments and precepts, are all used as synonyms to describe
the Word of God. But this Word, this book, is
the Gospel. It's the revelation of the person
and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we don't take the law of the
Lord and separate it from Christ or make out of it some sort of
standard for Christian living. This is Christ. The law of the
Lord is the Lord Jesus Christ. This word law means instruction. What did the Lord Jesus Christ
say? He said, All you that are labored, Heavy laden? Come unto me. I'll give you rest. My yoke is easy, my burden is
light. Take my yoke upon you and what? Learn of me. Learn of me. We don't study rules
and regulations and laws and precepts and Divorce them from
the person of Christ. Learn of me. They shall all be
taught of God. What did the Lord say? This is
my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. So the law of the
Lord is the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the end of the law for
righteousness to everyone that believes. And what does it say
about Him? He's perfect. He's perfect. Now that's what God requires
of you. That's what He requires of me. He can't settle for anything
less. God demands absolute perfection. Now the word perfect here means
without spot. Without spot. Without blemish,
without wrinkle, whole, complete and entire. How are we going to be there?
How are we going to be perfect before God? Oh, to be found in Him. Not having my own righteousness
which is of the law, but that righteousness which is by the
faith of Jesus Christ. To be found in Christ is to be
found perfect before God. The law of the Lord, the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself is perfect and He's the only one that can
convert the soul. He's the only one that can turn
us. That's what this word convert means. It means the same thing
that the Lord told Peter when Peter denied the Lord. He said,
when you are converted, teach the brethren. When you are turned,
turn me, O Lord, and I shall be turned. It's not the precepts
of the Bible that turn us, it's the Lord Jesus Christ that turns
us. He has to do the work of grace
in our heart. Where does He turn us? He turns
us to Himself. I pray He's turning us right
now. I pray He's turning us away from our our temporal problems
and issues and sins and causing us to set our affections on Christ. He's the law of the Lord. And
He's the only one that can turn us. He's the only one that can
convert us. He's the only one that can restore
us. And when He does, He does it
to Himself. He sends His Holy Spirit to bless
His Word confirm it to our hearts, and cause us to look to Christ. When the Spirit of truth comes,
He will lead you into all truth, and He'll testify of me." So, the Law of the Lord, He's
not talking about the Ten Commandments. He's talking about the whole
of Scripture, which is the Gospel, which is the person of Christ.
The law of the Lord is perfect. And He's the one that converts
the soul. I talked to a man recently, he
was telling me about somebody that he had converted. I said,
you don't do any converting. The Lord's the only one that
can do that. The testimony of the Lord Now that testimony means
witness. When you go into a court of law,
you give testimony of what you saw, your witness. And you remember when the Lord
stood before Pilate and Pilate asked him if he was the king,
he said, for this purpose was I born and for this cause came
I into the world. To what? to bear witness of the
truth. They that are of the truth hear
my voice. They believe my testimony. They
believe my witness. They just agree with who I've
declared myself to be and who I've declared them to be. They
believe the witness. The testimony of the Lord is
what? Oh, it's sure. It's sure and
steadfast. It is an anchor for our soul.
This is our hope. We're not just trying to dress
up the outward appearance of men. That's what religion does.
Religion just whitewashes the tomb that's full of dead men's
bones. Religion washes the outside of
the cup and the inside is still full of corruption. We're looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ as the testimony of God. He said, if you've seen me, you've
seen the Father, for I and the Father are one. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself
has testified of the truth of who God is and His testimony. is sure. It's sure. There's no cross-examination
of his testimony. Men cross-examine the testimony
of God and they do it. They do it. Every time they... I just got an email today from
a dear young lady that is trying to share the gospel with her
boyfriend in another state, a long way from here. He just, she finally just said,
I have to break it off, because all he wants to do is argue.
All he wants to do is argue. And when men argue against the
gospel, what they're doing is they're cross-examining the testimony
of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're standing in defiance
of God. And they're calling into question
His witness. No, when He witnesses of the
truth, you just shut up. Sit down, and if you're going
to say anything, say, Amen. Amen. The law of the Lord is perfect.
That's the Lord Jesus Christ. He converts the soul. He turns
us. He is the testimony of God which
is sure and steadfast and makes wise the simple. How simple we are, left to ourselves. How simple man is. I don't care
how intelligent he is. Matter of fact, sometimes the
more educated and more intelligent a man becomes, the more of a
simpleton he becomes. In that he denies the truth,
professing himself to be wise. As we just read in Romans chapter
1, he becomes a fool before God. And that's what we all would
be. If the Lord didn't testify to our hearts what He's accomplished
in putting away our sin, what He's accomplished in presenting
Himself on our behalf before God, what He's accomplished in
justifying us before God, what He's accomplished as our wisdom
and all our righteousness, if He didn't testify that to us
and give us faith to believe His testimony, we'd be simple. We'd be simple. We'd just be
simpletons. That's all we'd be. What does
He do? He makes wise the simple. He
gives us grace to believe His testimony. Man left to himself, just get
this for a moment, man left to himself, is no difference in
terms of what he knows about God from a brute beast. Matter of fact, the animals are
more compliant to God than an unregenerate man. The animals don't raise their
fists to God. They don't rebel against God. When the testimony of the Lord
is spoken with surety to the heart, then the simple become
wise. They become wise. What is the
wisdom of God? What is it to be wise before
God? The scripture tells us the fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. To bow in worship before God. to acknowledge that what he's
testified to is true and faithful. That's the wisdom of God. The
statutes of the Lord, the precepts, the instructions of the Lord. Again, we just take that phrase
and In truth, these are names. We could look at each one of
these. We've been looking at the names and titles of the Lord
Jesus. We could take each one of these and use it as a name
of Christ. For He is the statute of the
Lord. He is the precept of the Lord. He is the instruction of the
Lord. And what does He say? The statutes
of the Lord are right. They're just right. They're righteous.
They're upright, they're straight, they're correct. There's no error
in them. There's no lie in the truth.
If the Lord Jesus Christ is being preached and believed upon, there's
no error in that gospel. And what does He do? when He's
pleased to instruct us with precepts that reveal Him to us, and we
understand that He is our righteousness before God. He's all our righteousness. We don't have anything to add
to what He's accomplished. What does that cause us to do?
Look at the next phrase. What does it cause us to do?
To rejoice the heart! Oh, I'm so thankful. I have reason
to rejoice. We have one who stands before
God as all our righteousness. What a glorious hope. What a
glorious hope we have. And what great reason for rejoicing
from the heart. This is not a feigned rejoicing. This is not just pretending to
be rejoicing and making noise about rejoicing. This is, what
does it say? Rejoicing the heart. You know, we don't practice a
religion that just is flamboyant. A religion that's out to impress
other people with... This is a matter of the heart,
isn't it? Rejoices the heart. The commandments of the Lord is pure. Again, the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself is the commandment of God. And God's commandment
is what? To believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Here's our hope, here's our salvation. We don't grow in grace. I was reading a book today on
justification by a writer many, many years ago, and he was talking
about how we keep the commandments more, and never perfectly, but
we keep them closer and closer to what they are the more we
grow in grace. The more we grow in grace, the
farther we see we fall from ever being able to keep one of God's
commandments. We don't keep His commandments.
We keep the commandment of God by believing on the Lord Jesus
Christ. The light will shine, just make
sure the power is on. It's going to shine. It may be
but one watt of electricity going through that bulb, but that one
watt is going to put out some light. And men will see your
light. And what will they do when they
see the light? Well, they glorify your Father
which is in heaven. You're not going to shine your light and have men
look at you. If men are looking at you, there's
something wrong with the light if it's shining back on you. The commandment of the Lord is
pure. Turn over to Psalm 24. Look at verse 3. Who shall ascend unto
the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy
place? Who's going to stand before God?
How can a man be right with God? How can a man born of a woman
stand in the presence of God? How can a leper change the spots
of the Ethiopian, the color of his skin? How are we going to
do it? How are we going to be clean
before God? He that hath clean hands, and
a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul into vanity, nor
sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and
righteousness from the God of his salvation. Oh, to be found
in Christ, to have His righteousness, His hands are the only hands
that are clean before God. Our hands aren't clean. Our heart's
not pure. But His is. His is. Look at verse 8. The commandment
of the Lord is pure. What's it do? it enlightens the eyes. And when the eyes are able to
see, when the eyes are able to see, what do they see? What do
they see? They see ourselves as sinners. They see yourself as a camel
going through the eye of a needle. It's impossible. Impossible for
me to save myself. But that which is impossible
with man is possible with God. They see that He's able. He's able to save to the uttermost.
They see the Lord Jesus Christ as all their righteousness. They
believe that He is the Son of God. That He accomplished what
He came to do. and it puts their trust in Christ,
just relies upon Him. The fear of the Lord, the reverence
of Him is clean. It's clean. Clean as opposed
to unclean. Read the Old Testament, God,
there were unclean animals, there were clean animals, And what
the Lord says here is that the Lord Jesus Christ, no man ever
feared God like he did. He feared God perfectly. He reverenced
God. He obeyed God perfectly. He believed
God with all of his heart, all of his soul, and all of his mind.
And he, therefore, is clean before God. And what's it say about
the fear of the Lord being clean? endureth forever." It endureth forever. The Lord Jesus Christ is not
coming off His throne. Let the kings of the earth rebel
against Him all they want. Let them raise their fist in
obstinance against God. Let them butt the gospel all
they want. The Lord, the scripture says,
holds them in derision. He laughs at them. Man's not
going to dethrone God. He endures, he stands, he stays,
he remains, he continues on his throne forever. The judgments of the Lord, again,
The Lord Jesus Christ. You understand every place. You
see how many times capital L, capital O, capital R, capital
D is used? That's Jehovah. That's Jehovah. That's the Lord's
name. That's His name. How many times it's used here?
His judgments. His justice. Lord, judge me by
Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
plumb line that all will be measured by and anything that doesn't
fall in perfect line with Him will be rejected. Then the judgments
of the Lord are what? They're true and righteous all
together. All together. There's not a hint
of anything in His righteousness that's not righteous. There's
not a hint of anything in Him that's not true. Now in verse 10, the Lord turns
to our response to this portrait of Christ. And that's what these
verses are. Verses 7, 8, and 9 are a portrait
of Christ. The previous verses are a portrait
of Him in creation, and 7, 8, and 9 are a portrait of Christ
in His Word. And what do we conclude from
these things? More to be desired are they than
gold. Oh Lord, would you be pleased
to make yourself in your judgments, in your commandments, in your
precepts, in your justice, in your statutes, in your law, in
your testimony, would you be pleased to make yourself known
to me? Would you be pleased to represent
me before God? More to be desired. More to be
desired than gold, yea, than much, much fine gold. Oh, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
is the Pearl of Great Price, isn't He? That's why, you know,
back to what we said at the beginning, this is about the salvation of
our souls. If you've got Christ as your
Savior, you've got everything. Everything. And if you don't
have Him, you've got nothing. Nothing. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Sweeter also than honey and the
honeycomb. Oh, the prophet said, the Word
of God was sweet to my taste. And I ate the scroll. I ate the
scroll. You know, in religion, we just
thought, well, that just means we've got to memorize Scripture.
No. The Lord said, eat of my body,
drink of my blood. We rest in Christ, don't we?
That's what it is to have the sweetness of His grace in our
mouths. And when He swallowed it, what
did He say? It was bitter to my belly. And it is. The Gospel is bitter to the flesh.
It's contrary to the flesh. The flesh warth against the Spirit,
and the Spirit against the flesh. Wait, wait. Moreover by them
is thy servant warned, and in keeping them there is great reward. What is it to keep them? It's to keep them in your heart.
It's to believe Christ. It's to believe Christ. What is the reward? What is the
reward? The salvation of our souls. Oh,
it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when
He shall appear, we shall see Him as He is and be made like
Him. I look through a glass dimly now, Paul said in 1 Corinthians
13. But then, face to face. I love the way the Lord just
brings all this together at the end, don't you? Who can understand His errors? You know the truth is that the
sins that bother me and you are just such a small fraction of
what the real problem is. If you, let me say this, if you
could stop every single sin that bothers you, every single one
of them, you would not have scratched the surface of the sins that
exist. Boy, if I could just fix this
and fix that and stop doing this and start doing that, then I'd
be alright. No, you wouldn't. No you wouldn't. Who can understand his errors?
What did John say? If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. And if we
say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word
is not in us. If we say that we have no sin,
that's a noun. Then the truth is not in us.
If we say that we have not sinned, that's a verb. We make Him a
liar. We don't know the truth. Truth
is we're sinners and truth is everything we do. Everything
we do we sin. Everything. You say that, well,
I did that without sin. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. You make God out to be a liar.
This is why we need to be saved from our sin. What a glorious
gospel we have in knowing that there is the law of the Lord
which is perfect and it converts the soul. The testimony of the
Lord is sure. He makes wise the simple. The
statutes of the Lord are right. He is right. He rejoices the
heart, enlightens the eyes. He endures forever. He's true
and righteous altogether. Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Now that word secret means hidden. And that's not talking about
things that you're hiding from other people. It's talking about things that
are hidden to you. Lord, don't just deal with the
things that I see. Deal with the things I don't
see. Wash me throughly. Cleanse me
of all my sin. And that's what He does. It's
the only hope we have. Keep back thy servant also from
presumptuous, you know what that word is? Proud. Proud. Lord, don't let me depend
on my strength to overcome my sins. Don't let me depend upon
my righteousness to present me acceptable in Thy sight. Lord,
don't let my pride keep me from putting all my hope and all of
my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for all of my salvation. Lord,
don't let me do that. I'll do it. I'll do it. Keep back thy servant from pride. Let them not have dominion over
me. Oh Lord, I'm so full of it. I'm
so full of it, I told the folks in Lexington last Sunday, I said,
that song, it's all about me, me, me. I could write that song. If you're
honest and you evaluate your motives to their root cause,
you're going to find that everything you do is about you. It's all
about me. Lord, my pride is so strong and
so present in everything I do." And what does he say? Let them
not have dominion over me. Don't let me be so proud that
that pride keeps me from trusting Christ. That's what it is. When sin has
dominion over you, it keeps you from being able to trust Christ. The pride's always gonna be there.
And here's the prayer. Lord, don't let my pride keep
me from trusting Christ. Then shall I be upright. Then
I'll be acceptable in thy sight, and I shall be innocent from
the great transgression. What is the great transgression? Somebody asks you, what's your
biggest sin? We've all got things that we
just, oh, that's a great transgression in my heart. The great transgression is not
trusting Christ. Unbelief is with us all and there
is a measure of it that is easily besetting in everything that
we do. But the great transgression here, he is talking about that
unpardonable sin. There is but one sin that will
send you to hell. There is only one sin that will
send you to hell. And that is the sin of unbelief. That's the sin of not trusting
Christ for all your... not understanding what we just
looked at. Not believing. Adding to or taking away from
the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the great
transgression. Let the words of my mouth and
the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight." Oh
Lord, my strength. You look in the margin of your
Bible, you might have it in yours, I have it in mine. That word
strength is rock. And my Redeemer. My Redeemer. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we ask that You would cause us to find all our hope, all our
salvation, all our righteousness, all our justification before
Thee in the person of Your dear Son who
gave His life that our sins might be taken away. We ask it in His
name. All right. The tongue? Number
10 in the soft back teminal. Let's stand.