Let's take our Bibles once again
and turn with me to the book of Proverbs 17. Proverbs 17. I'd like to look at one verse
of Scripture. Proverbs 17. Verse 22. The Scriptures declare a merry
heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dryeth the
bones." Now, as the case always is, you can always look at the Proverbs,
and they are written such that it has a a natural understanding
about it. I mean, you can read it. A merry
heart doeth good like a medicine. Okay, naturally speaking, here's
what it means. Cheerfulness. Cheerfulness in
spirit. You know, happy. Things are going great. It just
tends to physical health. Just, I mean, when you're on
top of the world, everything's just going great. I mean, you
know, you might have a little backache, but man, the sun's
shining. I feel good. It ain't that big
a deal. Just a merry heart just raises
and invigorates the body. You just feel good. But a broken
spirit. Broken, smitten, afflicted. Something's happened. It's just,
oh, this is just not a good day. You want to talk? No. You want
to go out and get something? No. I don't know. What do you
want? I just want to be left alone.
Just leave me alone. I just want to sit here. A broken spirit
dryeth the bones. just weakens the nerves, just reduces it to just heartache. I mean, I can understand that.
When a person is joyful, happy, cheerful, it's like medicine
to his body, and when he's broken in spirit, he's just withering
away. But, as always, these proverbs
according to the word of our Lord, when he was talking to
the two on the road to Emmaus, remember it says beginning with
Moses and all the prophets just right on through. These scriptures,
these are they that testify of him. So here's the heart of it. If we don't see the glory of
Christ in that scripture, Well, then it's just some good advice. That's all it is. I'd like to
look at that one verse of Scripture for just a few minutes and consider what has Almighty God done for
His people. The latter part of that verse
that I'll consider first, but a broken spirit dryeth the bones. Man by nature, you know this,
man and Adam sinned against God. All of mankind. When Adam sinned,
everybody that would ever be born, because it all came from
Adam. This is our lineage. You want
to look at your lineage? It goes all the way back to Adam. Adam was born innocent. And Adam became a sinner. In the day that you eat of the
fruit that I'm telling you don't eat of, you're going to die.
And he did. All men are born sinners. But, here's the problem, though
all men are born sinners, broken spirited, dried bones, smitten,
afflicted, weakened, emaciated, they don't know it. Man by nature
does not know it. Only a believer. in the Lord
Jesus Christ that has been given a new heart to know what He is
as being born in Adam. Only a believer knows it. Listen, before conversion, look
at Romans 7-9. Romans 7-9. The Apostle Paul
makes a statement as he is moved upon by the Spirit of God. And
this is so. This is the way it is. Romans
7-9 says this, For I was alive without the law once, without
a knowledge. But when the commandment came,
sin revived and I died. What did he just say? Before the Lord called me out of darkness.
I was alive. I was alive in my self-righteousness. Paul saw himself as an absolute,
perfect keeper of the law. He said, concerning the law,
what? I'm blameless. I was blameless. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Paul was a very
educated man. Educated. Smart. He was a Pharisee. Pharisee of Pharisees. He taught
Pharisees. Structured them. Hebrew of the
Hebrews. Born on the right day. Circumcised
on the right day. Mom and Daddy both, you know,
Hebrews. Concerning the law. Blameless. But he said, when Almighty God
called me by His grace on the road to Damascus and revealed
to me what I was doing, who I was. I died. I realized, he said,
here's the problem, my bones, my bones broken, my spirit broken,
my bones dried. An unbeliever will leave this
world deceived as to his condition. And he's going to find out after
it's too late. Turn to Matthew 7. He's going
to find out after it's too late that all of his hope, joy, self-righteousness is going to avail nothing. Matthew
7, 26, 27. Here's the Lord speaking. Matthew
7, 26. that heareth these sayings of
mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man
which built his house upon sand. And the rain descended, and floods
came, and winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell,
and great was the fall of it." Build your house. Build your so-called sufficiency. upon the sand of your own ability,
or your own will, or your own faithfulness, and I'm telling
you, it's going to crumble. It's going to fall. It's not
going to stand. I don't want to meet God in myself.
I do not want to stand before God and answer for myself. I need, I desire, I look to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, you answer for me. Lord,
you approach God on your merit that you've charged to me. What
righteousness do I have? The only righteousness that I
have that God's going to accept is His imputed to me. I know
that. I'm telling you, if I or you
or anybody He tries to approach God on your own merit. And you try to explain to God
what you've done or what you hadn't done. I've been this or
I hadn't been this. I'm telling you, God is just. We've said before, how holy does
a man have to be to be accepted of God? He has to be as holy
as God. only as being found in the Lord
Jesus Christ, being one with Him, in Him, robed in Him, His
bride, washed in His blood. God has chosen us from the beginning,
Chuck, that we should be holy and without blame before Him. What's it going to take for God
to accept me? I've got to be holy. Be ye holy,
for I am holy. Lord, until You opened my eyes,
I just didn't realize how high the standard was. I thought that
I'd just do the best I could. But I realize, Lord, I can't
attain that. Lord, if you don't do something
for me, I'm gone. Lord, have mercy on this sinner. The evidence of life, now you
listen to me, the evidence of life is found when a sinner recognizes
that he has a broken smitten, wounded heart. When he recognizes, my spirit
is broken by sin and rebellion. My bones are dry. There is no life in me. There
is no marrow in me. I am dead, Mitch. I am dead. I'm a dead rebel against God. Can you find yourself taking
that place right there? I'm telling you. That's the only
hope you've got. That's the only place that you're
going to cry out for mercy. I don't remember the article
that I put in there. I try to choose these articles
carefully, but they're on the back page right up at the top.
The only time a man will actually look to the Lord for all of His
sufficiency is when he realizes he doesn't have any in himself. Romans chapter 7. I'll just read
this to you. Here's the Apostle Paul. Here's
the word. Here's the speech of a believer.
And I listen to people talk about how, you know, they're always
on the mountaintop. Hallelujah. Here's how a believer
talks. Romans 7, 23-24. But I see another law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Only
the Lord can. Only God can deliver me. Only
the Lord can make me see my need of Him. See, man by nature just
thinks that he's just bruised himself a little bit. He's just
kind of got a stone bruise. You know, ever get a stone bruise
on your foot or something? It hurts. But I can still walk. You know, got a rotator cuff
messed up. You know what? It hurts right
there. But I can still pick it up. I might have bruised myself,
but I'm talking about a dead, spiritually dead, incapable sinner. One whose spirit is broken. One
whose righteousness is nothing but filthy rags. And you know
what that is. Clothing yourself in filthy,
minstrelss rags. Man by nature is proud of that.
No confidence in the flesh. No desire to cling to Christ,
Nicodemus, Barban, all of us, you must be born again. God's
going to have to do something for me. I'm going to have to
be rebirthed. Birth from above. The Lord does something for His
people that they absolutely couldn't do for themselves. He gives them
life. Ezekiel 36.26, a new heart. also will I give you, and a new
spirit will I put within you." Can you imagine a man thinking
that he can put a new nature in himself? Put a new nature
in me. Now, how am I going to do that?
How can I do that? Well, just by your free will.
Okay? How? You can't do that. You cannot
give yourself a new spirit. You can't put a new man How are
you going to create a new man in righteousness? How are you going to take a life
from heaven and put it in you? You see the fallacy of thinking
that a man can do something. I will put my spirit within you
and cause you to walk in my statutes. You keep my judgments and do
them. Now with the importation. of
life from above. The revelation of God's mercy
to this needy sinner. That sinner, regenerated by the
grace of God, now he's got something now that he didn't have before.
Now, he's got a merry heart. He's got a merry heart. I looked
up the word merry. You know what the definition
is? Caused to be. Caused to be. Caused to be. An enlivened heart. A new heart. Caused to be where it was not
before. By the grace of God, and back
in Proverbs 17.22, here's what it does. A merry heart, listen
to this, it does something. A merry heart doeth good. You know what a merry heart does?
It believes God. That's a good thing. Abraham
believed God. He believed God concerning what
he is in himself, and he believed God concerning God's mercy. Believe
in God's Christ. Abraham, the Lord Jesus said,
Abraham saw my day. He rejoiced. He saw substitution. Now, the fullness of what our
Lord meant when He said that, I wouldn't even attempt to explain
all that. He saw my day. But I can tell
you this, when Abraham took that boy Isaac, his son, his only
son, and the Lord said, I want you to offer your son Isaac to
me, for a burnt offering. And here comes Isaac and Abraham.
They're going up and Isaac says, Father, here's the wood and here's the
fire, but where's the lamb? Where's the offering? And Abraham
said, My son, God will provide Himself a lamb. And Scripture says he got up
on that mountain, and he put those pieces that built that
altar, and he put that boy on top of that altar. And he took
that knife, and that boy was dead in Abraham's mind. Scripture says he was fully persuaded
that God could raise him from the dead. He knew the promises
that God had given him concerning Isaac, but he was going to kill
that boy. And the Lord stopped him. Abraham
saw my day. I can tell you this, he saw substitution.
He saw mercy. He saw the justice of God. There was a ram caught in a thicket. He said, you take that ram and
put him up there. Get that boy off there. And he sacrificed that
ram. He saw that God's going to be
appeased. He saw my day. A merry heart doeth good. It believes God. It doesn't believe
in itself. It doesn't trust itself. It doeth
good. This is the will of Him that
sent me. He that seeth the Son believeth
on the Son hath eternal life. This is His will. It reveals
that God has made some people well. I will sing Psalm 136. I will sing unto the Lord because
He has dealt bountifully with me. He has rewarded me. He has dealt bountifully with
me. I left it unto myself. Thank God, Psalm 103.10, He has
not dealt with us after our sins. Aren't you glad? Or rewarded
us according to our iniquities. That verse of Scripture comes
to my mind all the time. Lord, if you should mark iniquity.
Lord, if you marked it against me. Lord, if you counted one
sin against me and made me chargeable for it, I'm going to hell. I'm
going to hell. And I know it. If he marks one
sin against me, blessed be God, that merry heart,
that new heart, That enlivened heart, that one that's given,
caused to be, it doeth good like a medicine. That last part right there is
a precious... If your Bible's got a margin,
if you look at it, the word like, A merry heart doeth good like,
well, in the margin, the word is actually to, T-O, to. A merry heart, an enlivened heart,
a new heart, a heart made joyful before God, doeth good, believes
God, to a medicine. And the word medicine
there is The cure. It believes God toward Christ. To the medicine. Like a medicine. The cure for
my ailment is the grace of God. The blood of Christ charged to
me. A merry heart believes God's
cure. God's pure. I will have mercy on whom I'll
have mercy. I'll have compassion on whom
I'll have compassion. Lord, how can you show mercy
to me? One way. One way. Christ is going to have to be
what I am by nature. The Lord Jesus Christ is going
to have to be made sin. He's going to have to be made
the rebellion of my own nature. And He's going to have to bear
all of the guilt. God's just. My sin is going to
have to be dealt with. I'm born with a broken spirit. Dried bones. But when Almighty
God reveals it to me, and I see my need of Him, and He's shown
mercy to me, and given me a new heart, a merry heart, a merry
heart, one enlivened from above, I look to Him alone as the cure.
Lord, thanks being to You, for your unspeakable gift. One day,
by the grace of God, we'll behold Him as He is. And in that day,
Scripture said, we're going to be like Him and be forever with
Him to the praise of the glory of His grace. Amen.