Alright, brethren, Psalm 134.
I'm sorry, Psalm 124. Now this is the testimony
of each one of God's saints. We know the Lord, the more we
know this is so. He says there in verse 1, if
it had not been the Lord who was on our side, Now may Israel
say, if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men
rose up against us, then they had swallowed us up quick. When
their wrath was kindled against us, then the waters had overwhelmed
us, the stream had gone over our soul. Then the proud waters
had gone over our soul." The Lord saves His people. And He
keeps saving us through all the trials of life, keeps providing
for us. And by doing this, He keeps us
giving Him all the glory, praising Him alone. We say, verse 6, Blessed
be the Lord who hath not given us as prey to their teeth. Blessed be the Lord. We give
Him the glory. And because He has saved us,
And because He continues to show us such great salvation in the
things He provides and does for us throughout our life, keeping
us looking to Christ, keeping us trusting Him, that's how we
run the race, that He has set before us with patience, looking
to Christ Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, knowing
He shall deliver us. Look how the Psalm ends, verse
8, is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. He
saved us in the past, that's how it begins. Right now, He's
saving us, bringing us to bless His name and thank Him for salvation. And we know going forward, our
help is the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Our subject is, if not for the
Lord. If not for the Lord. Beholding
how the Lord has saved us, and beholding how He continues to
save us, He brings us to give Him all the glory. That's how
He keeps us worshiping only Him, trusting only Him, and it's how
He makes us put one foot in front of the other, continuing to walk
by faith, looking to the Lord. He's our help. The sovereign,
holy, all-powerful, almighty God who made heaven and earth,
He's our Savior, He's our help. Now, I want to look at this in
three ways. I want to show you some examples
from the Scripture. And then secondly, consider a
little teaching on this, on what's being said here. And then thirdly,
we'll look at how it applies to us. First of all, let's see
some examples. Now, let's go over to Exodus
14. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, we would
have been swallowed up by men, proud men. Now every example
I'm going to show you tonight, there's just three I'm going
to try to show you, but in each of these examples, if it were
not for the Lord on the side of His elect people, they'd have
been swallowed up by men. The first, we have the children
of Israel at the Red Sea. Now you're familiar with this.
The Lord brings them out of bondage, and He could have taken them
straight into Canaan, but He didn't. He takes them to the
Red Sea. And He takes them to a place at the Red Sea where
there's a big mountain on one side, there's another idol of
God on the other side, the Red Sea's in front of them, and then
the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart so that Pharaoh realized what
he had done in letting them go, and he took off after them with
his whole army. The Lord did all that. He led
them there, hemmed them in on all sides, then put it in Pharaoh's
heart to go after them with his whole army. And here you have
Israel, they're a bunch of former slaves, they don't have any weapons,
and they wouldn't know how to fight with them if they did have
them. And we pick up here in Exodus 14.10, and there's a real
good picture of me and you. Exodus 14.10, And when Pharaoh
drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold,
the Egyptians marched after them, and they were sore afraid. Now
watch this next word. And the children of Israel cried
out unto the Lord, and they said to Moses. What they said to Moses,
they were saying against God. They were crying this to the
Lord, but they were speaking it to Moses. Because there was
no graves in Egypt, has thou taken us away to die in the wilderness?
Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out
of Egypt? Is not this the word that we
did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve
the Egyptians? For it had been better for us
to serve the Egyptians than we should die in the wilderness.
The Lord gave Moses the gospel to declare to these folks. Now
listen to this word, verse 13, And Moses said unto the people,
Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord,
which He will show to you today. For the Egyptians whom you've
seen today, you shall see them again no more forever. The Lord
shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." Now brethren,
that's what God-given faith, God-sustained faith believes. That's what it does. That's what
true God-given faith does. Fears God, stand still, trust
the Lord to fight for us, and we hold our peace. We stop murmuring
against men, and by that we stop murmuring against God. We just
hold our peace and trust the Lord. The Lord commanded Moses
to tell the people to go forward. as he held forth the rod over
the Red Sea. That's a picture of us walking
by faith, walking under the preaching of the gospel of Christ. That
rod is a picture of the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Christ is called the rod of God.
He's the power of God, and that rod was a shepherd's crook, and
it's what the Gospel is. It's the rod of our chief shepherd,
the Lord Jesus, who guides us and leads us through the preaching
of the Word. And the message of this rod of
this Gospel is all about how Christ took the place of all
His people, and by bearing our sin and our curse and justifying
us from all our sins, that red sea is death. And He made a way
through the grave so that we go on dry ground and shall go
into the promised land by Christ our Lord. And all our enemies
are defeated because of what Christ accomplished for us on
the cross. So this rod, Him holding forth
that rod, is a picture of the gospel of Christ and Him crucified,
of what He's accomplished. and how His people hear that
and behold Him and walk by faith trusting Him, trusting the Word
of the Lord. And so, He tells them, move forward,
and He holds the rod, and then the Lord hardens Pharaoh's heart,
and He comes after them. They take off a cross, and He
comes after them. The Lord's ruling the heart of
men. These Pharaoh and these men didn't come after the children
of Israel by accident. God made them do it. Don't forget
that now. The King's heart is in the hand
of the Lord. He turns it wherever so ever
He will, just like a river. And so, verse 17, this is what
the Lord said, "...I will get Me honor upon Pharaoh, and upon
all his hosts, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen. And the
Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten
Me honor upon Pharaoh, and upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen."
And then look, and the angel of God, that's Christ, the angel
of God which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went
behind them, and the pillar of the cloud, that's Christ, went
from before their face and stood behind them, and it came between
the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel, and it was
a cloud and darkness to the Egyptians, but it gave light by night to
the children of Israel, so that one came not near the other all
night. Now, here's God's purpose. It
was God's purpose in that trial, and here is God's purpose in
every single trial. For God's child, this is God's
purpose in every single trial He brings us into and delivers
us through. Oh, that we could get this. Please get this. Verse 28. And
the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen
and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them.
There remained not so much as one of them. But the children
of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea, and
the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their
left. Now watch this. And thus the Lord saved Israel
that day out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Israel saw the
Egyptians dead upon the seashore. And Israel saw that great work
which the Lord did upon the Egyptians. And the people feared the Lord
and believed the Lord and his servant Moses. And the whole
next chapter they start singing praises to God. The Lord did
this when He gave us faith. The Lord does it when He delivers
us through every trial. He makes us see the great work
the Lord did. That's what He makes us do. That's
why He sent it. He makes us see the great work the Lord did so
that we fear the Lord, so that we believe the Lord, and so that
we believe the servant He gives to preach the gospel to us. We
know the Lord is our Savior. He saved us. That's what He's
doing it for. Alright, I want to show you another
example. You see there how if the Lord hadn't been on our side,
men would have swallowed us up. Now go to 2 Chronicles 20. We'll
see another example at Enjeti, 2 Chronicles 20. King Jehoshaphat was a good king
over Judah, and the Lord had given him rest round about, and
it was at that time that enemies came against him. Now, folks
don't understand this, but when the Lord calls you to faith and
gives you rest in Christ, that's when the enemies come. That's
when your warfare starts. That's what you have a picture
of here. The children of Ammon, it was the children of Moab and
the children of Ammon, and with them other besides the Ammonites
came against Jehoshaphat to battle. All these great hosts. And what
did Jehoshaphat do and what did the children of Judah do? They
fled to the sanctuary. They went to the Lord's house,
to the sanctuary. Listen to Jehoshaphat's prayer
to the Lord in 2 Chronicles 20, verse 6. And he said, O Lord God of our
fathers, art not thou God in heaven? And rulest not thou over
all the kingdoms of the heathen? And in thy hand is there not
power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? Art
not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land
before thy people Israel, and gave it to the seed of Abraham
thy friend for ever? And they dwelt therein, and have
built thee a sanctuary, a holy place, They're in for thy name. You know that sanctuary? This
is where they ran to. This is where Jehoshaphat and
the children of Judah went to. They went to this sanctuary.
To the Lord's house. It's a picture of Christ. Our
sanctuary. Listen now, and they said, this
is what, when they built that house, they said this, if when
evil cometh upon us as the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine,
if we stand before this house and in thy presence, for thy
name is in this house, we stand here and we cry unto thee in
affliction, then now we're here in help. Now why is that house
such a beautiful picture of Christ? Well, that house had the holiest
of holies in it. It had the holiest, the sanctuary
of sanctuaries, the holiest of holies. And the high priest went
in there one time a year, by himself, not without blood, and
there he sprinkled blood seven times on the mercy seat over
the law of God, and God said, that's the one place I will meet
with the children of Israel. And that picture is Christ Jesus,
who is our High Priest, who is the Lamb, who is the Mercy Seek,
the Propitiation, where God promises He will meet with His people.
Remember Isaiah said, sanctify the Lord, see Him seated on His
throne, and He shall be for a sanctuary. The Hebrew writer said in Hebrews
8, 1, of everything I've been writing about, he said, here's
the sum of it. We have such a High Priest. seated
in the heavenlies at the right hand of the majesty on high.
He's the one who built the true tabernacle, the true sanctuary,
which he pitched in that man. He's the minister of that sanctuary.
This is a picture of God's people fleeing to Christ in our affliction. God's presence is in Christ,
and God promises, you come to my son, and you come to his throne
of grace, and he'll intercede with me for you, and I'll hear
you, and I'll help you for his sake. That's where they went
to. And this is the cry of a broken
and contrite heart. Now listen to their cry, brethren. Verse 12, 2 Chronicles 20, 12. Oh our God, wilt thou not judge
them? For we have no might against
this great company that cometh against us. We don't have, we
have no might, they said. Neither know we what to do. We don't have wisdom. We don't
even know what to do. But our eyes are upon thee. Who is the power and wisdom of
God? That's what they said they didn't
have. We have no might, we don't have power, and we don't know
what to do. We don't have wisdom. The believer
has Christ Jesus who is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
That's who they're coming to. Our eyes are upon Thee, Lord.
Our eyes are upon Thee. And so God poured out His Spirit
on this man, a preacher named Jehaziel. And Jehaziel preached. And this is the word of the Lord
he preached to him that day in the Lord's house. Verse 15. Verse
15, and he said, Harken ye, all Judah, and ye inhabitants of
Jerusalem, and thou King Jehoshaphat, thus saith the Lord unto you. Now, I wish we could get this.
This is where God has to give you faith. Because until God
gives us a new heart and gives us faith, we just hear a man
preaching. And this was just a man preaching to them. And
he's saying, Thus saith the Lord. This is what the Lord says. Now
you picture them and where they are. They got three or four different
enemy nations surrounding them and they went to church. That's
what they did basically. They went to the Lord's house
to worship the Lord and asked the Lord to save them. And so
the preacher stands up and he says, this is what the Lord says,
right here. You're going to believe God or
going to say, oh, that's just a man preaching. We can't do
that. We can't do what he's telling us to do. That don't even make
sense. Well, listen to what he told them to do. Thus saith the
Lord unto you, be not afraid, verse 15, be not afraid nor dismayed
by reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours,
but God's. Same thing He told them at the
Red Sea, isn't it? The battle's not yours, it's
God's. Now look, tomorrow, go ye down against them. Behold,
they come up by the cliff of Zis, and you shall find them
at the end of the brook, before the wilderness of Jerul. The Lord knows right where the
enemy is. He tells His people right where to go, right where
they'll be. Now watch, this is still the word of the Lord now.
Jehaziel is just preaching the gospel. He says, You shall not
need to fight in this battle. Set yourselves, stand ye still,
and see the salvation of the Lord with you. O Judah and Jerusalem,
fear not, nor be dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them,
for the Lord will be with you. Jehoshaphat They're on their
way there. Jehoshaphat says to his brethren,
just what God's saints say to one another when we believe the
Word of the Lord. When we believe the Gospel, this
is what God's saints say to one another. It's what Jehoshaphat
said to his brethren, verse 20. They rose early in the morning
and went forth to the wilderness of Tekoa. And as they went forth,
Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants
of Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God,
so shall ye be established. Believe His prophets, so shall
ye prosper." Now, I want you to see what Jehoshaphat and the
children of Judah did. They never lifted a weapon. They went to where the Lord told
them to go. And look what they did. Verse 21. And when he had
consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord. They appointed some people to
sing to the Lord. Look. And that they should praise
the beauty of holiness. They're praising Christ our holiness.
He's the beauty of holiness. As they went out before the army,
Now you picture them, here comes the children of Judah and Jehoshaphat
and there's all this mighty army of enemies against them and they
come out there and they're singing, praise the Lord for His mercy
endureth forever. And when they began to sing and
to praise, that's all they're doing is singing praise to the
Lord. And look what happened. The Lord set ambushments against
the children of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir which were come
against Judah, and they were smitten. Here's how the Lord
did it. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the
inhabitants of Mount Seir utterly to slay and destroy them. And
when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every
one helped to destroy another. And when Judah came toward the
watchtower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude,
and behold, there were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none
escaped." They went out there and they sang praises to the
Lord, and the Lord made Ammon and Moab and Seir look at each
other and think each other were the children of Judah, and they
destroyed themselves. They killed themselves. And when
it was all said and done and the dust settled, Judah looked
out there and they weren't one of them alive. And all they did
was believe God and sing praises to Him and stand still and see
the Lord save them. That happened. That really happened. Alright, I don't have time to
look at all the other examples, but let me, 2 Chronicles 32,
I'll just give you briefly, 2 Chronicles 32, this is when Sennacherib,
he came up against Judah and he's going to try to slay Judah,
but I just want you to see what Hezekiah said to the people. He spake, and he said, verse
7, 2 Chronicles 32, 7, he said, Be strong and courageous, be
not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all
the multitude that is with him, for there be more with us than
with him. With him is an arm of flesh.
but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles.'
And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king
of Judah." And you know how that goes. The Lord called Sennacherib
to hear a rumor of war back home and he turned and took off back
to his country with all his army and left Judah alone. And ended
up, he got back there and he's in his idol temple and his own
sons killed him. just like the Lord said years
before it would happen. You see that in every case, the
word was stand still, be not afraid, stand still, see the
salvation of the Lord, the Lord will fight for you, you shall
hold your peace. That was the word. Now, secondly,
let's learn the teaching here. In each of these examples, We
have a picture of how God our Father in Christ has saved His
people from every spiritual enemy we have at the cross. Every one
of these is just a small spiritual illustration. It's God saving
us and bringing us to know if it had not been the Lord who
was on our side, if it had not been the Lord who was on our
side at Calvary's cross, The enemy, every enemy we had would
have swallowed us up. Every enemy we had. But Christ
came, the Son of God came down and He represented all God's
elect. And He went to that cross and
He bore the sin of His people. And He bore the wrath of God
poured out on Him in place of His people. And He totally, thoroughly
justified us by dying the death of the cross. He satisfied the
justice of God. He made us the righteousness
of God. So that God says, there is therefore now no condemnation
to them which be in Christ Jesus, to them who walk not after the
flesh but after the Spirit, who trust Christ alone and rest in
Christ alone and know He has won the victory for His people.
There's no condemnation for you. The Lord Jesus has put away the
sin of His people. Justice can't be poured out twice.
He satisfied justice for His people. Here's the question.
Do you believe Him? You mean God gives faith to believe
Christ accomplished that and God promises through faith that
I'm the righteousness of God? It's because by Christ's obedience,
He really made His people the righteousness of God. Believe
Him. Believe Him. And then He sent the Gospel to
us, and through the Holy Spirit, Christ Jesus is the cloud that
entered in and came between us and our Egyptian flesh. He's
the one who entered in and delivered us from this enemy that dwells
within us called our sin nature. He's the one who keeps us separated
and He's darkness to one and He's light to the other. And
it keeps this work up in our own bodies, brethren. The Lord is the one who's the
life of our new man. And He's the one who, by His
Spirit, strengthens our inner man to mortify the old man. We
couldn't have delivered ourselves from this enemy. and by putting
away all the sin of his people and by taking up his abode in
our hearts in power and being our power and our wisdom. Brethren,
this is how he has crushed the devil's head. The devil is the
accuser of the brethren. He took all the sins away so
the devil has nothing to accuse us before God with. And he will
not let him have the reign over us anymore. So we give the Lord
all the glory for saving us from our sin. We give Him all the
glory for saving us at all times. We say what our Psalms said,
blessed be the Lord who has not given us as a prey to their teeth.
Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers.
The snare is broken and we are escaped. Our trials are sent
by the Lord. He rules everything. He's the
one that sent Pharaoh. He's the one that sent those
enemy nations to Jehoshaphat. He's the one that sent the Assyrian
army to King Hezekiah. We saw last time he told the
king of Assyria, I'll put my hook in your nose and I'll lead
you away. And that's what he did. He told him, you're boasting
yourself that you did all this. He said, that's like a saw in
the hand of a man boasting that he cut the trees down. He said,
you're just a tool in my hand. But He sends the trials to keep
us knowing it's Christ alone who delivered us at Calvary's
cross. These little salvations that we encounter and the Lord
delivering us through, troubles we have, little small afflictions
we have, though they may be very, very heavy and weighty and heart-wrenching
to us, And every time the Lord is doing it, He's just reminding
us in our hearts that He already won the victory for us at Calvary.
And He keeps pointing you to Him to know this is just a small
illustration. Just like we could spend, I've
preached on every one of those passages, and we could spend
a lifetime on those passages and see Christ all in those scriptures. Well, it's the same way in our
life. In hindsight, you've got to look back and see some things
the Lord did and see how He saved you. But I'm convinced, brethren,
one of these days, He's going to make us know how He used us
to show pictures of His salvation, of what He did for His people.
That's what He's doing for us every day. But He puts us in
these positions so that we're helpless. Just like He did the
children of Israel at the Red Sea and the children of Judah
with all those other enemies and Hezekiah. He puts us in these
positions to know we're helpless so that we know that it's the
Lord who delivered us. That's what He did when He first
revealed His sin to you. That's what He keeps doing. We
saw it Sunday. He said that they may know I'm
the Lord alone. And the Lord keeps us by this.
He keeps us crying out to Him to save us. Every time when Jehoshaphat
was at ease, he wasn't calling on the Lord. He had it easy for
the first time in a while. But as soon as those enemies
came, what did he do? He flew to the sanctuary. What
happens when you got it easy? You might say some prayers, but
you're not really praying. But when the Lord sends a trial
and you see how helpless you are, how sinful you are, and
how you need Christ to be your Savior, that's when you flee
to the sanctuary. You flee to Christ and beg Him
to save. Moses cried to the Lord at the
Red Sea. Jehoshaphat sought the Lord when
the trial came. Hezekiah took Sennacherib's letter
into the Lord's house and laid it out before the Lord and read
it to the Lord. When God graciously sends a trial
and He draws us to seek the Lord, and that's the result of the
suffering we go through. He draws you to just pour out
your heart to the Lord and trust Him to save you. How on earth
could we ever complain about the trial and the suffering?
If that's what He made you do through it, come to Him, to His
feet, and beg His mercy and beg Him to save you. How could we
ever complain about that? That's the best place we could
be. And God always teaches us over
and over in it that the battle's not yours, the battle's the Lord's. Christ has already won the victory
for His people. And He promises us as we go through
this life, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. But
He's going to make you know the battle's not yours. He said,
if my people were of this world, then they would fight. The Lord's
weapon is this gospel. The Lord's weapon is Him in Spirit
turning our hearts to Christ to behold. He's the one ruling
everything in this world. The hearts of men and all providence
is His. Someone might say, well, what
about fighting the fight of faith though? He's sitting here telling
them not to fight and He tells us in the New Testament, we're
to fight the fight of faith. Let me tell you something. I
know this from experience and you know this from experience
if you've suffered any trials whatsoever. When Moses told the
children of Israel to stand still and see the salvation of the
Lord, for God's elect in that case, everything in their flesh
was opposing them doing that. Everything in their flesh was
telling them, you've got to fight, you're not going to prevail this
way. The fight of fight is the Spirit of God quickening you
inwardly and making you not listen to your sinful self and your
reasoning and your logic and your so-called wisdom and all
the things that you think you ought to do that makes more sense
and making you trust the Lord. The fight of faith is more within
me and you than it is anywhere else. Not looking to our own
understanding and our own wisdom and our own strength, but trusting
the Lord. You can't do both. By continuing to deliver us,
brethren, the Lord keeps His children looking to Him for every
future deliverance. Verse 8, Our help is in the name
of the Lord who made heaven and earth. You know, when you come
out of that trial and He's just brought you fresh out, that's
when you really, really, you just are assured and you know
our help is in the name of the Lord. He spoke heaven and earth
into existence. He obviously is ruling everything
in this world. If He ruled everything that came
to pass so that men looked like they were checking off a checklist
from the Old Testament of what they were to do when they rejected
the Lord Jesus. I mean, it just looks like they
went down a checklist and checked off everything that they were
supposed to do in the prophecy. If He ruled all of that and brought
every bit of that to pass on what was the most wicked thing
as far as men are concerned, the most wicked thing that ever
transpired on this earth was the crucifixion of the God of
glory in human flesh. And He ruled that and brought
eternal salvation and good out of that? Well, I guarantee you,
when you stump your toe, He can bring good out of it. And by
stubbing your toe, I mean if three nations come up against
you, He'd bring good out of it. It's these painful lessons by
which the Lord makes us run this race with patience, knowing He
said it before us, and we're looking to Him. They set our
eyes on You, Lord. We run it looking to Him. Now
here's the application. As the Lord made you see, you
are the sinner. I told the preacher's school
the other night, I said, you know, I know we start out thinking
sin's in what we do. And it is. And then we realize,
well, sin's in our nature. That's what our nature is. It
is. And I told them, I said, but the fact is, you don't have
to do one thing to sin. You sin when you're sleeping.
The Lord said the plowing are the wicked's abomination to Him.
Plowing? Yeah, plowing. Everything is. Everything is. But if He's made
you see you have no ability in yourself, no way to justify yourself,
no way to sanctify yourself, no way to overcome any enemy
you face, including the one that you look at in the mirror. then
believe on the Lord and be ye saved. What did Jehoshaphat tell
them? Believe in the Lord your God,
so shall you be established. Believe His prophets, so shall
you prosper. And if you are a believer who
the Lord has put in a place where you have no power to change the
circumstances, you don't have any wisdom to change the circumstances,
The Lord has made you see you can't save yourself and you can't
save anybody else. You can't change another person's
heart. You try to reason with them. You cannot change what somebody
else has in their heart to do. Well, fear you not, stand still
and see the salvation of the Lord which He will show you today.
The Lord shall fight for you and you shall hold your peace. If that was the word of the Lord
to the children of Israel when the mightiest king and the mightiest
army in the world was barreling down on them with all their might,
I guarantee you it's a good word for me and you, whatever we're
facing. The Lord's ruling providence and He's ruling the hearts of
men and He put these enemies in our way for two reasons. It's
a two-fold purpose. Number one is to show us we're
sinners and we can't save ourselves. All flesh is grass. We start
judging by the carnal eye and the carnal ear, and we start
judging another person by what they've done or said, and judging
their eternal state. Oh, they're condemned. They're
lost. That's wrong, brethren. Don't ever do it. Solomon learned,
no man knoweth either love or hatred but all that's before
them. There's coming a day when the
Lord will come, and He's going to judge His people, and He's
going to make known them that are His, and all His people shall
have praise of God. Paul said, therefore, judge nothing
before that time when He comes. But by these things, the Lord
reminds us we're sinners. The trial shows us it's not to
show the sin of somebody else. The trial is to keep me, and
you know it. We are the sinner. We need the
Lord. David knew the Lord sent Shimei
to curse him. Abishah wanted to take his head
off. David said, let him curse because
the Lord has said to him, curse David. Let him alone, let him
curse, the Lord hath bidden him. It may be the Lord will look
on my affliction and that the Lord will quite me good for his
cursing this day." Micah. Micah's being afflicted in all
these nations and he could have blamed every second and third
and fourth cause and blamed this person and that person and the
other person and all of that. Here's what Micah said. Rejoice
not against me, O mine enemy. When I fall, I shall arise. When
I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. I will bear
the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against Him." That's
God's prophet saying that. Until he plead my cause. and
execute judgment for me. He will bring me forth to the
light, and I shall behold His righteousness." That's a man
that's come to the place where the Lord's brought him. The whole
purpose of the trial right there is to say, I'm bearing the indignation
of the Lord because I've sinned, but I know He will plead my cause,
and I know He'll execute judgment for me, and I know He'll bring
me to the light, and I'll behold His righteousness. That's the
purpose of it. And the second purpose is to
make you know if it wasn't for the Lord being on our side, you'd
have been swallowed up a long time ago. And He won't let you
be swallowed up. The wicked watcheth the righteous,
and seeketh to slay him. The Lord will not leave him in
his hand, nor condemn him when he is judged. Wait on the Lord,
and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land.
When the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it. The salvation
of the righteous is of the Lord. He is their strength in the time
of trouble. And the Lord shall help them,
and deliver them, and he shall deliver them from the wicked,
and save them, because they trust in him. I'll give you this from
Isaiah 54, 17. This is the God's everlasting
covenant promised to you that know Him. You know, you try to
reason with folks and people start condemning you and spread
it all over and the worst thing you can do is try to defend yourself.
It makes it worse. The best thing you can do is
suffer in silence before men and as you suffer whatever you're
being condemned for, Let your request be made known to God
and trust Him. Best thing you can do. Because
this is God's promise. No weapon that's formed against
thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against
thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage, the inheritance
of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of
me, saith the Lord. That's why nobody will be able
to condemn God's people, because our righteousness is not our
own, it's His. He justified us. Who is He that
shall condemn? Who's going to lay anything to
the charge of God's elect? It's God that justified us. It's
Christ that died, it's risen, it's interceding for us. So here's
what you do. In all these trials, in all these
things we suffer, brethren. Commit thy way unto the Lord. and trust also in Him. Don't
just commit the way to Him and say, well, okay, surah, surah. No, commit it to Him and also
trust Him. He shall bring it to pass. And He shall bring forth thy
righteousness as the light and thy judgment as the noonday."
What does that mean? Oh, that means that He's going
to prove that I'm right and they're wrong and this and that and all
this. Carnal dung is what that is. I get so sick of men applying
everything to themselves and how they're right and the other
person's wrong. That's a bunch of carnal rubbish. He's going
to bring forth Christ Jesus your righteousness. And you're going
to be brought to say what Micah said, I've done nothing but sin. He'll plead your cause. He will
bring you to His light. And He will be your righteousness.
You'll behold His righteousness. And He'll bring forth your judgment
as the noonday. And that day, He'll say, I justify
these people, they're mine. Come ye, inherit the kingdom
God prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Until
then, suffer it and trust Him and wait on Him to bring it to
pass. He will. And if it wasn't for
the Lord, we'd have been swallowed up a long time ago. He won't let His people be swallowed
up. He won't let the waters go over our soul and drown us out. There's a rock higher than I
and He'll bring you to that rock and cast you upon that rock and
He'll save you from the waves. That's our Lord. I pray the Lord
bless that.