Alright brethren, Psalm 119.
This is the second Hebrew letter in
the alphabet, Bet. And it begins here in verse 9,
it says, Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way, by taking
heed according to thy word." God's word is addressed to every
kind of sinner, whether young or old or in between, whether
male or female, rich or poor, believer, unbeliever, learned,
unlearned. There's something in God's word
that addresses us wherever we are, whatever state we're in.
There's a word for us in the scripture. Now this asks the
question about young men, and that's a blessing. You young
people, this word is to you. This word's to you just like
it is to these older ones here. It's to you. And it's to anybody
here. This word is profitable to cleanse
young or old. It's profitable. We are only
cleansed and we only have our way cleansed by taking heed to
God's Word. Paul wrote to Timothy and he
said, From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, this
is the Word of God. He said, which are able to make
thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. It's profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness
that the man of God may be perfect, that is, truly furnished unto
all good works. Wherewithal shall a young man
cleanse his way by taking heed according to thy word. Now, first of all, if we're going
to have our way cleansed, we need to know we're unclean. If we're going to have our way
cleansed, we're going to have to know we're unclean. How will
a sinner know that? By taking heed according to the
Word. By God making us take heed according
to the Word. For those that God's first calling,
when He first begins to work in a sinner, It's His Word that
He blesses. It's the Word of the Scripture
that He will bless to make us know that we are defiled, that
we need to be cleansed. God's holy. He's holy. We can't really enter into the
fullness of that, but He's holy. For us to look at God would be
like us trying to stare right head on into the sun. He's holy. He's pure. A light that no man
can approach unto. But God's Word declares that
every person is conceived in sin in our mother's womb. We
didn't do it. It was from Adam's corrupt seed. We were conceived in our mother's
womb as sinners. We were shapen in iniquity. We
were transgressors from the womb. And we come forth and our heart
and our ways and our actions are evil from our youth. We hate
God from our youth. Isaiah 64, 6, he said, we are all as an unclean
thing. And all our righteousnesses are
filthy rags. We all do fade as a leaf and
our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. For the believer
who has been cleansed and a new heart given, this work is done by God's Word
making us behold our Lord Jesus Christ laying down His life in
a room instead of His people, making us see Him all over again,
making us know we need to be cleansed. Now, when we read Psalm
119, as a believer, we have an old sin nature that
still has pride in it, and when we read a psalm like Psalm 119,
we're prone to flatter ourselves, especially if we're in a time
of peace, and we're not being afflicted, and others are. But it will help us to understand
this psalm if we know the end from the beginning. If we know David's state by which
God brought him to write this, it will help us. We find it in
the last verse of this psalm. The very last verse of this psalm,
verse 176. I have gone astray like a lost
sheep, seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commandments."
I want to show you a few verses here to show you the state where
he was. Verse 25, he said, My soul cleaveth
unto the dust, quicken thou me according to thy word. Verse
28, he said, my soul melteth for heaviness, strengthen thou
me according unto thy word. Verse 39, he says, turn away
my reproach, which I fear, for thy judgments are good. He said
in verse 41, let thy mercies come also unto me, O Lord, even
thy salvation according to thy word. He said in verse 42, so
shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me, for
I trust in thy word. Verse 50, this is my comfort
in my affliction, for thy word hath quickened me. Verse 67,
before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now have I kept thy
word. Verse 71, it's good for me that
I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. Verse 83,
I am become like a bottle in the smoke, yet I do not forget
thy statutes. He said, I've gone astray like
a lost sheep. Seek thy servant, for I do not
forget thy commandments." David was a believer. He had been cleansed
inwardly, but he had strayed. But the Lord sanctified this
affliction to his inward man. Spurgeon wrote this on it. He
said he confessed his helplessness. He was not like a dog that somehow
or other can find its way back. But he was like a lost sheep
which goes further and further away from home. Yet still he
was a sheep, and the Lord's sheep, his property, and precious in
his sight. Therefore he asked the Lord to
seek and restore him. Beuys said this, he had not become
self-righteous by his devotions despite his reiterated claims
to have obeyed the Bible's teaching. The Lord made him not take the
stance with the boasting Pharisee, but with the publican who stood
afar off crying for mercy and went home justified. See, by
the blessing of God's word to his inward man, God made him
know his need. God convicted him. He's the sinner. He's the sinner. He'd gone astray. David was in the fire we just
read about. He's being saved by fire. God
chose His people in the furnace of affliction. He's going to
save His people, bringing us through the fire. And David had
been in that fire, and he was convicted of the sufficiency
of God's grace to keep him, and he knew he needed God to save. He needed Christ to rescue him.
That's how the Lord blesses His Word to every regenerated heart.
He makes us see our own selves as the lost sheep, as the straying
sheep. We can't be saved if we're not
lost. And that's so when a believer who is saved can't be saved until
he's lost. He can't be cleansed until he
sees he's defiled. When Christ's sheep wander, the
Spirit of God is going to keep us conscious that our salvation
is only Christ. His Word tries us and rebukes
us, but it encourages us and it strengthens us. God is teaching
us and protecting us. That's what He's doing. He's
saving us. He's saving us. Have you ever been where David
was and been able to say, I believe your Word, Lord. I've kept your
statute. You've commanded me to believe
on the Lord Jesus for all my salvation. I believe you, Lord.
Save me, save me. He didn't make him less God's
child. He was suffering this because
he was. Now secondly, to be cleansed,
so first we have to know we're defiled, we have to know we need
cleansing. And God has to show us that. He's the word, the incarnate
word, our Lord Jesus, who shows us in his word and by his word,
blessing it to our inward man, that we need him to save us,
that we've strayed, or that we're totally lost. Then secondly,
to be cleansed we need to know there is but One who is clean. There is only One who is the
Holy One. We need to know Him and we need
to know to come to Him. How are we going to know that?
By the Lord making us take heed unto His Word. That's how. By the Lord making us take heed
to His Word. The deceiving sinful heart This
old man of sin that's even yet with believers makes sinners
read these words like law and commandment and statutes and
precepts and imagine that they have life by keeping the commandments
or by keeping the new covenant precepts. It makes us boast that
we have some time. Christ said, search the scriptures. Search the law and the commandments
and the precepts and the statutes. For in them you think you have
life, eternal life. They are they which testify of
me. And you will not come to me that
you might have life. We never stop coming to him.
That's what every word in this book has to do with. Every commandment, every statute,
every judgment is to show us we're the sinner and we need
Christ who alone is our cleansing. Who can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean? Are we going to go to ourselves
to bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing? Not one can
do it. That's what Job 14.4 says. The Word of the Lord declares
that Christ Jesus is the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. Christ is the perfect servant
of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ, by His
obedience, made His people righteous, and it's by Christ being formed
in us that He makes us holy. In that day, the Lord said, speaking
of Christ's day, speaking of this day, the day the Lord's
made, this gospel age that He's brought in, in that day there
shall be a fountain open to the house of David, and to the inhabitants
of Jerusalem for sin, for justification from our sin, and for uncleanness,
for sanctification, for purification, to be cleansed. Now in the beginning,
the great shepherd of the sheep sends his gospel to his lost
sheep. See, he always does the finding. He tells us to seek him, but
he has to find us to make us seek him. He finds His sheep. He goes seeking
His sheep who came to seek and to save that which is lost. And
He finds His sheep. He sends the gospel to us. And
He sends forth the Holy Spirit. And He makes us to be washed. He makes a new man in you, and
for the believer he keeps washing that new man and renewing us
when we've strayed, and he does it by this same gospel. Titus
3.5 says it's not by works of righteousness we've done, It's
not in the beginning that way and it's not ongoing that way. Not by works of righteousness
we've done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. which He shed
on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being,
or having been justified by His grace, we should be made heirs
according to the hope of eternal life by being born again, by
being continually renewed, by being sanctified inwardly. He
washes us by the water of the Word. by the water of the Word,
the preaching of the person and finished worship of Christ. Christ
loved the church and He gave Himself for it, that He might
sanctify it, that He might cleanse it. He's going to get the glory. With the washing of water by
the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blemish. Christ himself is the prophet,
priest, and king of his people. And when he had come and spoken
his word, and blessed his word to the heart of his apostles,
and created them, washed them inwardly, and renewed them inwardly,
and made them clean inwardly, he spoke to them and he said,
now you're clean through the word which I have spoken to you. Purification of the heart is
through faith, it's through beholding the Lord Jesus Christ. He sends
his gospel to open our eyes, to turn us from darkness to light,
from the power of Satan unto God that we might receive forgiveness
of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by
faith that is in me. Christ is the brightness of His
Father's glory, the express image of His person. Right now, we
can't see Him fully. We see through a glass darkly.
But when He gives you faith to behold Him, that's where you're
purified. That's how you're purified. You
can't look upon Him without seeing yourself as unworthy and defiled
and sinful. Because He's holy, and He's pure,
and He's perfect. And when the Holy Spirit makes
a sinful man behold Christ, it's through faith that our inward
man is purged, cleansed. By the essential Word, by the
written Word, by the Spirit of God, He cleanses us inwardly. Peter said of the Gentiles to
whom he was sent with the Gospel, God which knoweth the hearts,
He put no difference between those Gentiles and us Jews, Peter
said, purifying their hearts by faith. By faith. Sinner, have you plunged into
this fountain? Have you forsaken any hope in
you, been cleansed of any hope in yourself and in your works
and in anything you've ever done, and made to forsake your own
self as well as all your sinful works and all your sinful self-righteousness? The Pharisees confessed their
sin and they forsook some of their works, but they thought
their forsaking was their righteousness. That's not your righteousness. We have to be made to forsake
our own selves. Anything about us. When you read
1 John 1, He says if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. That's what we are. If we say
we have not sinned, that's what we do. Everything about us we
have to forsake. But if we confess our sins, He's
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. That's what our Lord He does,
and He keeps doing it. He keeps doing it. He's going
to keep doing this to the day we're with Him. Now thirdly,
once we're cleansed, once He's cleansed His child, first He
makes you know you need cleansing. And the Word tells you that. He makes you hear it in His Word.
And then secondly, He makes you know there's only one Holy One
who can cleanse you. He's the fountain open for sin
and uncleanness. He's our justifier and our sanctifier. And then thirdly, once cleansed,
we need to know the only way to continue to be cleansed is
to come to Christ. How are we made to know that?
By Christ making us take heed according to His Word. By Him
making us take heed according to His Word. After He declared
to His apostles that they were clean because He had spoken the
Word to them, He said this to them. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself except it abide in the vine, nor can you except
you abide in me. David had obviously strayed,
but he hadn't ceased being a child of God when he strayed. God our
Father receives us in Christ our righteousness and who is
our sanctification without change. without change. And God looks on the heart that
He's made whole, where Christ abides. Now, the Lord will withdraw
from us just a little bit, just enough to show us what we are.
He'll withdraw away just enough to show you what you are. That's
why David cried there at the end of verse 8, and he said,
Oh, forsake me not utterly. He won't forsake you utterly,
child of God, because Christ Jesus was forsaken of God in
our room instead. But He will withdraw enough to
remind you and show you what you are, and He will come to
you in power, making you see the defilement of whatever it
is we're doing, whatever it is we're saying, whatever it is
we're trusting in. But He knows the desire of the
new heart that He's made in you that desires to honor Him and
desires to worship Him. And He said, where there's a
willing mind, it's accepted according to what a man hath, not according
to what he hath not. He's not looking on your heart
to see perfect faith. He's not even looking on your
heart and saving you because of your faith. He's giving you
faith to see your salvation as Christ. And because when Peter
didn't believe the Lord, when he denied Him, Peter wasn't being
saved by his faith. It was by Christ's faithfulness
to him. If we don't believe, He abides faithful. He's not
going to deny Himself. He's going to keep you looking
to Him, but He'll let you fall into your unbelief enough to
show you you're not being saved because of you. He tells us to
hold on to Him, but it's Him holding on to you. He tells us
to seek Him, but it's Him making you seek Him. But you don't stop being God's
child when you've fallen. That's why David is saying here,
Lord, I believe you, I trust you, I keep your statutes, I'm
walking after you. God had made David righteous
in Christ. He'd made him clean by Christ
abiding in him. And God said to Peter, what God
hath cleansed, that call not thou common. What God's cleansed, don't call
common. It's not our business. But what did the Lord do? He
found David. and He cleansed him from his
defilement and He made him take heed to the Lord's Word. He didn't make him take heed
to the words of men. He made him take heed to the
Lord's Word. Faith is exclusively personal between God and His
child. And He's working in measure in
His children. That means He hasn't given every
one of us the full measure. But you've got the measure He's
given you. And He's growing you, just like you have different
stages of children. He's growing us, and He knows
what each of His children need. And the Lord, when He comes,
He makes you turn and seek Him. This is what David said. He said
in verse 10, With my whole heart have I sought Thee. The Lord's created a whole heart
in you. That whole heart's whole. And
it's with that whole heart that you're going to seek the Lord.
It's that new man created of God. And that's where you're
going to seek Him. And here's the thing. You always
have that old man, but God's going to keep you seeking Him
with the whole heart. That holy heart. That new spirit
He's put in you. That's the only way you worship
God. And He's going to keep His child doing that. He's going
to keep you doing it. But He's going to keep you seeking
Him personally. Christ Himself. That's who He's
going to have you seek. I hear some things said and preached
that sounds like men are just wanting to obey God's commandments
for the sake of obeying His commandments. That ain't obeying His commandments. The Pharisees did that. They
weren't His. Obeying His commandments, you
may not obey His commandments perfectly and you don't. But
obeying His commandments, doing it when you've been made to fall
in love with Christ, and you want Him to serve Christ and
worship Christ. And nobody else can determine
that but you and God. And God knows it if He's worked
it in you. With the whole heart I've sought
Thee. By renewing Him, David desired to have his whole mind
directed to the Lord Jesus Christ, to be kept in the statutes which
proclaim that salvation is holy in and by Christ. With my whole
heart I've sought Thee. And when the Lord makes you know
this, when He has truly made you seek Christ and know that
you are complete in Him and that His grace doesn't change, His
love doesn't change, we do not want to sin. And to the ability
that our God gives us, we walk after His commandments, we keep
His statutes. Just because He's put a want
to in you, He put a willingness in you, you want to. But when
we do sin, because of that same grace, When He's come to you,
you might despair a little at first, but when He's come to
you and shows you and chastens you and rebukes you and corrects
you, we don't fall into despair and bondage. But when that Spirit
of God bears witness in your heart to your child of God, what
you do is you agree with God's law against yourself. You agree with God's law, you
have sinned. You say it of yourself, I've
sinned. Lord, against You have I sinned. I've sinned against
You, Lord. That's what He makes you know.
He makes you know that. He makes you know that. And we
don't, the same as we don't fall into bondage and fear, the Spirit
keeps us agreeing with God's law, the Spirit keeps us running
to Christ who made satisfaction on our behalf, and we rest in
Christ's obedience, seeking grace from Christ to walk as He enables
us to walk after Him. This is what he's doing in his
children. So David confessed he was yet a sinner and he needed
Christ to keep him. Where do we see that? Look at
the next phrase in verse 10. He said, Oh, let me not wander
from thy commandments. See, he's writing this after
the fact. And he's writing all the things
he was suffering while he was in this affliction. Going through
this chastening that the Lord was doing because he had strayed.
And he says here, Lord, because you've worked this in me. This
is what made him cry out up in verse 4. Thou has commanded us
to keep thy precepts diligently. Oh, that my ways were directed
to keep thy statutes. Then I'll not be ashamed. Sin
makes us ashamed. Transgression makes you ashamed.
When I have respect unto all thy commandments, I'll praise
thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned thy
righteous judgments. What's God doing with us in this
world? And you know, the sin we see, you know, you
constantly have this old man warring against you. What's the
Lord teaching? He's teaching us His judgments.
He's teaching us His statutes. He's teaching us how we need
Christ. He's teaching us how to walk. That's what He's doing. Teaching us how to talk. Teaching
us, He's making us grow up into our Lord Jesus Christ. Every
day. Every day. And so David confesses
here, I'm a sinner. I need Christ to keep me. Let
me not wander from Thy commandments. The Lord made him know that he
had an old man of sin warring against his new man. He knew
that. He knew that. The Lord had given
him just enough room, just enough room, to show him that without
Christ he could do nothing. If we can just stop a sin, if
there's just some sin you have, but you can just stop it, you
weren't under the power of it. Because you can't. If you could,
you'd have believed without the grace of God. You couldn't do
that. It's God that makes you repent. It's God that cleanses you. And
that makes you meek. That makes you stop boasting
and looking down your nose at others. That makes you stop trying
to spare them. You confess we're the sinner.
profess yourself to be the sinner. You look to Christ. You want
to see one who's without sin? This is where we're going to
see our defilement. Look to Christ. When He walked this earth, Christ's
nature was holy. He's perfect. Every thought,
every deed was righteous. Our Lord Jesus Christ. When He's
despised and rejected, when there... You ever hit your hand with a
hammer? That makes you think real good, righteous thoughts,
when you do that. Do you ever reckon you sin any when you do
that? They nailed nails in his hands and his feet in anger and
enmity against him. He didn't have one unrighteous
thought toward him. Not one impure thought had he
toward him. He prayed for him. When I see him crucified, I see
Him in His perfection. I see Him in His righteousness.
And I see Him doing that for me. That breaks my heart. It breaks my heart. It breaks
my heart that it don't break my heart more. That's when we stop pleading
our own righteousness. That's when we start asking God
to have mercy. Believer, do you ever go astray? In the new man, in the whole
heart that he's made, no believer wants to go astray. That's what
Paul meant when he said, I delight in the law of God after the inward
man. But that's the only thing our
sinful flesh wants to do, is go astray. Constantly, 24 hours a day, even
when you're sleeping. Where do you think nightmares
and bad dreams come from? But our Good Shepherd is our
Good Shepherd. He's our faithful Shepherd. He
leads us in the paths of righteousness for His namesake. He'll come
and find His lost sheep and He'll put us on His shoulder. He'll
bring us back to the fold. He'll bring us back to Him. He
don't stop doing this. David experienced this, that
he might be more dependent upon Our great Shepherd, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Here's what the Lord said would
happen. In Isaiah 45, verse 24, He said, Surely, shall one say,
In the Lord have I righteousness and strength. In the Lord. Is all your righteousness the
Lord? What about all your strength? Is all your strength the Lord
too? Even to Him shall men come." We're like these sheep. We're
like a sheep. We'll stray, we'll stray, we'll stray, one step
at a time, we'll stray, we'll stray, until the next thing you
know we look around and we're in darkness. I lost a dog one time ten miles
from my house across a creek over in another creek bottom.
And one day he looked up, and that dog showed up and jumped
up in the back of my dad's truck. How he got there, I have no idea.
But he found his way home. A sheep won't do that. Brother
Adam was talking about this. It was a Thursday night. There's
a video. I'd seen it, too, where the sheep's
in this crevice. Y'all seen that? They pulled
a sheep out of that crevice. And I mean, the second they got
out of that crevice, he took off running and jumped right
back in it. But He comes and He finds His
sheep and He makes us come to Him. And all that are incensed
against Him shall be ashamed. In 1758, there was a hymn writer. David's writing this psalm for
us, this song in Psalm 119. And in 1758, another hymn writer
wrote this, and he was a young man of 22 years old. And he wrote,
Come thou fount of every blessing. He's the fountain open for cleansing,
for sin and uncleanness, but he's the fountain that has to
come to us to cleanse us. Come thou fount of every blessing.
Tune my heart to sing thy grace. Streams of mercy never ceasing
call for songs of loudest praise. Jesus sought me when a stranger. Wandering, David said, oh Lord,
don't let me wander from your commandments. He sought me when
I was a stranger, wandering from the face of God. He, to save
my soul from danger, interposed his precious blood. And because
this man had been cleansed by Christ and saw his old sin nature,
he wrote another verse. Oh, to grace, how great a debtor,
daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy grace, Lord, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love,
take my heart, O take and seal it with Thy Spirit from above. That's His Word. It's changed
up in our book, but that's His Word. Let me tell you, it gives
you something. Spurgeon said on this. He said,
watch, pray, resolve, but still come back to this. Lord, help
me. Lord, save me. Lord, keep me. The old plowman, whom I sometimes
used to talk with before he went to heaven, said to me, this is
what his old farmer friend said to him, depend upon it, if you
and I get one inch above the ground, we shall be that inch
too high. He said, there's much truth in
his plain remark, If we get any high notions of what we are,
we shall soon sink below what we should be. Lie low, aspire
high, be nothing, take Christ to be your all in all. That's
my gospel. That's my hope. Now lastly, what's
the effect when a spirit turns us to Christ and cleanses us? What's the effect? It's a peace
in our conscience, for one, that passes all understanding. Peace
in our conscience. God makes us more diligent to
heed His Word because we do not want to sin against Him who's
been so merciful to us. I was just talking to, I won't
say who, but I was talking to somebody just last night who
said to me, they said, you know, we've been wondering, Maybe we
wasn't saved till now. And they was telling me why.
And I said, I've experienced that many times. You know, I've
tried to liken it to this before. It's like you come in here and
you hear the gospel and you leave out renewed and you're strong. And it doesn't take long. And
this is just a small example. But in a little while, your mind's
back on your work, you own whatever it is, and you get weaker and
weaker and weaker. And when you're renewed, you're
strong again. Well, when He works this cleansing work, you come
out of that wanting to serve Him more and be more faithful
to Him because you see now very clearly your sins against Him.
Your sins against Him. That's what David said, Thy word
I've hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee, Lord. And
it grows a little dimmer, and it grows a little dimmer, and
our flesh grows a little stronger. That's why the Lord puts us in
the fire again. That's why He cleanses us again.
To keep us growing a little more. Sometimes He grows you a little
faster at times, because He puts you through a harder trial. And
He makes you, Oh Lord, I don't want to sin against You. I'll
take heed to Your Word. I've hid it in my heart. I don't
want to sin against You. That's one thing He does through
this. And then His Word makes us more dependent upon the Lord
to teach us. He said in verse 12, Blessed
art thou, O Lord, teach me thy statutes. Lord, teach me. That's where He brings you. He
makes you be like Mary. Just sit down at His feet and
say, Lord, teach me. Teach me. Because you see now,
he didn't know as much as you thought you did. He's listening
to fellows that was turning you from him to you, and he turns
you back to him and makes you say, Lord, teach me. Teach me. His gospel makes us declare the
good news to others. Verse 13, with my lips I've declared
all the judgments of thy mouth. He makes you want to tell others
what he's done for you. That's why He's doing it for
you. So you go tell Him what great things the Lord's done
for you. And His gospel makes you rejoice. When He does this, He makes you
rejoice. Look at verse 14. I have rejoiced
in the way of thy testimonies as much as in all riches. You know, riches do rejoice you.
If you're poor and you all of a sudden get a big chunk of money,
it makes you feel pretty good. Not as good as this does. He
makes us more hungry for Christ and His righteousness than earthly
bread and fame and riches. The spiritually hungry are begging
God for the heavenly manna. The spiritually poor are begging
for the true riches. We're begging, create within
me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.
I've esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary
food. That's what His people, poor in spirit, are crying for.
And He creates a more earnest resolve in our new man. A more
earnest resolve. Look here in verse 15. I will
meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways. I
will delight myself in thy statutes. I will not forget thy word. He
had sought. He had hidden the word in his
heart. He had declared the word. He rejoiced in the word. Now
he said, in the future, I'll meditate on your word. Be always
in this book, be in this book all the time, studying the word
of the Lord. Every problem you have, every
question you have, every need you have, the answer is in the
word of the Lord. I'll meditate, I'll have respect
to God's ways, I will delight myself in God's statutes, and
I'll remember. This is growth in grace. That's
by God. It's through the Lord's chastening
affliction produces conviction of personal unworthiness in us. And it produces conviction that
Christ is our only righteousness and our only sanctification who
is keeping us in His holiness. I get sick of men bragging about
their holiness. Christ sets our affection on
Him. See, the paradox of the mystery of godliness is that
the way to purity and peace of conscience is through the consciousness
of our corruption and that our righteousness and holiness is
Christ. That's so. It's a paradox to
a natural man, a paradox to a religious man. But to God's child, this
is how He reveals the mystery of Godliness. He makes you know
your own corruption. He makes you know Christ is y'all. That's how He keeps you walking
after Him. Cleansed. That's how you have
the strength to cleanse yourself of your sin. And go after Him. The only way. And it never ceases
this side of heaven. Ever. Never. I pray God bless
that to you. Amen.