Listen, I want you to hear this
opening statement. All who fear the Lord, all who
trust entirely in the Lord, all who fear the Lord shall never
want any good thing. Now that is an all-inclusive
statement. It applies to all things in this
life and it applies to all things in the life to come. He that fears the Lord shall
never want any good thing. Let's read it together. This
is Christ speaking in Psalm 34 9. O fear the Lord, ye his saints,
for there is no want to them that fear him. The young lions
do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall
not want any good thing." Now we're living in some perilous
times, and the Lord said we would. He describes them for us through
Paul. Go with me to 2 Timothy chapter
3. This is the description the Lord gives of the very times
we are living in. I want especially our young people
to pay attention to this right here. I want you to see if this
describes anybody you know. 2 Timothy 3 verse 1. This know also that in the last
days perilous times shall come. We've been in the last days since
Christ came. That's what Hebrews 1 declares. Here's why they're perilous.
For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, never having
enough, boasters, always bragging, proud, blasphemer, speaking blasphemous
things against God, the true God, disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, men with men, women
with women, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, no self-control,
fierce, despisers of those that are good, especially God's people,
traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than
lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the
power thereof. From such, turn away. I expect
every generation that ever read that probably thought that described
their generation. And it did. And it describes
our generation because every generation, sinners and society
are going further and further away from God. So that whatever
generation you live in, you live in the worst it's ever been.
Because sinners don't go closer to God. We go further and further
away from God. We've been doing it since the
fall in the garden in Adam. And we become more self-righteous
and more self-righteous and more self-righteous all the while.
Having a form of godliness but denying the true power of God. But in the midst of perilous
times, it's good to know that Christ promises you who trust
Him. He promises you there is no want
to them that fear Him. They that seek the Lord shall
not want any good thing. So our subject tonight, Christ
teaches us to fear the Lord. We saw He taught us to glory
in the Lord. Then He taught us to trust in
the Lord. And now in the latter part of the Psalm, He teaches
us to fear the Lord. Fear the Lord and you shall never
want any good thing in this life or in the life to come. Now first
off, let's hear our Lord's command. He says in verse 9, O fear the
Lord, ye His saints. Now what is it to fear the Lord? We could give the definition,
it's reverence. It's respect, it's to have a
heart to honor someone, to behold them and esteem them above everyone
else. But let me give you three things
that are involved in the Lord giving us a fear of the Lord. The first thing is this, the
fear of the Lord is to be persuaded of God's absolute power and absolute
wisdom in the face of our total inability and ignorance. That's the first thing. When
God gives you a fear of Him, He's going to show you He's absolutely
sovereign, absolutely all-powerful, absolutely all-wise, and that
you and I are absolutely weak and ignorant. Go with me to Daniel
4. Daniel chapter 4. Nebuchadnezzar
found this out. Daniel 4 and verse 34. God had made Nebuchadnezzar this
great king. God had made this man. He took
all his wisdom from him. He took all his good sense from
him. This man was brought to his all
fours grazing like an animal. And then the Lord returned His
wisdom to him. And look at this, Daniel 4.34,
At the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes unto heaven,
and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most
High, and I praised and honored Him that liveth forever. Watch
this now, Whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his
kingdom is from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants
of the earth are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his
will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the
earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, What doest
thou? Now that's the true God. The
true God is not waiting and just hoping you'll let Him do anything.
The true God does what He will. That's the true God. If we're
going to reverence and have a true fear of God, we're going to have
to see He's absolutely powerful, absolutely wise, and we're weak
and ignorant. And then go with me to Isaiah
6. Another thing that's involved in Him giving us a fear of the
Lord is this. is to be persuaded that God is
perfectly holy. Perfectly holy. He can do no
wrong. He can associate with no unrighteous,
unholy person. He's holy. Perfectly holy. He's
righteous. And you and I, we're going to
be made to know this in the face of the fact that you and I are
sinners. Unholy. Look here. In Isaiah
6-1, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting
upon a throne. high and lifted up, and his train
filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims,
each one had six wings, with two he covered his face, with
two he covered his feet, with two he did fly. And one cried
unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his
glory. and the posts of the door moved
at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with
smoke. Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am
a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."
That's when you'll reverence Him. And right there along in
that same passage, the third thing we see. The fear of the
Lord is knowing God's love and grace. His love and His grace
has saved me from my sins. So that now I truly want to follow
and serve Christ. That's the third thing. He makes
me see in the face of all my ruin and all my complete inability. He makes me see He saved me by
His love and grace. And it makes me want to follow
Christ. Verse 6, Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having
a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from
off the altar, and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo,
this has touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away,
and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the
Lord, saying, Whom shall I sin, and who will go for us? And then
said I, Here am I, send me. That's when a man will be brought
to truly want to follow and serve the Lord. First thing is, we're
going to have to find out God's absolutely sovereign, all-powerful,
all-wise, and we're not. We're going to have to find out
God is absolutely holy and we're sinners. And we're going to have
to find out that it's by His grace, freely choosing whom He
would, by His love in Christ that He saved me from all my
sin. That's when a man will reverence
God. And not until then. Not until
then. Just like it made Isaiah want
to depart and serve the Lord, they did the same thing to Paul.
He said he had all those things he had his confidence in. And
he said, what things were gained of me, I counted loss for Christ. I want to win Christ and be found
in Him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, not anything
that's of my doing. I want to be found in His righteousness.
This is when a man reverences God, when he fears God. The fear
of the Lord, go with me to Isaiah 8, if you're right there, Isaiah
8. The fear of the Lord, Scripture
says, is the beginning of wisdom. And the reason it is, you know
Peter over there, he said, sanctify the Lord in your hearts. Exalt
Him above all in your hearts. Remember that He's the highest.
He's the most high. He's all powerful over all. He's
all wise over all. What He's doing is according
to His holiness. What He's doing is for the salvation of His people.
Sanctify the Lord. Exalt Him to the highest. And
when you're given the fear of the Lord, the reason it's the
beginning of wisdom is because that's what you start doing.
Look here in Isaiah 8, 11. The Lord spake thus to me with
a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in
the way of this people, saying, Say ye not a confederacy to all
them to whom this people shall say a confederacy? Neither fear
ye their fear, nor be afraid. God separates His people out.
When He gives you a true fear of the Lord, He makes you quit
fearing what every other sinner is fearing. And He makes you
quit making alliances with the men of this world. Look here,
verse 13. Sanctify the Lord of hosts Himself,
behold Him as He is, the Most High, high and lifted up. Sanctify
the Lord of hosts Himself, and let Him be your fear, and let
Him be your dread, and He shall be for sanctuary. He'll keep
you and defend you and provide for you. Now do you hear Christ
speak in our psalm? Do you hear Him speak in this
psalm and say? I pray that tonight He'll speak
this and command it affectionately and make one of His lost sheep
to really fear Him. But He's going to do it through
this Word. He said, you go tell them the
command I give. And through that command, He
gives the power to obey the command. And here is His command. Oh,
fear the Lord, ye His saints. Fear the Lord. Has He given you
this reverence for God? Has He made you see Him as He
is? Has He made you want to cast
all your care on Christ and serve Christ for the furtherance of
His gospel? Fear the Lord. This is where
wisdom begins, right here. Fear the Lord. Alright, secondly
now, let's hear the promise Christ gives to them that fear Him.
Let's hear the promise He gives to those that fear Him. Our Lord
promises to all that truly fear Him, verse 9, there is no want
to them that fear Him. The young lions do lack and suffer
hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good
thing. God will not allow one of His
saints who fears Him and trusts Him to want any good thing. He won't allow it. He won't allow
it. Concerning what we need for heaven,
we have two basic needs. We need something for the life
to come and we need things for this life. And concerning our
need for the life to come, We need righteousness and holiness
and redemption. We need a new heart. We need
mercy and long-suffering in that heart. We need the fruit of the
Spirit in the new heart. And all these things we need.
to enter into glory and be a partaker with other sanctified children
of God before the holy, holy, holy God. Everything we need
for Him to receive us, He provides it. He provides it. He provides
it in His Son through His Spirit. Everything. And then everything
we need in this life concerning our daily provision, He doesn't
promise to give us luxury. He doesn't promise to give us
extra. He promises to give us what we need. What we need. He says there, speaking about
the young lion. Now you think of a young lion.
A young lion is the king of the jungle. A young lion is fierce
and strong and cunning and crafty. He's in the prime of his life
and he's at the top of the food chain. And yet with all of that,
they shall lack and they shall hunger. And the point he is making
here is the same is true of all men who are trying to work up
a righteousness of their own apart from Christ. Men who are
trying to make themselves holy apart from Christ. Men who are
trying to be their own provider and their own God in this life.
Men who are oppressive to others. God promises they will not prosper. They will not prosper. Despite
all their worldly strength, God's against them in this life right
now. He's against them. And when they
meet God in eternity, they're going to lack the one thing needful,
Christ Jesus the Lord. It's a shame that we spend so
much time teaching our children to go after riches. Because if
there's one thing that God repeatedly, repeatedly tells us in the Scripture
that will kill us and make it impossible for us to enter in
the kingdom of God, it's riches, power, applause of this world,
the things of this world. And yet the believer for the
believer, the one that reverences God with a childlike fear, we're
talking about, we're not talking about something that's, We're talking about a simple
childlike reverence, like a little child reverences their father. We're talking about childlike
faith in the Lord. That sinner who simply trusts
the Lord, who simply has all his hope of eternal salvation
in the hands of another, in the hands of Christ, and who is looking
to Him even in this life right now to provide on a daily basis
for Him. That sinner has everything. God's promised he will lack nothing. He will lack nothing. He will
have what he needs. God will provide him everything
he needs. He may not have that cunning
power like the greedy lion does. But God's going to provide all
His need in this life and in the life to come. Just look to
Christ. He's speaking here by experience.
Our Lord Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He's the
King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He was born King. But when He
came to serve God for His people, when He went to that cross and
He died unto sin, because He made Himself totally dependent
upon the Father and gave Himself to the devil to have... He said, this is your hour. And
He was crucified in weakness. And because that was the fact,
brethren, He was the defenseless Lamb of God. A lamb has no defenses. Scripture says, when he went
to the cross like a lamb before its shearers is dumb, so he opened
not his mouth. He trusted the Father, entirely
trusted the Father, and the Father honored him. The Father not only
protected Him all the days that He walked this earth and provided
everything He needed all the days He walked this earth. The
Lord, just like He promised, raised Him to His right hand
and He sat down having completed the work of redeeming His people
and God has given Him an eternal inheritance. He owns all things. as the God-man. As God, He owned
all things. But now, as the man who is God,
God who is man, He owns all things. God's given Him everything. So
brethren, those who trust in Him, we're not going to lack
anything. We're defenseless lambs. That's
what we are walking through this life. We're defenseless lambs. We're sheep, Scripture said.
But because of who our shepherd is, We don't have to worry. We
won't be wanting anything. That's why He tells us, go to
Matthew 6. This is why He tells us not to
make the things of this world our focus. Look at Matthew 6
verse 19. I would to God that our young
people would get this now while they're young and hear this and
be able to live by this by God's grace. Look here, Matthew 6, 19. Lay
not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust
doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But
lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth
nor rust doth corrupt, where thieves do not break through
nor steal. Because where your treasure is,
there will your heart be also. How do you lay up treasures for
yourself? Believe on Christ. He's the unsearchable
rich gift of God. The unspeakable gift. You have
Him, you have your joint heirs with Him. You possess all righteousness,
all holiness, you possess all things with Him. Trust Him. He says here, wherever
your treasure is, whatever you value most, that's where our
hearts are going to be. That's where our heart's going
to be. He says there in the next point, he says, the light of
the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single.
If your eye is set on Christ only, Christ the light, your
whole body will be full of light. But if your eye be evil, if your
eye is set on sin, and this world, and your sinful friends, and
pleasing them, and fearing them, casting you out of your little
circle of friends, rather than fearing God. He says, and your
whole body is going to be full of darkness. And the light that is in thee,
if it is darkness, how great is that darkness. He says all
this because he says in verse 4, no man can serve two masters.
You can't serve the world and Christ. You can't serve riches
and worldly gain and all these things and serve Christ. It just
can't be done. It can't be done. So go with
me over to verse 25 and look here. Therefore I say unto you,
Christ says, take no thought for your life, what you should
eat or what you should drink. nor yet for your body what you
shall put on. Don't be anxious over these things
and worried over these things. It's not the life more than meat
and the body more than raiment. For after all these things do
the Gentiles seek. That is, that's what lost worldly
men seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth
that you have need of all these things, but seek you first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness. Seek Christ first in all things
at all times. And all these things shall be
added to you. They'll be added to you. I watched
a documentary recently on J.P. Morgan. Man, this fellow, you
know who J.P. Morgan is. He was a banker back
when all the industrialists were making so much money. Man, this
guy, he built an empire off of war really, off of the
First World War and became just filthy rich and he made every
kind of under the table deal and back door deals and oppressive
in the way he made deals, made people make deals with him. We had a thing worked out where
we were propping up Germany so Germany could pay back England
so England could pay back us. And he was in charge of all of
it because he was the one that lent out all the money at exorbitant
interest. But I'll tell you something,
the man who is just a sinner saved by grace, unknown by this
world, who goes through life without having worldly riches
and worldly esteem and worldly applause and all these things,
but he has Christ. He fears the Lord. He believes
on Christ. That man will leave this life
richer, richer, and more blessed than all this world's J.P. Morgans put together. Now, let's listen to Christ teach
us how we're to walk in the fear of the Lord. How do we walk in
the fear of the Lord? Go back to Psalm 3411. Come ye children, hearken unto
me, I'll teach you the fear of the Lord. And you know as fathers
and mothers, we do this very thing. We gather our children
at our side and we teach them what is right, the right way
they ought to walk, the right thing they ought to speak. And
we teach them this because we tell them this is how you're
going to have a good life, a better life than if you live in sin
and wickedness and evil. We do the same thing. Christ
is the head of the church. He's got all power as the God-man
mediator to call His children to His side and say, come children,
I'll teach you the fear of the Lord. And that's what He's doing
here. Why do we call Him the prophet, priest, and king? As
our prophet, He gets all the glory for teaching us the gospel
in our hearts through preaching, like we're talking about right
here, like we're doing here. He gets all the glory for teaching
us in our heart. As the high priest, He's the
prophet, priest, and king. As the high priest, He's our
righteousness. He's our righteousness. He's
the one that entered into the holy place and made atonement
for His people. And He comes forth and He blesses
us with that free justification that He earned for us. and declares
to us, God has forgiven us. We've been passed over forever. Our sins are put away. Our crimes
are off the record book. And as our King, He's the King
of kings and Lord of lords. He's that Holy Sovereign One
with all power in heaven and earth so that He can, no obstacle
will ever get in His way. There are no obstacles with Him.
He will successfully bring this gospel to everyone that He redeemed
and make us hear it. and as the prophet bless it to
our heart and teach us in our heart and as the high priest
show us that he's all our salvation. That's why he's the prophet,
priest, and king. So he's called us here to his side and he asks
us this rhetorical question. Listen to this, verse 12. What
man is he that desires life and loves many days that he may see
good? Is there anybody here that don't
want that? We all want that, don't we? This is what we want. We want life and we want many
days and we want to see good. But he's declaring that the things
he's about to teach us are the things that please God. God is
righteous and He's only pleased with righteous things. And He's
showing us these are the things God's pleased with so that if
we can walk in this way He's going to show us, we've already
been blessed of God with all righteousness in Christ. We've
already been blessed of God to be able to walk this way He's
teaching us. And we shall be blessed of God because these
are things God delights in. This is what he's talking about.
Concerning our speech, verse 13, keep thy tongue from evil
and thy lips from speaking guile, hypocrisy, deceit. Out of the
abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Christ is the Holy One. Christ only spoke that which
is right and true. That's all He spoke when He walked
this earth. He only spoke the gospel of God. He went about
declaring to sinners that salvation is by Him fulfilling the law,
by Him honoring the law, by His righteousness fulfilling the
law, by Him going to the cross and bearing the sin of His people
and putting away our sin. This was His message. This is
the message of the Gospel. Salvation is not by the work
of my hand or your hand. Salvation is by the work of our
Redeemer. That's why He's called the Redeemer.
He alone can redeem us from the curse of the law. We fell in
Adam and we must be redeemed in Christ. We lost all fellowship
with God in Adam and that fellowship can only be reinstated by Christ. We lost the Holy Spirit in Adam
and that Holy Spirit will only be given to us through the blood
of Christ. We became the enemy of God in
Adam and the only way we are going to be reconciled to God
and be friends with God is by Christ Jesus the Lord. That's
what he taught everywhere and every place he went. There was
no deceit in his mouth. Everything he spoke was the truth.
And God was pleased with him, so well pleased with him. Now
brethren, we should only speak what's right and what's the gospel. Never evil, never deceit. If
God's given us a new heart, James said salt water and fresh water
can't come out of the same fountain. Whatever we speak that's evil
and deceitful and is not good and is not edifying to anybody,
that's not coming from the new man. That's coming from our sinful
flesh. We ought not to ever speak those
kinds of things. We ought to speak now of Christ
and make our boast in Him. We used to speak evil in that
we used to just make our boast of our will and our works. But
when He brings you to have a new heart, now He makes you speak
that which is right, and that which is true, and that which
is good by bragging and boasting on the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
all your salvation. And now we speak the truth, confessing
Christ, that He's the author and the finisher, all our salvation.
And in our daily lives, brethren, always speak what's good. Never speak evil. Just speak
what's edifying to people. You think about it, if every
time we thought to criticize somebody, you know, and we always
do it in private, and we're going to talk behind their back and
criticize them. Oh, but we're not talking about
them. You know, this is just something they need to work on.
Yes, we are talking about them too. Every time we do that, brethren,
just think if we, instead of doing that, even if it was just
with myself, instead of talking bad about somebody. What if I
just started singing a hymn to myself about Christ? Or quoted
some scripture here that tells me some doctrine of Christ justifying
me. What if I did that just to myself? That would curb me speaking evil,
wouldn't it? And imagine if we did that. If all we ever spoke
was for edification and whatever was not for edification we just
didn't speak. We'd be silent a lot. We would
be silent a lot. I had this brother named Otto
McGugan. He was about this tall, white
haired man and me and him used to, we dug water lines for the
church down in Arkansas and one day I was out there with him.
probably 10 hours that day and I guess the whole day. I don't
remember Brother Otto ever speaking a word except it was glorifying
the Christ. He taught me the gospel the whole
time I was out there. And I was eating it up because
the Lord was dealing with me at that time. I wanted to know
the gospel. We sat out there and dug those
ditches and he preached to me from the time I got there to
the time I left. That's what we ought to do. Speak
that with edifying as often as we possibly can and nothing else. And concerning our doing, verse
14, he says, Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue
it. Think about this, brethren. Because
we were conceived in sin, Scripture says, every imagination of the
thoughts of our heart was only evil continually. But because
Christ is holy, Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart
was only good continually. Can you imagine that? I can't even imagine it. To only
think good continually. He desired life and long days.
He said, do you desire life and long days? He did. For his people,
eternal life. And so he sought peace and he
pursued it. We were the enemy of God. He
came to reconcile us, to bring us back into friendship with
God. And that's what He did. And that was His life's pursuit,
brethren. And He gives us a fear of the
Lord. He makes us depart from our evil, will-works religion.
And He makes us pursue Christ, our peace, to trust Him. And Scripture says, therefore
being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God. Isn't that a
good thing? I'm not worried about God being
angry with me. Since the late 80s, I have never
been worried about God being angry with me. Because when He
saved me, He taught me reconciliation has been made. Even when He chastens
me, He's not punishing me. He's loving me and He's correcting
me. And our daily lives depart from
evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it. If you want to
be happy, people always say it, I want to be happy, I want to
be happy. And people are saying now they're not happy. If you
want to be happy, do something to make somebody else happy.
And you'll be happy. It's more blessed to give than
receive. Do something to help somebody
and you'll be happy. Most of the time we're not happy
because we're being selfish. Do something for somebody else
and you'll be happy. Peter preached from this passage. He said, Who
is He that will harm you if you be followers of that which is
good? Pretty simple, huh? Who's going
to harm you if you just do what's good? Now, we saw at first that
the Lord said there's a promise to those that fear Him. The Lord
will provide. Now look at verse 15. The eyes of the Lord are
upon the righteous and His ears are open unto their cry. Now
I want you to get this point. God is as just in His daily providence
as He is in our salvation. God is as just in His daily provision
for us as He is in our salvation. Christ bought us with His precious
blood. We're the righteous in Christ.
He came and He gave us a new heart and He brought us through
faith in Christ. We're the righteous. And He's
made us now to where we want to speak that which is right
and we want to do that which is good. We hunger and thirst
after righteousness. We like what God says is right. And we hate our sin. And He says
here to all those that or such, for the Lord's own name's sake,
for the glory of His name, for Christ His Son, He says, the
eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open
unto their cry. Verse 17, The righteous cry,
and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and sayeth
with such that it be of a contrite spirit. He's near to them. I
can say this from experience. When you have a broken heart,
when God sent a trial and you have a broken heart, it doesn't
seem like He's near. You're running about trying to
fix it and trying to do this and that and it doesn't seem
like He's anywhere around. But I can tell you this from this
word right here. He's near and His eyes are upon you and He
stands ready to hear you cry and His hands are ready to deliver
you. That's so of His people that trust Him. That's so of
them. But now watch this, because God
is just in providence, the same as in salvation. Verse 16, the
face of the Lord is against them that do evil to cut off the remembrance
of them from the earth. God sees the righteous and the
evil. If it's evil, if the evil is speaking and doing that which
is evil in daily life, The Lord is against them in daily providence.
Whatever He's doing and arranging, He's doing it against that man. And He's going to stop his pursuits. He's going to make it harder
for him. He's going to make him, if he wants to live by the sword,
he's going to die by the sword. And if the evil is looking to
his own will and works, when he leaves this world and meets
God in judgment, then God's going to be against him. Because He's
just in providence the same as He's just in our salvation and
our dealings with men. So lastly now, I want to ask
this question before we go. Does our Lord mean that a believer
will never have trouble in our life if we do that which is right? Is that what He's saying to us
now that if we do that which is right, now that He's sanctified
us and we really have a desire to speak honorably and do what's
honorably, does that mean we're never going to have any trouble?
No, it doesn't mean that. The Lord said we will have trouble.
Verse 19, here's what it means. Many are the afflictions of the
righteous. We have many afflictions. We're
going to have many troubles in this life. But the Lord delivereth
him out of them all. He keepeth all his bones and
not one of them is broken. You know who that speaks of preeminently?
Christ. He was on the cross. He was hanging
there. The Lord said the Passover lamb, not a bone of that lamb
could be broken. And it pictured Christ. There's
Christ, our Passover, hanging on the cross. And they wanted to get Him down
off the cross because they didn't want to break a Sabbath day.
And so they sent some men out there to break all their legs
so that they would drown in their fluid and die. And when they
came to Christ, He had already given up the ghosts. And the
Scripture says, when they came to Jesus, they saw He was dead
already. They break not His legs, for
these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled,
a bone of Him shall not be broken. What's that teaching us? God
is so well pleased with Christ, So well pleased with Christ,
He delivered him without allowing even one bone to be broken so
that he could fulfill the Scriptures and fulfill that type of the
Passover lamb. And He is going to do the same
for us, brethren. It doesn't mean you won't have
a broken bone. It doesn't mean that at all. It means He is going
to provide for you. It means this, ìOr not to spare
a soul for a penny, and one of them shall not fall on the ground
without your father, but the very hairs of your head are all
numbered. Fear ye not, therefore, your
more value than many sparrows. It means this, verse 21. The
evil shall slay the wicked, and they that hate the righteous
shall be desolate. That word desolate means guilty.
It means this. The Lord redeemeth the soul of
His servants, and none of them that trust in Him shall be guilty. Not one of them. I'll tell you
something, brethren. If God has provided everything
for us for the life to come, that's what Paul was saying in
Romans 8. If God be for us, who can be against us? He foreknew
us. He predestinated us to be conformed
to the image of His Son. He justified us. He called us. If God be for us, who can be
against us? And then he says, now, if He did all that for us,
brethren, How shall He not with Him freely give you all things? If He gave you all righteousness
and all holiness freely and all salvation freely, how shall He
not freely give you everything else you need with Christ? You
see, it matters to our Lord how His people walk in this life
and how we speak in this life. He came to work righteousness
because He loves righteousness. And so when He doesn't delight
in us speaking evil and working wickedness, He delights in us
doing that which is right and speaking that which is right.
Just like you do your children and I do my children. I pray
God will bless that now. Bodily exercise profiteth little. We're not talking about just
going through the outward motions here. But godliness, that which
God works. is profitable under all things,
having the promise of the life that now is and of that which
is to come. That's what he's talking about.
Amen.