Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Psalm 27. Psalm 27. Now one thing is certain about
the life of the believer. Whenever you have a season of
joy, you can be certain that it will not be very long before
you have a season of trouble. That's just certain. Our Lord
Jesus Christ promised it, and the experience of every believer
verifies it. You're going to have seasons
of great joy. that you are certainly going
to have seasons of trouble. But there is a reason. God does
these things on purpose. He does them for the good of
His people. And He does them to bring glory
to Himself, to bring His people to glorify Him. And so anything
that does that, anything that brings us to glorify God, praise
God, see God better, See His faithfulness better. See His
righteousness more clearly. Anything that does that is worth
it. It's worth it. Here's what I
want to remind you of and try to just touch on in this psalm
tonight. Through every trial, God is teaching
His child that God is faithful and that we're to rely only upon
the Lord. If you took all the different
trials, you could go through thousands of scenarios. But in
everything that God is teaching us in this world, in trouble,
is that He is faithful and that we are to look only to Him. You
know, somebody that is faithful is a rare thing. We'll see that
in this psalm. It's a rare thing. When you know
someone that's faithful, and I mean as God calls faithful,
that's something wonderful. You have something then. You've
got somebody that will be faithful to you. And so, teaching you
this over and over, He teaches us He's the one to rely upon.
Our subject is, Wait, I say, on the Lord. Now we've looked
at Psalm 27 as it relates to our Lord Jesus Christ as He hung
up on the cross. These things that He says here
all fit what our Savior endured on the cross and what His prayer
was on the cross. And we've looked at it like that.
Tonight I want to look at it as it relates to our trials as
believers. And we're going to just take
it verse by verse. Now, first of all, here is the first thing
I want to look at. The Lord alone, the Lord alone
is the one we are to look unto and believe upon. Nobody else. The Lord alone we are to look
unto and believe upon. He says in verse 10, when my
father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me
up. Now, by speaking of those that
are nearest and dearest to us, my mother and my father, the
nearest, dearest relations we have, by speaking of those forsaking, He is by that showing us that
we can't depend entirely on any mere man. That's what he's declaring. We're far too prone to put confidence
in men. The Lord said in Isaiah, He said,
put no confidence in man, for where is he to be accounted of?
And we who believe, as Paul said to the Philippians, we are the
circumcision, we are the true Israel of God. who worship God
in spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in our flesh. No confidence in the flesh. That
means not in ourselves, certainly not in ourselves. While the world
is talking about themselves and their works and how strong in
faith they are and how sure they are of... Brethren, you and I,
if you've been around, you know better than that. If God just took His hand off
of us for a minute, you'll do what any other sinner in the
world will do. So will I. We don't trust ourselves. We don't lean to ourselves, not
to our works, not to our way, not to our will, nothing. And
we don't trust, we're not to put confidence, overly confident
in men of anywhere, anytime. Look over to Micah 7. The Lord
quoted from Micah 7 many times, and you're going to recognize
this when you hear it. I want you to see this. Micah chapter 7. Listen to this. Here's why. Here's the point.
Right here. Trust ye not in a friend. Micah 7. Verse 5, Trust ye not
in a friend? Put ye not confidence in a guide? Keep the doors of thy mouth from
her that lieth in thy bosom. We are to love our nearest friends. We are to honor those gods given
to guide us for their work's sake. We are to be open and honest
with our spouse. But because we're all weak, sinful
flesh, we can't put any saving confidence in our flesh at all. Why? Look at verse 6. For the
son dishonoreth the father, the daughter riseth up against her
mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies
are the men of his own house. Now Christ repeated that several
times in Scripture. And that's what He meant by trust
not in men. Trust not in fleshly man. Now
let me say this, if brethren or some men ask you to do something
and they're counting on you to do something, we ought to make
it our top priority not to disappoint them. We ought to make certain
we are going to do everything we can to fulfill whatever it
is they are counting on us to do. But when it comes to me,
looking at my brethren or men of the world, don't ever get
disappointed when they disappoint you, when they don't do what
you ask them to do. Don't get disappointed by it.
Because the Lord said, It's going to happen. It's going to happen. And that's why we get so down
sometimes. I think we put too much confidence
in the flesh. You do that, you're going to
get disappointed. The more you put confidence in flesh, in men,
the more disappointed you're going to become. But we should
put all our confidence in the Lord. Put all of it in him. He says, when my father and my
mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Our Lord Jesus
Christ experienced being forsaken of loved ones. Here's the great thing about
Christ. There's nothing about Him that you suffer that He hasn't
already suffered. If you suffer it, Christ has
suffered it already. He's the forerunner that went
before us even in suffering. And whenever our Lord Jesus experienced
His nearest and His dearest loved ones forsaking Him, who was His
confidence? He said this in John 16, 32,
Behold, the hour cometh Yea, it is now come that ye shall
be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone. And that's what happened. The
strongest, most faithful one there, Peter, said, I won't forsake
you, Lord. I won't forsake you. These men
might forsake you. I won't forsake you. And he denied
the Lord three times and turned his back on Him and left. And
when Peter said, I go fishing, he wasn't talking about, I'm
just going to take a break and take a fishing trip. He was saying,
I quit. I'm done. I'm done with Christ. I'm done with the ministry. I'm
going back to my former livelihood. I'm going back fishing. And the Lord said they would
do that. But he said this, and yet I am not alone because the
Father is with me. See, when He faced the cross,
His confidence was not in men. His confidence was in God His
Father. He looked to the Father. Christ
had the covenant promises of God the Father, just like we
have the covenant promises of God the Father. All the promises
of God are in Christ, yes, and in Him, amen. That means they're
sure. They'll never fail. Not one promise
He's made will drop to the ground. And we see that looking to Christ
because Christ looked to the Father knowing His covenant promises
are sure. Christ is there fulfilling God's
covenant for His people. He's there as the one man representing
all God's elect. And He's doing for them what
they can't do for themselves. And that is fulfilling the righteousness
of the law. Have you ever considered this
phrase when it tells us Christ was obedient unto the death of
the cross? Think of those two words. Obedient
unto death. You've got obedience and you've
got death. Is that not what is required to save sinners and
honor the law? We need a perfect, righteous
obedience to the law of God. And we've got to die because
we've broken it. And Christ did that. He obeyed it. He obeyed God until the death
of the cross. That's what He did. Christ stood
in the room instead of His people. And He answered justice on our
behalf. And when He stood there answering
justice on our behalf, because the sin of His people was laid
on Him, and God is just, God had to forsake Him. If you wonder
what was taking place when Christ cried out, My God, My God, why
hast Thou forsaken Me? It's because He laid on Him the
iniquity of all His people. And Scripture says, God is of
two pure eyes to behold iniquity. Justice requires him to pour
out the wages of sin upon the Redeemer, which is death. And
that death involves being forsaken by God the Father. That was a
necessity to fulfill the law. But even when that was taking
place, the Lord's confidence was, the Father is with me. He knew what He was doing. He
was doing in obedience to the Father. And He trusted the word
of the Father that the Father, after He finished establishing
justice for His people, the Father would justify Him, declare Him
to be His perfect righteous servant. And so He looked to the Father.
And now, brethren, because our Substitute has satisfied justice
for each one for whom He died, That's exactly what He meant
when He said, It is finished. He meant He had satisfied divine
justice for everybody for whom He died. And God is just. The whole point of the cross
is to declare the righteousness of God. God is just. He could
not save a guilty sinner without Christ standing in the room instead
of that guilty sinner, and bearing the sin of that guilty sinner,
and bearing the justice of that guilty sinner, the wrath of God
against sin for that guilty sinner. And so Christ did that. And now
that justice is satisfied, God will not ever forsake one that
Christ purchased. God won't forsake one. Why? Justice
is satisfied for them. The righteousness of God has
been upheld. The righteousness of the Lord
has been honored by each one of those people He's determined
to save. Not by us personally. All we've ever done is sin against
God. But it's been honored by Christ who honored it for us
at the cross. And so now, the purpose of us
meeting here now is God's calling out His people. He's calling
them out. And He's teaching us as He calls
us out because righteousness has been established. And so
God won't forsake us. When you think about God forsaking
His Son, that was part of God fulfilling His covenant for His
people. And because He forsook His Son, He will not forsake
His people. He will not. Righteousness won't
let Him. You know, do we still have this
thing in our law called double jeopardy? Do we still have that
in this country? You see people going back and being tried so
many times. I don't even know if we still got it. But if a
person has been declared not guilty, you can't trial them
again for that same crime. When Christ said it is finished,
He's declared His people are not guilty anymore. They can't
be tried anymore. They got to be called out, given
faith and rest in Him. And now, brethren, knowing that,
we have the promise that He'll never forsake us. He'll never
forsake us. Listen to what He said to Joshua.
He said, There shall not any man be able to stand before thee
all the days of thy life. As I was with Moses, so I will
be with thee. I will not fail thee nor forsake
thee. That's true of every believer.
That's God's promise to every believer in Christ. No man's
going to be able to stand before you. Your accusers come around,
they're not going to be able to lay a charge to you. Who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Who's going to impute
sin to me? Christ already paid it. God justified His people. To His church He says, Behold,
I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth,
and you'll thresh the mountains and beat them small, and you'll
make hills as chaff, and you'll fend them, and the wind will
carry them away, and the whirlwind will scatter them. and you'll rejoice in the Lord
and shall glory in the Holy One of Israel. And I'll tell you
what all that means. It means He's going to make us
preach His Gospel and He's going to work all that work through
the Gospel. He's going to save the weak and scatter the chaff
through this message. And we're going to do nothing
but glory in the Lord and rejoice in the Lord. That's what our
message is. That's what our song is. That's what our prayer is.
That's what our life is, is glorying and rejoicing in the Lord. And
I guarantee you as we do this, you're going to make some enemies.
You can bank on it. That's what Christ meant. Man's
foes will be there of his own household. You're going to make
enemies. Folks you didn't think you'd make enemies with will
be enemies. But listen to this. When the poor and needy seek
water and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst,
I the Lord will hear them. I the God of Israel will not
forsake them. See, the chief lesson declared
in Christ crucified is the righteousness of God. That's the chief lesson
declared in Christ crucified. God's the just judge. That means
He always does what is just and right. He is no respecter of
persons. Whenever He laid the sin of His
people on His own Son, Scripture says, He spared not His own Son. Why? Because the righteous judgment
of God demanded He must pay because He was bearing our sin. He did
no sin. He knew no sin. He would never
sin, but it was part of redemption that He bear our sin and bear
our judgment. And God spared not His own Son,
but delivered Him up for us all. Now, men will look at that and
they'll say, well, that seems pretty harsh. No, it seems pretty
righteous. That's how righteous God is.
But the believer looks at that and rejoices because now we know,
brethren, He will not forsake us because Christ redeemed us. Righteousness demands it. Listen
to this. He's the judge and He says, He
that justifieth the wicked and He that condemneth the just,
even they both are abomination to the Lord. He told the judges,
He said, you do what's right. When a man comes before you for
judgment, He said, if that man is righteous, you impute righteousness
to him. If he's guilty, you impute sin
to him. But you do what's right. You don't rest judgment. You
do what's right. And that was Abraham's plea for
Lot. You remember that? That was his
plea. God's righteousness was Abraham's
plea for Lot. He said, that be far from thee
to do after this manner, speaking to God, the just judge. He said
to slay the righteous with the wicked. And that the righteous
should be as the wicked, that be far from thee, shall not the
judge of all the earth do right? And the Lord said, if there's
just ten righteous men in Sodom, I'll spare the whole place just
for those ten people. Why is the world held in store
right now? Why hasn't God just wrapped this
thing up? Because God's still got some that are righteous by
the doing and dying of Christ and He won't forsake it until
He's brought them out. That's why. That's what Peter
said when he said the Lord's not slack concerning His promise.
He's not being lazy concerning His promise to return. But the
Lord is long-suffering because He is not willing. He is long-suffering
to us-ward. He is elect. He is not willing
that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance
and faith in Christ. And because He is not willing,
that means they are going to. Whatever God is willing to do
will come to pass. So what I am saying to you, brethren,
is we rejoice in the fact that we have a just judge. He judges
the people with just judgment. He doesn't risk judgment. He
doesn't respect person. He doesn't take a gift. For gifts
blind the eyes of the wise and pervert the words of the righteous.
That which is altogether just is what our God does. That's what He does. That is
exactly what He does. And so we know we'll never be
forsaken. You may not be able to trust
men, sinful men, but you can trust God. Put all trust in Him. Now secondly, let me look at
this next thing. Knowing the Lord will not forsake
us, our plea is for the Lord to teach us. and lead us and
keep us from our enemies. Look here in verse 11. Teach
me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of
mine enemies. Deliver me not over unto the
will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against
me, and such as breathe out cruelty. Back in the eighties, God sent
the gospel to me. And God called me by His irresistible
grace. He gave me a new heart. He made
me willing to cast all my care on Christ. And by that same irresistible
grace, He's kept me rejoicing in the exact same gospel. My doctrine hasn't changed any
since then. He's kept me He's kept me in
the very same church, His church, the church of God. He's kept
me listening and rejoicing under the same faithful preachers.
It's that whole time by His grace. And anyone who stands with Christ
any length of time knows this. Standing with Christ will guarantee
you that you will have enemies. You can just mark it down. You
can mark it down. And so we pray, Lord, deliver
me not over unto the will of mine enemies, for false witnesses
are risen up against me. False witnesses. And such as
breathe out cruelty. Why do we pray for the Lord not
to deliver us over to their will? What we're saying is, Lord, don't
let my enemies be able to accomplish their will against me. Why would
we say that? Because every enemy we have,
we don't have any strength against them. There's not an enemy that
a believer has that he can conquer by himself. Not a one. Beginning
with this old fleshly man that's still with us in our own heart.
There's a part of me now that's just as sinful as it ever was.
It's called the old man of flesh. And while I delight in the gospel
in the inward man that God's created, that old man hates it
and wants to do everything against it. How then am I going to be
kept from that enemy? God's going to have to do it.
Who shall deliver us from the body of this death? Paul said,
I thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, every other
enemy, brethren, from the devil to those who would bring a false
accusation against us, every enemy will have to be conquered
by our Redeemer. Because we can't do it. We just
can't do it. There's nothing we can do to
stop our enemies. Have you ever felt helpless to
do a thing to stop false accusations and such things like that? You
know, it's one of those things where you get into a spraying
match with a skunk, you might win, but you're going to come
out smelling like a skunk. And there's nothing you can do
about it. Nothing you can do. And not only are our enemies
too strong, they are far too deceptive for us. Christ said, there shall arise
false Christs and false prophets and shall show great signs and
wonders insomuch that if it were possible they shall deceive the
very elect, if it was possible. That's deceptive. That's deceptive. You know, Christ's enemies didn't
all breathe out cruelty publicly. I don't know that any of them
did publicly until they had him. Publicly, you would have thought
they were all for the glory of God. But privately, they breathed
out cruelty against him the whole time. He said, every day they
rest my words. They take my words and they twist
them and accuse me of saying what I have not said. and all
their thoughts are against me for evil. They gather themselves
together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps when they
wait for my soul. Now listen, there were some faithful
men who wrestled Christ's words. Peter wrestled Christ's words
and when he told them, you're going to forsake me, Peter said,
no I'm not. And he ended up doing it. But
Peter was faithful. He was the man God had called.
What I'm saying, it doesn't mean if somebody wrestles with your
words and would twist them or whatever, that doesn't necessarily
mean they're not a believer. It doesn't even mean they're
an enemy. It just means they might be overtaken right now. And God will save them. God will
take care of them. But there were those that dealt
toward Christ that were just nothing but enemies. That's all
they were. And I'm telling you, there's
a lot of folks out there, brethren, that religion is the biggest
cloak there is for people to just do meanness. And folks will
pretend like they have a concern for God's glory and a zeal for
the truth, and if they couldn't argue and fight, they wouldn't
have any interest whatsoever. And so they take the words whereby
men are just simply trying to show. We stumble around, we try
to put things as clearly and plainly as we can, but they'll
take the words and use them against you and try to entangle you.
I don't write, I don't answer anybody hardly in an email because
the next thing you know it'll be on the internet. I gave you
that word of advice, don't text it, don't write it. If you don't
want to see it, post it publicly. Don't do it. You can take back
something you said. You can't take back something
you wrote. But that's what they do. But
God uses those enemies to do what? Why does He make it so
that you just can't do anything anymore? You can't save yourself
from it. Why does He do that? To teach
you you can't. To bring you to the end of yourself.
And to turn you to Him. Look at this. Teach me thy way,
O Lord. Why don't you just come to that
point where you have to say, Lord, just teach me Your way. If I
try to look to my own way, it's going to be wrong. You teach
me Your way, Lord. And lead me in a plain path because
of my enemies. And God does just that. He teaches us Christ is the way. That's what He said. Christ said,
I am the way. The way where? No man comes to
the Father but by Me. Well, isn't there something I'm
going to need to add to Christ? Nope. Christ is the way. Christ
is the truth. Christ is the light. Christ is
all. You have Christ and you have
everything you need to come to the Father. Isn't that wonderful? You don't have to add anything.
You've got Christ. You've got everything you need to come to
the Father. And above everything that's going on with my enemies
and your enemies and all the enemies of the church, above
everything that's going on, this is what God's bringing us to
know. The way is Christ. The way is Christ and Him alone. Our wisdom's not our own. You
know, we like to think we're wise and we like to think that,
you know, if something happens, I'm going to handle this in a
wise way. But God will let you see, you're just a big old fat
dummy. Why? So we'll trust what God
says, Christ is our wisdom. The wisdom of God is Christ. That's what 1 Corinthians chapter
1 and 2 says. The wisdom of God is Christ.
We think we're strong and powerful. We think we can, you know, strong
arm our way along and what have you. And God makes you see you're
weak. Why? So you turn to Christ, the
power of God. The power of God. And God by
His Spirit, He leads us in a plain path by His Word, by His Gospel. Don't you see it? You know, some
of you are sitting here shaking your head, yes, you experience
some of the things I'm talking about. That makes you know what
I'm saying here is true because you've experienced it. He teaches
you in His Word and then He uses these trials of providence that
He sends, that He controls to bring you back to His Word, to
make you look into His Word and say, I want to know what God's
Word says. I'm fully persuaded He allows
men to begin to bicker about doctrine to make His people go
to His Word and say, Lord, teach me what You say. I don't want
to just say something I say, and I don't want to take another
man's Word for it. Lord, teach me what You say.
Because that's all that matters, what Christ says. And He does
this. He teaches you and He does this.
The Spirit of God will make His believing child take what God
says and drop what we thought or what we were taught or whatever
our tradition was. If it's not giving God all the
glory, giving Christ all the glory, if it's not according
to this Word, He'll make you drop it. Because that's not light. That's not the plain path. That's
an all-powerful God, brethren. They can do that. They can bring
His child to see the way more plainly. He said, What man is
he that feareth the Lord? Him shall he teach in the way
that he shall choose. You realize reverence, reverent
fear. Who fears the Lord? That means
who reverences the Lord? When you reverence somebody,
You're more interested in what they have to say than what you
have to say. And you sit and listen to what
they have to say, and you know that this is the way. And the
man that references God, God says He'll teach him in the way.
The man that doesn't have any fear of God, that's just trying
to say, this is what I think, this is what I believe, this
is what's logical and makes sense to me, and anybody would see
this as, you know, you can dot every I and cross every T and
logic on this or whatever, God's not going to teach that man.
He don't reference God. God doesn't waste His time teaching
a classroom of kids that are up running around throwing spitballs.
He teaches the ones that He's got seated right down at His
feet, hanging on every word. That's what I'm talking about.
He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his
saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment,
and equity, yea, ever good path. How am I going to understand?
He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his
saints. Then Because He's keeping you. He won't let your enemies
have their way with you. He won't let you be drawn away.
He won't let you fall. And He won't do it. And then,
when you see that and you understand that, you've experienced that,
then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment and equity, yea,
every good path. You know, you understand, like
I was talking about, God does what He does for us because He's
righteous and it would be unrighteous to let us perish now. You don't
understand that until you see, I was a goner right there. I
was gone. My foot had well nigh slipped
right there and God didn't let me fall. Now I understand something
about that righteousness will not let Him let me fall away.
His righteousness won't let it. Now I understand. That's what
he said. See, in the light of Christ,
that's how we're going to understand His Word. And in providence,
the things that happen to us don't have any light unless we
get that light from Christ. But when He's the light, He makes
you see that what He's working for you in your life and what
He's promised you in this Word are right in harmony. They're
just right together. He's doing exactly what He promised.
And that's when you understand righteousness and judgment and
equity. Now let me go to this third thing. The strength that
God gives us is through faith in Christ alone. The strength
He gives us is through faith in Christ alone. He says in verse
13, I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness
of the Lord in the land of the living. Remember Paul said we
faint not. It means fall away. It means
perish. Go away backwards. You know,
God gives me a word for Sunday. And I've told you this, almost
always then after He's given me the Word to preach on Sunday,
He gives me the clinical on Monday. I get to experience it on Monday.
So Sunday I preached about we faint not. And the reason we
don't faint is because Christ is our strength. He keeps us
from fainting. If it was up to us, we'd faint.
But Christ is our strength. And on Monday, He let me see what I'll do without
Christ. Let me experience some enemies.
Let me experience and see if I won't faint. I'll
faint. I'll perish. I'll walk around
all day not able to pick up the book, not able to read the Word,
not able to pray, not able to call on God, not able to just
think everything is over. It's all gone. It's all perished
and the house is falling down. and then He strengthens you in
faith to turn to Him, and you realize everything's alright.
It ain't changed a bit. But the Holy Spirit increases
our faith in Christ just for the purpose of making you look
only to Him. He says there, I would have fainted
unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living. Remember Job? Job suffered more than anybody
besides Christ in the Scriptures. He's an imminent type of Christ
in that suffering. And Job said, I know this. This is what he believed. After my body is dead and worms
have destroyed this body, in my body, with my eyes, I'm going
to see the Lord. He believed God. And that was
his strength to get through, trusting Christ, looking to Christ,
believing Christ. But without faith, relying entirely
upon Christ alone, we'll faint and fall away. I press upon you
that have never believed. Listen, you're not going to believe
the Gospel by trying to intellectually figure out the Gospel by learning
doctrine. You're never going to believe
God that way. You're never going to understand
that way. you believe on Christ, you look
to Christ, and you trust Christ, and you cast all your care on
Christ, and you get all the light from Christ. He teaches you everything. And then when you hear it, then
we don't just, you know, you might have the idea of, well,
why preach the doctrine of election? Because that's offensive to people,
and people don't have to know the doctrine of election to be
safe, so why preach it? Well, because when we're called
by Christ, we start seeing the glory of Christ in the doctrine.
And so you teach it because living things grow and He grows us in
grace and knowledge of Him. And you see that He's the elect.
God chose Him. And God chose His people in Him.
And you start seeing the light of the doctrine in Christ and
the glory of the doctrine in Christ. That's why you want to
learn more. See, but to go and just try to think that I'm going
to bring myself to know by my seeking and my reading and my
learning and memorizing all this, you're not going to do it. Because
then you know what you do? You'd say, well, here's how I
came to Christ. You ever heard that? Here's how
I came to Christ. I did it totally contrary to
how God says He does it. I'm a one in a million. I did
this. Well, you big boaster, you. God doesn't save like that. God's going to make you trust
Christ. That's who He's going to reveal.
So believe. I'm not saying put faith in your faith. I'm saying
know Christ shall prevail and I'll prevail because of Him.
Just know that. Alright, lastly, having seen
these things, the Lord gives us three words to follow now.
This is what the Lord is going to teach us through the use of
our enemies and in every trial. These three things is what He
is teaching us. Verse 14, wait on the Lord. We are now sinners
living in a now age and we want the answer now. But didn't we
just sing, Lord teach me the patience of unanswered prayer. Teach me that. I used to ask
my grandfather questions concerning the Scriptures. And a lot of
times he just didn't answer me. He'd just walk on, get up and
walk off like I never even asked him a question. But you know what it did? It
made me hang on to every word he preached because I thought
maybe I might get my answer. And it made me go to the Word
and look in the Word. It wasn't by accident that he
did it. It was on purpose that he did
it. God makes us wait so that we learn to wait on the Lord
to teach me. I need to wait on the Lord to
teach me. You know, you don't feed a baby a T-bone steak. You're
giving them little mashed up, ugly, gross looking little carrots
and stuff. And then he grows little by little
by little. And that's how we got to wait
on the Lord to teach us. And I got to wait on the Lord
to teach my brethren. I can't make people believe something. I can't persuade people to believe
something. And if I could, somebody else
would persuade them otherwise. I have to wait on the Lord to
teach. And so I can't get upset. I can't
get upset with my brethren and my brethren can't get upset with
me. We're all waiting on the Lord to teach us. And we learn
to wait on the Lord to strengthen us. And we wait on the Lord to
strengthen my brethren. And if we wait on the Lord, we'll
stop being overtaken with the bitter fruit, the bitter root
of unbelief and accusation and that against brethren. You know,
if you think about it, if you have a brother or sister and
you think that they believe error, you think what they're saying
is not according to the Word of God. But if Christ has taught
them what they now know and brought them to that place that they
now are, and they can't know more at all unless He teaches
them, unless the Master teaches them. If I reject that person,
you know what I'm doing? I'm rejecting what Christ has
taught them and why I'm rejecting the fact that He hasn't taught
them more at this point right now. That's all I'm doing. That's
not good, is it? That's rejecting Christ. So the
best thing for him to do is just what? Wait on the Lord. Wait
on the Lord. To his own master he stands or
falls, and the Lord is able to hold him up. The Lord is able
to hold him up. We are not going to be saved
by all this degree of our knowledge. We are going to be saved by Christ.
And concerning those who appear our enemies, if we wait on the
Lord, then we won't pass judgment on them. That's what we want
to do, you know. Oh, a believer wouldn't act like
that. I believe he wouldn't act like
what? Like what David did? The man God said, this is a man
after my own heart, guilty of adultery, guilty of murder. I
believe he wouldn't do that. I believe he wouldn't be the
first man out of the ark in the brand new world and one of the
first things he'd do is plant a vineyard, make wine and get
drunk. I believe he won't do that. A church won't do what? Read
1 Corinthians. But see, if I wait on the Lord,
I won't judge my brethren. Listen to this. Judge nothing
before the time until the Lord come. That means we wait on the
Lord. Who both will bring to light
the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the counsels
of the hearts. You'll do that in time. Then
shall every man, all his people have praise of God. Every one
of them. Because God is going to make it clear. I taught them. I showed them. I get the glory
for this. So, remember when the Lord told
Israel that their strength was to be quiet and sit still. Remember
that? He told them to sit still. That's going to be your strength.
Sit still and wait on the Lord. And they saw enemies around them,
and then they saw Egypt. Strong, powerful country. And
they said, if we make an alliance with Egypt, we can surely save
ourselves. And the Lord said, therefore
will the Lord wait. You won't wait, therefore will
the Lord wait. And so the Lord waited. He waited. He said, I'm going to wait until
you're like a tree sitting on a hill to where every branch
has been lopped off of it. Every one of them. Broken, broken,
broken, broken, broken. And that's the point. I'm going
to wait until you're broken. And then He said that He may
be gracious unto you. And therefore will He be exalted
See, when we're brought to the end of ourselves and we see that
God did what He did because of His grace, then we exalt Him. Therefore He'll be exalted that
He may have mercy upon you for the Lord is a God of judgment.
Blessed are all they that wait for Him. And he says, ìAnd the
Lord might give you the bread of adversity, and He might give
you the water of affliction, but your teachers shall not be
removed into a corner.î Youíre going to hear your teachers.
Whenever you go to turn to the right hand or to the left, youíre
going to hear your teachers say, ìThis is the way, walk ye in
it.î And youíre going to hear a still, small voice say, ìThis is the way.î That's what God's doing. So we
wait on the Lord. Then He teaches us this. Look
at the next thing. Be of good courage. Be of good
courage. Watch ye, stand fast in the faith,
quit you like men, be strong, watch in all things, endure afflictions,
make full proof of the ministry, wait on the Lord. Our courage
is not us, it's Him. We're waiting on Him. That's
our courage. That's how we persevere. We wait. Don't give up. Hold
out. Keep going. And then look at
this. And be of good courage in His strength. In His strength. He said, look at there, Psalm
27, He says, Wait, be of good courage, He shall strengthen
thine heart. And I'm going to tell you something,
a strength of the heart is far better than strength in the body. Strength in the heart will prevail
when the body has no strength. One day our body is not going
to have any strength. Strength in the heart will prevail even
then. Strength of heart and it's Christ. The Lord God will help
me, therefore shall I not be confounded, Christ said. He said,
therefore I have set my face like a flint. He said, I know
I shall not be ashamed. He is near that justifies me.
He said, the Lord God will help me. So He went forward. The strength of our heart is
Christ. He giveth power to the faint.
To them that have no might, He increases strength. The youth
shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall.
It doesn't matter how strong we might think we are in the
faith. You're going to fall. You're going to stumble. But
they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Why? He giveth power to the faint.
He does it. He is going to renew strength.
And they will mount up with wings as eagles, and run and not be
weary, and walk and not faint. And when the trial is over, brethren,
until the next trial, when the trial is over, we are going to
rejoice again, knowing just a little bit better, and putting all our
confidence in the Lord only. For a little while there, you
are going to see more clearly than you have ever seen it before,
God is faithful. I'm going to trust no one but
Him. And that's why I end with this. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Wait on the Lord. I don't know
what to do. I don't know if I should do this
or that or the other thing. Wait on the Lord. When you don't
know what to do, do nothing. Wait on the Lord. And when you
do know what to do, do it. Waiting on the Lord. Wait, I
say, on the Lord.