Well, I delivered your greeting
to the saints at Rocky Mount and the saints at Rocky Mount
said send their greetings to the saints at Rocky Hill. So,
I think we had good services. It was a good meeting and Brother
Henry and Sister Doris seemed to be in good spirits and rejoicing
in the Gospel. They looked so good. It was so
good to see them. Let's turn to Psalm 19. Psalm
19. This will be our text. It's to
the chief musician, a Psalm of David. Now there's no telling
how many books men have written. Fiction and non-fiction. There's
no telling how many religious books men have written. Fiction
and non-fiction. But there's two books that are
the most important of all books. And they're the two books that
all men should read. The first book is found in verse
1. Both of these books declare God's
glory. The first one is the book of
creation. The heavens declare the glory
of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork. The second book
Where God reveals His glory is the Word of God. The Bible. The Word of God. His Gospel. Verse 7. The law of the Lord
is perfect converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is
sure making wise the simple. That's the Word of God. These
two books declare God's glory. The Book of Creation and the
Word of God. These are the two books we need
to study. First of all, creation declares
God's glory. Now I'm going to look at this
tonight. We're going to try to go through the whole psalm, but
we're just going to take it on the surface. We're not going
to go too deep spiritually as we could, especially in this
account of creation. We'll come back, Lord willing,
another time and do that. But we're going to just look
and hear what the Word declares. What does it say concerning creation
and concerning God's Word? First of all, it says, the heavens
declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. The heavens, that's where the
planets are, and the stars are, and the moon is, and the galaxies,
and all of those things. And the firmament is the atmosphere.
This is the earth, The sky and the clouds and the wind and the
snow and the rain and the birds, where the birds fly, this is
the atmosphere. The heavens and the atmosphere
declare, they show. They not only declare that God
is, they declare God's glory, He said. They declare the glory
of God's power. They declare the glory of God's
wisdom. They declare the glory of God's
discretion. Jeremiah said, He made the earth
by His power. That's how God made the earth,
by His power. And it says, He established the
world by His wisdom. And it says, He stretched out
the heavens by His discretion. He put everything right where
it is in the heavens according to His discretion to declare
His glory. That's why He did it the way
He did it. You see the glory of the sun in the sky. And its
glory is so bright we can't even look at it. We can't even stare
at the sun. It'll hurt you. That's the glory
of the sun. And yet God's the one that hung
the sun there. Christ is the one from whom the
sun gets its light. Remember when He was on the cross?
He said, I'm the light of the world. And when He was on the
cross suffering for the sins of His people, The sun went dark. It went dark. It refused to shine. To whom then will you liken me
or shall I be equal, saith the Holy One? Lift up your eyes on
high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out
their host by number. He calleth them all by names
by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power,
not one failure. This is who God is. And the firmament
not only shows that God is, it shows His handiwork. His handwork,
the work of His hands. Man has only been able to go
so far in space. Only so far. But everything we've
discovered, God made it. God made it. We've been searching
out the things God has made and we haven't even searched them
out yet. We haven't even been to the depths of the sea to search
out what God has made. He made these things. By the
word of the Lord were the heavens made and all the host of them
by the breath of His mouth. So when you look up and you look
through the atmosphere and you look up into the heavens, we
see a revelation of God, that God is. We see a revelation of
His glory and of the work of His hand. And then not only do
we see, we hear. We hear. God's creation speaks
to us day and night. Look at verse 2. Day unto day
uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge. Every
day, one day after another, each new day, as the sun shines, and
as the rain falls, and as the flowers and the trees grow, and
they bring forth fruit, and they sustain us, every day we're being
shown, we're being spoken to, and we're being shown God's handiwork.
And the night is the same way. The sun disappears and the moon
comes out and you see the light of the moon. And you know the
moon has no light in it. Where does it get its light?
It gets its light from the sun. God put that there and designed
that by His discretion because it shows forth a center. The
sinner has no light in us. We lost all our light when we
fell in Adam. Where do we get our light? From
the Son of Righteousness. From Christ Jesus the Son. That's
where we get our light. We're recreated after the image
of God. And we're changed into His image.
And we reflect the image of God. That's so for a believer. And
this includes, this day by day, it includes all the acts of God's
providence. Everything that happens in a
day. all the workings that goes on in the world, all of the things
that go on in the night. It shows us God's government.
It shows us God's hand over all things. Why is everything held
in place? The Scripture says it's held
in store by the Word of God. And it says in Hebrews 1 that
Christ is that Word who upholds all things by the Word of His
power. Why is it held in place? Why is it held in store? Why
is it governed the way it is? Why is he doing, in everything
that comes to pass, he's doing it. Why is he doing everything
he's doing in this world? He has a people that He's redeemed
with His precious blood. And He's holding all things in
store by His covenant word, that covenant word whereby He promised
He will not lose one. He'll raise them all up again
at the last day. He's going to bring every elect
child to faith in Him and bring them to God and present them
to God. And He won't lose one. This is all... Every one of us. He's hearing this uttered every
day. Day after day after day. You think if a man lives up into
his 80s or his 90s, every day that he's lived, the glory of
God's been spoken to him. And everything he's seen all
around him, everything he's seen in the firmament and in the heavens,
everything, it's been uttering speech to him day after day after
day concerning God's glory every day. And furthermore, God's voice
in creation is a universal language. Now let's read verse 3. There's
two interpretations here. Let's read it first of all without
the italicized words. because the translators added
those and you could take them out and you get the true meaning.
So you read it first this way. No speech nor language. Their
voice is not heard. It means day unto day and night
unto night. They're not speaking with an
audible voice. They're not an audible voice
that's speaking. But now read it with the words
in there along with the next verse and you get the meaning,
another meaning here. There is no speech nor language
where their voice is not heard. Their line is going out through
all the earth and their words to the end of the world. It's
telling us God's voice in creation is a universal language. It's
a language that's heard by all men everywhere. I looked this
up. There is 6,900 spoken languages
in the world today. And if you include all the various
dialects, in those languages and the variations, it rises
to over 35,000. The most popular, I found this,
I didn't know this, the most popular is Mandarin Chinese. That's the most popular. But
concerning God's voice in creation, there's no speech, there's no
language where the voice is not heard. because their line is
going out through all the world. Everywhere men have this witness
of God's creation. Everywhere. And the one voice,
it's God's voice speaking and it's conveying the same message
that this is all the glory of God. God's done this. God's made
this. He's created this. God upholds
this. He's governing this. And not only does every man see
God's glory, and not only does every man hear God's glory, but
we feel the effects of God's creation. Look here in verse
4. It says, "...in them hath He
set a tabernacle for the sun." God made a tent. He made a tabernacle. He made it for the sun. Isaiah
40, 22 says, It's He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth,
and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers. It's He that
stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them
out as a tent to dwell in. Now it says here, He made them
for the Son. Do you know that just like He
made everything for the Son, and He made the Son, the S-U-N,
to be the center of His creation, Everything to revolve around
the Son. Everything dependent upon the
Son. And that shows us the glory of Christ. Everything that God
has made He's made for Christ, for Christ to dwell in. And it
revolves around Christ and all the creation is dependent upon
Christ. Everything is dependent upon
Him. He gives two illustrations here. He says the Son is as a
bridegroom and as a runner in a race. Verse 5, He says that
Son is as a bridegroom coming out of His chamber. You picture
a bridegroom. When he comes out of his chamber,
he's coming to meet his bride. And when he comes out of his
chamber, he's decked out. I mean, he's in all his beauty. He's arrayed in beauty. And he's
coming forth to meet his bride. You look at the sun when it comes
up in the morning. It's beautiful. It's absolutely
beautiful. And it says, And he comes forth,
and he rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. He's got a
race to run. He's going to go from one side
of the horizon all the way to the other side of the horizon.
He's got a race to run. Christ came forth. And when He
came forth, He came forth as the bridegroom. And He came forth
as bride. That's who He came for. A people
God gave Him before the foundation of the world. And He came forth,
and God says, He's the righteousness of God. His faithfulness declares
the righteousness of God. How God can be just and the justifier
of a hell-deserving people. And yet, because we're blind,
we didn't see any beauty in Him. We didn't see any comeliness
in Christ whatsoever when He came forth. But He came forth
as the Bridegroom. And He had a race set before
Him. There was a race set before Him. And He ran that race. He ran it for the joy set before
Him. He ran that race. Despising the
cross, despising the shame of it, but He ran that race because
there was joy set before Him, glorifying God, His Father, and
saving His people from our sins. When I heard about the sun coming
forth and all eyes rejoicing as a strong man to run a race,
I thought about Usain Bolt in Jamaica. You remember when he
set the world record running? And all eyes, everybody in that
stadium was full of people and everybody's eyes was on him.
And not only that, everybody in the world was watching through
television. We were all watching. and he was proud. He was prancing
around out there rubbing in the bottoms of his sneakers and getting
ready to run and he was rejoicing, strong. That's how the sun comes
forth. Nobody's going to stop the sun.
Who's going to stop the sun from shining? Who's going to stop
the sun from running its course? Who's going to stop Christ from
running his course? Who's going to stop Christ from
doing his will? Nobody. Nobody. Now look over
at Look over here now, it says that you might try to ignore
the sight of God's creation, and a man might try to ignore
the voice of God's creation, but here's the fact of the matter.
We're going to feel the effects of God's creation. Look here
in verse 6. His going forth is from the end of the heaven and
His circuit unto the ends of it. He's talking about the S-U-N,
the sun in the sky. There is nothing hid from the
heat thereof. Do you see that? A man might
be hidden away from the light of the sun. He might not be able
to see the light of the sun. He might be in prison, for instance.
But there's not a man anywhere on the face of this earth that
don't feel the heat of the sun. If the sun is further away, you
feel the lack of that heat, and you're cold, and you feel it.
And if the sun's nearer, you feel that heat more and more.
Every man, he feels the heat of that sun. So you feel the
effects of it. Now look at Romans 1. With these
things being true, God showed us, God spoken to us, He made
us feel all His creation and therefore every unbeliever Everyone
who will not walk in this light God's given, everybody who rejects
God and tries to claim there is no God, he's without excuse.
Look here, Romans 1 verse 19, Because that which may be known
of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them.
For the invisible things of God from the creation of the world
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.
What do we understand? Even His eternal power and His
Godhead, so that they're without excuse. Have you ever thought
about that? How does creation declare His
Godhead? How does creation declare God
the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit? We just saw
it. It declares God the Father. He created this. He said, I created
this. This is my handiwork. And the
sun, the S-U-N, declares Christ, God's son. And the heat that
affects you, feel of it. It's like the Holy Spirit. You
might try to ignore the light and you might try to ignore the
voice. But scripture says this, the work of the law is written
on their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness. Therefore,
whoever you are, O man, you're without excuse. This declares
His Godhead. The whole creation declares His
Godhead. So a man will say, well, I don't
need God's Word. I don't need the preaching of
the Gospel. I just go out in nature and spend time out in
nature and I'll commune with God and I'll understand God and
I'll be taught of God. No, sir. No, sir. How are you going to discover
in nature how God is just and the justifier of His people?
How are you going to find that out? How are you going to look
into nature and discover how a man can be made just with God?
That's not going to be revealed in nature, in the things God's
created, and no sinner is going to be converted by that light.
That light deems us inexcusable. for not seeking God, for not
walking in the light He's given us to seek more light from Him.
That's what that creation, that book does. But now look at this
second book. God declares His glory in this
book, verse 7. The law of the Lord is perfect,
converting the soul. When you see law there, Most
people that pick up the Bible and read it, when they read the
words L-A-W, they think Ten Commandments. That's not what that means. This word law right here means
Torah. It means doctrine. It means teaching.
It means from the first verse of Genesis to the last verse
of Revelation, The doctrine of God is perfect. That's what it
means. It's perfect. Now, you know,
when somebody famous writes a book, people line up to get this book.
They can't wait to read it. You realize the God who made
the heavens and the earth, the God before whom we will stand,
every one of us in the day of judgment has written this book. And this is God's teaching. This
is God's doctrine. And you don't see people beating
down the doors to read this one, do you? This is God's Word. This is God's Word. And just
like God made the sun as the center of the universe, everything
God teaches in His book is Christ. Christ is all. That's the message
of the book. The whole counsel of God is the
counselor. Do you know that's his name?
Isaiah 6 says he's the counselor. He's the mighty God. The whole
counsel of God is concerning the counselor. He said, search
the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life and
they are they which testify of me. This whole book is speaking
of him and it's perfect. There's no discrepancy in this
book. There's no contradictions in this book. If you and I read
this book and we think we found a contradiction, I can guarantee
you this, the contradiction's in us. It's not in the book.
The book's perfect. The Word's perfect. How do I
know? Because God, who is the author, is perfect. Because it's
declaring the Word, the essential Word, Christ the Word, and He's
perfect. And His salvation is perfect.
And His righteousness is perfect. His holiness is perfect. Everything
He's done for His people is perfect. That's how I know everything
God teaches in this book is perfect. It's perfect. It's the Word of
the Lord that converts a sinner. It says, verse 7, The law of
the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. Now, you can pick this
book up and you can read it and not be converted. not be converted. When it says the law of the Lord
is perfect converting the soul, it's not separated from Him who
is the Word Himself. When you read the Word, when
God speaks into the heart, through the preaching of this Word, when
He speaks into the heart, that's when a man is converted. And
this word converted here, this word means restored. Christ restores that
which he took not away. If one of your brethren be overtaken
in a fault, you which are spiritual restore him. How are you going
to restore him? Through the word of God. Not
our word. I'm all for illustrations and
I like to give illustrations and it helps you to stay awake
in a message or whatever, but that's not going to convert you.
And just me preaching is not going to convert you. God's got
to speak it in the heart. invincibly in the heart. He's
the one who converts the soul. The Word of God Himself. The
Word of God Himself. Now, look here and it says, not only that, He converts
us from error. The believer converts us from
error. You know 2 Timothy 3.16 says, All scripture is given
by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
And you can add in righteousness after every one of those words.
It's profitable for doctrine in righteousness, for reproof
in righteousness, for correction in righteousness, for instruction
in righteousness. And everything the book's teaching
us, it's turning us from us to Christ. our righteousness, that
the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all
good works. And therefore, you know what
this book is? It's our only rule of faith and practice. Not the
creeds of men. I can tell you how many times
I've been asked, what confession do you hold to? I can hold to
this one right here. The Word of God. And you know
what all those confessions say, the first statement in every
one of them is, we have no other rule of faith and practice but
the Word of God. All right then, let's throw the
rest of it away. That's right. This is our only rule of practice.
All right, now here's another word. Now watch this, there's
six different names given here for the Word of God. And they
all are referring to the Word of God. And there's six descriptions
given and there's six effects given. We saw first the law of
the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. Now look at this next
one. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. This word testimony means the
Lord's witness. That's what this book is. It's
the Lord's witness. It's His witness. And the Lord's
witness is sure. You want a sure witness? You
want somebody you can trust? You know, this day and time it's
getting more and more common that people get on the stand
and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth and lie. Because the Word of God, what's that mean
to a sinner? Nowadays, what does that mean? You don't bother them
to lie. But this word right here is sure.
You can depend on this word right here. It's sure. And it makes
wise the simple. The simple are those that have
been converted and made like unto a little child. The simple
are those who've been made teachable, who've been humbled by God so
that you're taught of God. He makes us wise. First of all,
what's God's testimony of Himself? Look at Exodus 34. Here's God's
testimony of himself in Exodus 34. He put Moses in the cleft of
a rock. And I'll tell you where you're going to find the testimony
of God, the witness of God in Christ the rock. That's where
we're going to find the witness of God. They kept saying, show
us the Father and it'll suffice if you show us the Father. And
he said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Where are we
going to see this testimony of what God declares about Himself?
In Christ. He put Moses in a rock. And that's
what we see pictured there. He put Moses in a rock. And then
He declared this. He testified. He bore witness
of Himself. And this is what He said, verse
6. Exodus 34, 6. The Lord passed by before him
and proclaimed, The Lord. He's the solitary Jehovah. The
Lord. He don't need us. He's sufficient
without us. The Lord. The Lord God. When you see those two words
together, that means the covenant-keeping God. Merciful and gracious. That's who He is. Long-suffering
and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy, For everybody? For thousands. For thousands. You read that whole thing there,
for thousands. The Lord's merciful and gracious
for thousands. He's long-suffering to thousands.
He's abundant in goodness and truth to thousands. And He keeps
mercy for thousands. Forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin. And that will by no means clear
the guilty. That's just who He is now. It's
by His mercy, by His grace, by His long-suffering, by His goodness,
by His truth that He reserves mercy for thousands. And because
He reserves mercy for thousands, He's going to take care of this
other issue too. By no means clearing the guilty. How are
those two things going to meet? Because here's what He testifies
of us now. Look at Psalm 53. Here's His
testimony of us. How are we going to know this
book right here It's the authority declaring who God is, who we
are, and how God saves sinners. It's the authority on it. It's not to be questioned. It's
not to try to find fault with it. It's to be bowed to. This
is the Word of God. I'm amazed at the things we'll
believe. You know, I'm just amazed at
it. This morning I was watching the news and Adrian Peterson,
you know, he's in trouble because he whipped his child. He disciplined
his child. And I don't know the full details
of it. I don't know if it was abuse
or what it was. I haven't heard it. But anyway, his mother made
a statement. She said he's loving his child. That's why he whipped his child.
And, oh, Al Roker and the other three that was on the panel,
they just put their hands over their heart. How could anybody
ever mention the words love and will in the same sentence? Well,
God can. God says whom He loves, He chastens. That's right. And those that
He don't chasten, they're bastards and not sons. But men don't take the word of
God. Men don't listen to the word
of God. This word is to be heard. Now here's what he says of us.
Look at Psalm 53. Verse 1. He says, Corrupt are
they, they've done abominable iniquity, there's none that doeth
good. God looked down from heaven upon
the children of men to see if there were any that did understand,
that did seek God. Every one of them has gone backward.
They all together become filthy. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one. God says there are none that
understand. There's none that seek Him. There's none that are
righteous. There's none that has any knowledge
whatsoever. They're all together backwards.
Now that's His testimony of us. Well, God just said He will not
by no means clear the guilty. How is He going to have mercy
on us when this is our state? This is our case. How is He going
to have mercy on us when He will not clear the guilty? Let's hear
God's testimony concerning His Son. Look at 1 John 5. 1 John
5. This is God's testimony concerning
His Son. We're talking about this book
is the testimony of God. Here's what he said. 1 John 5
and verse 9. If we receive the witness of
men, the testimony of men, the witness of God is greater. Don't
you? You receive the witness of men.
You'll hear what men say and you'll say, well, that sounds
true. And just because everybody says it, men think it's true,
he says here, well, the witness of God is greater. It don't matter
what men say. The testimony of God is greater.
For this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his
Son. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness in himself. That's how he came to believe
on the Son of God, to have the witness in himself. That's to
be born of God, born of the Word. He that believeth not God hath
made him alive, because he believeth not the record that God gave
of his Son. Now this Word, sure, here it
is. God's testimony of his Son. This
is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this
life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life.
He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. So the only way
God can be merciful to me and yet not clear the guilty is through
His Son, is through His Son, through faith in His Son. Now
let's hear what He says about how we come to be in His Son
and how we come to be saved by His Son. Look at 2 Timothy chapter
1. Isn't this what you preached
on, Eric? 2 Timothy 1. Look here. This is God's testimony. Be not
thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. This is
his testimony. Nor of me, his prisoner, but
be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God. The testimony of God and the
gospel are the same thing. Listen. Who hath saved us? That's how we were saved. God
sent forth His Son, and His Son came forth, and His Son took
the sins of all His people. He didn't just take sins generic,
He took the sins of His people. He said, I laid down my life
for these sheep. His name should be called Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sin. He by Himself
purged our sins. He took the sins of His people.
And when He did, He stood in the room instead of His people.
And God will by no means clear the guilty. And when God made
Him to be the guilty one, He stood before God and He bore. the wrath of God in the place
of his people. He bore it. And when he did that,
brethren, he saved us. He saved every one of his people.
He purged our sins. He obtained eternal redemption
for us. He by himself reconciled us to God. And he says this,
And He called us with a holy calling. That's the only way
we have the witness in ourselves. He sent forth the Holy Spirit,
He sent forth His preacher, and He called us with a holy calling. That calling is unlike any other. What I'm doing right now, preaching,
without His word blessing it, this is a general calling. This
is just going out to everybody. When He calls, it's a holy calling. It's a sanctifying calling. It's
an invincible calling. It's a separating calling when
He calls. It's a life-giving calling. And
he says, not according to our works. We had nothing in us that
merited this. He did it. He says, but according
to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ
Jesus before the world began. God doesn't do a thing by accident.
He does it on purpose. And he purposed before the foundation
of the world and he gave us grace. Everybody he's going to save.
He purposed to save them and he graced them before the foundation
of the world. according as he chose us in Christ.
But now is made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus
Christ, who hath abolished death. What's the sting of death? Sin. Sin. What brings forth death?
Sin. He put away the sin of his people. He abolished death for
his people. And hath brought life and immortality
to the light through the gospel. He gave us life and immortality
through the preaching of this testimony of God. Now that's
His testimony. You know what makes the humble
man, the simple man, you know what makes him wise through this
testimony of God? You know how God makes him wise?
God makes him turn from trusting anything else to trust Christ
only, to believe Christ. That's the wisdom of God. That's the wisdom that he works
when he makes us wise, to trust Christ for everything, to trust
Christ. And that's what he says he does.
He says of him, he was declaring in 1 Corinthians 1 how he does
this through the preaching of the gospel, through this testimony
of the Lord. And he says at the end of it,
Of God are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that we glory
only in the Lord. Now, then look at this. Look
back at our text, and I'm going to wind it up. Verse 8. The statutes of the Lord are
right, rejoicing the heart, the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes. It's called the statutes of the
Lord and the commandment of the Lord. It's right, it's pure,
they rejoice the heart, they enlighten the eyes. Now listen
to this. Together, the statutes are His
decrees. Like when He says, I'll have
mercy on whom I'll have mercy, that's a decree of God. When
He says, the soul that sinneth, it shall die, that's a decree
of God. That's a statute of God. But all His law are statutes
too. And when He comes and He makes you to hear what the law
says, what His statutes say of you and of me. And He makes us
hear the spirituality of the law. He makes us see we're guilty
before God. He enlightens our eyes to make
us see I'm guilty before God. And you notice there are commandments
singular. The gospel is the commandment
of God. And through the gospel He gives the command This is
my Son, hear ye Him. This is my Son, believe on Him. This is my Son, cast all your
care into His hands. So by declaring these statutes,
that we're guilty, and by giving us the command to believe on
Him, He makes us to walk in His statutes. He makes us to obey
His command. all by believing on Christ. And when we believe on Christ,
He reveals to you, you have fulfilled the righteousness of the law,
of that holy, just, and good law through faith in Christ. It's established. And He makes
you to see you have the righteousness of God. He makes you to see you
have the righteousness to enter into God's presence, that righteousness
God provided, that righteousness His Son is, that righteousness
that we must have. And so the statutes of God now,
they delight us. They rejoice our heart. I'm thrilled
that God says, I'll do all my pleasure. Aren't you? That's
a statute. I'm just thrilled God says, I'll
have mercy on whom I will. That rejoices my heart. And I
rejoice in the law of God. Paul said, I delight in the law
of God after the inward man. I wouldn't have known my sin
without it. But now I see. And I see Christ's righteousness
in it. And I delight that He is all my righteousness. Now
look at this in verse 9. It's called the fear of the Lord. When you're born of God, born
of His Spirit, That's when you have the fear of the Lord. Born
of the Word, you have the fear of the Lord. He's talking about
the Word here. The fear of the Lord is clean. They could just
as well say the Word of the Lord is clean. The fear of the Lord
is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are
true and righteous altogether. When we're born of that incorruptible
seed, you can read it at the end of 1 Peter 1, born of incorruptible
seed by the gospel which is preached unto you. And when we're born
of that incorruptible seed, that's when we have the fear of God.
And that's the beginning of wisdom. Then we have the fear of God.
Now, and it says, and that fear is clean, that means it cleanses. You know why? Because we see
God's holy. We see God as a God of wrath.
We see God will not clear the guilty. And so, that fear of
God makes us flee to Christ, who is the righteousness of God. He's that holy, clean garment
we must have. And His blood cleanses us from
all sin. This is what the fear of God
does. And He sanctifies every one of His members. And He makes
us to cleanse ourselves, purify ourselves from all unrighteousness.
And this Word endures forever. The Word of the Lord, the fear
of the Lord endures forever. You know why? You know why we
die? Why we don't endure forever?
Sin. But the fear of the Lord, when He works this in the heart,
it endures forever. One, it perseveres forever because
of the Word of God keeping us. And two, it lasts forever. Hebrews 1, he says one day, he
says he's going to take this creation right here, this first
book, he's going to close this book. He's going to fold it up
as a vesture and discard it. And he's going to create a new
heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. But you
know what will last forever? Those born of this Word. Those
born that have the fear of the Lord by the Word of God. We'll endure forever. We'll live
forever because we're born of Him. Now, when this happens,
nothing more powerfully makes you want to serve God and obey
God than this Word of God. And it brings you to this, where
you say the judgments of the Lord are true and they're righteous
altogether. Think of that publican. That
publican went up there and he would not lift up his head to
God. He smote upon his breast. You
know why? Because Christ judged him. And his judgment said, you're
guilty. You can't come into God's presence.
And it brought him to smite upon his breast and say, Lord, have
mercy on me, the sinner. And then Christ passed another
judgment on him. He said, you're righteous. This
man went down to his house justified. And you know what it made that
publican do? It made him say the judgment
so the Lord are right and true all together. And that's what
you'll say. That's when you take sides with
God and say, yes, Lord, you're true. The man is standing over
here and he's looking at the doctrine of election and he's
saying, oh, I don't believe that. You know why he don't? because
he sees it as y'all against me. But when he comes and bows before
God and sees that I don't deserve anything from God, but yet God
chose me before the foundation of the world, when he sees that
he's one of us, that's when he'll say the judgments of God are
right and true altogether. Isn't that right? Look here, and it makes us forsake
everything. Before Christ called us, we desired
gold, we wanted fine food, we wanted all these things. We thought,
this is how you survive in this world. It's how you have security. But now, you know what His Word
brings us to say? His judgments, verse 10, are
more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter
also than honey in the honeycomb. Somebody said that when you have
honey and honeycomb, it makes everything else that's sweet
taste unsweet. And when you have the Word of
God abiding in your heart, it makes everything that once was
sweet to you become unsweet. And now you say, this is sweeter
than honey in the honeycomb. Gotta have it. By them, by his
judgments, thy servants warned, and in keeping of them there's
great reward. Aren't you glad he warned us?
Aren't you glad he came to us and said, if you keep on going
on this way, you're gonna perish in your sin? Aren't you glad
of that? I'm so thankful of that. People
don't preach depravity to me. I'm so thankful that he came
to me and said, you're depraved. You're the depravity. You're
the one that's going to hell right now. I'm warning you. And
he turned me and he brought me to his feet. I'm so thankful.
And keeping his judgments. Believe on my son. Repent from
you. Believe on my son. There's great reward in it. And
in all of His judgments, when He says to us, Be ye kind to
one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for
Christ's sake, has forgiven you. Be long-suffering, be gentle,
take the lowest seat. All of those things. Just like
Christ is His own reward, obeying God is its own reward. That's
good. Now here's what He says to everybody. This is what He said. Revelation
3.18. He says this. He says, I counsel thee, Let
me read. Let me turn over there. I want
to read that verse right before it. There was some sitting in the
church. He's writing this to the church
at Laodicea. And there was some sitting in
that church. And he said this to them. He said, verse 16, Thou
art lukewarm. You're not cold and you're not
hot. Don't you hate lukewarm stuff? Drink lukewarm coffee?
I'd rather be cold or hot, one of the two, not lukewarm. He
said, I spew you out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I'm rich,
I'm increased with goods, I have need of nothing. He said, and
knowest not, thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind
and naked. And here's what he said, I counsel
thee, This is Christ speaking. I counsel thee to buy of me gold
tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich. That's what our text
said. His judgments are more than gold,
more than much find worthy, more valuable than much find gold.
He says, I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire
that thou mayest be rich. and white raiment, that thou
mayest be clothed. That's his righteousness. The
shame, so the shame of thy nakedness does not appear. And anoint thine
eyes with eye salve. That's this word we've been talking
about, that thou mayest see. What do you do with eye salve?
You just bring the tube home, set it on the counter and say,
well, if it's God's will, that's gonna go in my eyes. No, you
take it and you put it on your eyes, don't you? Take this word
and open it up and get the eye salve on. He's got to make it
effectual. He's got to bless it. But he
says to him that hath, he's going to walk in my light and more
will be given to him. But he says to him that hath
not, he won't hear my word. He won't walk in my light and
it will be taken from him even that which he has. Believe God. Walk in the light He's given
you. Light of creation and the light of His Word. It's by this
Word that you're going to see the revelation of His righteousness.
Amen. Let's stand together, brethren. Father, thank You for Your Word.
Thank You for that light You've given us in creation. Lord, we'll
look into this and we'll see your glory more and more as we
look into it deeper and deeper. We thank you, Lord, for showing
that light, making man inexcusable. We thank you most of all for
the word, for your word of revelation, that divine revelation whereby
you make us born again and teach us that all salvation is Christ,
all righteousness is Christ, all redemption is Christ. Thank
You for this Word. Thank You for Christ the Word.
Lord, make us now to heed Your warning and to heed Your judgments
and to walk in Your light. Make us to do so. Make us willing
to do so. We ask it, Father, in Christ's
name. I ask You to forgive us our sins. Amen.