Alright brethren, let's turn
to Psalm 18. Turn in your Bibles with me to
Psalm 18. You know the Psalms are songs. They're songs. And when a songwriter
writes a song, they pick up a pen to write with. But when Christ
writes a song, He uses one of His choice servants to write
it with. And that's what we have here.
We have Christ writing a song using David as the instrument
by which He's writing it. This is a prophetic psalm, meaning
these are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who's speaking
here. And just as we don't praise the
pen, but we praise the man who wrote the song, so we don't praise
David, we praise Christ who used David to write the song. This
is Christ speaking of the Lord Jehovah, of His faithfulness.
And He's speaking about the day that Christ finished the work
of redeeming His people and the Lord Jehovah delivered Him from
all His enemies. Let's read it together, verse
20. The Lord rewarded me, Jehovah rewarded me, according to my
righteousness. According to the cleanness of
my hands hath he recompensed me. For I have kept the ways
of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all
his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statute
from me. I was also upright before Him,
and I kept myself from mine iniquity. Therefore hath the Lord recompensed
me according to my righteousness. That's our subject tonight. According
to my righteousness. According to the cleanness of
my hands in His eyesight. And then we have the application
that the Lord Jesus gives to you and I who believe, and this
is concerning Himself as well. He says in verse 25, With the
merciful, God will show thyself merciful. And with an upright
man, thou wilt show thyself upright. With the pure, thou wilt show
thyself pure. And with the froward, thou wilt
show thyself froward. For thou wilt save the afflicted
people. but will bring down high looks,
for thou wilt light my candle. The Lord, my God, will enlighten
my darkness. Now this is the one thing I want
us to try to get from this tonight. The believer who trusts Christ
and follows His ways shall be justified by Christ. Entirely by Christ. Just as Christ
looked to the Lord Jehovah, and followed His ways, and was justified
in the Spirit by the Lord. Now, to see this, we're going
to first see how this applied to Christ, and then we'll see
how it applies to David and to you and I who believe. Now, first
of all, the Lord Jesus Christ is the righteous and holy one.
He is the righteous one. He's the holy one. He says in
verse 20, the Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands hath He recompensed
me. To help us focus on Christ, read
it this way. The Lord Jehovah rewarded me,
Christ Jesus, His King and His Christ, according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands hath God recompensed
me. Now, in all of God's dealings
with David, God was showing us a picture of Christ and His people. It's amazing that God can take
a whole nation and raise up a man and use that nation and that
man to picture, to draw you and me a picture. A picture, just
like you take out a pencil and draw a picture for somebody.
He used a nation. and this one man to draw us a
picture and show us Christ our King, our Savior, and how He
saves His people. Do you remember why David was the king? The people
revolted against God. The people rejected God from
being their king. Do you remember that in 1 Samuel?
Let me see if I can find it. I was just looking at it while
we were singing there, that last song. But remember whenever the
people rejected Samuel. I think it's 1 Samuel 6. 1 Samuel
chapter 6. And they said, we don't want
this king. They said this. Maybe it's 2 Samuel 6. Let me
look there. I should have marked this down
when I was studying. I can't find it. I'll just tell
it to you. 1 Samuel 8. Alright, 1 Samuel
8. Let's look there. 1 Samuel chapter
8. Verse 6, the thing displeased
Samuel when they said give us a king to judge us. They didn't
want Samuel. God had made Samuel, he was ruling
the nation with the word of God. The chief person in charge was
the person who preached the gospel. That's who was running the country.
But they didn't want the word ruling the nation. They wanted
a king like the evil Gentile wicked folks had. And he says,
And this displeased Samuel. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord,
verse 7, And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice
of the people and all that they say unto thee, for they have
not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not
reign over them. Now this is what happened. They
rejected God. The people rejected God. They
didn't want God reigning over them. Now there's a picture right
here starting out. Here's a picture of all of us
in the garden in Adam. We rejected God. We didn't want
God reigning over us. Adam was the representative.
He represented the whole race because the whole race would
come from him. And when Adam sinned and rebelled against God,
we sinned and rebelled against God. We rejected God from reigning
over us. That's what happened. And when
they did that, God turned them over to a wicked king named Saul. He was a wicked king. Well, whenever
we sinned in the garden, we fell under the curse. And God turned
over all mankind to Satan. And we fell under the dominion
of Satan. under his power, just like they
came under Saul's hand and his power. Let me show you that in
Ephesians 2. Turn to Ephesians chapter 2. Some people will say,
well, I'm not under the curse of the devil. I've never been
under the curse of the devil. And if a man makes that statement,
that's the devil making you make that statement. You don't realize
it. Look here, Ephesians 2 verse 1. He says, In you, speaking
to believers, hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and
sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. That's whose dominion we were
under, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
among whom also we all had our conversation, our deportment,
our conduct, and times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others." Now that was us. That's
how we come into this world, under the dominion of Satan,
just like Israel was under the dominion of wicked King Saul.
Now turn to Isaiah 42. Turn to Isaiah 42. God chose David to be His king
over political Israel. And He chose David to save that
temporal nation with a temporal salvation. That's what He chose
David to do. Now, that pictures the fact that
God chose Christ before the foundation of the world to be the King and
Christ. The King, the ruler, to have
dominion and to be the Savior of His people, His spiritual
Israel. And spiritual Israel is referred
to in the text I'm about to read you as Gentiles because When
God was done with Israel, He scattered them to the four winds.
And God's calling His elect out now, out of every nation, tribe,
kindred, tongue, and people under this earth. They're all Gentiles.
Scattered into the Gentiles. Now look here. God chose Christ
to be His King and His Christ. Look here, verse 1. Behold My
servant, whom I uphold, Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth. God speaking of God the Son,
Christ Jesus. I have put My Spirit upon Him.
He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He says here,
He shall settle judgment. He shall bring in everlasting
righteousness for My people. And He shall settle judgment
in the hearts of My people. He is going to give them spiritual
discernment in their hearts. He says, He is going to bring
forth judgment to the Gentiles. This is God's people scattered
throughout the whole world. Now verse 2, He shall not cry,
nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A
bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he
not quench. He shall bring forth judgment
unto truth. This refers to what our text
is talking about. How that Christ worked this work
in righteousness, and in mercy, and in uprightness, and in pureness. How He did no harm to anyone,
How he did not promote himself, he declared the righteousness
of God. That's who he is and that's who
he preached while he walked this earth. That's what he declared.
He came to do the works of God. He came to fulfill the law. He
came to establish the law. He came to fulfill it in every
dot and dash of the law so that there's nothing remains to be
done for his people. That's what Christ came to do.
Look at verse 4. He shall not fail. This is why
we don't preach a little helpless Jesus. This is why we don't preach
that Jesus has done all He can do, now it's up to you. Because
that's calling Christ to failure. He shall not fail nor be discouraged
till He have set judgment in the earth. And the isles shall
wait for His law, His gospel. Christ shall establish righteousness
and judgment in the earth by His work on Calvary's tree. And
His people, scattered among the Gentiles, His people scattered
all through the nations, shall wait for His gospel. And then
speaking to Christ, speaking to Christ, our true David, the
one who is the son of David after the flesh, the one that David
typifies in our text. He's speaking to Christ, and
here's the covenant promise God the Father made to his son, Christ
Jesus. Look here in verse 6, Isaiah
42, 6. I, the Lord, have called thee
in righteousness. and will hold thine hand, and
will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people,
for a light of the Gentiles, to open the blind eyes." He said,
I'm giving you to do this. I'm giving you, my son, to open
the blind eyes, and to bring out the prisoners from the prison,
and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. I am
the Lord, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another. Neither my praise to graven images."
You see, God called Christ and He made this covenant promise
to Christ His Son. He promised to keep Christ. He
promised that He would protect Him as He walked about this earth.
Christ came forth. We're given faith to believe. But the faith of our faith is
Christ the faithful one. He is the one that is truly the
faithful one. He is preeminent in everything,
brethren. I am telling you this. And He walked this earth. He
is God the Son, but He humbled Himself and became obedient and
became a servant. And as a servant, He walked this
earth depending upon the Father. Because the Father promised,
I will keep you. And He promised to give Christ
for a covenant to His people. Men get all distracted talking
about the covenant. the covenant, the covenant. We're
going to look at the covenant, Lord willing, Sunday. This covenant,
this everlasting covenant, it's not a doctrine, it's not a system,
it's Christ. He said, I'll give you for a
covenant of the people. How am I going to be sure in
my heart that I have the promise of God that He's going to keep
me and bring me to Himself and accept me with no conditions
on my part whatsoever? What's my hope? What's my assurance
of that? Christ is. Christ did everything and Christ
is at the right hand of the Father. That's my assurance that He'll
keep me and do as He's promised. Now look here, He says, He would
have the glory of opening the eyes of the blind people and
calling His people out of our bondage of sin and depravity.
Because in Christ, God was in Christ reconciling the world
of His elect to Himself. That's why by Christ doing the
work, God gets all the glory. He gets all the glory. And God
said this of Christ, verse 21, The Lord is well pleased for
His righteousness sake. He will magnify the law and He
will make it honorable. When we speak of righteousness,
we're speaking of perfection under God's law. Now we lost
all righteousness in Adam. The scripture says there is none
righteous. You're not righteous and I'm
not righteous. There is none righteous. None. Christ came
to establish the law and righteousness. We must have a perfect righteousness
to enter God's glory. And Christ is that righteousness.
He said Christ will magnify God's law. How is that? By being made
of a woman, made under the law, Christ magnified the very fact
that God is righteous and holy and that His righteousness must
be fulfilled in perfection and that it must be done from holiness
of heart. And by sending His Son to do
it, He magnifies the fact that you and I can't do it. That's
how tall and high and big and large God's law is. Christ magnified
the law by His obedience even unto the death of the cross.
Christ magnified the law in everything He said and did. He honored it
in thought, word and deed. And then He magnified God's law
when He went to the cross and was made sin for His people.
And there you see God's righteousness. When He made His Son sin for
His people, He would not clear His Son. He poured out the justice
of the law on His Son. And Christ made the law honorable.
He did it by following God fully as He walked this earth. in every
way. He did it by declaring God is
just because Christ went to that cross and what Christ did is
He satisfied the justice of God. When He said it is finished,
that didn't mean that it's now He's done His part and now it's
up to you to do your part. That means it's finished. That
means He finished the law. He put an end to sin. He justified
His people. He reconciled His people to God.
Now they've all been reconciled, they've all been justified, their
sins have been put away. They must be called out of darkness.
They must be called to faith in Christ. They must be called
and told this good news. And he declared God the justifier
because, as I said, it was God in Christ doing the justifying.
He did it. So Christ magnified and made
honorable the law. Now, go back to Psalm 18. When David confronted Saul in
his cause, in his cause, David was righteous towards Saul, and
he kept his hands clean from Saul's blood when he could have
taken Saul's life. And David delighted in God's
law, and as far as men go, he was an upright man. But to accomplish
the work of God, to honor and magnify the law, Christ had to
combat Satan and all his evil hosts on the cross at Calvary
And while God turned his back on him because he was made sin
for his people, he had to do all that and remain perfectly
righteous and merciful and faithful and upright and pure in heart
to God. And that's what he did. Christ
declares in our text that is exactly what he did. This is
why God justified him in the spirit when he raised him from
the dead. Do you know why Christ was resurrected? Why does Satan
put it in some men's minds that there's no such thing as a resurrection
and want men to oppose the resurrection? Because God declared in the resurrection
that Satan's head's crushed. He took away all His power and
all His ammunition. All He had to accuse His people
with was sin. And Christ purged the sin of
His people before He sat down at the right hand of God. Read
Hebrews 1.3. When He had by Himself purged our sin, He sat down at
the right hand of the Majesty on high. That's what God declared
when he sat down. And so Christ declares here in
verse 20, The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness.
According to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed
me. For I've kept the ways of the
Lord and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his judgments
were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me.
I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity."
What does that mean? I kept myself from mine iniquity.
Christ knew no sin. What does it mean? Well, he had
no iniquity of his own, but he took the iniquity of his people.
Isaiah 53 says, The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us
all. Speaking of all those that Christ
represented. He laid on him the iniquity of
us all. And he called those sins mine. Look at Psalm 40. Psalm 40. We know this is Christ
speaking. If you're familiar with the Bible,
Hebrews tells us that this is Christ speaking here in Psalm
40 verse 6. He said, "...sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire.
Mine ears hast thou opened. Burnt offering and sin offering
hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come, and
the volume of the book is written of me. I delight to do thy will,
O my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart."
I read that to show you, you know that's Christ speaking.
Hebrews Hebrews 10 tells us that's Christ speaking. Now look down
here, in the same psalm, Christ owned the iniquities of his people
as his own. Verse 12, innumerable evils have
come past me about, mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that
I'm not able to look up, they're more than the hairs of mine head,
therefore my heart faileth me. This tells us how how Christ
owned our sins as His own, how He took the sins of His people
and owned them to be His own. God would not pour out justice
on His Son until He had made Him sin for us, because God's
righteous. And the very act in what He's
doing is declaring that He's righteous. And so He justly poured
out judgment upon Christ. But now look, what does it mean
here when it says in our text, I kept myself from mine iniquity?
It means though he bore our sins, though he bore them and though
he owned them as his own, he didn't commit sin. He who was
made sin knew no sin. Though he was tempted by Satan
to the most enormous temptations, the most enormous evil, he never
gave in to Satan. He remained faithful to God so
that Satan could not touch him. It means this, simply put, he
kept himself from committing any sin whatsoever. Tell me what
man on this earth can say that? None but Christ. That's what
it means. I kept myself from sin. That's what it means. Now
all these things show that the righteousness of Christ is perfect.
It's perfect. Entirely agreeable to God's law.
Can you imagine that to be perfectly agreeable to God's law? So that
there's nothing, nothing whatsoever that is against God, against
His law, no transgression, no thought, never a sinful thought. We can't even control our thoughts.
Christ was perfect. He's perfect. He's perfect. So,
there we have it. He tells us Christ is the righteousness
of His people. He's the righteousness of His
people. Now, here's the second thing I want us to get. Let's
look back at Psalm 18. Verse 25. With the merciful,
thou wilt show thyself merciful. With an upright man, thou wilt
show thyself upright. With the pure thou will show
thyself pure. Now this is Christ still speaking. And He's speaking of the faithfulness
of God the Father. Who is the merciful man? Who
is the pure man? Who is the upright man? The merciful
man is the Lord Jesus Christ. Before this world was made, before
anything, before He made anything that was made, as Colossians
tells us, God the Father showed him what He was going to do.
He showed the Son how He would make a world and populate it
with a people and that He had a people marked out that He was
going to give to Christ. And He showed Christ how these
people would fall into sin and iniquity and how that they would
become under the dominion of Satan and how that they would
in no wise be able to redeem themselves from the curse of
the law. What does it take to redeem you from the curse of
the law? It takes the wages of sin is death. You have to pay
the wages of sin. Death. Not just this physical
death we die. But that death after this death. That death that never dies. The
death of hell. That's what we have to suffer.
Christ Jesus the Lord went to the cross. In mercy. I'm trying to show you He's the
merciful man. When He looked upon what He would have to do
to save His people from our sins. He had mercy on us. in eternity. He had mercy on us. When God
the Father said, this is my servant, He said, you must magnify and
honor the law. He showed him what he must do.
And Christ entered into covenant agreement with the Father. Because
He would have mercy on us. He would have mercy on His people.
And it says here, with the upright man, that word means perfect.
That word means the man who is perfect. The man who is perfectly
righteous. Christ Jesus came forth and he
walked this earth and everything he did as we just talked about
was perfect righteousness. And then he says, and with the
pure Christ Jesus was formed in the womb of a virgin. A body
was made for him. And God the Son came down through
the Holy Spirit and inhabited this body. And the reason he
had to be born of a virgin is if he had been born of a man,
he would have been just like every other sinner. Man is the
head of the woman and the seed of the man is corrupt. And when
it comes forth into the mother's womb, that seed, the psalmist
said, I was conceived in sin. We come forth from our mother's
womb speaking lies because we are conceived in sin. The depraved
nature of our father Adam is passed on. Abel and Cain and
it's passed right on down to their children, right on down
the line. And so that what we get from our first father, our
physical father, is a depraved nature. But Christ being born
of the Holy Spirit comes forth and He's God and man. He's man
and He's God. And He's not born of corrupt
seed, but of incorruptible. And He comes forth and He's holy.
He's pure in His nature. He's pure in His nature. Now,
he says here, with the merciful man, he will show himself merciful. And with the upright man, he
will show himself upright. And with the pure, he will show
himself pure. Christ came forth into this earth
showing he's the perfect man, showing he's the upright man
who does everything uprightly and in accordance with God and
truth and integrity. He came forth at the time appointed. When the fullness of time was
come, he was maiden of the law, He was made of a woman, made
under the law to redeem them that were under the law. He came
forth and all the while He's going about to establish a perfect
righteousness for His people. This perfect man establishing
a perfect righteousness. This pure man establishing us
in perfect holiness. You know what He's doing the
whole time? being merciful the whole time. He healed bodily
sickness. He gave people ears to hear that
couldn't hear and eyes to see that couldn't see. He fed people
that were hungry. He did all these things. And
you know what He's showing us by all that? He's showing us
the miracle of His grace. Those things were great that
He did physically. But He's showing us what He has
power to do spiritually. He alone can give spiritual eyes
to a blind man. God said, I've given you to open
up the eyes of the blind. He alone can give a new heart.
He alone can create us a new in righteousness and holiness.
And He went about showing us how He can do all that by all
the physical miracles that He did when He walked this earth.
I have no doubt that He did those things. I don't need so-called
scientists to prove that to me. I can see what He's done for
me and tell you, if He did this spiritually for me, doing that
physically for somebody, that's small compared to what He's done
spiritually. To take a God-hating rebel, somebody
that just despised God and hated God with every fiber of my being,
just like Romans 8 says, the natural man, the carnal mind
is enmity against God. He can't submit himself to God's
Word. He can't make it happen. And
yet Christ came forth and by the power that he has, he did
that through his gospel. And then he went to that cross
in mercy. He went to that cross as the
perfect man. He went to that cross as the pure man. And when
he had finished the work God gave him to do, you know what
God did? God showed himself merciful to the merciful man. And God
showed Himself upright to the upright man. God showed Himself
pure to the pure man. God did everything He promised
His Son He would do. On the third day, He raised Him
from the grave. And 40 days later, He ascended
up to the Father, to the right hand of the Father in a glorified
body because He is showing us, Christ is showing us here, now
I am your righteousness. I'm the one who makes my people
righteous. I'm the one who makes my people
holy. And He says, and I'm showing
you now the faithfulness of God and of His Christ. Just as He
was merciful to me, the merciful, Christ says. Just as He was upright
to me, the upright, Christ says. Just as He was pure to me, the
pure. So God, through Christ, will
be upright and perfect and pure to those in whose hearts He dwells. Those who cast their care upon
Him and believe upon Him. That's so. Now look at this third
thing. I want us to get the message
now. Be sure to get the message. Here's the first thing. And don't
pass this up now. This is the first thing. Christ,
Jesus, is the only righteousness God will receive. He will not
receive any works you've done, anything you call righteousness,
He won't receive it. Because your righteousness and
my righteousness is not righteousness. It's not. God calls it filthy
rags, menstrual clothes. That's what it's called through
Isaiah the prophet. Our best deeds may be very, they
may be glowing compared to another sinner. But that's not who we're
going to be measured against. We're going to be measured against
Christ Jesus the righteous. And you will in that day come
up wanting. You will in that day not have
the righteousness God requires. God is so pleased with His Son.
He said it there in Isaiah 42. I'm well pleased with Him. He
said again concerning His work under the law. I'm well pleased
with Him. God is not going to have anybody
else receive the glory but God. Nobody else is going to get the
praise but God. And that means if we're going
to come to God, we've got to come in the one to whom He's
given all the glory and all the praise. That's His Son. Because
He and His Son are one. It's not like He's given His
glory and His praise to somebody else. He and His Son are one.
And so when we come in Christ, we're giving God all the glory.
When we come saying, in my hand no price I bring. When we come
saying, Lord, I don't have any other righteousness. I don't
have anything else to offer. I don't want to come any other
way but Christ only. He's the only hope I have. He's
the only hope I have of acceptance with God. God will receive the
man that comes that way. He will receive the man that
comes that way. That's the first thing. We must be made the righteousness
of God. When Christ comes and He enters
in through the gospel, you sit here tonight and it's just any
other night and you know, Carol, you know, you've had this happen.
You sit here, Cheryl, you've had this happen. You sit here
like any other night and Christ begins to speak into
your heart and you don't know what's happening. You don't have
a clue what's happening. But all of a sudden, you hear
Him and you believe Him. You believe when He says, you
have no righteousness. You believe Him. You quit butting.
You quit opposing. You quit trying to doubt God
and say, no, I don't believe that's true. As the fool, God
says, no God. You stop saying, no God. And
you start believing Him. I don't have a righteousness.
All these works I've been doing, all these deeds I've been doing,
all this trying to please God, going to church and reading my
Bible and putting on all these fig leaves I've been putting
on while in my heart of hearts I didn't enjoy it, I didn't like
it, I didn't want to do it. I see now I don't have a righteousness. I don't have a righteousness. And He makes you see He is the
righteousness that God requires. And He gives you faith to believe
Him. He grants you repentance to turn from you and yourself
and your deeds and your works. And He grants you faith to believe
on Him, to believe on Christ. And you believe Him. And when
Christ the merciful enters in, you know what He makes us delight
in? He said with the merciful, He'll show Himself merciful.
When He enters in, He makes you a merciful man. You know how? You know why? You know what you
do? You want mercy from God. You stop wanting to come to God
by your deeds and you want to come to God by mercy. You're
like that publican that smote upon his breast and you start
crying out for mercy from God. And you know what he does? He
said with the merciful, he will show himself merciful. And he shows you, I've been merciful
to you. You wouldn't cry that if He hadn't
already been merciful to you. And then He shows you Christ
and He shows you, I've been merciful to you. With the upright man,
when He enters in, He makes you upright. He makes you have some
true integrity so that you stop lying about your righteousness
and your holiness and you start saying, Lord, I really don't
have any. He's made you upright now. You're
not a lying, stinking, cheating, Sorry, no good hypocrite. Now
you're an Israelite indeed. Now you're somebody whose faith
is not hypocritical. It's genuine. And you say, Lord,
I believe I don't have a righteousness. And with the upright, he shows
himself upright. He shows that man, I'm the upright
one. I'm the righteous one. And with
the pure, he shows himself pure. When he enters in, He doesn't
write His law on tables of stone. Scripture says He creates us
in righteousness and true holiness. When Christ who is the righteousness
and holiness of His people enters in, He is the heartbeat of the
new man. And when Christ dwells within
His child in spirit, that new man has Christ as his life. Christ who is the righteousness
of the law. And so that new man, it's not
like God's writing a law. He says, I'm going to write my
law on their hearts. That new man is the heart He's talking
about. And that new man is made up of God's holy law. So that
now, I delight in the law of God. Where? In the inward man. The inward man delights in the
law of God. He doesn't have to have rules
and regulations. And he don't have to have the
letter of the law. He delights in the law of God. He hears God
speak in the law, and he hears the law declare him unjust and
unrighteous, and he hears God declare Christ the righteousness
of the law. And he delights in the law of God. He delights to
see Christ fulfill it. He delights for Christ to have
the glory for fulfilling it. He delights in the law because
the law declared me unjust. Paul said in Romans 7, is the
law sin? No. The law is good, it's holy
and it's just. But that which is holy and just
and good was used to show me I'm the sin. And now I delight
in the law because it showed me the truth of what I am. Now
I delight in it, because it shows me, just as Romans 3 said, by
the law is the knowledge of sin. Now I know what I am. And I delight
to see Christ fulfill it. And not only that, I delight
in every word of it, because now when I look at Christ, and
I look at His holiness, and His goodness, and His justness of
my Redeemer, I see just how holy and good and just the law is.
And I delight in it. And with that man, that He's
made pure in heart, who Christ is His sanctification. That man
now says, under Him all things are pure. Now before you'd read
the Word and it was defiled to you because you were defiled. Now your eyes are made pure.
Ears are made pure. And to the pure, all things are
pure. Now you begin to hear Christ speak. And unto the pure, He
shows Himself to be the pureness. He makes Himself sanctification
unto you. He shows you He's the holiness
without which no man shall see the Lord. That just get people go around.
I had a man write me one time and he heard a message I preached
just like this and he said, what about holiness without which
no man shall see the Lord? And what he was talking about
is, now you need to talk about our works and what we need to
do. I guarantee you if you try to come to God by your holiness
and what you've done, God won't have you. That's a dirty mop
trying to clean a dirty floor and that won't work. It's just
going to end up twice dirty. But I tell you what, when Christ
enters in, and God, of God are you in Christ Jesus, who of God
is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
When He enters in and He's made sanctification unto us, you have
the holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. If that
wasn't so, my brethren, that thief on the cross could not
have entered into glory with Christ that day. Because he had
both his hands and his feet nailed to the cross. He didn't have
time to do nothing holy. He had the holiness Christ formed
in His heart. You see what I'm saying? And when He does that, He shows
you He's the perfect man. He's the merciful man. He's the
upright man. Now then, you know what that
man's going to do? That believer who has Christ
formed in him? He's going to delight in mercy. He's going
to delight in mercy. He's going to delight to tell
others about this merciful man. He's going to delight to show
mercy to others. He's going to delight to be a
merciful. He's not going to want to take sinners anymore and start
running his mouth and vomiting out his mouth about, did you
see what they did? I can't believe they did, blah,
blah, blah. He may do that, but as soon as Christ checks him,
he says, why did I say something like that? I want to be merciful. I don't want to condemn men.
I needed mercy. I need mercy. The only thing
that's going to help them is what helped me. Mercy. Mercy. And with the upright man, now
he's got some integrity. Now he's faithful toward God.
Now he's believing on Christ. And now he's faithful toward
his brethren. And he's pure. He's holy in heart. He's got a new man within him.
And he delights in God. And he delights in the worship
of God. And he delights in singing praises to God. And he delights
in the worship of God. He delights in God now. And that
man's a man you want to be around. I forget what the old preacher
was that said it, but he said, the man that's been saved by
God, his cat and his dog get treated better than they used
to. They even benefit from it. Look at this now. But there's
a warning here, verse 18. He says this. Look at the end of verse 26,
"...and with the froward thou wilt show thyself forward." These
are two different words here. The first word, froward, means
those that are perverse and stubborn and obstinate. against God, His
Christ, His gospel, His people. Those that are obstinate and
stubborn saying, I'm not going to have this man reign over me.
You can't tell me my works don't count for something. He's perverse. He's a pervert. He's perverted
the gospel. He's perverted the gospel. He
said, now that's what the first word means. The second word there
that says forward means wrestle. It means destroy. That's what
it means. With the man that goes on in
his obstinate rebellion and refuses, refuses, rebels, rebels, rebels,
God will destroy him. That's what it means. It's the
same word that was used to describe the destruction of Jerusalem
when God said your house is left desolate. Desolate. Now, why
is this so? Are we afflicted? Are we proud? Which one? Which one do we fit
into here? Look here what He says. He says
in verse 27, Thou will save the afflicted people. The afflicted
people are His people. Afflicted by our sins. The fact
that we cannot do righteousness. Afflicted by the fact that sin
is mixed with everything we do, making it unacceptable outside
of Christ. Afflicted with sin because we
don't believe on Christ like we'd like to. Afflicted, afflicted,
afflicted, oppressed by the world, oppressed by its reproaches and
its persecutions. He says right here, He says He
will save the afflicted people, but He says He'll bring down
high looks. high looks, those who are proud,
those who are proud of their righteousness, and proud of their
holiness, and proud of their deeds, and proud of their church
going, and proud of all the things they've done. Proud, proud, proud. He said, and I said too, I'm
going to bring down the lofty looks. God said He hates pride. He said seven things He hates.
Number one, He hates pride. Pride. I read something by John
Trapp a few weeks ago and I was telling Melinda about it. And
then Don put it in his bulletin this week. Moose Parks had it
in his bulletin first. That's where I read it. But John
Trapp had an interesting quote. He was talking about how Adam
and Eve in the garden, it says they were naked and they were
not ashamed. And he said, when sin entered, shame entered. And
the first thing they did was they clothed themselves. They
tried to cover up their sin. And that's where the pride comes
from. We start covering up and covering up, and we get proud
of what we've covered. We get proud of our covering.
And John Traut made this observation. He said, one of the things we're
proud about is our clothes. I'm paraphrasing this, but he
said, one of the things we're proud about is our clothes. You
know, we get proud of our clothes. And he said, and really, we ought
to look upon our clothes like a prisoner looks upon his prison
chains. Would he be proud of those? When
you look upon those prison chains, they remind him of his crimes.
They remind him of what he's done in sinning against God.
And he said, we ought to look on our clothes that way. Because
we didn't start trying to wear these fancy clothes until sin
and shame entered. Isn't that a good point? That's
a good point. Well, look here now, this last
thing. He says here, for thou wilt light my candle. This is
still speaking of Christ. The Lord my God will enlighten
my darkness. The Lord said, He said He will
not suffer His Holy One to see corruption. Christ said that.
He will not suffer His Holy One to see corruption. He'll light
my lamp. He'll give me the light of life. And that's what God
did. He raised Him from the dead and set Him in His right hand.
And Christ gives this light to His people. So that we can say,
He will light my lamp. He will keep me. He will keep. Christ is the light. And He will
keep my light burning. Because He's that light. He will
keep it burning. And He will make my darkness.
Wherever I go, wherever I am, whatever I'm facing, whatever
darkness I face, He'll lighten the way. He will enlighten the
way. He'll show His people the way. Christ is the way. And He'll
show us the way that's going to keep us in Christ, keep us
near Christ, keep us believing Christ, keep us glorifying Christ. And you know what we're going
to be able to say one day? We're going to be able to say this
in verse 20. He's going to raise us from the
grave, just like He raised Christ. And He's going to raise us and
He's going to bring us into that glorious light. the inheritance
of the saints in light. And we're going to see Christ
that light. We're going to see Him face to face and we're going
to be perfectly conformed to His image when we see Him as
He is. And this is what we'll be able
to say. Verse 20. The Lord rewarded me according
to my righteousness. Yeah, it's mine. It's mine. It's fully mine. But it's according
to Christ my righteousness. It's mine because He gave it
to me. He gave it to me. Amen.