Brethren, let's turn to Psalm
119. Psalm 119. We're skipping ahead in our Psalm series
quite a bit. For those who read the daily
readings, the one I mailed out for today was from Psalm 119,
113. It says, I hate vain thoughts. And the word there is vain opinions
of men. Vain opinions of men and their
vain opinions of God and His way of salvation. And it involves
all vain thoughts that are against God, that separate us from God. I hate vain thoughts, but thy
law do I love. Tomorrow's daily reading is going
to be found in the same Psalm, and it will be in verse 163.
Tomorrow you'll get to read it, but tonight you'll get to hear
it preached. So, I'm going to preach Psalm 119, verse 163. And it goes along the same lines.
It is this, I hate and abhor lying, but thy law do I love. If you read these Psalms like
we should and hear Christ speaking, we hear Christ saying, I hate
and abhor lying. He made that evident in the way
He spoke to the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He called them
liars. He called them hypocrites. He
called them whited sepulchers. He warned His disciples against
their doctrine. He said it's full of leaven.
He said it's the doctrine of devils. He hates and abhors lying. But thy law do I love. The Word
of God, every Word of God beginning to end. All His commandments,
all His precepts, all His judgments, all His statutes, every Word
of God beginning to end do I love. Is there anybody that doesn't
hate for others to lie to us? Don't you hate to be lied to? You know, that's so in secular
things. We hate to be lied to even in
just secular things. Lying hurts. And usually the lie hurts worse
than whatever it is the lie is covering up. That's true when
a false gospel is preached. That false gospel, which is a
lie, hurts worse than what it's covering up. That's what Christ
meant when He said, you make a proselyte of men, but you make
them twofold more the child of hell. Because now they were simply
fallen in Adam and lost. Now they're lost, fallen in Adam,
but they think they have righteousness. They think they're saved. And they're twofold more the
child of hell than when men found them. So lies hurt worse than
what they're covering up. The worst of all lying, though,
is those who lie against God, our Savior. Now, we say with
Paul, Paul said of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, he said, I
pray to God they might be saved. You know, you need somebody to
be saved when they're lost. And that's what he said, I pray
that they might be saved. They were lost. Christ said they
were lost. Christ said don't follow them.
He said, in fact, he said leave them alone. But we pray for men. We pray that they might be saved.
But if they're going to be saved, they're going to be saved through
truth. Lying, in fact, is one of the worst sins there is. Because
God is truth. God is the truth. Christ said,
I am the truth. God is light. Christ said, I
am the light. And there's no darkness whatsoever
in God. And so lying against God, lying
even to men, before men, it's opposite to God who is truth.
John said, God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If
we say that we have fellowship with Him and we walk in darkness,
We lie. If we say we believe Him, we
say we trust Him, we say He's all our salvation and we walk
in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in
the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
We do have fellowship with Him. And the blood of Jesus Christ
His Son cleanseth us from all sin. Our subject tonight is hate
lying. love God's law. Hate lying, love
God's law. Believers not only dislike lying,
we hate lying. And we not only like the commands
of our God, we love the law of our God. We love the law of our
God. First of all, hate and abhor
lying. You couldn't use stronger language. David writes here, I hate and
abhor lying. You know, in our day, Men, you
can't say anybody's telling a lie. That's being ungracious and unloving.
No, that's being a hateful hypocrite is what that's being. If you
don't tell men the truth, you don't love them. If you don't
tell men the truth of God, you hate their soul and you'd sooner
see them go to hell with you. That's the truth of the matter.
Telling men the truth is love. We tell men truth in love and
we speak the truth because we love We want to see sinners saved. We don't want to see them perish.
It was one lie that set things in motion for this whole world
to be separated from God and to fall into sin and death. And
that's what lying does. That's exactly what lying does. Turn to Genesis chapter 2. Genesis
chapter 2. God doesn't save through lies.
He saves through truth. Because there's no lie in Him.
Christ said, when the Spirit comes, He'll guide you into all
truth. Because He won't speak of Himself, He'll speak of me,
Christ said. Look here, Genesis 2.17, God spoke the truth when
He said to Adam, Genesis 2.17, Of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. That's God's
Word. That's the truth. That's the
Word of God. Now, it's for Adam's good. If
he obeys the Word of God, it'll be good for Adam. If we obey
the Word of God, it'll be good for us. But if he disobeys the
Word of God, it's going to be evil for him and for everybody
he represents, because he's a representative man. He represents the whole
human race. But Satan, the father of lies, he slithers into the
garden. And this is what Satan always
does. You hear the Word of God preached
and it says, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. And Satan
slithers into a pulpit and he says, now that doesn't mean God
hated Esau. That's how they operate. Scripture
says, Christ said, you will not come to me that you might have
lie. Satan slithers into the pulpit
and he says, but now that just meant those people he was talking
to. You can come by your will. If you're willing, come. That's
a lie. Satan says, that's not what God
meant. Here's what God meant. Look,
let's see. Let's see that's what he does.
Genesis 3, 4. He said, You shall not surely die. You
shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the
day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, and you shall
be as gods, knowing good and evil." You see, he said, now
that's not what God meant, that you're going to die. What he
meant is your eyes are going to be open. You're going to behold
good and evil. You're going to be like God.
And through the lie, Eve began to flirt with temptation. That's all she was doing at first.
She just flirted with it. Verse 6, When the woman saw that
the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree to be desired to make one wise, all she did was look
at it. And then she thought, what harm could come by merely
holding the fruit? She's going to flirt with temptation
just a little bit more. I'm just going to hold the fruit.
After all, we hadn't been forbidden to hold it. And so she took of
the fruit thereof. Isn't this how lies work? Isn't
this how they tempt us a little more and a little more? Look
now, and then holding the fruit, what did she do? And she did
eat. And she gave also unto her husband
with her, and he did eat. And so one lie led to every sinner
on the face of this planet being separated from God, dying in
sin because of Adam's transgression against God. because Adam represented
his people. But lying never ends with one
lie. You have to have a lie to cover
the lie. Whenever Adam became a liar, or he became a liar when
he disobeyed God. When he ate of that fruit, Adam
became a liar. And now Adam is going to try
to cover his first lie. And so he makes a fig leaf apron.
And you know what that fig leaf apron was? It was a lie. That
fig leaf apron was a lie. He made one lie to cover his
other lie. That's what lies are, and that's
how lies operate. And on and on the lies go, all
the way down to us where their lies brought forth spiritually
dead liars like you and me. Psalm 58, 3 says, The wicked
are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they
be born speaking lies. We go forth and we have vain
thoughts of how God is. And you'll hear people that they
don't know anything at all about the Word of God. They're not
reading the Word of God. They're not looking in the Word
of God. And they'll tell you what they think about God. And
they'll tell you what they think about how God saves. And they'll
tell you what they... This is what I think. This is
what I think. I hate vain thoughts. That's what God said. That's
what Christ said. That's what David said. I hate
vain thoughts. I hate lying. I hate it and I
abhor it. Do you hate and abhor lying?
Do you? If we don't love the truth and
hate lying, then we hate the truth and we love lying. It's
one or the other. This is not grey matter here
we're talking about. So lies don't accomplish anything. Look at James chapter 1. James
chapter 1. Lying separates. It separates
man from God. It separates man from man. Lying never makes things better,
it only makes things worse. Lies draw us further into temptation
and bring forth death. Look at this now. Only truth
makes a lie. James 1, 12. Blessed is the man
that endureth temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive
the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love
him. Let no man say, when he's tempted, I'm tempted of God.
We're apt to excuse our lies using God's providence. Now,
you know, was God providentially ruling everything in the garden?
Absolutely. God's absolutely sovereign. If
something happens out of God's control, then He's not God. God's
absolutely in control of everything. But was God to blame for Satan's
lie? Was God to blame for Eve's lust? Was God to blame for Adam's disobedience? No. Not whatsoever. For God cannot
be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man. But every
man is tempted when he is drawn away. Drawn away from what? The
truth. The truth. Adam was drawn away
from God. He was drawn away from God. The
truth. You are tempted when you are drawn away of his own lust
and enticed. Now notice these steps right
here. When lust hath conceived, You see, lust is conceived in
the mind. That's what happens first. Then
it brings forth sin in the act. And sin, when it is finished,
brings forth death. That's the steps. So he says
here in verse 16, Do not err, my beloved brethren. Don't err
from what? Don't err from God's Word. Don't
err from the truth of God. Because every good gift and every
perfect gift is from above. and comes down from the Father
of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of
His own will begat He us with the word of truth." With the
word of truth. Don't turn from God. Don't turn
from truth. Don't turn from His gospel. Don't
turn from any word God speaks in His scripture. Don't turn
from God. Period. We imagine a vain thing
if we imagine we can save ourselves by lying. Now you just think
about this. Just in your own every day to
day, men are vain to imagine they can save their jobs by lying.
Just get tangled up in a web of lies. Men begin to think they
can save their marriages by lies. Men think they can save their
reputation by lies. Think how backwards that is.
I'm going to save my reputation as being an honest man. How?
I'm going to lie. I'm going to save myself from
shame. How? By doing the most shameful thing
I could do. I'm going to lie. And worst of all is if we think
we can save ourselves through a false gospel. Christ died for
everybody. He wants to save everybody. But
He's helpless and He can't do it because you're God over Christ.
You think you're going to be saved by that? If you meet God,
you'll find out that's not the Christ of this Bible. That's
a lie. And I hate that message. I don't just dislike it. I hate
it. And I abhor it. I hate lying against my God and
my Savior. Why? Well, take your own father. Take your own mother. Somebody
comes along and they just go to speaking every foul thing
they can say about them and speaking lies about them and just speaking
blasphemy against them. Will it not rile you? Will it
not make you say, I hate the lies they're telling against
my mother, my father? Well, this is my father. This
is my Savior who bore my sin and put away my sin and made
me the righteousness of God. Of course I hate lies against
Him. And any man that does not hate lies against Him must not
love Him. What kind of love is that? David
said, I hate lying. I hate it. I hate it. Whether
we're found out by men or not, Whether men ever know it or not,
lives may save from temporary suffering, but lives never save
in the long run. They may save temporarily, but
they never save in the long run. And whether men ever find out
about it or not, by lying we've forsaken the truth. We've left
the truth. By lying we're no longer in the
realm of God and light and truth, but walk in darkness. Listen
to this, Proverbs 12, 19 says, The lip of truth shall be established
forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment. And first and
foremost, when God speaks words like this, when He gives us a
statute like this, a precept, His judgments like this, first
and foremost it has to do with truth concerning God and truth
concerning His Son. The lip of truth shall be established
forever by a lying tongue is but for a moment. That moment
may last a while. In fact, it might last our whole
lifetime. The rest of our lives, men may
regard us as just and good and holy. You join in with a false
gospel. You join in saying, well, I believe
I was saved by my will. I believe I was saved by my doing.
I believe I'm made more holy and more righteous by my doing
rather than by Christ's doing. Well, you may get away for a
long time, all your life, and you might be a preacher, or you
might be regarded as a saint. You might be regarded as a faithful
husband and a father, or a faithful mother and a wife. You may be
regarded as a faithful son and daughter. We may be honored and
we may be praised by men. But soon, that moment is going
to pass away, just as fast as our lives pass away. And then
you know what's going to happen? You're going to stand before
the truth, face to face with the truth. And I'm talking about
God who is truth. If I don't know Him and I don't
trust Him and I don't rest in Him, that ought to scare me to
death. That ought to grab my attention
and make me know that in a second, in a breath, I could be standing
face to face with truth. Where will we be found then?
Where will we be found in that day? Will our refuge of lies
save us? The Lord said the overwhelming
flood is going to sweep away the refuge of lies. If your refuge has anything whatsoever
to do with you, it's a lie. And God won't receive you. Or
me either. But soon, Soon we're going to
stand before God. David's hatred of lying is typical
of God's hatred of lying. That's what we have here. We
have Christ speaking to us in this psalm. That's what we have
here. Now let me show you what he says,
what's going to happen in Judgment Day to liars. Look at Psalm 101
and verse 7. Psalm 101 and verse 7. Now let's look at verse 6 first.
Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell
with me. He that walketh in a perfect
way, he shall serve me. He that worketh deceit shall
not dwell within my house. He that telleth lies shall not
tarry in my sight. And in case you don't realize
that speaking of of the glory of God in final glory. Revelation 21-27 says, There
shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither
whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie. But, who are
these perfect? Who are these that walk perfect
before God? They which are written in the
Lamb's book of life. That's who we're talking about.
They which are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Somebody
might say, well haven't we all told a little white lie now and
then? That's the way we vainly justify
ourselves. It's soothing to the conscience
if you're just one in a million, isn't it? It makes us feel good. It makes us feel more comfortable.
And so we go on lying to our conscience and we go on boldly
lying to God and lying to everybody and living a lie toward God and
men. insisting that our lives are
the truth. And all our ways, if they're not in accordance
with God's ways, they're lies. If they're not in accordance
with God's Word, they're lies. No, we have not all told a little
white lie now and then. Before God, there are no little
white lies. There are only big, bold, black
lies. And truth is, all the natural
man is, is a liar, and all the natural man does is lie. Lies
ooze from the natural man's tongue like pus from a gangrene wound. But the fact that we're all liars
by nature doesn't justify anybody from being a liar. Turn to Jeremiah
chapter 9. I want to show you what God said.
He said this of Israel, and this is true of God's spiritual Israel. that true Israel, that national
political Israel typified. This is true of all of us who
God will save, all of His elect, Jew or Gentile. This is true
of everybody God will save. This is true of us right here.
Jeremiah 9, verse 3. They bend their tongues like
their bow for lies, but they are not valiant for the truth
upon the earth. For they proceed from evil to
evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord. This is us by nature.
This is us by nature. Take ye heed every one of his
neighbor, and trust you not in any brother. For every brother
will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will walk with slanders.
He says there in verse 5, And they will deceive every one his
neighbor, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their
tongue to speak lies. and weary themselves to commit
iniquity. Thine habitation is in the midst
of deceit. Through deceit they refuse to
know Me, saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord
of hosts, Behold, I will melt them and try them. For how shall
I do for the daughter of My people? Their tongue is an arrow shot
out. It speaketh deceit. One speaketh peaceably to his
neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he is laying late. Shall I not visit them for these
things? Saith the Lord, Shall not my soul be avenged on such
a nation as this? He's saying that lying is against God's own soul. He
says, Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? If
we're born of God, you and I who've been born of God, if we're born
of God, we hate lying. We abhor lying. And we love the
Word of God. The two are diametrically opposite.
If we love the truth of God, we hate lying. And if we hate
lying, we love the truth of God. The two can't meet. They're opposite.
And yet, even us, believer, do we not lie every day? The self-righteous
man is saying, oh, I don't lie. You just lie. You just lie. Listen to me. We omit the truth. That's a lie when you admit the
truth. We lie by putting on a fake face. We lie with flattery. We lie to prevent personal suffering.
We're like Balaam. Whenever the Lord spoke to Balaam
and he said, He gave him the Word. He gave him the Word of
God, the truth of God, God's judgment, God's statute. And
instead of going to those men and telling them, no, I cannot
go with you, do not return because God has said thou shalt not go
with them, thou shalt not curse the people for they are blessed.
Instead, we do like Balaam. There was a yes in his no. He
left the door open for them to come back because he wanted them
to come back. Because he wanted to lie. Because
he wanted to go against God's way. And brethren, look at this,
Colossians 3. This is what God tells us as
saints of God. This is what He speaks to you
and I as saints of God. This is His law. This is the
law that we're under. He tells us we're risen with
Christ. We're seated at the right hand of God. He tells us, therefore,
set our affections on things above. Our heart, our very soul
needs to be set on things above. How do I do that? What does that
mean? What is that going to translate
into in my life? It's going to mean that everything
I'm doing, I'm doing it with a heart toward One object. First of all, me personally,
I want to glorify God. I want to glorify my Savior.
I want to bring honor to His name. I want to be somebody that's
a witness of what the grace of God does in power and mercy. And two, I want to do everything
towards this cause of spreading the truth of Christ, of me in
hearing the truth of Christ. Were you saved by truth? If not,
why are you even here? Why be here if you're not saved
by the truth? What does it matter? Are you like some that says truth
doesn't matter? It doesn't matter if a man ever
hears the gospel or not? That's a lie. That's not according
to this Word. I'm not jonesing around with you here.
That's true. That is a lie, brethren. It pleased God. He told Abraham,
I'm going to justify the heathen through faith. The just shall
live by faith. Without faith it's impossible
to please God. That's not just so for some,
that's so for every sinner. Heed God's Word now before you
meet the truth and find out that's true. You will find out that's
true. Here's what he tells us to do
in Colossians 3. He tells us verse 3, you're dead and your
life is hid with Christ in God. And when Christ who is our life
shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory.
And so he says, mortify therefore your members which are upon the
earth. Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence,
covetousness, which is idolatry. For which thing sake the wrath
of God comes on the children of disobedience? Oh, but the
children of disobedience, they're just a little misguided. They
might be God's elect and Christ might have died for them and
they'll be okay. No, they're not walking in the truth. No,
they're not obeying God. And until God comes and brings
you out of that disobedience and brings you under the rule
of Christ Jesus, you're a lost disobedient child. And if you
deny that, you're a lost disobedient child. Listen now. in the which
you walked sometime when you lived in these things. We used
to be nothing but sin. We used to be nothing but disobedience
to God. We were children of wrath even
as others. We were under the dominion of the serpent, of Satan
himself, and we walked in nothing but the flesh. But now, but now,
You also put off all these. Anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy,
filthy communication out of your mouth. Now here's what all of
these have in common, brethren. They're all lies. Lie not one
to another. Lie not one to another. If I'm an idolater, you know
what I'm doing before men? I'm lying to men. If I'm worshiping
a little J Jesus and a little G God, and I'm saying that He
can't do anything without my consent, I'm an idolater, and
I'm lying to men. I'm taking the name of Christ
in vain when I call myself a Christian, if that's my God. That's a lie. And He says, now, if you've been
saved, don't lie to one another anymore. Don't lie to one another
anymore seeing that you've put off the old man with his deeds. That's all the old man is. The
unsaved, uncalled, unregenerated old man. The man that has not
been converted. He's just an old man of sin.
And you have put on the new man. You have put off the old man
with his deeds and you have put on the new man which is renewed
in knowledge after the image of him that created him. How
is this new man made? God created him. God created
him. How is this new man renewed?
He is renewed in the knowledge of God. Our old man is dying
daily, daily, daily. That old man is dying, but the
new man is being renewed daily in the knowledge of God, through
the Gospel of God, through these Holy Scriptures of God. This
is why we hate lying. Lying feeds the flesh. The truth
feeds the new man. And he says, and you are created
after the image of him. God is truth. God is truth. So he says, speak no more lies.
He says, and in this new man there's neither Greek nor Jew
anymore. We don't know of a national Israel and a Gentile anymore. If you're born of God, you don't.
If you're born of God, you don't. There is neither Greek nor Jew
in Christ. He's a Jew, which is one inwardly,
which is born of the Holy Spirit, whose praise is of God, not of
man. Circumcision's in the heart, it's not in the flesh. That's
what God was teaching us all through using Israel. And if
you're in Christ, you know that because you've been taught by
God that. There's no circumcision nor uncircumcision. When I speak of my love for the
law of God, I'm speaking of I love it more. I love the Ten Commandments
more than men who claim they're keeping the Ten Commandments.
I'm like David. I love them. I love them. I trust
in Christ thoroughly to have fulfilled them for me. To have
totally established the law of God on my behalf. Paul went all
through, I said to you the other day, he went all through Romans.
And he said, we're not justified by the law. By the law we're
made to shut our mouths and we become guilty before God. And
he said, but the righteousness of God without the laws manifests
in the faithfulness of Christ. That's where we see the righteousness
of God. God sent him forth to be a propitiation through faith
in His blood. God sent him forth to freely
justify His people through faith in His blood. And so Paul comes
down and he says, now where's boasting then? Is it by the law
of works or by the law of faith? By the principle of works or
by the principle of faith? Boasting is only excluded if
I'm trusting Christ to have thoroughly fulfilled the law on my behalf.
And he says, so then, we're not the ones who make void the law.
No, no. Believers establish the law because
we're trusting Christ to establish it. And he goes right on in the
context and he says, even like Abraham did, 430 years before
he ever had the commandments given to him, he perfectly established
the law. How? He didn't even have the
Ten Commandments. In Christ Jesus he sure did.
He thoroughly established it. And men take that and they say,
what that means is now you got to keep them. That's a lie. Now
I'm not saying that anything wrong with the law. We love the
law of God. It's holy, just, and good. And
I wish I could keep the law of God as it ought to be kept. And
I'm not saying don't look into the Word of God and see what
the actual Ten Commandments say. They're perfect. There's nothing
wrong with them. If you could keep them, Christ
wouldn't have had to come. But what I am saying to you is
don't ever imagine you come to God. Don't ever imagine you're
going to be able to present yourself before God by what you've done
in the law. It's just not going to happen.
How then, brethren, are we going to have strength? How are we going to have strength
to walk in obedience to God? Here's the second part. And He
says in our text, Thy law do I love. Our constant need is
that by truth, by every word of God in these scriptures, God
will bring us to continually repent from lies, from ourselves,
and make us crowd in truth saying, I hate and abhor lying, but Thy
law do I love. And God does that by making us
know the truth in the new man, in the heart He's made new by
His grace. David said he was already made
new by God's grace, but he sinned against God. And having sinned
against God, he came to God and he cried this. He said, Behold,
thou desirest truth in the inward parts. Truth in the inward parts. Truth in the heart, in that new
man. And in the hidden part thou shalt
make me to know wisdom. He didn't say, you desire truth
in the hidden part, so now I'm fixing to try to work up some
truth in me. He said, you, God, shall make
me to know wisdom. You're going to make me to know
this truth in the inward part. He says, I need you to purge
me with hyssop. I need you to wash me and then
I'll be clean. Then I'll be spotless. I need
you to make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which
you've broken may rejoice. He said, I need you to hide your
face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities. He said,
I need you to create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right
spirit within me. What is this truth of God that
He puts in our inward parts? What is this wisdom of God that
He puts in our inward parts? What is this Word of God that
David is delighting in, in our text? How is it God can look
away and blot out all my iniquities? God makes us behold truth. in
Christ on the cross. And when we behold Christ on
the cross, this is what we behold. Mercy and truth. Mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. Brethren, when we lie, it's usually
because we don't want to suffer the consequences of the truth.
That's usually why we lie. We don't want to suffer the consequences
of the truth. The truth may be we've done something
and we're going to suffer for it. Or the truth may be the truth
of the gospel and we just don't want to suffer the rejection
we're going to get when we declare the truth. But usually, when
we lie, it's because we don't want to suffer the consequences
of the truth. But think on this. Truth may
cause great pain and suffering. It may very well do it. It did
our substitute on the cross. Truth caused Him great suffering
on the cross. But suffering for the truth was
the only way of upholding the truth. It was the only way of
redeeming God's elect from lies. God's elect are saved from the
consequences of that great lie in the garden and from all our
sins and all our personal lies because Christ bore the vengeance
of God for every lie of His people because every lie is against
God's own soul. Of course, God chose His people
in Christ. Christ came forth, this One who never lied, this
One who is the truth, this One who is the spotless name of God.
And He laid down His life to God. He presented Himself to
the Father at the hour appointed. And Christ the truth laid down. He took all our lies upon Himself
whenever He made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin. And Christ
said, charge their lies to my account. And so God numbered
him with the transgressors. And he was made a curse for us.
And so he bore the vengeance of God for his people. In doing
so, he upheld the truth, the righteousness of God. And now
God in truth can be merciful to us who are by nature liars. Isn't the truth wonderful? That's
how you upheld the truth. That's how He upheld the truth.
You see how truth is always the best no matter how much we have
to suffer? Look at Christ. Look at how much
He suffered. Truth may mean necessary suffering,
but truth always prevails over suffering. Two great things are
accomplished by truth. Two great things are accomplished
by truth. You can find them in Proverbs 16, 6. Number one, by
truth God is just and the justifier of His people. He said, by mercy
and truth, iniquity is purged. Truth purged iniquity together
with mercy. And number two, by truth God
makes us depart from our darkness into His marvelous light. He
said, by the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. Proverbs
16, 6, By the mercy of truth, iniquity is purged, and by the
fear of the Lord. That's true. Men depart from
evil. Those are two great things that
truth accomplishes. And He said, My word never fails.
It never fails. It always accomplishes what I
send it for. When David says, I love thy law, do I love? It's this word of truth. It's
every word this book declares. This book declares It doesn't
lie. It doesn't say we just stumped
our toe in the garden. It says we're totally ruined
in the fall. This book doesn't say that God
looked and found some condition in us and that's why He chose
us. This book says we're chosen by unconditional election. This
book doesn't say that Christ died for everybody under the
sun, but really accomplished nothing by His death. He really
did not justify anybody. He really did not redeem anybody.
He really did not purge anybody's sins, which is what we must say
if we say your faith will make His blood effectual. No, this
book teaches that Christ redeemed His particular people from our
sins and put them away never to be remembered by God again.
This book does not teach that men come to God by their will
and that they trust God and they believe and by their will they
are saved. It teaches that God by His irresistible grace draws
us to Him. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest and causes to approach unto thee. He draws us to Him. This Bible does not teach that
men are born today and lost tomorrow. It teaches that God preserves
His saints. He that had begun a good work
in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. He will
keep His saints. And that's the only way you and
I persevere in faith. The only way. The law of God
which believers love is stated in Romans 1. Romans 1, verses
1 and 3. Paul said, I separated unto the
gospel of God. And he tells us what it is. Which
He had promised to for by His prophets in the Holy Scripture.
That's what he was talking about in all these Holy Scriptures.
You're wasting your time. You're lying to yourself and
you're lying to others. If you're looking to the prophets
to try to spend all your time discovering what God said, it's
not for you to know. He said, he promised the four
by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, my gospel. And it says this,
concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the
seed of David, according to the flesh. That's what this whole
book is about, from beginning to end. Jesus Christ, the truth. You know, He didn't say, I am
a truth. He said, I'm the truth. I'm the truth. That means, whatever
truth we're looking at in this book, it's about Him. He's the truth. Christ is the
truth. And if we're not interpreting
Scripture in the light of Christ the truth, we're lying. We're lying to ourselves, we're
lying to our conscience, we're lying to liars. This is the truth. This book, speaking of Him. And
it's the truth that He upheld the truth. And it's the truth
that He conquers all liars. whether it's Satan the liar,
whether it's his enemies who are liars, or whether it's his
people who are liars in our flesh. He conquers all liars. He said
he's going to make all enemies his footstool. You and I who
are enemies in our lives by wicked works, we're going to be made
to bow and kiss his feet as well as all the rest of his enemies
because he conquers them. This law of God spoken of in
our text is the wisdom God puts in our hearts. That's what it
is. The law He writes in our hearts.
What is it? when Christ the truth is made
unto us wisdom. Wisdom. When Christ is formed
in our hearts. That's whenever a man stops walking
after his own way. That's when he starts looking
into this book. When he looks at the law, the Ten Commandments,
and he discovers himself guilty of not being able to fulfill
it, it turns him to his schoolmaster. It drives him like a schoolmaster
to Christ that he might be justified by faith. And when faith has
come, you're no longer under the schoolmaster anymore. You
walk following Christ. The law we're under is faith
which works by love. And Paul said, and if you turn
back again and you want to start with that first, first entrance
into the law, which was circumcision, then you're a debtor to do everything
written in the law. Everything written in the law.
We wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. By faith. Faith which works by love. Constrained
by the love of Christ, because we thus judge, if one died for
all his people, then all his people were dead. We were dead. We were unable to save ourselves.
And then those that are made alive now, we're made to know
that we don't live unto ourselves anymore, but we live unto Him.
That's the love we're constrained by. And therefore, each morning,
we beg God for this. Lead me in Thy truth. and teach
me. Lead me in thy truth and teach
me thy truth. For thou art the God of my salvation. On thee do I wait all the day. What's our constraint? To walk
in this truth and speak the truth before God and all men. The truth
of the facts in every situation we're in and the truth of the
gospel. Because now we know how important
truth is. I feel for the man that's not
saved by the truth. There is no salvation out of
the truth. The man who thinks he's saved out of the truth,
I've never met one yet that cares much for the gospel. Oh, he'll
fake it for a few years. As Arthur Pink said, he'll walk
on the finer side of the Broadway for a while. But sooner or later,
he'll say, I don't want to have anything else to do with that.
But you who've been made to know the truth by the truth know how
valuable this truth is to us. You know how we need the Word
of God. You know how we need the Gospel
of Christ. You know how we need to read
this book and study this book and follow after Him. We depend on Christ to keep us,
to protect us. And we know every word God speaks
is holy, just, and good, and it's for our good. It's for our
good. And that's why David said, My
heart standeth in awe of Thy Word. I stand in awe of His Word. Do you not find that the Word
of God, from time to time, you see the wisdom of God in the
way He works among His people, in His church, and using His
people, and the way He says what He's going to do beforehand and
brings it to pass, and you just stand in awe of God. You just
see Him and you think, I stand in awe of Your Word, Lord. I'm
just in awe of it. I'm going to be brief here, but
let me tell you what this word is. This word is truth. This
word is truth. Every other book... I'll tell
you the difference in this book and every other book. Every other
book is written by a fallible man, and so it's fallible. It's
got lies in it. This book has not a single lie
in it, because it's the writing of God. That's right. It's the only book that's that
way. This book's the only God, only word, that declares the
gospel we preach through which God reveals the righteousness
of God, how God can be just and justifier. And the words of this
book are more needful at the beginning of each day than breakfast
is. Look here in verse 15, Psalm
119.15. I'll be very brief here. Look
at Psalm 119.15. He said, I'll meditate in thy precepts
and have respect unto thy ways. Look at verse 23. The princes
also did sit and speak against me, but thy servant did meditate
in thy statutes. Look at verse 48. My hands also
which I lift up under thy commandments, which I have loved, and I will
meditate in thy statutes. Verse 78 he says, Let the proud
be ashamed, for they dealt perversely with me without a cause, but
I will meditate in thy precepts. 148 Mine eyes prevent the night
watches, that I might meditate in thy words. Believer, do you
meditate on the Word? I'm not talking about this silly
junk men do what they call meditation. I'm talking about this. Get up
in the morning and read something out of this book. Just a verse,
just a phrase in context. Read the context of it, but get
a verse and read it. And you'll be amazed if you go
through the day thinking about that verse, thinking about it,
rolling it over and over in your mind and keeping it on your heart
all through the day. You'll be amazed how God will
work all the events in your life to teach you what that verse
means. He'll teach you what that verse
means. And we say, well, I just, I read it sometimes and I can't
understand it, so I just don't read it. Well, we don't meditate
in it. Take it with you throughout the day and think on it all day
long. And when something happens, when
somebody pulls out in front of you at the traffic light, think,
does that verse apply to that? And keep thinking about it, and
you'll find out before the end of the day, God will teach you.
He might not do it that day. I walk around with verses sometimes
for a week or a month or sometimes a year. But sooner or later,
God drops it right into your heart and says, this is what
that means. Meditate on His Word. I was going to show you a couple
of other things, but I'm out of time. But if you'll read verses
97 through 100, it will show you three enemies that we overcome
by this Word. We overcome our enemies, all
those that separate us from God. We overcome false teachers. That's
what he says, I have more understanding than all my teachers. That means
false teachers. And then he says to us there,
and I understand more than the ancients. You know how men will
bring up all kinds of ancient traditions to you that their
church does? All you got to do is take it
to this word right here. You know this word. This word don't
tell us to... It don't say get up on Sunday and meet just with
your church and eat dinner every Sunday after church and take
a dish to somebody that's sick every day and that's going to
make you saved. This book don't say that. It
don't say that. Those are bad things to do, but
this book don't say you're going to be saved that way. You have
men... I quote ancient men. I quote
old faithful preachers, but you know how I decide if their quote
is worth quoting, if it's in this book right here. And you
can't, just because you quote a man, doesn't mean that everything
that man says is going to be faithful. You take it to this
book and see. Judge it on that one statement.
And then you have ancient sinners, old men, Old grandpas and grandmas
that don't want to have anything to do with God, they want to
take a new believer and pull him aside and say, now let me
tell you something. Let me warn you about something about what
I've learned. I'll tell you what you do with old grandma and old
grandpa. You take the ancient man of this book right here,
and if it's not in this word, cut him loose. I'm telling you
that. That's what the book said. Paul told Timothy, from a child
that has known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise
unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. I got
two things to take home with you, just two. Number one, hate
and a poor lying. And number two, love the Word
of God. And that's it. Amen.