Alright, Psalm 15. Let's read
the first verse. Lord, who shall abide in thy
tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? Lord, who shall sojourn? That's what the word abide means.
Who shall sojourn in your church here below? really in the church. And I'm not just coming into
a place, but in His church as one of His children. Who shall
sojourn in His church below? And who shall dwell, abide forever in Thy holy hill above with Him
in the church triumphant in glory in heaven? That's a reasonable
question to ask because in Psalm 14, The Lord says this, He says,
it says, they've done abominable works, there's none that doeth
good. He says in verse 2, the Lord looked down from heaven
upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand,
to see if there were any that did seek God, and He said they're
all gone aside. They are all together become
filthy, there is none that doeth good, no not one. And so this
question is a good question. Who then will holy, righteous
God receive to Himself? Well, the Lord gives the answer.
We saw the first three things last time, and we noted here
that these were in the heart. You see there at the end of verse
2, it says, in his heart. And that applies to all three
of these things. He that walketh uprightly in
his heart, That means to be perfect, whole, complete in your heart. Holy. To never have had an unrighteous
thought ever. That's who will dwell with God.
It says, and worketh righteousness in his heart. To do that which
is right is to do that which is right according to God's holy
law. To never have broken his law
in your heart. Never have even thought about
it. to totally completely kept his law beginning to end. That's
who will dwell with him. He says, and speaketh the truth
in his heart. The truth that God speaks of
in the scriptures are twofold. All flesh is grass, and thy God
reigneth. All flesh is worthless, all men
are liars, and only God is true. Salvation is entirely of God.
Man who speaks that truth, who honors God, That man will be
saved. He'll dwell in the house of God.
And does it perfectly. Got it perfectly in his heart.
The only one that has done all of these things in perfection.
From the beginning of His life to the end of His life is the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one. He is the
only one. And so those who are born of
God, the Holy Spirit, and brought to believe on Christ, to cast
all their care into His hand, we're confessing we believe He
alone has fulfilled everything. And by Him, we shall be saved. By Him, by His doing, we have
established all these things perfectly. He's the only one,
the only one that's done these things. You know, there's something
profound about this because when we break the law of God, there's
two tables in the law. There's a table toward God and
there's a table toward man. And Christ fulfilled all, and
we fulfill all through faith in Him, because He did it. His
righteousness is imputed to us. And it's something profound in
the fact that when we're brought by the Spirit of God to bow to
Christ, to submit to Him and confess our sin and bow to Him
in faith, we're bowing to the God-man. We're bowing to that
one who's both God and man, and in whom both those tables of
the law have been perfectly fulfilled. He is the ark of the covenant
in whom that broken law is, and he is the mercy seat where God
will meet with us, who shed his own blood and thereby justified
us from all our sin, and God will meet with us in him. So,
He is the One. Now we're going to look at the
rest of these today and we're going to see that He's the only
One who's fulfilled these things. And we fulfill these things through
faith in Him. Look at verse 3. He that backbiteth
not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh
up a reproach against his neighbor, in whose eyes a vile person is
contemned. He's despised. But he honoreth
them that fear the Lord, he that sweareth to his own hurt, and
changeth not. He that putteth not out his money
to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these
things shall never be moved." Now when God says, do these things,
he that doeth these, He doesn't mean you gave a good try. You gave it all you had. He doesn't
mean that. He means do these things. Not without wavering. I mean perfectly. With God there's
only holiness. It's just right. So when he says,
do these things, that's what he means. Now, let's look at
these things done toward men. These are toward men. We'll put
verse 3 together, and it basically amounts to this, He that loves
his neighbor as himself shall dwell with God. It says there
in verse 3, He that backbiteth not with his tongue against his
neighbor. Backbiting is to slander. It's
to discredit their name and their reputation You know when you
get that little juicy tidbit of gossip and you sit there and
talk about it with whoever you're with? That's backbiting. That's
it. You can never have done that
ever, ever. Nobody here has probably ever
done that, ever. And then it says, nor does evil to his neighbor. Evil means that anything that's
done that's unkind in the least degree, as God regards unkind.
Anything that's hurtful, anything that may cause your neighbor
trouble and sorrow. And it says, and he that does
not take up a reproach against his neighbor. In the margin it
says, receiveth. It means he that won't even hear
his neighbor reproached. He won't even give ear to it.
And then he won't take it up and spread it. He won't take
it further and spread it to somebody else. He won't do that. Never,
never do that. Remember that old song? I don't,
y'all probably never, anybody here ever watch Hee Haw? Remember
that song they used to sing? We're not ones to go around spreading
rumors. We're really not the gossiping
kind. You'll never hear one of us repeating gossip. So you better
be sure and listen close the first time. That's what we're talking about.
We think we can laugh at it because we don't really know the depths
of it. God doesn't laugh at it. God doesn't laugh at it at all.
Now remember, these things are not only toward neighbors, not
only toward your neighbors, but they're who are kind to you.
They're toward those neighbors who hate you, those neighbors
who do evil to you, those neighbors who despise you. And these things
are all in the heart. They're all in the heart. Truly,
Christ is the only one who has ever walked this earth that has
been a neighbor to us. He's the only one. He never slandered
anybody. He didn't backbite anybody. He walked this earth. We had
a lot of sins that could be talked about, but He didn't. He didn't. He walked this earth. He came
to put away the sins of His people. He came to cover the sins of
His people. When He works grace in our heart,
this is what makes us stop repeating things, listening to things uncovered
about our brethren, and repeating things uncovered about our brethren,
and makes us want to cover up the sins of our brethren, because
that's what He did for us. He didn't work evil toward us,
He only worked righteousness. That's all He did. All the time
that He walked this earth. And He didn't scorn, He didn't
upbraid. And He doesn't upbraid. James
says that. Let me read this to you. James
says in James 1 verse 5, if any of you lack wisdom, you need
wisdom on a subject, on an issue? He says, let him ask of God that
giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not. He won't take
up a reproach. He won't throw it back in your
teeth. He'll receive you. And look at
Luke 10. Christ is the only one, the chief one, I'll say. He's
the chief one, not the only one. He's the chief one toward whom
we have done these things. He's the one that we've been
backbiting against when we were in our flesh. He's the one we
worked evil toward, and He's the one to whom we took up a
reproach. Turn over to Luke 10, verse 25. Behold, a certain lawyer stood
up. You know this is going to be trouble. This is an illegal
man. He wanted to come to God by his
law keeping. And he was tempting Christ. He
was going to try Him. A man is going to come and try
the Lord, try God who gave the law. And he says, Master, what
shall I do to inherit eternal life? That's a question like
the question we have in our psalm. Who can enter into your presence,
Father? And he said unto him, What is written in the law? How
readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul,
and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor
as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast
answered right, this do, and thou shalt live. That's the same
answer in our song. You do these things right here,
you'll live. You'll live. Because anybody can do these
things. And any of us can do these things.
We come from our mother's womb speaking lies. We come from our
mother's womb corrupting our heart and go astray as soon as
we be born because of that. We can't do these things. But
look here verse 29, with this law you're willing to justify
himself. He'd want to say he can come
this way, but he has to ask a question now. When you have to clarify
things on exactly who's my neighbor, that means you've done wrong
to somebody. And he said unto Jesus, who is
my neighbor? Now in the answer the Lord gives,
Christ shows us how he was a neighbor to us, how he's a neighbor. He
is the good Samaritan. Christ is the only one who ever
loved the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul,
and with all his strength, and with all his mind, and his neighbor
as himself. He's the only one that's ever
done it. You want to see how it's done? Look to Calvary's
cross. If you want to do it in this
world, that's what it's going to take. Because men are going
to reject you. if you walk like Christ walked. But in order to put away sin,
He had to go to the cross and He had to bear the separation
from His Father. and he had to bear the forsaking
of his disciples, those he loved, and all hell had to be poured
out on him because he was made sin for his people. It's the
only way justice could be satisfied and our sins put away and us
be made the righteousness of God in him. That's what has to
be done. That's how he loved God with
all his heart, his soul, his strength, his mind, and his neighbor
as himself. That's how it's done. That's
love. That's true love. Alright? Look, Jesus answering
said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and
fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded
him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now that's a good
picture of God's elect. We fell, we were stripped of
all our righteousness, and we were half dead. We were spiritually
totally dead within, in spirit, and in our flesh it was alive
and reigning, but it was really dead. And amazingly, Christ came
down too, and He took our place. And we stripped Him. He allowed
it, but we stripped Him. And we nailed Him to a cross,
and we railed upon Him, and He laid down His life, gave up the
ghost, and we put His body in a tomb. So He knows not only
what you go through when you're in sin and cast down into the
ditch and dead and spiritually dead, He knows what it's like
because He came and took our place and He's been in the ditch. He's been in the ditch Himself.
Verse 31 says, And by chance there came down a certain priest
that way, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
And likewise, a Levite, when he was at the place, he came
and looked on him, and he passed by on the other side. The law
wouldn't help us. That's who these men represent.
The law wouldn't help us. No amount of religious works
would help us. Nothing we could do in religion
would help us. They passed by on the other side. But a certain
Samaritan, you know what a Samaritan was? He was a man who was despised,
despised and rejected of men. That's who Christ is. That's
who Christ is. And as he journeyed, he came
where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion
on him. Christ had compassion on us from
eternity when He entered into the everlasting covenant of grace.
And in the fullness of time, He came from heaven to where
we are, where His people are. And went to Him, it says, verse
34. Christ comes to each of His children personally through the
gospel, through the Spirit, when He enters into the heart. And
that time predestinated for the season of love when they shall
be born again. And He bound up His wounds and He poured in oil
and wine. Christ bound up our wounds. And
He poured in the oil of the Holy Spirit the wine of His blood
in the Gospel. And He set Him on His own beast.
He could just rest. This man could just lay on this
beast and just rest. And it would carry him right
to where he needed to go. That rest is Christ. He's the
one that we're laying on. He's the one that's carrying
us right to the home with the Father. And He brought him to
an end. and took care of him. Christ
brings us to his church and he continues to take care of us
from there. And on the morrow when he departed,
he took out two pence and gave them to the host of the inn.
Christ provides his people with faithful pastors and he provides
those pastors with everything they need to minister to his
people. And he said unto him, take care
of him You know how God's preachers take care of them? Preach the
gospel. Just declare the gospel to them.
He said, And whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again,
I'll repay thee. Christ's servants will never
be the loser for spending and being spent for God, for Christ. Never. Never. Now, the Lord asked
the question. Now you just picture this lawyer,
he's a Pharisee and he hates Samaritans. He hates them. That's
why the Lord used a Samaritan. And this lawyer hates Christ
too. That's why he used a Samaritan. And he said, which now of these
three thinkest thou was neighbor unto him that fell among the
thieves? And he said, he that showed mercy on him. Christ is
the neighbor who alone has shown mercy to us. He's shown mercy
to his people. He's the only one that's ever
done it perfectly as God would. Only one. Then said Jesus unto
him, Go and do thou likewise. You go show mercy too. When Christ
has done this for us in our heart, He brattles our tongue, that
backbiting tongue. He subdues that old man that
wants to work evil. And He subdues our flesh that
wants to take up a reproach and upbraid every little thing we
can about our neighbor. and He makes us have the love
of God in our heart so that we want to do for our neighbor what
Christ has done for us. We can't do what He did, but
this is what we can do, what He's given us to do. Instead
of slandering their name and slandering His name, we can speak
of Christ to them and try to point them to Christ and try
to lead them to Christ. Instead of doing evil to them,
we can provide whatever's necessary for them to help them come hear
the gospel and to stay and keep hearing the gospel. And that's
nothing for one of His servants. He knows He'll provide. And we
love them by taking up our fallen brethren rather than taking up
a reproach against them. When they fall and they stumble,
rather than taking up a reproach, we take them up. We lift them
up. We lift them up. And we pour
them to Christ. This is what grace does. This
is what grace creates, because Christ is that neighbor. Can
you enter into this? Can you enter into the fact He's
the neighbor? He's the one who's done this to us. And He's the
one we were backbiting against, reproaching, slandering with
all our religion and all our self-righteous holiness, and
acted, walking around acting like we've done something. You
really loved your neighbor as yourself? When their house burns
down, you go over and throw the keys to your house to them. Say,
here, take mine. Christ said, take my life so
you can live. We had an affluent. Secondly,
back in our text now, he says, he in whose eyes a vile person
is contemned, but he honoreth them that fear the Lord. In whose
eyes means in our judgment, in our judgment. A vile person may
be a religious man, he may be otherwise. But a vile person
is one who despises God, and he despises the fact that Christ
accomplished the salvation of a particular people. Particular
redemption, limited atonement, is not a side issue where we
just agree or disagree with something. The particular redemption of
God's people is the issue. That is the gospel. That is how
God is declared just. He put away the sins of a particular
people. He redeemed a particular people,
giving him of the Father before the foundation of the world.
That's the only way God's declared just and the justifier of His
people. That's why God must quicken each
one to life and He shall because they have been justified. Their
sins have been put away. They've been reconciled to God
and they're going to be brought to faith in Christ so that God
can now impute that righteousness unto them. This is the issue,
and the man who hates these things, and who does wickedly in his
heart against God, because he hates Him. Outwardly, he might
be pretty as a picture, but in his heart, he hates God. He's
a vile man. He's a vile man. And when it
says to contemn him, it means we're not to give esteem whatsoever
to such a man, none whatsoever. Christ is the one who's fulfilled
this perfectly. Christ knew the hearts of men.
And he walked this earth and he never gave any esteem. He hated with a perfect hatred
those that mocked God and despised God. And he warned his disciples
continually, beware of the Pharisees. They're going to rob you. They're
going to turn you aside. They're going to leave you stranded
high and dry. They're going to strip you of
everything. Beware of them. Beware of them. And He constantly gave honor
to them that feared the Lord. He gave them the fear and He
gave honor to them. He's the one who feared the Lord
perfectly. And he's the one God honored. And everybody else outside of
him just bow in the eyes of God Almighty. He's the perfect man.
He's the man that feared God. He's the one that feared God.
While we were in the flesh, we didn't have a right judgment
of things at all. No spiritual discernment. And
our judgment is very limited now. We honored men who appeared
outwardly wealthy in some way. They might have been wealthy
in good works, wealthy in nice clothes, wealthy in gold rings
and all these things, and we honored them. We highly esteemed
them. And that poor, vile-looking believer
that had the fear of God in his heart, We didn't esteem him at
all. We held him in contempt. Because
what can he offer us? Look how successful this other
man is. Look how well he's done in the
earth. And look at that old poor, vile
man over there. Doesn't have anything to do with
him. But when God gave us a heart, when He gave us a heart to know
Him, that's when we begin to listen. Who is it they worship? Who is it they honor? Who is
it their hearts are set for? That's how you know the fear
of God in a man. When he speaks of God with reverence, not flippantly. When he speaks of Him loving
His people from everlasting and sending Christ, His only begotten
Son, to lay down His life for them. That man knows something
about how God will by no means clear the guilty. He knows something
about how God will not spare those who are unrighteous because
he sees it in Christ. God wouldn't spare his own son.
And we began to say, that's the man worthy of honor. And this
man walking around living in ease and pleasure and giving
lip service to God, but who has no dedication to God, who would
rather be with despisers of God, who would rather be with those
who mock God, with those who cut throat and charge exorbitant
prices for their services and rob people, and who would rather
be with religious, self-righteous men who parade around in all
their so-called good works, peacocking like they're a big rooster. I despise them. Them? Yeah, them. Yeah, them. Because he says here, despise
him. Despise him. The man is what
he is. He is what he is. He is what
he is. But then God gave us a heart.
He gave us a heart. We saw Christ. We saw Christ
is the one who is the one to be honored above all. And His
brethren. And now you know who we despise?
You know who we contemn the most now? This old man of our flesh. He's the vile man. Can you say
that? Can you say that? Do you hate
him? Oh, I don't hate him. I just hate his sin. You better
hate him. You better hate him. Hate him. Hate him. He's good
for nothing. Good for nothing. Well, if a
vile man, listen to this, if a vile man... Those who despise Christ are
to be despised, but we're to honor those that fear the Lord.
Character is to be the object of our attention. All these other
circumstances and the way they look, that's minor importance.
What's the character of the man? If a vile man holds an office
of honor or authority, we're to honor the office and obey
him. honor him, obey him. But we're
not to admire him, we're not to flatter him, no matter how
wealthy, no matter how esteemed by natural men, we're not to
value his company and his conversation, nor approve of or comply with
his practices. We're to judge him a most miserable
wretch of a man for his rejection of Christ. Why? But God said don't judge men.
You don't understand that scripture. You don't understand it. It don't
contradict this one. We don't put a man in hell before
the time. We don't judge him. But we do
judge the fact that whether or not he's a vile man or he has
fear of the Lord in his heart. We don't want to give him the We don't want to give him credibility.
We don't want to make him feel like he's in a good place and
he's honored of God and God will receive him because of everything
he's done. And that's what we'll do if we
esteem him and honor him. And we don't want to do that.
God says don't do that. That will hurt him. That won't
help him. That'll hurt him. If you love
him, don't esteem him. Don't give him honor. but we
are to honor and to highly esteem those who fear the Lord. No matter
how poor, no matter how despised by this world, that man who rejoices
in Christ, he is to be esteemed. Look over at James. I'm going
to have to hurry. James chapter 2. Look at verse
1. My brethren, have not the faith
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respective
persons. For if there come unto your assembly
a man with a gold ring and goodly apparel, and there come in also
a poor man in vile raiment. See you got one represented here,
he's a man that's vile within. but he's wearing an outwardly
gold ring and goodly apparel. And the other is holy within,
but he's poor and he's in vile raiment on the outside. He says,
verse 3, And if you have respect to him that weareth the goodly
clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place, and
say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool,
are you not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil
thoughts? Harken, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen
the poor of this world? He said, I've not chosen, not
many rich men, not many noble men after the flesh. He doesn't
choose me. He chooses wretched things, things
that are nothing, to bring to nothing things that are. He says,
"...heirs of the kingdom which He has promised to them that
love Him." They're poor of this world, but they're rich in faith.
They're heirs of God, heirs of the kingdom which He promised
to them that love Him. But you've despised the poor. Do not rich
men oppress you? Do not they draw you before the
judgment seats? Do not they blaspheme that worthy
name by which you're called? You see what he's saying? He's
saying the man that's the blasphemer, the man who's the cutthroat,
this is the man to be contempt, to despise, not that man who
fears God. Alright brethren, I don't think
I'm going to get through this. We're going to come back to it
another time and look at the rest of these another day. Alright,
let's stand together.