We're going to just look at one
passage or one verse in Psalm 84. But before we read it, I'll
just give you sort of an overhead of what the psalm is about. It
was written for the sons of Korah, probably written by David. And
the theme of the psalm is rejoicing, particularly rejoicing to be
able to come into the house of the Lord to rejoice. We want
the house in which we worship the Lord to show forth our reverence
for God who we believe. We want that, just like we do
every aspect of our lives. We want it to show forth our
reverence for Him, our trust in Him. But it's not the house
of sticks and stones that David was wanting to come to and rejoice
in. It's the Lord God Himself. It's
our Redeemer. and to be in His house to hear
of Him, to gather to Him. You know, not everybody that
comes into the house where God is worshipped, worships. Not
everybody that comes together worships God. God's not worshipped
in houses made with hands, nor is He worshipped with men's hands.
God's worshipped in the temple that He's created by His Spirit,
that new man in which He abides. and he's worshipped in spirit
and truth by that spirit which he gives in the heart. That's
the only way we truly worship God. Just coming here together
like this, we're all going through the same motions, but we're not
all going to worship God here today. But when God gathers His
people together, when He assembles them together, And He gives His
Spirit in the heart and teaches us in our heart. That's when
our praying is praying to Him directly, and our singing becomes
singing to Him directly, and our hearing becomes hearing from
Him directly. That's what we pray for when
we come into His house. That's what we're seeking every
time we gather together to worship Him. Now let's read our verse. That's just an overhead of the
psalm. David was jealous of the sparrow
for getting to go into the Lord's house and worship the Lord. Now
here's why he says he was so desirous to go into the Lord's
house. Look at verse 11. For the Lord God is a sun and
shield The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will
He withhold from them that walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed
is the man that trusteth in Thee." I've titled this, No Good Thing
Will He Withhold. We're going to look at three
things. The first thing we're going to look at is what the
Lord is to us. It says there, The Lord is a
sun and shield. And then secondly, we're going
to see what the Lord God gives. He says the Lord will give grace
and glory. And then thirdly, we're going
to see what the Lord withholds. He says no good thing will He
withhold from them that walk uprightly. And then we'll see
the conclusion of the whole matter. Now let's, and as a side note,
as we go through this text together, I want you to learn what it is
to meditate on God's Word. When we say meditate on God's
Word, it's not some hocus pocus thing where you light candles
and get in a dark room and do some spooky outward thing. What I'm talking about is read
a phrase and think about it. how it applies to Christ and
how it applies to our relationship to Christ. That's what it is. Every passage of Scripture leads
to Christ. So when you read it, get on the
road to Christ. See how this brings me to Christ
and think on that. Try to seek that in every phrase
and every word. So let's look at that here now.
First of all, we're told what the Lord is to the believer.
Verse 11 says, the Lord God is a sun and shield. Now the first
thing we notice here is it says the Lord God is. Whenever we
read the Lord God, in the Scriptures. This is speaking particularly
to His elect coveted people, those He's in covenant with.
That's who this word is to when it says, the Lord God. I'll give
you one example. In Exodus 20, verse 2, it says,
I am the Lord thy God. which brought thee out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." He's speaking to
his people directly. So this text is a word to his
elect child directly. Now it says first here that the
Lord God is a sun. God our Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ, is to the believer what the sun is to us. The Lord Jesus
is to the believer what the sun in the sky is to us. Now, we
need Christ like we need the sun. Christ is our light and
He's our life. If we didn't have the sun in
the sky, we wouldn't have any light and we wouldn't have any
life. We would have no light and no life without the sun in
the sky. Well, without Christ, we don't
have any light and we don't have any life. Look over at Genesis
chapter 1. In the beginning, Genesis 1-1, In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form
and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said,
Let there be light, and there was light. Now in the beginning
God created Adam upright. Just like when God, in verse
1, it says, in the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth. Just like He created the heaven and the earth, good. But
when Adam sinned in the garden, Adam died spiritually and lost
all light and all life spiritually. So that just like verse 2 tells
us, he became without form and void, and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. Now that's how every person is
born into this world. That's exactly how you, every
person sitting here right now, hearing my voice without exception,
that's how you were born into this world. Without form and
void, darkness covered the face of our heart. darkness covered. And that's so with every elect
child of God. That's so with every child whom
God shall save. Born into this world without
form and void and darkness covered our hearts. So what's going to
have to happen for us to have light? That verse tells us right
there, the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
He moved upon the face of where the darkness was, and God said,
His Word, He spoke, God said, by the Word, let there be light. and there was light. This is
what takes place in regeneration. God makes his child a new creation. We're looking at the first creation,
the natural creation. Well, the believer, everything
in that world to come, where Christ is, is going to be all
righteousness. It's going to all be the creation
the new creation of Christ in righteousness. Well this is where
it begins for one of his elect children in our experience of
it is that God speaks into our heart and says let there be light
and there's light where there was nothing but but a formless
void and darkness. That's what happens. In God,
verse 4, it says, And God saw the light, that it was good,
and God divided the light from the darkness. Christ formed in
you is the light. He's the light. Christ formed
in us is the light. And God and that old man of us
is darkness. That's all it is. It's still
darkness. But the Christ formed in you
is light. And God saw the light and said,
it's good. Everything God creates is good.
It's good. We're not applying goodness to
ourselves. We did nothing to create it.
We had no part in creating the new man. God did it. But what
God creates is good. He created it. And Christ our
light keeps us separated from the darkness. Just like it says
there, God divided the light from the darkness. Now look down
at verse 16. And God made two great lights, the greater light
to rule the day, that's the sun, and the lesser light to rule
the night, that's the moon. And he made the stars also. And
God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon
the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to
divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
Now Christ Jesus is the Son, the S-U-N, the Son of Righteousness. That's who He is. And He rules
today. All the time, every day, He rules
the day. Just like He set the sun and
the sky to rule the day, Christ rules the day. And a believer
is the recipient of light, just like the moon and the stars receive
their light from the sun. We get all our light from Christ. We got no light in us, we get
our light from Him. And in His light, His children
are the light of the world. Just like the moon is the light
in the night, His children are the light of the world in this
world of night. His children are the light of
the world. And Christ becomes our light and He becomes our
life in the new creation and regeneration. That's when He
becomes. We have to have Christ the light. for life and light, or we have
none. Look over at 2 Corinthians 4,
6, and you know this Scripture well, and every time I look at
that passage in Genesis 1, I always have you turn here, but turn
over here and see this anyway so that you see that everything
I told you, I didn't just make it up. Look at 2 Corinthians
4 and look at verse 6. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, in that creation of the world, hath
shined in our hearts in this new creation of the true believer,
of the inner man, to give the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's where we see the
light. That's where we get in His face.
And we have this treasure in earthen vessels. just this old
dark void space, that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. I was thinking about this today.
You know how when you look at a picture of outer space, it's
always dark. It's always just full of darkness. But when you look at our atmosphere,
it's light because the sun and the moon and the stars are in
it. It's light. outer space, I mean talking outer
space, it's just dark. Well that's a good picture of
us for the new created believer. In the inner man there's light,
but in this outer space that is the old man, the flesh, the
old nature, it's just still darkness. It's just darkness. Now what's
the good news about that is this, is the law stated this about
a thief. Now that's what we are by now,
we're thieves. We're robbing God of his glory,
we're robbing God of trying to boasting our will when God's
the only one who has a free will. We're trying to boast in our
wisdom when, as Eric just plainly spoke so well, Christ is our
wisdom. But when He speaks, we're trying
to rob Him like a thief. But when He speaks, the law stated
this. It said, if the sun be risen
upon the thief, there shall be blood shed for him. For he shall
make full restitution for everything he's done. And if he don't have
anything, if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his
theft." He had to give himself to work off his debt. Well, when
this Son rises, when Christ the Son of Righteousness rises in
our heart, what He makes us to see by this grace working in
us, this is the glory of God we see in His face, He makes
us to see that His blood has been shed for us. And he's made
full restitution for all our ungodly thieving against God. He's made full restitution to
himself, to God himself. And he makes us see that though
we sold ourselves for nothing, because we had nothing to pay,
and we sold ourselves into sin, he's come and purchased us and
bought us out of our nothingness and redeemed us to himself. That's
the good news of what he shows us. Now let me ask you a question.
Can you imagine, can you possibly imagine this world without the
sun in the sky? Just imagine what that would
be like. With no sun in the sky, no light, there'd be no life. It would be what it was before
God said, let there be light. It would be a formless void.
Darkness would cover everything. Everything revolves around the
sun. The tides, everything, move according to the sun. The sun
holds everything in place. God made it that way on purpose. You know why? Because Christ
is the son of righteousness and everything in this world and
this universe revolves around Christ. And He, by His word of
grace, holds everything together. He does. And without Him, we
got no light and we got no life. We have nothing. We're a formless,
dead void. We need Him. We need Christ.
Now, stand with this thought of the Son, of Christ being the
Son. Think about this too. Think of
how consistent the Son is. The Son rises in the sky at the
same time every day, at the right time. It's so consistent. We can depend on it, can't you?
So can we depend on Christ. He rises with healing in His
wings to call out each of His redeemed children and to revive
us and keep us, the believer, as we go through this life, right
at the right time, right on time, every time. He's the Son of Righteousness. Look at Malachi chapter 4 and
verse 2. Malachi 4.2. Listen to this, unto you that
fear my name shall the son of righteousness arise with healing
in his wings. and ye shall go forth and grow
up as calves of the stall." That's God's promise to His people,
to you that believe Him. The sun's going to grow us. Christ
is going to grow us, just like the sun in the sky grows living
things. The sun gives more light as the
day progresses. The sun gets brighter and brighter
and gives more light. So does Christ. He gives more
light to each of His children. Proverbs 4.18 says, "...the path
of the just, That's who his children are. We've been justified by
the blood of Christ. The path of the just is as the
shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
A lot of folks will take that and they'll say, yeah, you know,
that light gets to shining more and more. I just become so much
more holy and I begin to just put away so much sin and put
away so many things that, you know, I just see myself get more
holy and more holy. Let me tell you something about
true light shining. When true light is shining, when
Christ's light is shining, and we see His light more and more,
we see the nastiness in this filthy room called our flesh
more and more. I sit outside in the mornings
a lot of times when I'm preparing and I'll sit there. A lot of
times when it's just breaking day, just coming daylight, you
can look out across and you might see a deer or something out there.
and you see it moving around and you just barely have enough
light to see it. And the light comes on up a little
bit more and it starts getting lighter and you still see that
deer sitting there. And light gets a little bit brighter,
you know, and you look and you realize, that ain't been a deer. That was a wheelbarrow I've been
looking at the whole time. But it's the same with dirtiness
and filthiness. You know, when a little light
comes in the room, you don't see it all at first. But the
more brighter you turn that light on, the more you start seeing
all the dust and all the dirt in the room, don't you? Well,
the more light that we have, The believer might actually,
another person looking at the believer may actually see somebody,
hopefully he will, see somebody who has mortified the sins of
his flesh and is not walking as foolishly as he did when he
was younger and a babe in Christ. I hope that's the case. And that
will be the case that other people see about us. But the believer
himself What he sees, the more that Christ's light shines, he
sees that the sin he is, is not so much in his hands and his
feet, it's in his thoughts, it's in his heart. It's in His affections. And the more we see it, the more
we see there's no goodness in us. So that the more this light
shines, more and more into that perfect day, the more we go down
in estimation of ourselves. Growing in grace is growing down
in ourselves and growing to see Christ as all my righteousness.
He's my holiness. He's everything to me. That's
what true growth in grace is. All right, now this other thing
I was thinking about is It's Christ our Son that keeps us
fruitful and makes us to flourish. He makes us fruitful. He makes
us flourish. Without the Son, we wouldn't
have fruit. We wouldn't have anything in nature that would
bear. There'd be no fruit bearing. He says, they should be abundantly
satisfied with the fatness of my house. In thy light shall
we see light. O continue thy loving kindness
unto them that know thee, and thy righteousness to the upright
in heart. These winter winds will be blowing.
and they'll start coming in on us, you know, and they'll chill
us. We'll get cold. And that's what
happens as we go through this world. We get cold in our sin
and cold in our unbelief. But Christ continues to rise,
just like the sun faithfully rises every morning, and His
wings, Christ's wings, like those rays of the sun going out, the
wings of the sun, His wings come out. And His wings warm us, and
they heal us, and they revive us, and they enlighten us, and
they give us fresh glimpses of Christ so that He continues to
make us fruitful. And fruitfulness is always, always
from Christ and to Christ. And fruitfulness always has its It's fruit in love towards Him,
faithfulness towards Him, mercifulness because of Him, long-suffering
because of Him. It's fruitfulness that He gives
by seeing Him, more of Him. Well, you notice here too that
the psalmist says that the Lord does this in the house of God.
This whole psalm is talking about what's happening through the
preaching of the gospel. Verse 10 there, he says, For a day
in thy courts is better than a thousand. I'd rather be a doorkeeper
in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the Lord God's a son. He's doing this to me in His
house. He's growing me. Well, think
of this too. On a cloudy day, Sometimes it's
so cloudy and it's so stormy outside. We can't see the sun
shining for all the clouds, but the sun's still shining. even
though we can't see it shining. That's the same with Christ.
We get to going through these stormy times and these stormy
seasons in our lives, and we can't see Him. We just can't
see Christ, but Christ is still shining. The Scripture says in
2 Samuel 23, verse 4, He shall be as the light of the morning,
when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds. as the tender
grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after the rain.
This is what Christ will be for his people. And then another
thing I was thinking about, I was just trying to think of similarities
between the sun and the sky and Christ. The sun gives light. It's the same sun that's given
light no matter where you are in the world. The same sun. And
that's so with Christ. Everybody's going to be saved
the same way. Everybody that shall be saved
will be saved by the same son of righteousness, Christ the
light. He said, I'm the light of the
world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. Wherever we
are, wherever His elect children are in this world, they're going
to be enlightened. They're going to be given light
by the same Son of Righteousness. I couldn't pass it up without
giving you this illustration. I know I've given it to you before.
But you know how we look up sometimes at the moon. We're the moon.
We get our light from the Son of Righteousness just like the
moon gets its light from the sun. Sometimes you look up there
at the moon and it's a full moon. You can just see it full of light.
Sometimes you look up there in the different phases of the moon.
It'll be a half moon Sometimes it'll be a quarter moon Sometimes
it's just you just see a little sliver of light when you look
at it And what's happened is the world has come between the
Sun and the moon And anytime that you and I can't see the
light when we can't see Christ The problem is the world has
come between us and Christ Whatever you do Don't let anything. We have such noble causes. We
try to glorify and justify our unbelief in walking directly
away from the word of God in everything we do. We got such
good reasons for doing what we do. But anything that makes you
to lose sight of Christ, to make you to where you can't focus
your attention on the Lord Jesus Christ, flee from it. Because
it's only gonna make you end up more like that phase in the
moon. Right now we got a good full
moon. You just watch it through the month. And watch it just
slowly get covered up slowly get covered up and remember the
world's coming between it Don't be like that. Don't be don't
let the world come between you and christ All right. Let's look
at this next thing verse 11 Still looking at what the lord god
is it says he's a shield He's a shield Now believers are weak. We're weak and we're helpless
and we have nothing about ourselves to protect ourselves. We're called
in scripture sheep. And a sheep, I've looked this
up, a sheep doesn't have any defenses. A sheep doesn't have
any natural defenses. If it gets alarmed and it gets
all anxious and frightened, a sheep will run and run and run and
run. The only problem is it'll run
in circles. That's what we do. We get so
anxious and so scared and so frightened about some aspects
of providence in our life and we start running. And it looks
to us like we're running in a different direction, into something else,
into some new solution to the problem. But the fact is, what
we're doing, by looking to any place in this world for a shield
and protection, we're just running in circles. We just keep running
in the same circles. But Christ is our shield. Now,
Ephesians 6.16, you can turn there if you'd like, I can read
this to you, but believers are exhorted to take the shield of
faith. Look at Ephesians 6.16. Above all, above all, taking
the shield of faith. Wherewith ye shall be able to
quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." You know what the
shield of faith is? The shield of faith is to lay
hold of Christ by faith. Christ is the shield of faith. Faith itself is not the shield. There's like... I don't know
how to describe it. That would be like if you had
a shield and you had a strap I guess on it, and you thought
that strap was the shield. The strap is what connects you
with the shield. The shield is Christ. Faith is
like that strap. Faith just connects us to Christ.
Christ is the shield of faith. He's the shield. So when we take
the shield of faith, we're taking Him. Now what does a shield do? A shield's going to stand between
you and the enemy. That's what the shield's going
to do. The shield's going to stand between you and that which
would would do you injury. Look back at Psalm 84.9. Behold O God our shield. Now I see the commas after shield
and our God is our shield. So it could be said behold O
God our shield. Behold God who is our shield.
But now if you put that comma after God this is what we're
asking God the Father to do always. We're asking Him Father, behold
our shield. Behold our shield. We're asking
Him this. Look at the second part. Look
upon the face of thine anointed. We're saying to Him, Father,
look upon Christ. Look upon Him whom you anointed.
Look into His face. Look at Him. Look upon Him. Why? Because Christ stood between
God, or between His people and divine justice. And when He stood
there, He satisfied God for us. When we sorrow, when we hurt,
when we get all sideways in a trial, look to Christ. Look to Him. I mean, look to Christ on the
cross. Think of Christ on that cross.
He said in Lamentations 112, Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by? Behold! Look! and see if there
be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith
the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger."
When we see what He bore for us, when you see Christ there
on that cross, and you see Christ bearing in his body the torment,
the punishment for our sin, for the sin of his elect people.
You see Satan firing all the fiery darts that he could throw
at him at one time through the wicked hands of men. And then
you see him sitting there on that cross crying out, my God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And you see God forsaking
God for the sake of His own righteousness. You see God forsaking God to
uphold His own justice. You see God forsaking God that
God Himself might be just and the justifier. That God Himself
might be Himself providing Himself, the Lamb, to put away the sins
of His people. that all glory might go to His
Son and all glory might be shining forth from that cross to show
who He is and how He saved and why none of His people will be
lost because He's put away the sin of His people. When you see
Him there bearing that sorrow and saying, is there any sorrow
like unto my sorrow? Wherewith the Lord has afflicted
me in the day of His fierce anger. I tell you what it will do. It'll
make our little stumped toe that we're complaining and murmuring
and sorrowing about a light affliction. It'll make it a light affliction
just for a moment because our shield will come between us and
all our sorrow and He'll make us to see. He'll come between
this light of that inner man and that murmuring, complaining,
wimpy little darkness of that outer man. And He'll come between
us and He'll divide the light from the darkness and He'll shine
in our hearts and He'll shield us from that old man, that old
wretched man that we are by nature. And He'll make us to see that
He's done this for us. And by doing so, He makes all
this affliction we bear in these bodies, in this life, in these
trials, to be a light affliction, just for a moment, to be worth
it, to bear it for His name. He said, my little children,
these things write unto you that you sin not. And if any man sin,
we have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous
and He is the propitiation, He's atonement, He's the expiator,
He's the maker of amends for all our sins. That's who He is. So that He shielded us from all
that would harm us from that divine justice. Satisfied, satisfied. Look at Hebrews 2. Hebrews 2. Oh, but Satan's a crafty foe,
and he's still trying to, he's still trying to come to you,
and he's still trying to whisper in your ear, and he's still trying
to tell you no, but... don't take that too far now because
you know you got to provide for your family and you know you
got to you got to provide for yourself now and you know you
got to make sure that you're comfortable and make sure that
somebody else not get more than you got and speaks all these
things to whereby we listen and we start listening to that voice
and we start thinking well now I need to do this That's right,
I didn't do these things. And next thing you know, we got
all our attention, all our focus right off of Christ, and we're
just wrapped up and tangled up, so tangled up, we can't get ourselves
out of the fix we got ourselves into. But our shield will get
us out of that. He came to protect us from him. Look at Hebrews 2.14. For as
much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through
death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that
is the devil, and deliver us and deliver them who through
fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
So in every Every he did that for us putting away all the sin
of his people so that Satan has nothing to accuse Us to God with
our sins been put away It's put away by Christ Jesus the Lord
and Christ will protect us from him coming and trying to check
You know why the devil would have you turn away from God and
do it for such noble causes Do it convince you that God's keeping
back something from you just like he did even a garden And
so once he's got you turned away from him, he can run to God and
say, look there, he don't love you. He don't care anything about
you. He don't keep his heart set on
you at all. Christ has put away all of our
unbelief and our sins so that he draws us back to himself and
he quenches all those fiery accusations of the devil. He's got nothing
to accuse us with because Christ put away our sin. And then Christ
is our shield between us and all wickedness, and all wickedness. You think on this, brethren.
Now, when you think about Christ as a shield, it's better than
a shield that we think of, you know, where you put your arm
through the straps and you got the shield that's guarding you.
It's better than that. Look over at Psalm 5. Much better
than that. The Lord God is our shield round
about us, all over us. Look at Psalm 5, look at verse
12. For thou, Lord, wilt bless the
righteous. With favor wilt thou compass
him as with a shield. You'll come pass Him as with
a shield. You'll surround Him all over as with a shield. So
that the Lord is going before us. And He is our rearward, behind
us, and He's our protector on all sides. Because when we're
born of God, Christ is formed in you, and you're in Christ,
so that we're surrounded by Him, protected by Him. He'll come
between us and the Egyptians, like as He did when they were
at the Red Sea, when the children of Israel were at the Red Sea.
He keeps us that protected. A mighty fortress is our God.
A bulwark never failing. That's who He is. When I was
a little boy, I'd get so fearful in my room, sleeping at night.
And it'd be dark and I'd get tired or I'd get scared in there,
you know. And I'd run into my father's
bedroom and I'd crawl up in the bed with him and my mother. I'd
crawl up right up into his arms, and there was no safer place
anywhere in the world than in his arms. The fears were gone. I mean,
I was safe. I'd hear a bump. My mother might
be worried about something she heard in the house somewhere.
I wouldn't even be worried about it. I was in the arms of my Father.
That's what He's telling us here. He's telling us run into the
arms of Christ. He's a shield. He's a shield. He'll protect us. There's none
stronger than Him. He said all power is given to
me in heaven and earth. There's none stronger that they
can harm us than Him. Look at the second thing. What
the Lord gives. what the Lord gives, back in
Psalm 84. The Lord will give grace and
glory. The Lord will give grace and
glory. Now we know salvation is by grace. Grace is unmerited favor. It's undeserved favor. It's the
favor of God that cannot be merited. It's the favor of God that cannot
be earned. If you work for God's favor, you do something to try
to earn God's grace, then it's not grace anymore. It's a debt
God owes you. Grace is God giving something
freely. It's Him giving grace to us.
And all salvation is by grace. Electing grace. God chose whom
he would. Redeeming grace. Christ came
forth and redeemed them by His blood. Regenerating grace. God the Holy Spirit regenerates
everyone for whom Christ died. Justifying grace. We're completely
justified freely by His grace. Sanctifying grace. Our sanctification
is our sanctifier and it's by His grace that we're brought
out of darkness into His light, into Him. Preserving grace. He that hath begun a good work
in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Instructing
grace. He teaches us the way. He leads
us and directs us and guides us. Directing grace. Comforting
grace. When we're without comfort. Comforting
grace. Reviving grace. When we're so
lukewarm and so dead and not heeding Him. He revives us by
His grace. sufficient grace. He speaks to
us and says, my grace is sufficient for you. It's sufficient grace.
We're going to need dying grace. He gives us dying grace. And
once we're in the ground, our bodies are in the ground, He
gives resurrecting grace. He raises our bodies to be alive
forevermore with our Spirit, with Him in glory. So you see,
the Alpha and the Omega is all of grace, from beginning to end,
from A to Z, all salvation is of God's grace, the free gift
of God. So what we read here is the Lord
will give grace. Brethren, Christ our Head, our
Lord Jesus Christ, He's the giver of grace. God gave the whole
work into His hand. He ministered grace to us when
He became our surety before the world began. He ministered grace
to us when He came into this earth and lived and died to redeem
us to God in righteousness. He ministered to us then. He
ministered to us when He sent the Gospel to us and sent forth
the Spirit, regenerating us and giving us life in Him. He ministers
to us every time the gospel is preached. From Him, we increase
with the increase that's of God. He continually ministers to us.
In all providence, He's ministering to us. When we're acting ugly,
He comes to us and He ministers grace by chasing us like a faithful,
everlasting Father and turning us back to Him that we might
be partakers of His holiness. When we can't even look up to
Him, He ministers grace to us, lifting our head back up to see
Him in whom is all our strength. We owe everything to grace. And
He ministers grace. He will give grace. That's what He says. He will
give grace. And look at the next thing. And
the Lord will give glory. I've said to you before that
it has something to do with G-L-O. It has something to do with the
glow of God. Glory. It's rest, it's happiness,
it's safety. And it also includes honor and
victory and immortality and triumph. It's seen in the face of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now you notice the order here.
We can't have glory first. We're backwards aren't we? We
want the wisdom before the faith. We can't have the wisdom before
the faithful Faith comes before the wisdom, and we can't have
glory before the grace. It gives grace in order that
He might purge us and give us a new nature and a new heart
to love God. But if He's given us grace, if
we've tasted the Lord as gracious, have you tasted the Lord as gracious?
If you've tasted the Lord's graces, it's a guarantee, it's an earnest
of the Spirit that He's going to give glory. I mean, yeah,
He's going to give glory. If He's given us grace, He will
give us glory. Now that's just certain. In this
life, it means that every trial, every dark valley is going to
end seeing His glory. Going to see His glory. We'll
go through another one. But they serve the purpose of
bringing us again to see a glimpse of His glory in the face of Christ
Jesus. That's how He gives us these
fresh glimpses of His glory right now. And then in the life to
come, we're going to behold His glory. We're going to behold
His glory. We're gonna come into His presence
and be made perfectly conformed to Christ's image, so much so,
with no sin, that we'll be able to look in the face of God. If we did right now, we're so
full of sin and corruption, it'd just burn us up, it'd consume
us. But then that day, when we're made so perfectly conformed to
His likeness, we'll see Him as He is, and we'll be like Him. Wouldn't that be amazing? If
angels would come to where we are right now and tell us what
it will be like, we couldn't comprehend it. We wouldn't be
able to conceive it. It's got to be experienced to
be known. Everything I'm telling you has
to be experienced by God's grace to enter into any of it. And
in this life, when we enter into it, we just enter into it a little
bit. But that day, we're going to
enter into it fully. Fully. Look over now at Matthew 16.
Hold your place there in Psalm 84. Look at Matthew 16. Now,
He said there that He's a son and a shield. He said He gives
grace and He gives glory. Now look at Matthew 16. Hold
your place there and let me just talk to you a minute. Now we've heard that a hurricane
is coming. hurricanes or a tropical storm. It's coming our way. We've heard the report. We've
we've heard the report. I went to bed last night. I listened
to the report. I got up this morning. I listened
to the report. I'll go home from here. I'll
turn on the report. I'll go to bed tonight, look
at the report. I'll get up in the morning, I'll
look at the report. I wanna see where is this, where is it? How soon's it coming? When's
it gonna hit? Where's it coming? And we've
all been real diligent. We have really worked to get
our houses ready for this storm. It's coming. So we've been working
to get ready for it. Now look at Matthew 16.2. The
Lord, some came seeking a sign, and the Lord answered them this
way. Verse 2, Matthew 16.2. He answered them and said, When
it's evening, you say, it'll be fair weather, for the sky
is red. And in the morning, it will be
foul weather today, for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites,
you can discern the face of the sky, But can you not discern
the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation
seeketh after a sign. And there shall no sign be given
unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them
and departed." You know what the sign of the prophet Jonas
was? He said in another place, his Jonah was three days and
three nights in the fish's belly. So shall the Son of Man be three
days and three nights in the belly of the earth. You know
what he's telling us? The only sign is this gospel
you're hearing. The sign is Christ. The sign
is, behold, I'll give you a sign, a virgin shall conceive and be
with child. Christ is the sign. And He's
telling us now, if you can look at this sky out here and see
that the sun's not shining, and see that it's dark and it's getting
cloudy, and know that a storm's coming, so you work and work
and work and diligently get ready to prepare for that storm, Knowing
that God Almighty has spoken plainly and clearly from the
high places to the paths you walk by from the public places
to the Houses so that we're out without excuse completely and
he's told us he gives grace Why won't we be as diligent to
hear this report As diligent to heed this report And it's
diligently to get this house called our eternal soul ready
by entering into Christ and asking Him, Lord, would you give me
grace? I'm not coming with any merit
in me. I'm not coming with any works in me. I'm not coming with
anything in my hand. I'm just asking your Father for
grace. Will you give me grace? I don't
mean come like they came to Christ pretending as a hypocrite and
trying to... so you can walk away and go,
well, I asked him, he didn't give it to me, so you lied to
me. That's a hypocritical little maggot. Maybe God will put you
in the dust. But I'm saying come to Him and
truly beg Him. If He's drawn you, that's how
you'll come to Him. Well, let's look at the third
thing. If I come, what will the Lord
withhold from me? If I come to Him, what's He going
to withhold? Look at verse 11. Psalm 84, 11. No good thing will He withhold
from them that walk uprightly. Now I'll be brief right here.
You know what it is to walk uprightly? It's to believe Him. We walk
by faith. That's what it is to walk uprightly.
Unbelief walks all bent over and crooked and worried and discontent
and jealous and envious and wrathful and full of malice and ill and
hatred in the heart because it's looking to these hands and this
wisdom and this strength and this back and everything about
us. walks uprightly because we trust
not our strength, but His strength. Not our wisdom, but His wisdom.
Not our faithfulness, but His faithfulness. That's how you
walk, casting all our care into His hand, for He cares for you.
So do you believe His promise? Whatever good thing God judges,
we need. Whatever good thing He judges
that we need, He promises He will not withhold it to them
that believe Him, to them who walk uprightly. And remember,
the one who's promising this owns everything. He's the Lord
of hosts. All the hosts are His, and He
owns everything. That'll cure our anxious care
if we believe Him. You know what it'll do? It'll
stop the tongue of murmuring. You know what murmuring is? It's
not believing God. It's being all bent over. All
bent over, not walking upright. It's all being bent over like
a beast. A beast has to walk bent over,
don't they? Because they're trying to get their food out of the
ground. A man walks upright. We don't eat out of the ground.
We don't eat out of a dog dish. Well, we get ours from above. So we walk upright. That's what
walking by faith is. And know this too. that God is
withholding no good thing from me even when He gives me the
storm. Even when He gives me the storm. Because after I falter
and I fail and I fumble around, He lifts me back up again and
shows me His glory. Shows me where my strength is.
So let's go home with this. Let's not look anywhere else
for righteousness. Don't look anywhere else for
complete acceptance with God, but to Christ. That's the message,
that's the gospel. Look nowhere else for completeness
but to Christ. Look nowhere else for acceptance
with God but to Christ. And believer, just like you wouldn't
look anywhere else but to Christ for acceptance with God, don't
look anywhere else for wisdom to know what to do in this world
and walk in this world. Listen to Proverbs 3, 5. Proverbs
3, 5. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart. That's what it is to be a believer,
other than a double-minded man, is to trust in the Lord with
all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes,
Don't we love to do that? Don't we love to, you know, something
works out just right because things don't always work out
right for us. We gotta boast about when it
did one time to let everybody know, boy, I was so wise in that.
Be not wise in thy own eyes, fear the Lord, and depart from
evil. When we're wise in our own eyes,
we're looking evil straight in the face. Depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel,
and merit to thy bones. Honor the Lord with thy substance,
and with the firstfruits of all thine increase. All the spiritual
blessings He's given you, use them to seek Him. Use them to
honor Him. Use them to seek the furtherance
of His name. I'm talking about faith, and
repentance, and longsuffering, and mercy, and gentleness, and
everything, all the spiritual gifts, and all the temporal gifts. Use them all for Him. That's
what He's saying. Give, honor the Lord with thy
substance and with the firstfruits of all thine increase. So shall
thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy precious shall burst
out with new wine. Now look back at our text. We'll
end. Does that mean I'll have everything and all that? No.
You know that. It means that even though you
don't have everything, temporally speaking, you'll be happy. You'll
be happy. Your barn, your inner barn, your
spirit will be bursting over. Your cup will be running over.
So that the man who's giving and thinking, now the more I
give of God, of these things He's given me, the more I'm going
to have, that man walks around mad and envious and angry all
the time because he don't ever think God's given him enough
in comparison to what he thinks, what great thing he thinks he's
given to God. That's not it. When you truly believe God, you're
a giver. We're givers. And when we believe
God, we're giving. And we're giving it to God. That's
who we're giving it to. We're giving everything to God. Whether you're giving it to one
of His saints, or giving it to somebody poor and needy in this
world, or whoever you're giving it to, you're giving it to God. And that person is His heart
is just running over. He's happy. He's happy. You know
why? Here's why. Verse 11. For the
Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and
glory. No good thing will He withhold from them that walk
uprightly. He knows this. And this is what He said in His
heart. Verse 12. O Lord of hosts, blessed, happy, blessed of God
is that man. that trusteth in thee." He's
saying, Lord, I've proven you. And I found that every word you've
said has been true. I believe you. And that man will
be happy. He'll be a happy man. Amen.