Alright, Psalm 9. Now it may
appear, just by looking around, that wickedness is prevailing
in this world. That may be how it appears to
the outward appearance, but that's not the case. Judge righteous
judgment. And to do that, we need to hear
what God says in His Word and discern what's going on around
us by what God says. That's how we judge righteously. And then we know who it is that's
really prevailing in this world right now. Look at verse 16. The Lord is known by the judgment
which He executeth. The wicked is snared in the work
of His own hands. The Lord is known by the judgment
which He executed. The wicked is snared in the work
of His own hands." Give that a double thought. The wicked
shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God.
I'm going to bring the message out of verse 18. It's titled,
For the Poor and Needy. But I want to say something to
you about this for a moment before we move forward. The Lord's known
by the judgment which he executeth. The wicked is snared in the work
of his own hands. We see that repeated throughout
history in the scriptures. Pharaoh commanded that the children
be killed and that infant Moses was put in a basket. And by those
wicked hands, God made it so he was plucked out of that river
and taken right into Pharaoh's house and given the best education,
the best upbringing he could possibly be given. And God used
that same one to go back into Egypt and deliver his children
out of Egypt. And Pharaoh and all his house
was slain in the river. You see how the wicked is taken
in the work of his own hands? He didn't mean it that way. That's
how God used wicked hands to accomplish his purpose. Haman
was another. And all this was taking place
that Satan tried to prevent Christ from coming into the world. Haman
and Mordecai. Haman just, he hated Mordecai
because Mordecai wouldn't bow to him. That Jew Mordecai, he
wouldn't bow to him. And Haman had done all kind of
trickery to figure out how he could be promoted to a place
of honor by the work of his own hands. He even went so far as
to build a gallows where they would hang Mordecai. And it ended
up Mordecai was the one that was promoted to honor and Haman
was hanged on the gallows that he made. You see how the wicked
is ensnared in the work of his own hands? The Lord's known by
the judgment he executes. And most of all, it came down
to that on the cross at Calvary, all the princes and all the kings
of the earth and all together with Israel and together with
the Jews and with the Romans and Gentiles together, they all
joined together. And wicked hands put Him there
on that cross, but it was all according to God's eternal purpose.
It was all according to what God had determined before to
be done. And while wicked hands thought
they were getting the Prince of Life out of this world and
getting Him away from them so they could be promoted to a place
of honor before God for what they had done, those very wicked
hands, they were slain in the very net they laid, in the very
work of their own hands. And all at the same time, Christ
all the glory of God is set forth, that one whose judgment is set
forth, his justice is set forth, his righteousness is set forth,
and all of his children, all of his children were made righteous
and made complete and perfected forever by that work that he
accomplished there at Calvary. They did whatsoever his hand
and his counsel determined before to be done. That's what's happening
in this earth right now. Through that whole work, through
death, he destroyed him that had the power of death, that
is the devil, and so that he might deliver his children who
all our lifetime were subject to his bondage. He said, now's
the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. And if I be raised up, I'll draw
all unto me. He says, I am he that liveth
and was dead. And behold, I'm alive forevermore.
I have the keys of hell and death. And for this cause, the Hebrew
writer said, he's the mediator of the New Testament. that by
means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were
under the first testament, they which are called might receive
the promise of eternal inheritance." You see, God has prepared his
throne for judgment and he is working judgment in the midst
of this earth right now, continually, all the time. And everything
that he's doing is, it's woe for the wicked. Because all the
nations that forget God will be turned into hell. They will
be turned away backwards into hell. And the worker of their
own hands do it. But by the same time, the judgment
he's executed in this earth, those that he calls by his grace,
they'll be saved by the work that his hands have performed,
the work that he has performed. So, I want you to get that. Christ
the King is the head, and he's working judgment and righteousness
and an uprightness in this earth right now against the wicked,
but all the while, right now, he's working righteousness and
judgment for his people. And here's why. Here's our text,
verse 18. For the needy shall not always
be forgotten. The expectation of the poor shall
not perish forever. I want to look at three things
here. First, we'll see who are these poor and these needy. And
then secondly, we're just going to take it, break it into two
headings. Secondly, we'll look at the needy shall not always
be forgotten. And thirdly, we'll look at the
expectation of the poor shall not perish forever. Now, who
are the poor and needy? Who are they? The poor and needy
are those God has called by His grace. and made us see what we
are in ourselves and made us to see that Christ is our all.
We're the poor and we're the needy. We need Christ our righteousness. We need Christ our holiness because
we have none and we cannot produce any of ourselves. We are poor
and we are needy. We need him to do that for us
because there's none righteous, not even one. We need Christ
our strength. to walk through this world and
continue in the faith because we have no strength in ourselves.
The Lord said, without me, ye can do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because we need Christ our prophet,
our priest, and our king. We need him to feed us, to teach
us, and to keep us. And because we have him, we can
go forth bearing witness of him. But only because we have our
prophet, priest, and king. He said, Jesus came and spake
unto the disciples saying, all power is given unto me in heaven
and earth. Go ye therefore, go ye therefore
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, teaching them whatever, to observe
whatsoever things I've commanded you. And he said, and lo, I'm
with you always. even to the end of the world.
That's the only way we can go forth and do anything. We need
Christ to remember us continually. And He shall, because our text
says, for the needy shall not always be forgotten. And God's
elect are the poor. We're poor. We have the pearl
of great price. In Christ we have unsearchable
riches. In Him, who is the unspeakable
gift, But in ourselves, we're poor. In ourselves, we never
become like the rich of this earth who say that they're rich
and increased with goods and have need of nothing. We don't
ever get there. And we won't get there. God won't
allow us to get there. Believers are poor and needy
and we expect, we hope. Expectation and hope means the
same thing. Our expectation, our hope is
that Christ Jesus who laid down his life for us shall save us
because he lives and he shall. Because our text tells us here
the expectation of the poor shall not perish forever. Now that's
good word of comfort right there for us. But be sure you get this,
only those who are poor and needy, only those who are poor and needy
can expect anything from the Lord. He said, be looking at
Luke 1, Luke chapter 1. He said, blessed are the poor
in spirit. You know why? Theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. You know what it is to be poor
in spirit? It's to have a heart that can genuinely say, I have
nothing good in me. I have nothing in me whereby
I can do one thing whatsoever. I need Christ. I need Christ,
my wisdom, my righteousness, my sanctification, my redemption.
I need Christ to be all. That's not just somebody who's
got a low self-esteem, that's somebody who's got no self-esteem.
When you have somebody look you in the face and they tell you,
now listen, you can do anything in this world you set your mind
to. You remember that your pastor told you this. That's a bald-faced
lie. You can't do it. Don't believe
in yourself. Do not believe in yourself. Believe
in Christ. Believe on Christ. Trust Him.
Without me, he said, you can do nothing. I was watching this
American with American Ninja the other day, man said he stood
there and he stuck the camera in the camera and he said, I
want everybody out there watching to know this. If you set your
mind to it, you can do anything you want to do. Well, he went
through the course, and he made through about the first three
or four obstacles. He made him through it just fine.
And then he got to that wall, that big wall. And he ran, and
he jumped hard as he could, and his fingers touched the edge,
but he fell back down. And they give you three times.
He did it again. He jumped, he touched the edge, and he fell
back down. And he stepped back, and he really
set his mind to it. He was going to do it that time.
And he ran and jumped with everything he had, and he fell right back
down on his behind. What happened? I thought you
could do anything you wanted to if you just set your mind
to it. You can't do anything you want to. Make yourself holy.
Set your mind to it. Make yourself holy. It won't
happen. God's got to give you a new heart. Set your mind to it. Make yourself
righteous. Justify yourself. Die and raise
yourself from the grave. All you got to do is set your
mind to it. No, you can't set your mind to it. We can't set
our mind to it and find out God. We can't set our mind to it and
find out how he saves and know God and know who he is. We can't
set our mind to it and bow to God and say, yes, Lord, as you
have said it is, that's how it is. We can't do that unless God
gives us a new heart and a new mind and washes us and makes
us to submit to him. My people shall be willing in
the day of my power. And furthermore, throughout the
rest of our days, you can't do anything unless He opens the
door, unless He holds your hand and carries you and gives you
the... Sarah, you can play the guitar. That's good. If it wasn't
for God, you wouldn't be able to turn on a radio. I'm serious. You can't. You have to have God
giving it to you and keeping you and moving you along. Look
at Luke 1, 52. He hath put down the mighty from
their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled
the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty
away. He hath helped his servant Israel
in remembrance of his mercy. Why? Because he said, The needy
shall not always be forgotten. They won't be forgotten. The
expectation of the poor shall not perish forever. Now, anybody
here who thinks you're rich and you have need of nothing, listen
to this simple word. You have no reason whatsoever
to expect anything from God. But you who are poor and needy
and need God like you need your next breath, Depend upon God
who gives that next breath. You need Him to keep you and
carry you. You have great reason to expect
He will never forget you and He will save you. Now, let's
go to the second thing. The needy shall not always be
forgotten. That's why we have this good
hope. Now, sometimes believers are forgotten of those who we
once thought were our closest companions. We're forgotten of
those we thought would never forget us. Look over at Psalm
45. What causes that? What causes
that to happen? Well, the tie that once united us becomes
severed. It becomes broken because the
union of self-righteousness becomes broken whenever Christ becomes
all our righteousness. You know, it's rare to find a
rich man who wants to spend time with a poor man who's just, I
mean, poverty stricken, has nothing, had to go in and sit down on
a dirt floor in his house. You don't find very many rich
men sitting in ivory palaces that want to have anything to
do with a man. that's that poor. Believers are that poor. And
we talk about that poverty. We talk about our need of Christ
being all to us. And because we're poor in spirit
and we speak of being poor in spirit, The man that's rich and
increased for goods and has need of nothing, the man who's rich
in his self-will, rich in his wisdom, rich in his conceit,
rich in rejecting Christ and going about to establish his
own righteousness, rich in holding on to what he's done for Jesus,
he can't stand to hear somebody talk about Christ being all,
and Christ receiving all honor and all glory, and Christ being
all our joy and all our hope, that the man who's not poor in
spirit can't stand to dwell with the man who is. But when we're
forgotten of the self-righteous, God's shown mercy to us. Look
here and hear what he says in Psalm 45.10. This is what he
says to you who he's called. He says, hearken, O daughter,
and consider and incline thy ear. forget also thine own people
and thy father's house. So shall the king greatly desire
thy beauty, for he is thy Lord, and worship thou him." He's going
to sever every tie that we depend on and make us depend on him. The only tie that binds. That's
what he always does. And then sometimes believers
feel forgotten when we bear reproach from those who despise our Lord
and despise Him receiving all the honor and the glory. But
you remember that Christ was forgotten of men. He was reproached
of men. He was separated outside the
gate. He was out there on that wretched hill. And out there
on that wretched hill is where Christ bore our sin in His own
body on the tree. And when He was made sin, who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him, this is what happened. Psalm 22, I'll show you there. Psalm 22, this is what happened. He cried out, My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me? You see, this is the reason why
the needy shall not be forsaken. It's because he willingly was
made sin and forsaken of God in pure, holy justice. The Lord's known by the judgment
he executes. And when sin was found on his
son, he did not let him off. He poured out wrath upon his
son. And look at the psalm, what it
says. He says, Why art thou so far from helping me and from
the words of my roaring? And he says there, but thou art
holy, verse 3, thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Look at
verse 6, but I'm a worm and no man, a reproach of men, and despised
of the people. All they that see me laugh me
to scorn, they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
he trusts on the Lord that he would deliver him. Let him deliver
him, seeing he delighted in him. But thou art he that took me
out of the womb. Thou didst make me hope. That
means expect. Expect when I was upon my mother's
breast. I was cast upon thee from the
womb. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. Be not far from
me, for trouble is near, for there is none to help. Look down
at verse 22. I will declare thy name unto
my brethren. In the midst of the congregation
will I praise thee. Ye that fear the Lord, praise
him. All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify
him, and fear him. All ye the seed of Jacob, why?
For he hath not despised, nor abhorred the affliction of the
afflicted. Neither hath he hid his face from him, but when he
cried unto him, he heard him." Isn't that what he's saying in
our text? He's telling us the needy shall not be forsaken forever,
and the expectation of the poor, the needy shall not be forgotten,
and the expectation of the poor shall not perish forever. That
right there, what He bore, when He bore that reproach, when He
bore that forsaking, when He bore that being forgotten of
His closest companions, when He bore that for His people right
there on Calvary's tree, you know what He did for them? He
perfected them forever by that one offering. What he did right
there for them was he put away our sin by the sacrifice of himself. He obtained eternal redemption
for us. He declared God just and the
justifier. He declared he's righteous in
everything he does. He did all that right there.
He made us accepted in the beloved as much as the beloved is accepted. Now, let us go forth therefore
unto him without the count, bearing his reproach. And when we bear
it, we have this assurance, the needy shall not always be forgotten. It may seem like it, it may appear
like it, but it's never the case. It's never the case. Sadly though,
there are times when we think he has forgotten us. We think
he's forgotten us. We think, we say with the psalmist,
wherefore hidest thou thy face and forgetest our affliction
and our oppression? In another place he said, hath
God forgotten to be gracious? Hath He in anger shut up His
tender mercies? And we have thoughts like that.
We think that. This is what he said. Look at
Isaiah 49. This is what the Lord said. Isaiah 49 verse 14. But Zion said, the Lord hath
forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget
her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son
of her womb? He says, yea, they may forget,
yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon
the palms of my hands. Thy walls are continually before
me. Thy children shall make haste, thy destroyers, and they that
made thee waste shall go forth of thee. Look back at Isaiah
46. We saw this the other day. Instead
of listening to our old cold feelings, you know, you start
feeling like, well, I just don't feel like I'm His. I don't feel like I believe Him.
My unbelief is far greater than my faith. Well, don't listen
to your cold feelings. Listen to what God says right
here in His Word. Here's what He says, verse 3, O ye house of Jacob, and all
the remnant of the house of Israel, which are born by me from the
belly, which are carried from the womb, and even to your old
age I am he, and even to your gray hairs will I carry you.
I have made, and I will bear, even I will carry, and I will
deliver you. There's whose word to listen
to, not our word. Our words never got us anything. Our word has not helped us, our
thoughts and our feelings and our... Look to what God says. If you have no feeling about
it whatsoever, but you read that word, Trust that word. Trust
God. Believe God. Even when you don't
have any feelings at all. He says he'll feed his flock
like a shepherd. He says he'll gather the lambs
with his arm and he'll carry them in his bosom and he'll gently
lead those that are with young. You know what this congregation
is? We are a congregation who are those that are with young. I don't mean just our children.
I mean every one of us. We're young, we're young, a flock
of young lambs. He carries the lambs in his bosom
and he gently leads those that are with young. He gently leads
us. And you know what he does as
he leads us? He leads us and he keeps us so continually and
remembers us so continually that he makes us to see how that he's
ordered every step, how he's overruled our own vanity, how
he's directed everything in our path to bring it about in a way
that we could never even have thought about bringing it about.
So that in the end we look at it and we say, this is done in
such wisdom, better than I ever could have thought about doing
it. That we say like we saw in the psalmist the other week,
oh, so foolish was I in ignorance. I was as a beast before thee.
Nevertheless, through all that, I'm continually with Him. He's
held my hand. He's guided me with His counsel,
and He'll receive me to glory. Many are the afflictions of the
wicked, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. We forget. That's part of the fall. Part
of the fall is this old flesh we forget, and we have those
fiery darts of Satan that makes us look away from Christ and
think otherwise other than what God has promised us by His Word.
But remember this. John Newton, when he was about
to die, he said this. He said, my memory is nearly
gone. It's almost gone. He said, but
I remember two things. If you can just remember these
two things. He said, I am a great sinner, but the Lord's a great
savior. Those are the two things. Just
hang on to those two things. All flesh is grass. Behold thy
God. His word endures forever. All
right, let's look at this third thing. Now he says, the needy
shall not always be forgotten. Then he tells us here thirdly,
the expectation of the poor shall not perish forever. We started
out with some expectations that needed to perish. We really did. I can remember thinking, I was
so, first time I remember the Lord just flooding my heart and
giving me just a clear view of Him. I remember thinking, I'm
not going to have problems with sin anymore from here on out.
That's over. I'm not going to have trouble.
I'm going to be this zealous right now as I am right now from
here on out. The world, let it do what it
wants to do, let all the temptations and the troubles of the world,
that's not going to bother me anymore. And those were expectations
that needed to perish. They needed to perish. Because
God's left us in this body on purpose. He's left enemies in
this land on purpose to prove us, to teach us that we can't
do anything without Him. To teach us that He's all our
salvation. We need, and you know, Israel didn't have any conflict
in Egypt at all. They were slaves. They didn't
have any conflict. When did their conflict start?
when the Lord took them out of Egypt and delivered them out
and they started going through the wilderness, that's when they
had trouble with sin. That's when they had trouble
with the trials and the temptations. And that we don't have any conflict
with sin until the Spirit of God makes us new and draws us
out from our former rebellion into Christ where we behold all
our life. That's when we start having trouble
with sin. That's when That's when sin becomes something not
just that makes us have a little guilty conscience because it's
against mom and daddy, but sin which makes us say, this is against
my Lord. This is against Him that laid
down His life for me. I don't want to walk this way.
I don't want to go this way. Lord, help me. Lord, save me.
Lord, deliver me from this. He's promised us that sin shall
not have dominion over us, but sometimes it doesn't appear that
way to us. Sometimes it appears to us that He's forgotten us.
Sometimes it appears to us like we're going to perish. But He's
promised us that it won't, because we're not under the law, we're
under grace. It won't have dominion over us. We're not under the
law, we're under grace. That inward man, that new man, that's
born of God, it won't have dominion over him, it won't even touch
that inward man. Because as John tells us, for
his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he's born
of God. That inward man is created in
righteousness and holiness of truth and true holiness. And
that's not the me that sins. It's this old me, this old fleshly
man, this old This old evil, fleshly, carnal man that sins
against God. But He's going to keep me by
His Spirit so that that man don't have the dominion anymore. And
He's going to keep us so that the law doesn't have dominion
over us and condemn us at all. There is therefore now, right
now, no condemnation of them who are in Christ Jesus, who
walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. He's put away
the sin. He's put away the condemnation.
There might be some here that expect that when we started here
and had the expectation that we could build a church for God, if that expectation was realized,
you know what we'd do? We'd be so proud and so boastful. and we create a congregation
of proud and boastful people. Wanting everybody to see what
we've done. Wanting everybody to see, we go around telling
everybody we want them to see Christ in us, but really we just
want them to see us. That's what we'd be. The more
we learn of Christ, the more we grow by his grace, the more
we grow to become less than nothing. And the more we see Him and His
wisdom and the way He brings things about, we become smaller
and smaller and Christ becomes all and in all. That's how He
works everything that He does for His people. But we do have
some good expectations. Those are expectations that need
to perish. But we have some expectations
that will not perish. Our expectation is our hope.
That's what expectation means, our hope. Our hope shall not
perish forever. You know who our hope is? Our
hope is the Lord Himself. Jeremiah 17, 7, Blessed is the
man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. He is our hope. Our expectation
is called the hope of the glory of God. We hope, we expect to
see the glory of our Lord. We've seen Him by faith, but
we expect to see Him eye to eye. We expect we're going to see
Him in all His glory, and when we see Him, we're going to be
like Him. We're going to be conformed to
His image, so that there's a oneness there with no sin at all to corrupt
it, no sin at all to turn us ever again. That's our hope. It's called the hope of the glory
of God. It's called the hope of righteousness. Not that we don't already have
righteousness, we do. Not that we aren't already made
the righteousness of God in Him, we are. But in that day, it's
gonna be complete. There's gonna be nothing in that
holy place but righteousness. And we're gonna see Him who is
all our righteousness, our crown of righteousness, the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's called, and we through the Spirit wait for the hope
of righteousness by faith. We wait for the hope of righteousness
by faith. You're going to see here, I'm
going to have you turn to some scripture. What we're going to
see here is this hope requires waiting. This hope requires us
waiting on Him. waiting on Him. It's called the
hope of His calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance
in the saints. That inheritance He's promised
us. That's the hope of our calling.
We're going to be with Him. It's called the hope which is
laid up for you in heaven. The hope laid up for you in heaven.
Look at Colossians 1.23. He tells us here that we were
alienated, we were enemies in our mind by wicked works, but
He reconciled us in the body of His flesh through death to
present us holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight.
Now look at this verse, Colossians 1.23, If ye continue in the faith,
that means Don't turn from believing and trusting Him to present you
holy and unblameable. Don't turn back to yourself and
think you're going to present yourself. That's not faith anymore. That's not continuing in faith.
That's turning to works. If you continue in the faith,
grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel. This is the hope of the gospel,
which you have heard and which was preached to every creature
which is under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made a minister.
Look over at Look over Titus. Just turn to your right there,
Titus. It's called the hope of salvation.
It's called our helmet. You know when your mind starts
to wander and you start having all these different thoughts
come into your head and your mind and all. The Lord says put
on the helmet of your salvation. He says it's the hope of salvation,
our helmet, which is the hope of salvation. Put that on. Put
that on. Let that mind be in you. Look
here, Titus 1, 2. In hope of eternal life. Don't we have eternal life? We
believe on the Lord, we have eternal life right now. But we're
hoping for that eternal life to come forever with Him. In
hope of eternal life which God, that cannot lie, promised before
the world began. But hath in due times manifested
His Word through preaching which is committed unto me according
to the commandment of God our Savior. Look at Hebrews 6. Hebrews
6. It's called the hope set before
us. I want you to see the assurance of this hope. How could you wait
and hope for something that you've never seen? Because we have something
in our heart. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for. It's the evidence of things not
seen. And here's how that faith came into our heart right here.
Look at Hebrews 6 and verse 18. Let's read verse 17, wherein
God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise
the immutability of his counsel, the unchangeability of his counsel,
how that his counsel cannot be changed, how that what he's determined
to do cannot be changed by anything. He confirmed it by an oath that
by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to
lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay
hold upon the hope set before us. That's our expectation, the
hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul. You know why we aren't tossed
on the troubled seas of trial and tribulation and all those
things? You know why when somebody comes along with their doctrine
and telling us, oh, now there's something else, except you do
this or that, now you're not going to be able to be saved.
When they try to turn us from Christ, you know why we aren't
tossed backwards and forwards like a little boat on a sea?
Because we have this hope as the anchor of our soul. We're
anchored down. We're anchored with this good
hope He's given us. And it's done. The work is done.
It's accomplished by Him. And look at it. It's both sure
and steadfast. which entereth into that within
the veil, or it enters into the veil where the forerunner is
for us entered, even Jesus, made a high priest forever after the
order of Melchizedek." In other words, our hope's in Him, and
He's in the veil, and He's at the right hand of God, and He's
our high priest forever. He's that one who's made the
offering of His own blood, He's the one who's making intercession
for us. He's the one that's entered the holiest of holies and made
atonement for us. He's the one who's the propitiation
for our sin, the mercy seat for our sin, so we can come to the
Father and confess our sins, and He's faithful and just to
forgive us our sins, because we have an advocate with Him.
And that's a sure and steadfast hope we have. Well, let me read
this to you while you're turning. I want you to turn to one more
scripture, Philippians 1. While you're turning there, let
me read this to you. In 1 Peter 1, it's called a living
hope. You know why it's a living hope?
Because the Lord who is our hope is alive. He's entered into the
presence of God. Peter said this, Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His
abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Can you try to
enter into this? Try to enter into this. Every
one of you sitting here who've been born of the Spirit of God,
to trust the Lord, all your hope is Christ alone. All your hope
of that everlasting, eternal bliss with God is Christ alone.
I'm talking to you right now. Would you try to enter into this
right here? This is so, this is absolutely true. Whenever
Christ died, you died. Whenever Christ came out of that
grave, you were begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. Can Christ die again? No way. Can sin have dominion over Him
again? No way. Can any condemnation be brought
up against Him again? No way. because He bore judgment
and satisfied it for His people so that no charge can be brought
up against His elect. No charge can be laid against.
It's God that did the justifying in His Son. He is at the right
hand of the Father and He will ever be the glory of the Father. And He says to His children,
when you were born of the Spirit of God, you were brought to see
that when Christ died, you died. And when He was begotten again,
you were begotten again into a living hope by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. To what? to an inheritance incorruptible. It means it can't be corrupted.
No, nothing that corrupts. All that corrupts is sin. And
all that is in us is sin. And all that men in wicked hands
can do is corrupt. But they can't corrupt that inheritance.
They cannot enter into there. It's undefiled. It does not fade
away. It's reserved in heaven for you.
For you who are kept by the power of God through faith under salvation,
ready to be revealed in the last time. Now look at what Paul said
here. Brethren, we have the hope Paul had. And here was his hope.
Philippians 1.20, according to my earnest expectation and hope
that in nothing I shall be ashamed. That means you're not going to... Do you have this little thought? Do you have this little thought
sometimes You know, if all this is not
real and all this is not true, then in the end everybody's going
to laugh at me. I'm going to be the laughing stock. I'm going
to be so ashamed because I trusted that the Lord was being true
to me. What he's saying here, You're
not going to be ashamed. We're not going to be ashamed.
He said, I have my earnest expectation and my hope that in nothing I
shall be ashamed. Nothing. But with all boldness
as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body,
whether it be by life or by death. We expect to die and for Him
to carry us over death. We expect to see His glory. We
expect to behold Him and be like Him. We expect to be joint heirs
with Christ. We expect that He will make us
to overcome and sit with Him in His throne even as He has
overcome and has sat down in His Father's throne. That's what
we expect. Do you expect that? I expect it. Now the Lord is
known by the judgment He executes. the wicked are going to be snared
in the works of their own hands. Can you imagine coming into God's
presence and holding up one work after another and saying, look
what I did, look what I did, look what I did, look what I
did, and every one of them be just digging a deeper and deeper
and deeper hole for you? Because you're saying, look what
I did, look what I did, look what I did. The believers are
going to enter in and say, when did we ever do anything, Father?
Look what he did. Look what he did. Look what he
did. Look what Christ did. And when a wicked man dies, his
expectation shall perish and the hope of unjust men shall
perish. But the Lord promises us the
expectation of the poor shall not perish forever. Now he said,
I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go prepare a place for
him coming again, I'm going to receive it to myself. That's
what he said that where I am there, there you may be also.
Now, we have an inheritance reserved for us, but right now we may
have to become poor. We may have to give up the things
that we thought we couldn't live without to find out Christ is
the only one we can't live without. But you remember the grace of
God? Remember the grace of our Lord, that though he was rich,
yet for your sakes he became poor, that through his poverty
we might be made rich? Remember that? We might have
to become even more poor than we are. But the expectation of
the poor won't perish. I'd rather become poor by his
grace and have him as my all than to be rich and not have
him. And we have to wait. We have
to wait. For we're saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not
hope. What a man seeth, he doesn't hope for it. But if we hope for
that which we don't see, then we with patience wait for it. We have to wait. And we know
this, tomorrow is as unknown as the grave is. We don't know
what tomorrow's gonna hold any more than we know what's on the
other side of the grave. For some reason, we get more scared
of what's on the other side of the grave than we do of tomorrow.
But who's gonna carry us through that river of death to the other
side? He is, the same one that's gonna
carry us tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. You know
how he did that? Whenever they came to that, whenever
they came to that River Jordan and they stuck their feet in
that River Jordan, the high priest did. Christ has put his feet
in that Jordan. He's put his feet there. He went
through death and he dried up death for his people so that
there's no water there. There's no river there. It's
gone. And they passed over by standing back and looking at
the ark that those high priests held up. That's our mercy seat. That's our mercy right there.
And they went across on dry ground to the other side. We're going
to go through tomorrow, and all the trial and the trouble and
the death that would conquer us is going to be dried up one
way by the high priest who's passed where we've passed and
gone where we've gone. We're going to be looking at
the ark, at our mercy seat, and we're going to pass over. No
matter what, whether it be by life or by death, we're passing
over tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. Because the
expectation shall not perish. Our expectation shall not perish.
But we're going to have to wait. The Lord is my portion, saith
my soul, therefore will I hope in Him. The Lord is good unto
them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. It's good
that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation
of the Lord. And is it going to be worth the
wait? You know what He's going to say in that day? He's going
to say, Come, you blessed of my Father. Inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Just like looking back at those
home movies. We look back at them and we say, man, look how
we dressed, and look how we talked, and look how we acted. We were
so silly. We were just a bunch of little
kids. And in that day, we're going to see him, and we're going
to think, oh, why do we ever even, why do we worry? Why do we even have all these
doubts and fear? We were just a bunch of little
kids. Amen.