Psalm 73 Whenever the Lord cleanses our
heart to make us to behold that Christ is our life, so that the
riches of this world are of no profit to us, then He makes us
to no longer envy the prosperity of the wicked. And whenever the
Lord cleanses our heart to make us to see that Christ is our
life, so that nothing we suffer in this life can take away or
diminish that life we have in Christ, the Lord makes it then
so that our sicknesses and our losses become bearable to us. Those things are not our life.
God writes this maxim on our hearts. This is what He writes
on our heart, verse 1. Truly God is good to Israel,
even to such as are of a clean heart. Can you say that? Truly God is good to those He's
chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world.
Truly God is good to those that He's washed in the blood of His
dear Son, Truly God is good to those he's called and made to
hear this gospel and created them anew in their heart by the
work of the Holy Spirit. Our God is good in everything
he's doing in this world. Though wicked men may prosper
and we may suffer, though they may have plenty and we have little,
though we may not understand what God's doing in this world,
we can be assured of this. The Lord truly is good and He's
working everything for the good of them who He's called by His
grace and He's doing it exactly according to His eternal purpose.
We can rest right there. We may not understand it, but
He's good and He's doing what's right. Now, when God does this
to us, He doesn't just do it one time. He continually washes
us and cleanses our heart because our heart sometimes becomes defiled. We go through this life and we
turn our eye from Christ in glory, from seeking things above, and
we start looking at things below. We start looking at things in
this earth. And again, God shows us. He lifts our head. That's what He's called, the
lifter up of our head. And He lifts us up from things
below to where He's seated at God's right hand. And He cleanses
our hearts thereby. And He makes us to see Him so
that we can say again with the psalmist, truly, God is good
to Israel. And He continually does this,
making us see He is good to Israel. I'm glad he does that because
we do what the psalmist did very often. Here's the first thing
we see. We'll just go verse by verse here. We look in the wrong
direction and try to judge by the outward appearance of things.
Look at verse 2. But as for me, my feet were almost
gone, almost gone. My steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." We cannot judge
God's goodness. We cannot judge what God's doing
for us by looking at the prosperity of the wicked. It just will not
happen. Believers cannot judge by carnal
sins. And it's foolish to even do so.
It's foolish to attempt to even do so. Whether we have much or
we have little, it's foolish to do so. The only way that we
judge is by looking at Christ in glory, looking at what God
says he's doing in his word, through his gospel, by his grace.
That's how we judge what God's doing. That's how it all makes
sense to us. Now, when we look at the wicked,
we turn from Christ, we look at this world and start trying
to figure things out by looking at, you know, how much we have
or don't have or what this world has or don't have, there's something
that will surely happen. That old lustful man of the flesh
becomes envious and becomes turned every which way. Envy will kill
you. It'll kill you. Well, whenever
the psalmist looked, he saw that the wicked often die just like
they live. Look at verse 4. For there are
no bands in their death, but their strength is firm. Wicked
men often live without sickness, without affliction, and they
die of old age in a very peaceful way, very often. Verse 5. They
are not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued like
other men. The saints enter the kingdom of God through much tribulation,
through much affliction, through much suffering. But wicked men
often live in this world and die without being plagued with
trials, without distresses of sin or afflictions of conscience.
They don't have that. Only the believer has that. Only
the one that's been called by God's grace has this warfare
between the flesh and the spirit. The wicked man doesn't have it.
He doesn't have that. God chastens those he loves.
He does that. When He gives sickness, God shows
us just how frail we are. He shows us how weak we are in
our flesh. When He gives us some kind of
affliction, He shows us the shortness of this life. When He gives us
baseness and doesn't make it so that we're rich in this world,
He makes us more dependent upon His grace to live upon Him rather
than the riches of this world. If you go through these scriptures,
I know we love to see somebody hit it and just really, you know,
succeed in their business and things like that. We love to
teach our kids to go after Riches and the things of this world
if we look in this book brethren the riches of this world Don't
do benefit a believer at all ever if you go through the word
and just read the Word of God That's what it says. They just
don't they pierce us through and called many to err from the
faith. That's what they do but but whenever he does these things
to us don't regard our sufferings in this world as a with being
envious of the wicked or becoming bitter at those things because
these are bands of God's love wherewith He keeps us bound to
Christ or else we would be like the wicked and cast off the bands
and have no bands, have nothing binding us and just be and live
like the wicked do. Well, look at the next thing
he saw. He saw the wicked full of pride and prospering in their
deceit. Verse six, he said, therefore
pride compasseth them about as a chain. You see this, we see
this all the time in the world. Wicked men, men who have no regard
for God, and men in religion that have no regard for the true
and living God. Where pride, like a person puts
a golden chain around their neck and walks around saying, everybody
look at me. That's how the religious world,
vainly religious world, boasts in their religion. It's all about
me. It's all about what I've done. It's all about look at
me, like a man puts a gold chain on his neck. But that very pride
is not an adornment. That pride is actually a slave
chain that keeps men bound. It's keeping them bound. He said
there, violence covereth them as a garment. Men deal in cutthroat
dealings, they profit at others' expense, and all that covers
them just like those expensive garments they get by doing that.
And he says, their eyes stand out with fatness, they have more
than heart could wish. They have more than any heart
could wish, and yet the covetous heart always wishes for more.
The covetous man is never satisfied with what he has. He always,
his eyes bulge out with fatness because of what he has just as
the same way as his eyes are bulging out to get more Coveting
more what he don't have, what he wants more and more and more.
God hates pride. He hates oppression. He hates
covetousness. Because all those things are
man trying to save man. All those things are man trying
to set his own nest up on high and provide for himself and be
his own savior and his own provider and his own life and without
depending upon God. That which is of great price,
that which is highly esteemed by God, is an ornament of a meek
and quiet spirit. That's a true ornament. A man
that is made meek and quiet in spirit, contentment with godliness,
that's great gain. That's great gain. That's something
only God can give. That's something only the Spirit
of God gives, and He gives it by His grace. And He don't give
it in a way this world thinks He gives it. He just does it. It's better to have none of this
world's riches in our hands and have the love of God established
in our hearts by God's grace than to have our hands full of
this world and not have the Spirit of God within us. It's much better. Much better. I've said this to
you time and time again. I'd rather see my children know
the Lord and worship the Lord and rejoice in Him and have a
base just not even be known in this world. They look down upon
us by what their occupation or what they have and don't have
as just being nothing. I would much rather them have
that, have had to know the true and living God than have this
world. Well, he saw the wicked boasting of their own righteousness.
Look at verse 8. They are corrupt and speak wickedly
concerning oppression. They speak loftily. Within themselves,
or while they themselves are dealing corruptly, as God says
it's corrupt, it's a deceitful, wicked heart. While they're dealing
corruptly, many times men condemn others for the same oppression.
The very oppression that they're guilty of. They're condemning
everybody else for doing it. They speak loftily. They justify
themselves as not being like others who do the same thing.
That's what, now we're talking about wicked men. You find wicked
men More so, more so, as God regards it more so in churches
than you do out in the world. It's more wicked. God compared
the wickedness going on in Jerusalem by men who were calling it the
worship of Jehovah, but trying to come to God by the work of
their own hands. He called that more wicked than
what was going on in Sodom and Gomorrah. You see, the problem
in our day and the reason that we have even this thing brought
up about same-sex marriage, The fault doesn't lie with men out
in the world. The fault lies with men who keep
preaching law instead of preaching grace. That's where the problem
lies. Judgment begins at the house
of God. That's where the problem lies. It's the church's fault. It's not men's fault. But you
won't hear men say that. You won't hear men say that.
rebuke and talk about those out there as if they're not doing
it. While at the same time spiritually what's going on is in the church
with the messages being preached of how you do, you do, you do,
do-do religion, that's what it is. Dong, Paul called it, that's
what it is. By preaching that, They're committing
a worse adultery and offense than those men out there in Sodom
and Gomorrah are doing. Teaching men to look to the flesh,
teaching men to love the flesh, teaching men to be married to
the flesh, teaching men that from flesh to flesh they can
bring forth fruit. No Sodomites ever brought forth
fruit. and no spiritual sodomites ever brought forth fruit either.
You won't bring forth fruit looking to this flesh. You won't bring
forth fruit trying to come to God by your works and your will
and by our doing. It's going to have to be by what
Christ Jesus the Lord has accomplished by the free and sovereign grace
of God. I don't preach a God who and
tell you he's sovereign. and mean by that that simply
that he's ruling everything in this world, though he is. I'm
telling you, he's sovereign in salvation. He's sovereign to
bring his gospel to his people and sovereign to call them out
by his grace and sovereign to make us see that the whole work's
been accomplished by his own son and sovereign to make us
submit to him and worship him and sovereign to use the whole
world to do it, to bring us to that place. We'll see that here
in a minute. They speak lawfully. They set their mouth against
the heavens and their tongue walking through the earth. Men
will speak against God's condemnation of their own evil as if God's
pleased with them, with their own righteousness, with their
own self-righteousness, and their self-worth, and their self-justified.
While at the same time they turn around and condemn another man
walking with the same tongue through the earth and condemning
other men in the earth for the same offenses. He saw them boasting in their
righteousness and prospering by doing it. And then he saw
the wicked prosper in this by leading many astray. Look at
verse 10. Therefore his people returned
hither and waters of a full cup were wrung out to them. Now there's
a couple of senses I think we can see what this means here.
First of all, concerning those who are wicked just in a secular
sense, just secular sense only. By looking at the outward appearance
of prosperity and health and wealth that they appear to have
and comparing it to the lack thereof that one may have, a
man will be brought to forsake the right way and say, I'm just
going to do the same thing. I'd throw up his hands and say,
I'm going with them. I'm joining them. I'm going to go with them.
And waters of a full cup are wrung out to them. They often
receive plenty of good things in this life. Israel lusted and
murmured against God and complained against God because they wanted
quails. They didn't want the bread. They said, we loathe this
bread. We want something else. God said, I'm going to give it
to them until it comes out their nose. And he gave it to them.
And while it was in their mouth, plague came upon them. And God
gave them leanness of soul. They gave them leanness of soul.
He gave it to them. He gave it to them. We've got
to give us what we want. He will. That's what they wanted. That's what He gave to them.
And it says in verse 11, and they say, How does God know?
And is there no knowledge in the Most High? They may even
own Him as a God. As God, they may acknowledge
Him as the Most High. But they question His knowledge
in overruling men on the earth. When men start looking at wicked
men and seeing how wicked men are prospering in the earth,
they question God. They question what God's doing,
how He's ruling and how He's reigning men in the earth. And
then there's another sense we see this, too, concerning those
who use religion for their wickedness. They, too, do the same thing
by appearing outwardly righteous, by appearing to hate wickedness,
by appearing prosperous. When a man looks at that, this
world is marketing the church. I keep telling you this. This
is how religion is operating in our day. They're not preaching
Christ in the crucified. Religion is marketing the church.
They're marketing the bride. They're attracting men like Malum
did through the Moabite harlots. The Moabite harlot. That's what
they're using. When the Lord said, don't do your alms before
men. Just the same as you don't walk
back there and you announce to everybody what you're giving.
Just by the same way, we don't market our missions. We don't
market what we're doing in the herd. We don't market who we're
helping. We don't market those things. We don't try to make
the world attract men by those things. He said, when you pray,
don't do that to be seen of men. And you find out through this
world's religion, they got all kinds of prayer meetings and
prayer warriors, and they let you know, we got it, you want
it, we got it. And all these different things,
programs, and all these different things to attract. And if you
took a man preaching that and going that way, and you took
a man who's preaching sovereign grace, where the Lord's people
are heeding and listening to the Word. And you switch their
pulpits. Didn't switch the congregation, just switch the pulpits. And
the one started preaching his message in the one pulpit and
trying to implement his strategies and all the things he's going
to use to call out sinners. And you had this other man go
to that other place and just preach sovereign grace of God
in Christ. You know what you'd find in a
very little while? their congregations would look much like what they
looked like before they ever switched. A lot of them over
here would just, it would just start flourishing. And this one
over here would start dwelling off and where it was flourishing,
they'd look at the outward appearance of them and go, that's just not
a healthy church. They got the sovereign grace
of God being preached. They got complete redemption
accomplished by Christ being preached to them. They got the
fullness and satisfaction of Christ who is the end of the
law for righteousness preached to them. And they're rejoicing in it.
God's blessed their hearts by it and they're rejoicing in it.
They're not healthy. No, they just don't have what
this world is attracted by and what allures the flesh and attracts
the flesh in religion. That's what they don't have.
Peter said, when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they
allure through the lust of the flesh, through much wantonness,
those that were clean escape from them who live in our error.
And waters of a full cup are wrung out to them. Men who go
that way in religion, they often receive plenty of good things.
They are flattered by wicked men, and their cup appears to
just run over, and they appear to have great ease the rest of
their days. Look at verse 11, and they say
the same. How doth God know? And is their
knowledge in the Most High? Now let's just bring this down
to those who claim to believe God's sovereign, absolutely sovereign. In word, they'd never say it.
In doctrine, they'd never teach it. In letter, they'd never say
it. In creed, they'd never say it.
They wouldn't dare to deny Christ is the head of the church and
sovereign to govern all things by the word of his power, but
by their works of joining with the crafty. by looking to crafty
means, by looking to what they deem as better means than the
gospel of Christ, and crucified by their works, they deny Christ's
wisdom and governing power of His church. David saw that in
his day. David saw that happening. David
knew about what Balaam had done, and he saw what was going on
in his day, and how they were joining in the worship of Baal,
even bringing it to the tabernacle, and yet calling it the worship
of Jehovah. We act like today this is not going on in our day.
Because the world over, the majority claims to be Christian, so they
can't be possibly doing this. It's going on in our day. It's
going on in our day just like then. Just because men call it
something, don't mean that's what it is. Alright, look here. Verse 12, he says, Behold, these
are the ungodly, who prosper in the world, they increase in
riches. In both cases, secular and religious, they increase.
They increase. But brethren, when we attempt
to judge God's goodness to us by comparing our afflictions
with the prosperity of the wicked, it only hinders us. That's all
it does. By doing so, David's thoughts, he became like those
who forsake the right way and go after wickedness. He became
like those that do that. Look at what he said in verse
2 there. He said, As for me, my feet were
almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped, for I was envious
at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. I became
full of envy. And in verse 13, he says, Verily,
this was the thought of his heart. I have cleansed my heart in vain
and washed my hands in innocency for all the day long. I have
been plagued and chastened every morning. They are living and
prospering and I am being chastened and afflicted every morning.
And what he's saying is, he's saying, is this not all in vain? To follow the Lord? Yet in all
of this, you know what God's showing David? Or Asaph, whoever
it is? Do you know what He's showing
them in this? God is showing His goodness towards His son
and daughters. He's using that very error that
he fell into and those wicked men to show his goodness. David
is writing this after the fact, after what he went through and
what God taught him. He's writing it after the fact
and he's showing us the order of what he did and what he thought,
how he began to look and what he saw and what he began to think
about these things. And he began with what he had
been taught all over again through all this. That's how he started.
Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean
heart. But David had come to the point
where he said, I've cleaned my heart in vain. I've washed my hands of all that
for no reason. And here I am being afflicted
and plagued. What had happened? His heart
had become dirty. His heart had become defiled.
His hands had become dirty by looking at the wicked. And
so God is showing him doing all this. God's showing him. He's
showing him that he needed a God to create in him a clean heart.
He needed the blood of Christ to wash him. He needed to be
kept by the Spirit of God. That's what he's being shown.
He's being shown this. Look over at Hebrews 12 verse
5. He was saying, come to the place
where he said, I've been plagued and chastened every morning.
And look at these folks, they're not plagued, they're not chastened.
And God's teaching him all over again this right here. God is
saying to him in verse 5, You've forgotten the exhortation which
speak unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the
chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.
For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every
son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God
dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father
chasteneth not? But if you be without chastisement,
whereof all the sons of God are partakers, then are you bastards
and not sons. Furthermore, we had fathers in
our flesh that corrected us. We gave them reverence, shall
we not much rather be in subjection to the father of spirits and
live? They verily chastened us for a few days after their own
pleasure, but he doing it for our profit that we might be partakers
of his holiness. I want you to see here in this
passage, this is the second thing I want you to see. We're taught
God's goodness to us by experiencing that His continual keeping grace
of us. We're taught here that what God
is doing, He makes us to be partakers of His holiness. If He left it
to me and you to follow after holiness, cleanness of heart,
cleanness of character, to have that cleanness of heart, which
the fruit of which is to wash our hands of all that garbage
and lay hold of Christ by his grace. left that to us, brethren. If
he left David right there where he was, you know where David
would have stayed? Right there where he was. He would have done
what others do when they throw up their hands and say, this
is all in vain. I'm going to go over here where men are prospering
in religion. If they're kicking up their heels
and throwing up their hands and have a hoopty-doo good time,
then I'm going to go over there and get involved in that. I'm
going to go over there and get some of the goods they'll give
me. Let's go home tonight and read Psalm 12. Men think they
can flatter with their lips. They say with our lips we'll
prevail. We know how to say these things just right to get men
to follow after Christ. Better than what God knows how
to do it. God said, I'm going to arise and set my people in
safety from them that are puffing at them. I'm sick of that puffing
at them. Well, this is what he does for
his child. Look here. First of all, He keeps our hearts
by the Spirit of God constraining us with Christ's love for us.
Now David had said he was thinking it's vain to serve God, but he
hadn't published these thoughts to anybody. He hadn't said it
yet. He hadn't started teaching this. He hadn't gone that way.
But he was constrained by the love of Christ for his people. That's what constrained him.
Now look at this, Psalm 15. If I say I will speak thus, If
I say I will speak thus, Psalm 73, 15, behold, I should offend
against the generation of thy children. Do you see what's constraining
him? There's nothing that's going
to more effectually keep God's messenger, that's going to keep
his children ever believe. This is what keeps us, brethren,
the love of God towards us as his children. That's what constrains
us. That's what the Spirit of God does in the heart, is create
the love of God in the heart. Not so that we start boasting
of our love for Him. Oh, I'm constrained by my love
for Christ. That's not what I'm talking about. That's the opposite
of that. But He should constrain us by His love for us. David,
his first thought when he thought about letting this come out of
his mouth was, I'm going to offend God's children, those that God
has saved. So you see the love that was
there, that the Lord had put there that constrained Him? God's
love for His children? We have His love to constrain,
the love of His covenant promises towards us? Those everlasting,
unchangeable, irreversible covenant promises that He's made in Christ
to us, to do us good, to keep us, to guide us and correct us. We got His love of assuming our
nature, coming to where we are, because the children were flesh
and blood. He took flesh and blood. What a step! We went the other day, one afternoon,
we were going to go over and eat at a restaurant in Trenton.
And we started driving to that restaurant in Trenton. And the
further we drove into that neighborhood, it just got worse and worse and
worse. I mean, I'm not exaggerating when literally, when we stopped
to try to look at the map to figure out where we were, there
was literally a pimp sitting there with his prostitutes right
there on the corner. And you know, and you think,
you think, you go from a place to a place that's like that.
That's nothing. That's nothing. Christ God Almighty
came from pure spotless heavens glory to this place where we
are to where we are. And Cain, we got that love constraining
us. We got the love constraining
us that made him in the face of all opposition, knowing that
his father's going to turn his back on him and pour out justice
upon him. And he's going to be rejected
of men and the father when he made sin for us. He yet willingly
subjected himself to that and subjected himself unto death
and to the grave for us who did nothing good towards him and
only despised and rejected him all our days. We got the love
of Christ who now sits at the right hand of the Father who's
brought this gospel to us and created us anew in our heart
and keeps on making us to see all His promises are sure towards
us so that we have the sure mercies of Christ Jesus our Lord, our
King. That's what cleanses the heart
when He makes us to see His love that He's done for His children
so that we say, I couldn't leave. That's what John was saying when
he said, if a man loves this world, and goes after this world,
and this world, whether it's out in the secular world or it's
in this world's religion, and turns his back on the children
of God, how can he say he's got the love of the Father in him?
David had the love of the Father in him, and it constrained him,
so he said, I can't even speak this to anybody. And then, look,
the Lord keeps us by turning us from our own understanding
to Him. Verse 16, he said, when I thought
to know this, it was too painful for me. It's impossible for us, by our
reason, by our carnal sense, by looking at things going on
in this world, it's impossible for us to try to figure out what
God's doing. It's impossible. It's impossible
for us to try to figure out How is that man prospering like he's
prospering and doing what he's doing? And this man over here
that knows God and believes God and trusts God is in suffering
what he's suffering. That'll bring you to your end.
That'll bring you to say, I can't, this is, I can't figure this
out by looking at this this way. And we can't. And he brings us
to the end of trying to figure things out. I tell you this all
the time too. Don't try to look at things judging
from man up to God. Men will try to deny God's sovereignty
and sin in the Gospel and save Him by the Gospel by saying,
but look at all these men that claim to have believed God and
never really heard the truth, that lived and died in free will
religion. Quit trying to judge God's ability
to save by looking at men. We look at what God says. Where
do we come to this understanding? And how do we judge? Look, verse
17, until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I understood their
end. Then I understood it. I went
to the house of God, where God teaches us to assemble, where
the Spirit teaches us in spirit and in truth. I went to learn
in His holy scriptures, in His holy word, what God says He's
doing and how God says He's doing it. I went to God's holy throne
to ask for His grace to teach me, Lord, how do I do this? I
went to Christ where He said, this is the place where I'll
meet with my people in Him. and through the light of the
bread. Remember what we saw Sunday? Through the light of the bread,
through the light of Christ, through the light of the manna,
through the light of God. That's how I began to understand what
God's doing in this world. We're not going to get it the
other way around. We're not going to get it the other way around.
You came here now and we're learning from God. from His Holy Sanctuary
above, through His Holy Word, what God teaches us about these
things. That's what we're learning. I
hope God is settling us by His Word. I hope He's settling our
hearts by this Word. That's what I hope He's doing.
But had we not obeyed God? Had we not assembled with his
saints for the public preaching of his word? Had we not looked
into his word, asking him to be our teacher? Had we come in
here and started hearing this and just closed the book and
said, I don't care if it says it or not, I ain't listening. If
we hadn't sought Him and said, Lord, we can't learn these things
except You teach us these things. If we hadn't come to God in His
ordained means, the way He's ordained us to come to Him, we
certainly won't come to Him in Christ's way. Because we will
never understand. That's the only way to come to
it. We'll never get it. We'll never understand it. But
you came here and I hope you're profiting by it. I hope he's
showing you these things by it. But you see, when a needy sinner
rejects God's way, and a needy sinner rejects hearing the gospel
preached, just as an example, and as the Hebrew writer said
is, forsake the assembling of ourselves together. It hurts. that one because they
don't hear this instruction. If those that aren't here now
aren't hearing this right now, they aren't being settled in
your in their hearts like you're being settled in their heart.
I'm sure they're doing something much more important. And I'm
being very facetious, you know, that brought a good show on a
good ballgame going or something like that. That you're being
taught, I hope, by God's Spirit in your heart. You don't go to
His Word, you don't see that. Even through the week, if you
don't go to His Word, look in His Word, we don't get the benefit.
We've got to seek Him where He'll be found and the way He'll be
found. And it makes us, when this happens, it makes you to
feel in a little measure what our Lord felt when He said, O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest
them which are sinned unto thee, stone them that sin unto thee.
How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as
a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would
not. Just wouldn't have it. You think it's strange that God
said, I sent the prophets to you, these prophets were sent
unto you, and I would have gathered you? You think? God doesn't send His true prophets
and not gather people through them. When He sends them, He's
doing the gathering. It's not the men that's doing
the gathering. That's what I'm trying to say. When He sends
His Word, He's doing the gathering. He said, I sent these prophets
unto you, but you wouldn't have anything to do with them. You
wouldn't listen, you wouldn't heed. And all the while, if you would
have just listened, I would have gathered you, comforted you.
Alright, now, let's look at the next thing. How does He keep
us? He keeps us by teaching us the truth about the end of the
wicked and the end of the righteous. This is what He does through
this Gospel. Look at verse 18. Surely, this is what he said
he learned. Now, he said, I went to the sanctuary, then I knew
the end of these things. Now, this is what he was taught.
God teaches us this through this truth. The end of the wicked,
the end of the righteous. Verse 18. Surely thou didst set
them in slippery places. Thou castest them down into destruction. Now, this is what he teaches
right here. The wicked are prospering, they're thriving, whether out
in the world or in religion. How can that possibly be? Thou did set them in slippery
places. God said, I put them there. I
put them there. Thou castest them down into destruction. God did it. God's a sovereign
in the midst of falsehood and in the midst of the whore of
Babylon as he is in the midst of his people, accomplishing
his will. Now, they appear to be elevated,
but God cast them down. They appear to be prospering,
but He cast them down to destruction. Now Paul said, I mean David said,
my foot was well nigh slipped. He said, by looking at them,
he said, I was almost gone. Who made the difference? Huh?
Who made the difference? Look now at verse 23. Nevertheless,
I am continually with thee, thou hast holden me by my right hand.
That's who made the difference. God's people are continually
upon His mind and He's always thinking of them for their good.
They're continually before His eye. His eye never sleeps. He's
perpetually watching out for our good. He's continually got
us by the hand so that none should be able to pluck them from Him
unless they can prevail over omnipotence and that won't ever
happen. He's continually got us on his heart, graven there,
worn there as a memorial. Just like that high priest went
in with the tribes written upon his heart. That's how he's got
his people. Tried and afflicted and chastened.
That may be our lot. Cast down. We may have nothing.
We may not be prospering. It may not look by outward appearance
that we got anything. But can you say this? Nevertheless,
I am continually with thee. Nevertheless, thou has holding
me by my right hand. How many times you know this?
How many times you little ones got them by the hand, and they're
holding your hand. And you're walking along with them down
the street. And all of a sudden, they want to turn and go to a
way that's the wrong way to go. And then you find out who's holding
whose hand, don't you? Find out they're not holding
your hand, you're holding their hand. And we take them by the
hand and we hold their right hand and we pull them back in
the right way. That's what God does for his people. If we know
something about ourselves, we know we don't want to boast in
our holding his hand. We want to boast in the fact
that he holds my right hand. He holds my hand. Here's what
he learned about the wicked. They appear to die in peace,
but as soon as their eyes close in death, look at verse 19, how
are they brought into desolation as in a moment. They're utterly
consumed with terrors as a dream when one awaketh. So, oh Lord,
when thou awakest thou shall despise their image. Oh, would
it be sad to close your eyes thinking I've got all this security.
Oh, I believe like mom and daddy believed. Oh, I walked in the
tradition I've been taught. Oh, I walked in, I held on to
this tradition. I held on to this denomination.
Oh, I held on to my law keeping. Oh, I've kept it from my youth
up. I remember back when I did something
by my will and walked an aisle or whatever I did, and I'm holding
on to that. Or whatever it is you hold on.
Imagine dying in that security and open your eyes and coming
to God in your own image. as your own provider, and your
own savior, and your own advocate, and your own lawyer, and your
own law keeper, and coming to God that way, and finding out
God despises that image. That's not the image of God.
That's not the one, oh, may I have closed our eyes, boasting of
how I've walked so close to God and come so far in holiness.
I'm conformed to His image now. I'm about to pop like a balloon. I'm so full of His image. And
wake up and God say, you're not anywhere close to my image. What about those that enter into
His presence, saved by His grace? Look down at verse 24. Thou shalt
guide me with thy counsel. and afterward receive me to glory."
Who made the difference? He guides His child with His
counsel. He guides us with the word of
this eternal counsel, this eternal decree. If men don't like God's
predestinating grace, we need to learn to like it because it's
by His predestinating hand, by His moving all things after the
counsel of His own will that you and I are not consumed. It's
by him determining the end from the beginning that we all didn't
die and go to hell when that first man Adam sinned and died
in his loins. It's only because he put his
children in the loins of his son and always viewed his people
in his son and has told us this is my counsel. This is the one
who is the fullness of my counsel right here. This one is the one
who comes and he fulfilled all my counsel. He established all
my decrees. He fulfilled all my laws. He
fulfilled them in precept and penalty. He's the one that fulfilled
everything written in the prophets. He's the one that has fulfilled
all righteousness. And He is the only one who's
ever served me in perfection of holiness from His heart, from
the womb all the way till He said it's finished, and He commended
His Spirit into my hands. This is the one. This is the
one who is the express image of my person, God said. And He
says to those who wake, trust in Him alone. Come, you're just
like Him. Father, nothing in me like Him. No, nothing in you like Him.
But in Him, by His grace, by what God's done, He said, you're
just like him. And that's how we're going to
be received. That's the counsel he keeps guiding us by, and the
counsel he keeps teaching us. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. That's the counsel
he keeps guiding us. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. Hear ye him. You believe the
Ten Commandments of the believer's rule of life? You've got a mighty
poor rule. Mighty poor rule. Abraham didn't
have it. And yet God said he's established
it in perfect righteousness. How can it be? He believed on
the one who did. That law never tells us that
when somebody comes and they sue you and they take away something
from you by robbery and theft, that law never tells you, give
them the other coat. That law don't tell them that.
The gospel of God's grace does. Christ our Lord does. The law
of faith does. The law by which believers walk
does. That law puffs men up and makes
them to speak of their righteousness and condemn everybody else's
as being unlawful. And Paul said to the Pharisees,
you teach men to steal, are you stealing? You're robbing the
glory that belongs to Christ Jesus alone who is the only one
in history that ever kept the law of God. Are you not stealing
from the hymn? The first commandment says, don't
have any other gods before him. And when men start trying to
come to God by what they've done, you know what they're doing?
They're coming in their own image. Look at me. Look at what I've
done. And that stubbornness that says,
no, that's not what I've come. I've got to keep the law now.
You do. We do. We've got to keep it in
perfect righteousness. Thought, word, and deed. And
it's not let down since Christ came. It's fulfilled. It's established
through faith. Not made void through faith.
It's established through faith. Not by our keeping, by his keeping.
That's what we're trusting. If you don't know that, maybe
you ought to reconsider. Maybe I'm trying to come to God
a wrong way. Maybe I'm trying to come to him
in my own image instead of in the image of Christ Jesus in
whom he's well pleased. Law says you can't commit adultery.
Well, if we're going to come to God in the law, we can't look
to Christ because we're cheating on that husband. But if we're
coming to God in Christ, we can't look back at the law, we're cheating
on that husband. Can't be both. It can't be by grace and works.
That's just impossible. It can't be. It's all by grace,
brethren. That's what he guides us by.
And then he receives us because he's done that work. And we come
to him. And that message where He teaches
us that, does it make a man say, well, I'm just going to give
up on God? No. It's the only thing that
constrains us. It's the only message that really
constrains us. Well, God keeps us by correcting
us through his gospel to make us see the error of envying that
wicked way. Try to come to God any other
way but Christ. Look at verse 21. He said, And
thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reign. So
foolish was I in ignorance. I was as a beast before thee.
This is a believer talking. This is a man who knows God resting
in him. And he said, I was so ignorant.
The ox knows his master's crib, and the ass knows his master's
crib, and yet I was like a beast. I wasn't coming to God in Him.
And just like in that same sense where he said a full cup was
wrung out to him, David says here, a full cup was wrung out
to me, not of happiness, but of sorrow. I was grieved in my
heart by God's grace, showing me what I was to err in. I was
trying to come to God in. And he says, I was so foolish. But you know, even when we're
his beast before the Lord, how come then is it that how come
is it then that we are consumed then? How come when we when we
have walked as a beast and we haven't trusted and we have come
to the point where our foot was almost gone? How come is it then
that God doesn't reject us and refuse us? Because God sees a
believer in Christ, wearing Christ's garments, washed in His blood,
absolutely the perfection and righteousness that God is. Right now, ready to be with the
Lord in glory, received in glory, just like that thief on the cross. Our little children, these things
write unto you that you sin not. And if any man sins, we have
an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous, and
he's the propitiation. He's the satisfaction for our
sin. He's the mercy seat for our sin.
The psalmist said, there's forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be
feared. That's what Paul told the Pharisees. Do you despise
the goodness of God? Despise His goodness? That why
you want to yoke and whip and take men from Mount Zion back
to Mount Sinai and walk in the wrong direction? Look in the
wrong direction? That just promotes envy and strife,
biting and devouring one another, to be consumed of one another.
But this word of grace, it makes God's children truly reverence
Him and fear Him and walk after Him. This is that godly reverence
then, this is that peaceable fruit, this is the end to which
He brings us again after every one of these hard trials. Verse
25. Whom am I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth
that I desire beside thee. It's possible to lose your loved
ones. It's possible for a man to lose
his property, his home, his whole estate, and still not desire
Christ only in glory, and still go right back to try to find
some satisfaction in this world. It's possible for that to happen.
Very much so. But when God reveals this, verse
26, my flesh and my heart faileth. That's all it is. My flesh and
my heart faileth. But God is the strength of my
heart and my portion forever. Whenever God brings you to see
that, he brings you to cry out, whom have I in heaven but thee?
There's none upon earth that I desire beside thee. That's
where God brings us. That's where He brings us. Verse
27, for lo, they that are far from thee shall perish. Surely a man who is sitting in
the church and endeavoring with all his heart to keep the law
and wanting to serve God, come to God, and surely he's not far
from God. The Lord said to the Pharisees
that the publicans and sinners would go in before they would.
He said, you're a lot further away than they are. A lot further
away than they are. Surely that wickedness is just
talking about those people out there in the world. He's talking
about any man that tries to come to God by his doing. By his doing. Look here. Thou hast destroyed
all them that go whoring from Thee. I give you a little challenge. Go through the Scripture. Take
your concordance down. Go through the Scripture and
see how often God compares Jerusalem's and Israel's mixing true worship
with false worship. See how often mixing the true
worship of God with the works of men's hands. See how often
God calls that the work of a harlot. It's the work of Babylon. It's
what it is, the work of Babylon. But it's good for me to draw
near to God. I've put my trust in the Lord
God that I may declare all thy works. Now the Lord told us,
he that doeth truth comes to the light that his deeds may
be manifest that they're wrought in God. I love this. Read it
again. It's good for me to draw near
to God. Where was he before? He said, my foot had almost slipped.
I was almost a goner, they said. But now, he said, it's been so
good for me to draw near to God. And he said, I've put my trust
in you, Lord, in the Lord God, in the covenant God of heaven
and earth, that I might declare all thy works. We who believe, we have committed
our committing to him. We've committed our committing
to him. We have trusted him to keep us
trusting him, even when we're not trusting him, even though
we don't trust him. David said, this is why I trusted
you from the beginning. He only did it by God's grace,
but he said, this is why I've trusted you, Lord, that I might
declare that when I don't trust you and when I'm not committed
to you, when I'm looking to this earth and I'm envying this world
and I'm looking at them, I can declare, you're keeping me. You're
faithful. God is faithful to keep His children. Have you committed even your
commitment to Him? Are you trusting Him with even
your trust? What I'm saying is to keep you
trusting Him. That as the Lord keeps us in
spite of us, we might declare all His works. That's what David's
doing here. He's saying, I was gone, but
here's who made the difference. Here's who cleaned my heart and
made me to have a clean heart towards Him. Looking to this
world will cause our feet to slip. It'll cause the old man
to be puffed up in envy. Whether you're looking at the
prosperous world out there and saying, why is my life like it
is? Or whether you're looking at religious folks. or looking
at your own self and what you've done in religion, or I've done
in religion, trying to come to God by something we've done in
ourselves. It'll create envious envy. You'll never be satisfied,
never be happy, never have the peace of God that works in the
heart. Instead, look away from this world to Christ, where He's
seated at God's right hand. He's our life. When Christ, who
is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him
in glory. So we look to Him and when we
look to Him, that's how we mortify these inordinate desires to look
away from Him. That's how all this inordinate
puffing up of our flesh is mortified is by looking to Him and learning
of Him. So I want to send you home with
these three things. Whatever our outward circumstances, remember
this. For every believer, God is truly
good to Israel. He's truly good. Even in the
prosperity of the wicked, even in our afflictions, the Lord
is bringing about the greatest good. It's better than it could
be any other way. I'm telling you. It may look
like it's just all upside down. I'm telling you. For God's sakes,
it's better than it could be any other way. Right now. Right
now. Learn that the chastening hand
of our Lord is due to His unchanging love to His redeemed, which He
purchased with His own blood. Because by these afflictions,
God cleanses our hearts to keep us partaking of His holiness
while kept from the evil of looking to some pretended holiness in
ourselves. He keeps us looking to Him. When
we behold Christ, our sanctification, That's when our heart's been
cleansed, when we know he is our sanctification. And then
remember the end purpose. This is how he makes us. He brings
us to declare his wonderful works rather than boasting in ourselves. I was walking my dog, trying
to teach my dog to heal and to mind. I'm tired of the dog not
minding. So I went out and started walking
with him. And I'm out walking with him, and I'll have him on
a very short leash so that he walks right at my heel. But every
now and then, I give him a little leash. And when he runs out there,
I snatch him back, and I tell him, no heel. Walk behind me. The Lord gives us a little leash
to let us see what we'll do in ourselves. What we'll do, just
like you're driving a car down the road and it's out of line,
if you don't hold on the wheel, you let go of it, it's right
in the ditch. And He just holds us steady and lets us go just
long enough to see, this is what I'll do, and then He lets us
know, I got you by the hand. Come on now, I'm not gonna let
you go. And by that, He makes us to continually, brings us
to this end, over and over and over, to where we say, You know,
let me tell you all about God's works. I don't want to tell you
anything about mine. It'd be a short list if I start
telling you anything about mine. I did the sinning, God did the
saving. I did the running, God did the
catching. I did the lying, God did the telling the truth. I
did all the unfaithful, unbelieving, conniving, God's the one that's
faithful. Let me tell you about Him. If
you've been risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ sits on the right hand of God. And when He does
that, brethren, sickness and losses, they cease to be bad
things to us when our life ceases to be something that can be taken
away from us. This world can't profit me, and
this world can't take away from me. My life sits right hand of
God. Can you say that? That's where
that makes all the crosses a little more bearable, doesn't it? All
right, amen.