Seeking once again the help of
God, I would like you to turn with me to the second psalm that
we read, Psalm 27, and the text you'll find in verse 11. Teach
me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path because of
mine enemies. This morning we looked at the
leprous man who came to the Lord Jesus Christ going against all
authority from the temple, from the ceremonial law, he approached
the Lord Jesus Christ. And as we looked, no doubt those
who were around the Lord Jesus Christ backed away when they
saw the leper, but the Lord Jesus, he stepped forward and he answered
the man's request. The man asked, if thou wilt thou
canst make me clean and Jesus moved with compassion put forth
his hand and touched him and said unto him I will be thou
clean. Jesus tells him that he was to
then go to the temple and offer up that which was right which
was for the cleansing according to the according to the law of
God. We see that the man, he didn't
listen to the Lord Jesus Christ and recently I've been speaking
to you about obedience and there are times in the lives of children
when you tell them to do something and you know that they have heard
but they claim that they haven't heard. It's like the man he had
been told clearly by the Lord Jesus Christ as to what he should
do. It was without doubt that he
heard all that Christ had told him. He would have known because
he was ceremonially unclean therefore he had been to the temple before
already. He understood all that was required
of him and yet when the Lord Jesus Christ told him what to
do he then did not do what Christ told him. And we know that that
is disobedience. We know that if somebody who
has the authority over you tells you to do something and then
you refuse to do that thing, that is disobedience. Even if
you claim that you have not heard what they have said. The man
clearly heard what Jesus said. And so there is that walking
in obedience. As this man, we can say, was
a type of a sinner who came to the knowledge of his sin. He
came to the Lord Jesus Christ for cleansing. comes as all sinners
do, who realise the extent of their sin, realising that they're
unable to save themselves, they come to the only way in which
a sinner is able to be cleansed from their sin and so they come
to Christ for forgiveness. The Bible tells us that that
process is the new birth that when someone comes to understand
their sin, it's because the spirit of God has entered into them,
made them alive, spiritually alive, been able to see, to be
able to see their sin. And that process, as Jesus says,
it is to be born again. No matter how old that person
is, they enter into the church as a babe of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether they are 15, whether
they're 20, whether they're 60 or 70, they have been born again.
They come as a babe into the church, into the arms of the
Lord Jesus. And so this man, he is healed. but he doesn't listen to what
Christ says. Children, when they are born,
they begin a process of learning. Everything that they know is
due to the fact that they have been taught or they have learnt
it. they recognize their mother's
face they know where to get milk from they recognize comfort those
feelings of comfort They begin to grow. They begin to learn
how to make sounds. They begin to learn how to crawl. They begin to learn how to walk,
how to talk. They begin to learn then how
to talk, and how to read, how to write, how to play musical
instruments, how to drive a car. They go through their whole life.
They are learning, learning, and learning, and being taught.
And so it is with the child of God, as they are born again of
the spirit of God, they come as infant babes desiring the
milk of the world. But that process is just the
beginning. They come as a small, ignorant
Christian. But they begin then this process
of learning, of being taught. Their whole heart Their whole
character is now changed. Before they didn't have any desire
to be taught from the word of God. They had no desire to be
taught by God or by his spirit. Now their new nature, their new
heart has a hungering and a thirsting for the things of God. They desire
to know what the will of the Lord is. They desire to be taught
from the holy scriptures. There's a love for the things
of God. They have a craving for this
spiritual food. They have now an appetite for
worship and for the word and for praise and for prayer. Naturally as children begin to
learn, as they find something that they are interested in,
they begin to dedicate themselves to those things. They begin to
want to learn more and more about them. It's like they are feeding
themselves. And so it is with a believer,
a new believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, they suddenly have an
appetite for the things of God. They suddenly have an appetite
for the people of God, an appetite for the Lord Jesus Christ and
for God himself. Things which they never had before. A hunger for spiritual things. The world was once their place
to find satisfaction. The world was once their place
to find pleasure and enjoyment and contentment. But now that
has all gone. That has all changed. The heart
has been transformed. It's been made soft and tender
to the things of God and there is this now new desire for the
things of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it is with David. We see that
David had a desire for the things of God. Yes, he was a man. Yes, he was the Lord's man. Yes, he fell into sin. Yet he still loved the Lord and
desired to be taught by the Lord. We find in his two psalms here
and throughout the book of Psalms there is that constant desire
of him to want to know what the Lord would have him to do. He
asks for guidance and direction. As a little child seeking to
know which way mum or dad would have them to go So David comes
as a little child to his father in heaven asking for guidance,
asking for a direction, asking to be shown the ways of the Lord
and to be taught in the Lord's pathways. He asks to be led in
the truth and to be taught from the scriptures, for thou art
the God of my salvation. David understood that it was
the Lord who had delivered him. Yes, from his enemies. He was his saviour in that he
delivered him from his enemies but ultimately from the consequences
of his sin he had been saved from the wrath to come. He had
been saved from the eternal torment. And so God was his saviour. He understood then his own weakness
and his own inability to discern the pathways of God. And so he
asks for guidance, to be shown, to be taught, to be directed
and to wait for God. In Psalm 25, it tells us there,
good and upright is the Lord. therefore will he teach sinners
in the way. David acknowledged his sin, acknowledged
that he was not worthy for the love that had been bestowed upon
him. Yet he acknowledged the goodness
of God, a God who is good, abounding in mercy, does guide and direct
his people, understanding that they are sinners, understanding
that they are weak. Yet as those sinners look up
to the Lord for help and guidance, Yes he will lead them and he
will direct them. The meek will he guide in judgment. You see there are different types
of sinners. There are sinners who are blazen
in their sin, who are outside of Christ and they have no concern
for their sinful condition whatsoever. Yet there are sinners like David,
like any believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. They are sinners
who have been subdued by the Spirit of God. They have been
pacified by the Spirit of God. They are still sinners. They
still rebel against God, yet their inner hearts have been
transformed. They still fall short of the
glory of God, yet they have that desire to walk in His ways. And it's these who look to the
Lord for teaching and for guidance and for direction. They are the
meek. of this earth. Jesus says, blessed are the meek
for they shall inherit the earth. Those who are meek are those
who have been wrought on by the Spirit of God. They have been
pacified by God's Spirit. And so David has this desire
to be taught in the ways of the Lord. By our nature we are ignorant
of the things of God. What a blessing it is if that
ignorance has turned into a hunger and a desire not to be ignorant
but to be taught by God himself. It says David desires to be taught
by the Lord. It is an acknowledgement that
you don't know something. If you go to somebody and you
ask them, can you teach me? You are acknowledging that I
don't know and that I need to know. Maybe you go to somebody
who understands about cars. You know that he's a mechanic
and you say to him, look, I don't have the money, but please can
you teach me? I don't understand, but I want
to know. You have to come with that humility. that acknowledgement that you
don't understand but the one that you are coming to does know
and you're asking to, as it were, sit at their feet and to learn
of them. So it is with David. He says
there are things that I don't understand about the pathway
of God. There are things that I can't
comprehend with my human mind because I can only see now. I
can only see today. I cannot understand the future
where the Lord is leading me and guiding me or the reasons
why these things are taking place. And so I ask to be taught. I ask to sit at the feet of the
Lord and to learn the way in which you are leading me. My mind went to who we call the
Mad Gadarene in Mark chapter 5. His life was a life of torment,
living amongst the tombs, cutting himself, chained and filled with
demons. Those demons knew the Lord Jesus
Christ. And as Jesus comes to them they
ask to be cast out and Christ casts them out into the pigs. But that man he is changed. He comes and he is found sitting
at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ in his right mind. in Mark 5 verse 15, and they
came to Jesus and see him that was possessed with the devil
and had legions sitting and clothed in his right mind and they were
afraid. See the contrast in his character,
tormented, stressed, vexed, self-harming, and now we find him sitting at
the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ in his right mind. Sitting at
the feet of Christ is to be his disciple. A disciple is one who
sits at the feet of another desiring to be taught So this mad man
completely transformed by the casting out of the demons by
the work of God on his life now sitting at the feet of the Lord
Jesus Christ desiring to be taught. Do we have that desire? Have
we been taught by the Lord Jesus Christ? Have we been taught by
his word? The Bible tells us that the law
of God is as a schoolmaster to bring us to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Has this book, the Word of God, taught us about our sin? Have
we seen ourselves as like the mad Gadarene, vexed with the
devil? We've seen ourselves like that
leprous man this morning. In us is no good thing, we are
corrupted, we are unclean. And yet the law of God has revealed
these things to us. It's our schoolmaster, it teaches
us to show us our need of the Lord Jesus and to lead us then
to the Lord Jesus Christ. The law is our teacher. or guardian
to bring us to the Lord Jesus. Teach me thy way. This is the way of God. This is the way that God works.
He inserts the needle of the law to penetrate the heart to
cause conviction of sin and pain and sorrow over our sin and then
and then he threads through that that that silk of the gospel
to sew up that wound that sin has made. Teach me thy way, O
Lord. This is the way. There is only
one way to the Lord and that is through the way that he has
made his beloved son, the Lord Jesus, who said, I am the way.
Nobody comes to the Father but by me. So it's teach me to have
a humble and a teachable spirit to sit as it were at the feet
of the law and to learn of God and then to move along and to
sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and to learn of him. Teach me thy way. And there's the transformation.
The transformation of heart. Our selfish nature is changed. It goes from my way to God's
way. By our nature, that's how we
live our lives. It's me. What I am going to do. Where I am going to go. Nobody tells me what I am going
to do. But when conversion comes, there
is the transformation of the heart, a transformation and a
subduing of the will. And the will, it is no longer
me. It is God. It is Christ. It is others. The Apostle Paul says, Lord, what will thou have me
to do? What do you want me to do? His
will was completely changed on the road to Damascus, completely
altered from his own zealous acts of destruction to a transformation. of desiring to walk in obedience
to the one that he was once persecuting. And so he says, teach me thy
way, O Lord. If you look at David's life, David's life was a mystery, as every single Christian's
life is a mystery. the anointed king at a young
age. Then brought into Solomon's kingdom. Then used to fight Goliath. Then
brought back into Saul's kingdom. Then chased around the wilderness.
Then back again. then chased away again into a
foreign country, believing that he's going to be killed at the
hand of Saul. Yet the Lord had already anointed
him king. Nothing was going to alter that,
nothing was going to change that fact. And yet such was the difficulty
of the pathway, the mysteriousness of the pathway, he believed that
he was going to die at the hand of Saul. Then the Lord intervenes
and brings him back there to become king. Then his own son
rises up against him. Then he's left to himself to
commit sin. Then he is risen up again in
pride to number the people. And you can see why he says,
teach me thy way. His life is a mysterious pathway
of teaching. God was teaching him physically
and God was teaching him spiritually. He was training him so that he
would be able to become king. Then he was training him in his
own weakness to show him how frail and sinful he actually
was. And then even leaving him to
himself at the end of his life to number the people. If we look
at our lives as believers in Christ, all the things that the
Lord is dealing with us, all the things that the Lord is doing
in our lives, he is teaching us. He is moulding us and he
is shaping us and not in the way that we would require or
desire but he does it in his way. Teach me thy way O Lord. When we say Jesus says, nevertheless
not my will but thy will be done. When we come to those times in
life and we have to determine what
the will of the Lord is sometimes we may have our own
inclinations as to the way that the Lord would want us to go.
And so in our prayers we put emphasis maybe on the way that
we feel we should go. But when we come to seek direction
our will should be knit together with God's will that God's will
is our will this is what I want to do I don't want to go or do
anything that the Lord doesn't want me to do and I want my will
to be subdued completely so that I come as it were as a little
child to be led by the hand of God in the way that he will have
me to go And so it's teach me. I'm sitting
at your feet humbly asking to be taught and directed in the
way that you would have me to go. But David didn't just want
to be taught. He didn't want just the Lord
to hand him an exercise book or hand him a map and say this
is how it's going to be. He wanted to be led. He didn't want God just to say,
go up there, go left and go right. He wanted the Lord to go with
him and to lead him and to guide him. If you think of the Lord
Jesus, when he came to his apostles that would be. He says to them,
follow me. He didn't say to them, I will
show you the way. He says, follow me. They followed him and he taught
them as they went behind him. And David had that same desire.
I don't just want to be taught. and then abandoned but I want
to be taught and then walked with. To walk behind someone is almost
the same as being taught by somebody. To be taught again is to acknowledge
you don't know. And to be led is also to acknowledge
that you don't know. You are asking for guidance. You are asking for direction. That is because you don't know
where you want to go. You want to go or do what the
Lord wants you to do. And so you ask to be led and
guided and directed. Remember a while ago I told you
of that harbour which I think is in Italy with those three
lights. The rocks either side of the
narrow way into the harbour and the pilot of the ship was to
line up those three lights so that he could navigate through
the rocks. If those lights were out of sync then he would crash
and make shipwreck. And those lights in spiritual
terms were the word of God, were providence and they were conscience. The child of God has a sensitive
conscience to the promptings of the Holy Spirit of God. And
if we are doing something or going wrong somewhere then our
conscience will be pricked. Our conscience will not feel
right about the thing that we are doing. And so we are to examine
those things. The Word of God. Does the Word
of God allow me to do this thing or does it condone that I do
it? If the Word of God is clear then
it's okay. about providence. Can I see in
the providential things of life? Is there an opening? Is there
a way being made? Is the Lord blocking up my way
here? Is he opening a door there? Is he providing this for me to
do this, this and that? And so the word of God and providence
are there two lights they are lining up. Then there is the
conscience. And our conscience is clear,
there's nothing sinful, there's no ulterior motive by which we
are doing what we are doing. And so we line those three lights
up and we can say the Lord is teaching us his way. He is leading
us in that plain pathway. Teach me thy way, O Lord. Moses had that same desire. He says, if thy presence go not
with us, carry us not up hence. He desired the presence of God
to go with him. When we make decisions in life,
we want the presence of God to go with us. We don't want to
walk alone. We want to walk with the Lord
in a plain way. as a little child, likes to be
led. When they're nervous, they come
close to you. They want to hold your hand.
They say, which way are we going, Daddy? And so you lead them,
you guide them. And so it is with the people
of God. Those who truly are born again by the Spirit of God, they
come just like a little child wanting to be taught by the Lord.
They want to walk closely to the Lord. And in that simple
language, as we can say, our Father in heaven, Abba Father,
which way are we going, Father? Where are you leading me? Where do you want me to go? Because I don't want to walk
out of sync with your will. It's easy to do. Think of Jonah. Jonah had it clear, laid out,
go to Nineveh. He didn't want to go to Nineveh.
So he took it upon himself to do what he wanted to do. He was
not humble and teachable. He did not want to be led or
guided or directed but he did his own thing. He went his own
way and he suffered the consequences of that sin, of that rebellion,
of that disobedience. And others also suffered with
him. And yet the Lord in his mercy
moved in a remarkable way to bring about that disobedient
prophet of his back to that right pathway, to have him to walk
in that right way and to deliver the message that he wanted him
to give. So as little children the believer
comes alongside his heavenly father and asks for that way
for that guidance and direction. David's motive for asking this
we here read is was because of his enemies. His enemies were
many. It tells us in Psalm 24 verse 18, look upon mine affliction
and my pain and forgive all my sin consider my enemies for they
are many and they hate me with a cruel hatred oh keep my soul
and deliver me let me not be ashamed for i put my trust in
thee. In our text lead me in a plain
path, lead me in a level path, because of mine enemies. David had many enemies. There were those physical enemies. We had the armies round about. We had Goliath. We had his own
son, Absalom, who came against him. He had Saul that was after
him. And he wanted a level pathway
because of his enemies. Not only did he have physical
enemies but he also had spiritual enemies. The people of God all
have spiritual enemies. The scripture tells us that we
wrestle not against flesh and blood. Our enemies are those invisible enemies,
Satan and his kingdom, which seek to oppose the children of
God. Ephesians 6, for we wrestle not
against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole
armour of God that you may be able to withstand the evil day
and having done all to stand. And so the enemies of the people
of God are not necessarily physical enemies. but they are a spiritual
enemy. We have the enemy of the world,
the influence of the world. We have the enemies within our
own sinful tendencies and weaknesses and we need to be guided and
protected from our own selves. If the Lord is leading us down
a hard pathway it's very easy for us to grumble and complain
and to become dissatisfied, discontent with that pathway. And we need
to be taught to submit. We need to be taught to submit
and to submit under the Lord's will and the Lord's way. As David experienced that mystery
of the providential pathways of life. So the believer he also
and she experiences those great mysteries and difficulties of
the pathway of following the Lord Jesus Christ. And we never know everything. We will never know everything.
We will be taught by God until the day that we die. The believer
never comes to the position of a degree or a doctorate or a
philosophy or to be a whatever is the highest form of education
you never get there. You stay in nursery school. We are slow learners in the things
of God. We get over one lesson and then
it's like we drop back down to the bottom of the class and we
have to learn it all again. The situations change. Providence
becomes difficult and we come back down right to the bottom
and we come, teach me thy way O Lord and lead me in a plain
path because of our enemies. There are many, as I said, many
enemies of the people of God. May the Lord grant us a true
humble and a teachable spirit and may we be able to learn from
the experiences of David, from the experiences of others that
have gone before us, not to fall into the same snares that they
have fallen into and to learn from our own past experiences
that it may be proved that we have indeed grown in grace and
in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord add
his blessing. Amen. Let's conclude our worship here
this evening in singing from Hymns for Worship, 176. 176. Abide with me, fast falls the
eventide. The darkness deepens. Lord, with
me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts
flee, help of the helpless, oh, abide with me. Hymns for Worship,
176, tune 758. ? Lost for sea and time ? ? A darkness
deepens ? ? But with Thee am I ? ? Can other helpers fail
and comforts flee? ? ? So have I with thee. ? ? Fair to this world's hails
and life's little day, ? ? That joyous word in this chorus pass
away, ? change and decay in all the world I see. Good the good changes not, All that thy grace can for the
tempter's pow'r, learn like thyself how thy God has taken ? With thee at hand to bless ?
? Yields from the weight of tears no bitterness ? ? Where'er pitiless
day, where'er great life enjoy ? Reveal thyself before my mercy
God. ? Shine through the gloom and points
me to the skies ? ? Heaven's morning breaks and earth's faint
shadows flee ? ? In life, in death, O Lord, how I grieve ? Now may the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father, with the fellowship
and communion of the Holy Spirit, to be with you each, now and
for evermore. Amen.