May God bless his words as we
consider it together this evening. We'll turn to the chapter that
we read in the book of Proverbs, chapter 12, and we'll read verse
3. Proverbs chapter 12, and reading
verse 3. A man shall not be established
by wickedness, but the root of the righteous shall not be moved. Man shall not be established
by wickedness, but the root of the righteous shall not be moved. I'm sure we all saw earlier this
year the pictures of the recent storms which hammered the country
and perhaps some of us, many of us perhaps can think back
to the 1987 storm and the hurricane that we saw then and other ones
subsequent to that, where there's been pictures of great devastation
of many trees and many trees uprooted and roofs blown off
and tiles slid down and so on. And there were some pictures,
and maybe you saw it yourselves, of large trees which have been
blown over Trees which had been there for hundreds of years,
they had stood seemingly tall and strong. And yet, as a result
of the storm, they had been uprooted, blown over. And you could see
the vast root network which it had had into the ground that
was underneath the tree. It was now above the surface
and you could see that those roots were vast. They'd gone
a long way and they had been very deep. The tree had seemed
that it was immovable, it was strong, it was tall, and yet
the wind had blown it down as strong as the root seemed to
be. It's still being blown down. Well, here we have here described
in the second part of this verse, the root of the righteous. But we also, I believe, have
the picture in the first part of the verse where it says that
a man shall not be established by wickedness. We have here a
picture of a tree really taking root or being established into
the ground. Going forth that it might be
anchored, secure, in the ground that it will be able to grow
and stand tall and strong against the wind as it blows. So it's
a picture of either being established or the roots going down and being
strong and being secure in the ground. Well firstly we have
the man who shall not be established. A root that shall not be secure. or shall not be strong in the
ground, or the root which will not hold the tree secure in its
place. This man shall not be established
by wickedness. Here we have one who is not secure
then. There are small roots, there
is something, but it's not established. It's not secure. It's not safe
and it will be easily blown over when the wind comes, when the
storm comes. It will be blown over. It's not
established in the ground. And we're told that that is a
man who is wicked. The wickedness cannot establish
them, cannot secure them. And it's true that wickedness
can never establish a soul. It can never secure a soul. It can never make a soul safe. Sin and unbelief and rebellion
against God and walking in wickedness and rebellion and ending and
dying in that way will not make us secure, will not allow us
to stand when a storm comes, when the whirlwind comes. It's referred to in an earlier
chapter in Proverbs 10, we read in verse 25, as the whirlwind
passeth, so is the wicked no more. If we put these two texts
together, if you have the image of a tree which is standing,
and it's not got strong roots, it's not established in the ground.
And then the whirlwind comes, as the whirlwind passes, and
it batters the tree, and it whistles round the leaves. And as the
whirlwind passes, and it's in the height of the storm, so it
topples. And the wicked is no more. The tree is uprooted. The tree
is destroyed. is taken out of the ground. Well,
what's this whirlwind which is coming? The whirlwind which none
can avoid. Surely it's a picture of death
in the end. And as death comes as a whirlwind,
as it comes, as it batters the soul of the people, Something
which cannot be avoided. Something that must come on us
all. And as that wind comes, that
whirlwind comes on the wicked, they're not established. They
are not secure. They are not prepared. And the
wind will blow it down. They will be uprooted. They will
be found to be on a sandy a shaky foundation, they will be destroyed. It may be that this tree at one
point looked quite impressive on the outside. Above ground,
it seemed that it was healthy. But it wasn't rooted in. It was
not established. And we're told then that by walking
in wickedness, by walking in rebellion, by dying in unbelief,
We can never be established in that way, outside of safety,
not secure and standing in the whirlwind of the wrath and the
judgment of God as guilty, as sinner. As we face that whirlwind
in that state, we have no hope because a man cannot be established
by wickedness. All the wickedness All the rebellion,
all the joy of their life, all that seemed to be good, all that
seemed to profit them in a natural way will be uprooted and destroyed. It will prove to be no use and
no hope and no help. The man shall not be established
by wickedness. God will deal with the wicked. So then we have the other side.
The man shall not be established by wickedness, but what is a
place of safety then. How is a man to be established? How is a man to be rooted safely
and securely into the ground? Well, here we have the other
half, but the root of the righteous shall not be moved. The root of the righteous. Well, clearly here We cannot
be speaking of someone who is righteous and holy in themselves. We have here, contrasted with
the wicked, a believer, a Christian, a believer in the Lord Jesus
Christ who has been made righteous, who has been justified by the
death of Christ and now is brought in holy and spotless in the sight of
God, simply and only through the love, the work, the merits
of the Lord Jesus Christ. These are not righteous people
in themselves. They have been made righteous. They've been
brought by his grace into the family of God. These righteous
ones, their root shall not be moved. Now, unless if the Lord
returns, we shall also face death. All of us shall face, as it were,
the whirlwind of death. But here, as the whirlwind comes
on the righteous, we read that their roots shall not be moved,
shall not be uprooted, shall not be destroyed, cannot be blown
over, cannot be uprooted. It stands secure and safe strong
in the ground, because that root cannot be moved. It cannot be
destroyed. It shall not have it, don't we?
The root of the righteous shall not be moved. There's an absolute
certainty here. There's a promise. There's a
promise of God here that we can cling to and we can plead. It
shall not be moved. It cannot be moved. It is certain. It's a promise. The Lord's people really have
no reason to fear. No reason to worry. Though we
do have fears, though we do have worries because of ourselves
and our own doubts and our own hearts, but really the certainty
of the Word of God gives us no reason to fear. Because in the
whirlwind of death, the root, the security, the safety of the
righteous of the Lord's people shall not be moved. Well, how is this to be true? How can it be that the Lord's
people will not move? How can it be that their root
is secure? Well, I really want to consider
this evening this clause here, the root of the righteous shall
not be moved. What it is that the believer
is rooted in? What the root is secure in and
therefore makes it so safe, makes it so certain that they cannot,
though in the fiercest storm and in the ultimate storm of
death, they cannot be moved. What is the believer rooted in?
to be so secure? Well, firstly this evening, we
are rooted in the eternal being, the eternal existence of God. Rooted in God's eternal being. God is eternal. He always has
been and He always will be. Something we can't really understand,
we can't grasp and yet it's true. And the truth of God's eternity,
of God's everlasting being and nature shows us that the Lord's
people are rooted in one who does not change, has never changed,
and one who will always be the same and will never end. So that the Lord's people will
never come to a point when they can say, I once knew the Lord,
or the Lord once reigned, or that the Lord was once God, but
at some point it ceased to be. For the Lord's people, indeed
for all people, we can say that the Lord continually and forever
will always be God. So we know then, that the Lord
was loving and merciful to his people in eternity past, and
was loving and merciful to his people when he came to suffer
and to die for them. and He was loving and merciful
towards them when He called them personally by His grace, and
was loving and merciful as He was with them every step of their
life to their end, and was loving and merciful to receive them
into glory, then surely that love and mercy of the Lord will
always and forever continue. We are rooted in the eternal
being of God, who cannot change, and will always be. He is constant. Everything around us changes.
Everything within us changes. We change our mind. We change
our views. Surroundings change us. People
around us change. Everything changes and yet the
Lord's people are secure, are rooted in the unchanging existence
and nature of the Lord God Almighty. What are we told? Jesus Christ.
The same yesterday and today and forever. Jesus Christ. Do we know this Jesus Christ?
Do we know Him as our Saviour, as our Redeemer, as our hope,
as our friend? Is Jesus Christ a wonderful name,
a name that rejoices our hearts, a name that we love to hear?
This Jesus Christ, today, is He the love? Do we love Him? Is He the centre of our thoughts
and affections in our right mind? Well, that Jesus Christ will
always be the same. Yesterday, today and forever. That is where we are rooted. The one who loved us, called
us and remains with us forever. Rooted in the eternal being of
God. There's a wonderful, glorious
stability here. And we look out of our changeable
natures and our changeable world and we, as it were, throw the
anchor of our hope into one who is secure and change-less. The eternal being of God. He
tells us also, doesn't he, in Malachi, I am the Lord. I change not. Therefore, ye sons
of Jacob, are not consumed. Why is it that the Lord's people
are not consumed though they sadly do sin, though they sadly
do fall? How is it that we can know that
the Lord's people are safe and that he will not cast us off
and he will not reject us and he will not deal with us as we
deserve? Well, it's because He doesn't
change. We are not consumed as we deserve
because He changes not. Because He is constant. And therefore,
the grace, the mercy, which the Lord showed to us when we first
came to know Him, is constant grace and mercy. Yes, He may
chide us. Yes, He may correct us. Yes,
we may need His discipline upon us, but that doesn't change His
grace and mercy towards His people. I change not. Therefore, ye sons
of Jacob, are not consumed. because our hope is secure, our
anchor is safe, our root is grounded in the unchanging being and nature
of God. His purpose of grace towards
us is always the same. What a wonderful place of security
The root of the righteous shall not be moved. Why not? Because
they are rooted in the immovable, the unchangeable one, the unending,
eternal, almighty God. The root of the righteous shall
not be moved. Secondly, the Lord's people are
rooted in God's boundless grace. His boundless grace. Not just the eternal God and
His everlasting being and His everlasting nature, but of His
boundless grace towards His people. Grace of a bottomless sea. Grace of a shoreless ocean. Grace which reaches all bounds
and encompasses all of the believer. There is no sin beyond, as it
were, the reach and the mercy of the Lord God. And we can never
fall out of that love and of that grace. We can never reach
a boundary and fall beyond the grace of God. We can never reach
its extent, for it reaches us. And it reaches and it covers
all our sin. and all our rebellion, and all
of our backsliding, and all of our temptation that we fall into. It covers all. It is boundless
grace. When Paul was writing to Timothy,
he was expounding to him the grace of God toward him. and how wonderful it was that
the Lord had come to him, Paul, the sinner. He said to Timothy,
I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has enabled me, for that
he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, who was
before a blasphemer, a persecutor, an injurious. But I obtained
mercy, because I did it ignorantly, in unbelief, and the grace of
our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is
in Christ Jesus. What a wonderful, glorious, all-encompassing
phrase he uses. The grace of our Lord was exceeding
abundant. It's not just abundant, it's
exceeding abundant. It's beyond his understanding. It's beyond what he can grasp.
It's super abundant over all of his sin. The sin of being
a blasphemer and a persecutor of the Lord's people. The sin
of rejecting their teaching and the teaching of Christ. The sin
of hounding them to prison and even to death. Oh, what Paul
was, what Saul of Tarsus was, and yet the grace of our Lord
was exceeding abundant towards him. It covered all his sin. It covered all of what he was. And that grace, exceeding abundant
as it is and continues to be today, continues to come to his
people today. We are rooted in boundless grace. We have times, don't we, I'm
sure, when we fear that we've sinned away our faith. We've
gone too far this time. Our heart is too hard. Or we've
committed a sin that we thought we never would. And we've fallen. We've denied our Lord. We've turned our back on him
if but for a time and we think we've sinned away all that we
had. And yet the grace of God is exceeding
abundant. The Lord's people who have that
root, that hope, as it were, reaching out and fastened in
to the Lord Jesus Christ when he is still their cry and their
plea, though the magnitude of their sin so grieves them, the
root cannot be moved. because His grace reaches out
to cover even that sin that we mourn over. Again, what does
Paul say when he writes to the Ephesians, he says, but God who
is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us, even
when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.
By grace, ye are saved. Even when we were dead, unresponsive,
hearts were dead in sin. Yet by grace your Saviour has
quickened us together. He has raised us up together
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that
in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of
His grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. You
see the wonderful Words that the Apostle uses to try and expound
the depth and the breadth and the height of this grace. Here
we have it. The exceeding riches of His grace. Exceeding riches. The Apostle says that by grace
you are saved. You have been quickened, made
alive by grace. But there will come a day that in the ages to
come, you will see even more fully the exceeding riches of
His grace. when you understand more of what
you were, and more of what He has done, and more of what He
has saved you to bring you to, as you see the glory prepared
for His people, then we shall see more of the exceeding riches
of this grace that we are rooted, cannot be moved in such boundless
grace. even to sinners like you and
me, even to the Saul of Tarsus. What grace! We are rooted in
the eternal being and nature of God. We are rooted in the
boundless grace of God. Thirdly, we are rooted in Christ's
completed and finished work. Christ's completed and finished
work. The work of salvation is finished. It's complete. It's done. It's not uncertain. It's not
that we're not sure. It's done. It's complete. And therefore there is nothing
more for the Lord to do to save his people. And there is nothing
more for us to do, to earn or to add to our salvation. There is no more work to be done
by him or by us in the work of salvation. It is finished. It
is complete. The Lord cried out on the cross
and he cried. We read at his last breath he
cried and gave up the ghost. And I believe he cried those
three words as we have it in the English, though it was one
in the Greek. But he cried the words. It is finished. Almost a victory cry. A conqueror's
cry. For the work was done. The suffering
had been endured. The punishment his people deserve
had been borne. And he had passed through the
experience of hell for us. It is finished. There is no more to be done.
There is no more to be added. The price was paid. The sacrifice
was given. The blood was shed. And his people
were as it were sealed into that book of life. All the sin had
been taken away. It is finished. What was finished? Well, there were no more types
of the Old Testament necessary. There were no more sacrifices
necessary in the temple. There were no more need for the
high priest. and for his work of intercession.
There was no more need for the high priest to represent the
people into the holy of holies. There was no more need for holy
days. There was no more need for a
day of atonement. No more need for all of the types,
the shadows, the ceremonies of the Old Testament law. As wonderful
as they were, as they pointed to Christ, there was no need.
It was finished. It was complete. It was done. The great fulfilment
of the types had come. The great fulfilment of the types
had passed the way in which the types never could, as they were
only a reflection of Him. It's come. It's finished. Now the fulfilment, now the Messiah,
the Christ has come. There's no more need now for
His suffering, for His agony, and for the punishment of sin
that he endured, for the price is paid and is complete and the
debt is cleared. And now there is no more curse. There is no more death. There
is no more wrath. There is no more hell for the
Lord's people, though there never was in the eternal counsel of
God, of course. But there is no prospect of anything.
of punishment for his people. It is finished. There is life
through him. The root shall not be moved. Shall not be moved. Safe in the
finished work of Christ. The storm may come in our life. And the storm of death, lest
the Lord returns, shall come. And we read in the Day of Judgement,
But you know, death and judgment has really already been endured
for us. Death and judgment has all been laid on the Lord and
His people's place. Who face it instead? It is finished. We are rooted. The root of the
righteous shall not be moved. What a place of security. So
we look out of ourselves and our own sins and our own disappointments
We look out of that and we see Him finishing that work on the
cross at Calvary. As we reach out, as it were,
by faith to take hold of Him as our only hope, then that root
will not be moved. Though the storm of life and
the storm of death may come, the root of the righteous shall
not be moved. So we're rooted in the eternal
nature of God. In His boundless grace, in His
finished work, finally we are rooted in God's constant faithfulness. His constant faithfulness. His Word, His promises cannot
fail. He is faithful to His Word. cannot change his mind. He cannot forget his promises. He cannot break his promises. He cannot fail his people and
he cannot fail to keep his word. We are rooted and safe and secure
in the constant promises of God. Again, when the Apostle wrote
to Timothy in the second epistle, he tells him that if we believe
not, yet he, that is God, abideth faithful. He abideth faithful. He cannot deny himself. He cannot deny who he is. He
cannot deny what he has said. He cannot deny the promises he
has made. He abides ever faithful. He cannot deny himself. We are rooted, the Lord's people
are rooted, secure, immovable in his constant, enduring faithfulness. And therefore, when we read his
promises to his church, when he says, for I've said, I will
never leave thee nor forsake thee, then because of his eternal,
constant faithfulness, he must mean and keep that promise. It
cannot fail. It cannot turn from it. I will
never leave thee nor forsake thee. What a promise to his people. And what a promise all his people
testify to be true. And what a promise his people
who come to their dying day say, he has never left me. He has
never forsaken me. He was faithful to that promise.
And yet there's something sadly within us which doubts it. Which thinks he will leave. Which
thinks he will pass us out and deal with us for our sins. as
we deserve and he will forsake us. There's no evidence that
that could ever be true for he abide if faith cannot deny himself. I'll never leave you, he says.
He is rooted in his constant promises. He has promised that
he hears us in our prayers. The Lord Jesus himself says all
things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing, ye shall
receive. Do we doubt the words of the
holy, sinless Son of God? That when we cast our burden
on Him and bring our concerns and our soul concerns humbly
to Him, that we shall not receive and that He does not hear and
that he will not answer? We are rooted in the constant
faithfulness of God and he is faithful to his word. All things
whatsoever he shall ask in prayer, believing in faith, he shall
receive. He does hear us. He has promised that he shall
receive us. to himself. Let not your heart
be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also
in me, says the Lord. In my father's house are many
mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself
that where I am, there ye maybe also. The Lord has promised,
and he is faithful to his promise, that he in glory has a mansion
prepared for his people, and that one day he shall come for
them, that where he is, there we may also be. Is that just
words? Is that just comforting words
for the disciples? No, it's true. It's fact. It's a promise from the ever-faithful
Son of God. We are rooted in His constant
faithfulness. The Lord has promised and the
Lord must keep His promises. The Lord has promised that all
those who come to him and hear his voice shall receive the blessing
of eternal life. My sheep hear my voice, he says,
and I know them and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. So someone here tonight who doubts
that, He says, I've heard the voice. I know the message of good news
of the gospel. And I believe I've heard and
known something of the shepherd's voice. And yet, could he really
give me eternal life? Could it really be that I shall
never perish and be eternally safe? Could this possibly be
for me? If I hear that voice, and I know
it to be the voice of the shepherd, and I long to follow, and I long
to come to that shepherd, and I long to know him for myself,
could it be for me? Constant faithfulness to his
word. I give unto them eternal life. We shall not find him unfaithful. We shall not, cannot be cast
out of such a promise. My sheep hear my voice and I
know them. I know all about them. I know
where they are and I know my love towards them. I know them
and they follow me. Oh, He knows you. He draws you. He gives you eternal life rooted
in the constant faithfulness of God. The root of the righteous
shall not be moved. So here is how the Lord's people
can find such strengthening in the immovability, the safety
of their soul. Not because they are strong,
not because they have grown for themselves a good root, and not
because they are able to stand now in their own strength against
the storm. It's nothing to do with us. The root shall not be moved.
The tree shall remain standing in the whirlwind because it is
rooted in the Lord. It is rooted in Christ. It is rooted in his eternal being
and nature. It is rooted in his boundless,
limitless grace. It is rooted in his finished
and completed work and it is rooted in his constant faithfulness. How will you and how will I stand
in a whirlwind? How will we stand when the storm
comes, the storm in our life and the storm ultimately of death. Will we be blown over like the
trees with no root? Will we be destroyed and cast
out, left only for the burning that we deserve? Or will we be
found secure, again not because we feel strong and able, but
because we trust by faith we have a root and it's rooted in
the immovability and the security of Christ which shall not be
moved. What are you and I trusting for
our eternal safety this evening? Well, here is safety. Here is
eternal safety. Here is a place of refuge. Here
is the Lord Jesus Christ who can never be moved. As the whirlwind
passes, so is the wicked no more. But the righteous is, or has,
it could be translated, an everlasting foundation. While the root of
the righteous shall not be moved, the soul that on Jesus has leaned
for repose, I will not, I will not desert to his foes. That soul, though all hell should
endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake. A man shall not be established
by wickedness, but the root of the righteous shall not be moved. Amen.