to Proverbs 16. And while you turn there, let
me share a story with you that was told to me as a true story. There was a man who had some
work done on his tires, and one of the incompetent workers failed
to tighten the lug nuts on the right rear wheel of his car.
And while he was driving down the road, those lug nuts fell
off and he lost his wheel right in front of the compound of the
mental institute. Well, he retrieved his tire,
jacked it up and put the wheel on and said out loud, now how
am I going to get to town to get some more lug nuts? And there
was a man on the other side of the fence in this middle institution
and he said, just take one nut off of the other three wheels
and put them on that wheel and tighten them up. You'll be able
to drive down to the parts house. He said, that's a great idea. I don't know why I didn't think
of that. He said, you're pretty smart. What are you doing in
that institute? And he replied by saying, I might
be crazy, but I'm not stupid. And I say that to establish a
point. It is true that we come into
this world with Adam's fallen nature, totally depraved, hating
God, running from God, no interest in him or his gospel, But we're
not stupid. We can understand words. And the Lord calls His preachers
to declare those truths for the glory of Jesus Christ, telling
who Jesus Christ is. He's Jehovah God, our Creator.
Telling our hearers what He has done. He established a perfect
righteousness for all of His people. He, by the supreme sacrifice
of himself, purged our sins from God's sight forever. God remembers
them against us no more. And he came out of the grave
on the third day, ascended to glory, and sat down at the right
hand of the majesty on high, which denotes his sovereign power,
and We've been made to sit in heavenly places in Christ. Now
that's not difficult to understand, but it's impossible to believe
in our unregenerate state. Our Lord told his disciples,
it's easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than
it is for a rich man to enter into heaven. And they didn't
misunderstand what he said. They replied by asking this question,
who then could be saved? And our Lord replied, with men
it is impossible. So people don't have any problem
knowing what the word of God says when they read it or when
they hear it preached. They just don't believe it. And
our first verse of Proverbs 16 says, the preparations of the
heart and man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Now, that's referring, I believe,
mostly to preachers. God brings us under the preaching
of his gospel. He delivers us from the power
of darkness. We sit under the gospel preaching,
being taught of God, equipped by God, and then sent out to
preach his gospel. And God gives us an understanding
in our mind, and we form that understanding into words and
then into sentences, and then we preach those truths for the
glory of Jesus Christ, knowing that God must give the increase. And so the preparation of the
heart in us is of the Lord. And the answer that comes from
our lips is also from him. And it doesn't matter if we're
preaching the gospel or if we're receiving the engrafted word
with gladness, those thoughts are formed in our mind and they
come out of our mouths with a testimony. of the sovereign power of our
Lord, who has delivered us from darkness and has translated us
into his eternal kingdom. Now, the true gospel of Jesus
Christ is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. There are no exceptions. But
it's our responsibility to believe. If we have Christ, we have life. If we don't have Christ, we don't
have life, and the wrath of God abides on us. That's not difficult
to understand, that's just impossible to believe unless the Lord himself
sends his spirit into hearts, giving us an understanding of
Jesus Christ, who is the sovereign Lord over all of his creation,
and his perfect redeeming work for those who are promised to
him by God the Father, back in the eternal covenant of grace
before the world began. Look at verse two. All the ways
of a man are clean in his own eyes, but the Lord weigheth the
spirits. Now all unregenerate men and
women have a very high opinion of themselves. Not just some,
all of us. And he that compares himself
with another is not wise. The Word of God teaches that.
Even a man who kills somebody will say, well, I'm not as bad
as so-and-so. He killed three people. People think their good is going
to outweigh their bad. What good? We don't have any
good. In our natural state, there's
not only no good in us, we can't do any good. We sin against God
and we need a Savior who takes care of our sin debt and brings
us into a relationship with Him, giving us the full assurance
that no matter what happens, it is well with my soul. Our
Lord tries the spirits, He weighs the spirits, and He knows, He
knows without a shadow of a doubt if our faith is in Him or if
we're trusting in our own righteousness. Verse three says, commit thy
works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established. Now every
enlightened child of God has been taught that we are God's
workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which
God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. So God's
preachers, we don't leave out works. But there is absolutely no work
involved in the salvation of God's elect produced by man. We are His workmanship created
unto good works. Any good thing we do is a result
of the Spirit of God working in us, and we give Him all the
glory for what He's done for us, and we commit these works
that He allows us to do unto the Lord, and our thoughts are
established by Him. Our thoughts will be established
with these truths, Lord. May you be blessed with the efforts
that you allow me to produce in my walk before you. Lord,
may I always keep this before my own mind that you're in sovereign
control over everything. Nothing happens apart from your
permissive will. As any good comes from me, may
it always be for your glory. Lord, I know that you're the
only one that can make whatever we're allowed to do in your kingdom
a fatso. And we pray. We pray this prayer. Lord, not my will, but Thy will
be done. And God's will is going to be
done. Who's going to stop Him? He has purposed it all. He executes
it all. It's all for His glory, for the
good of His people. Romans 8.28 holds true in every
situation. My wife has been going through
a very painful and difficult time, and this is the second
time that she's felt like coming to church in over two months. And believe me, I thought, oh
Lord, her appointed time of departure is close. I even shared that
with David. But the Lord has healed her up and all of that
which she has gone through and is still going through was ordained
by our Lord to not only bring glory to His name, but to bring
us closer to Him that we need Him every second
of every minute of every hour of every day. Our Lord Jesus
is the divine potter, and He forms a vessel as it pleases
Him. Look at verse 4. The Lord hath made all things
for Himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. Now, this
is not to be understood that God makes men evil. He does not. He made man upright, pure, perfect. But when Adam ate the forbidden
fruit as the federal head over all of his people, as our representative,
we were in the loins of Adam. And by that one man's sin, sin
entered into the world, and we come into this world with Adam's
fallen nature. We can't do anything but sin.
That's what we are. We don't become sinners because
we sin. We sin because we're sinners.
Now our Lord Jesus, like I said earlier, forms a vessel as it
pleases Him. Now He raised up Pharaoh for
this very purpose, to destroy him. The Word of God teaches
that. The whole Egyptian army, under
the leadership of Pharaoh, rebelled against God would not hear even
though God plagued them with plagues that you would think
would get their attention to the fact that God's in control
of all things and it didn't change their wicked hearts. Now, I don't
know if you've ever given any thought to this, but Pharaoh
and all of those men in his army were little babies at one time.
They were mama and daddy's pride and joy. They were grandpa and
grandma's delight. But they were still sinful babies. They grew up to be sinful men,
hating God, loving a God of their own imagination. And we came
into this world with the same wicked, sinful heart that Pharaoh
and that whole Egyptian army had. The same wicked heart that
Judas Iscariot had. God has to give us a new heart. And that's not talking about
the muscle that pumps the blood. That's talking about the inner
man where our thoughts are formed. Out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth speaketh. As a man thinketh in his heart,
so is he. So it's the inner man. corrupt
through and through. The number of a man is six, six,
six. Number seven is used in the scriptures
as a number that illustrates perfection. Six falls short of
perfection. Man is corrupt through and through. Body, soul, and spirit fall short
of perfection. You can take an archer who shoots
a bow and arrow and aims at his target, and if it's too far out
of his reach, that arrow's going to fall short of its mark. Anything
we do in our unregenerate state falls short of the mark of perfection. Our Lord Jesus was perfect in
everything He thought, said, did, and His motive was perfect
for the glory of His Father. And that's the Savior that we
need. Our Lord Jesus, by His sovereign power and His sovereign
grace, teaches every one of us that we need Him. And when He
reveals to us that we need Him, He reveals to us that Christ
is all we need. In Him dwells the fullness of
salvation. Everything we need to take us
from that awful pit that God dug us out of, all the way to
eternal glory, is found in Christ and only in Christ. He redeemed
us with his precious blood, and we give him all the glory for
this unspeakable gift, eternal life through Christ our Savior.
Look at verse five. Everyone that is proud in heart
is an abomination to the Lord. Though hand join in hand, he
shall not be unpunished. Folks, listen. God must punish
sin. His holy nature demands it. He must. And He's willing to
show His wrath. And He's going to pour out His
wrath on all of those ungodly men and women who refuse to believe
the gospel message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But we read
in the first chapter of 1 Thessalonians, that those saints of God who
were delivered under the preaching of the glorious gospel of Jesus
Christ, and the gospel came to them, not in word only, but in
power, and the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, and we read
that they rejoiced in the fact that Jesus Christ had delivered
them from the wrath to come. God bless you. I tell you, I
think about standing before my Savior when this is all over,
when my appointed time of death comes, faultless. Boy, that's hard for me to embrace. I see myself anything but faultless. And it
doesn't matter if we join hands with the whole world. If we don't
have Christ, we're gonna be punished. We're gonna be turned into eternal
torment. We can be the most religious
person in the world. Make every meeting, even where
the gospel is preached, where the true gospel is brought forth.
We can be seated listening to the truth Week after week, month
after month, and if we don't embrace Christ, we're no better
off than those people who are drinking a nickety-like water
and have no use for Christ, rebel against Him, shaking their fist
in His face, saying, I'll not have this man to reign over us.
We must, we must, and I emphasize must, worship God in spirit and
in truth. Without the Spirit, that's impossible. Without the truth, that's impossible. They go hand in hand. When God
sends the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father,
He does that under the preaching of the truth. And we embrace
the truth because God has given us faith to believe that Jesus
Christ is our Jehovah, that He by Himself purged our sins. And so, join hands with Him. Don't join hands with these wicked
people who are blaspheming God by saying He's done all He can
and the rest is up to you. If God has done all He can and
the rest is up to us, we're in a world of hurt. We can't do
anything without Christ. We must have Him. So, our text
is teaching us that Everyone that is proud in heart is an
abomination to God. And we come into this world with
that old proud heart, weighing our foolish good that we don't
have in a balanced thinking that our good is going to outweigh
our bad and we don't have any good. Look at verse 6. By mercy
and truth, iniquity is purged and by the fear of the Lord men
depart from evil. Brethren, mercy and truth kissed
each other at Calvary a little over 2,000 years ago. Jesus Christ
came into this world sent from God the Father to do his will. And everything he did was pleasing
on the side of God. Mercy and truth kissed each other
at Calvary because our Heavenly Father saw His Son as the perfect
example of righteousness, giving Him a name which is above every
name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow if things
in heaven things in earth, and things under the earth, and every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father. And it's by the fear of the Lord
that men depart from evil, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. There's no fear of God before
the wicked. We had no fear of God. We might have had a little
fear of death, or fear of eternal torment, going to hell, but we
didn't fear God. And that fear is a holy reverence
to God for who He is and what He has done. And we don't have
that until God gives us a new heart. Then that fear or that
reverence is the beginning of wisdom and God gives us that.
He gives us a new heart that bows before him in humble adoration,
saying, great is my God, and greatly to be praised. We read
this, that the fear of the Lord moves us to depart from evil,
and we still have the old nature. I'm not saying that as an enlightened
child of God, we're without sin. Someone told Walter Gruger, If
I believe what you believe, I'd sin all I want to. He said, I
already sin more than I want to, don't you? And God's preachers
don't teach that we're to live licentiously, no. We tell you,
hate sin, depart from sin. If any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And if we confess
our sins, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Even
though we know we have a full pardon from God, we want to keep
a close relationship with the Lord Jesus. And if we harbor
sin, if we don't confess that sin, we have that Sin that builds upon itself to
where pretty soon we don't even pray. We just justify everything
we do and have no use for God. I want a relationship with the
Lord Jesus that's a daily relationship. And we must, and I emphasize
must, acknowledge before Him that we're sinful. and we need
his grace. Oh, how we need his grace. Now
look at verse seven. We read, when a man's ways please
the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. Now it's true, humanly speaking,
that a man who is a follower of Jesus Christ can be at peace
with others like Jacob and Esau, but that's not what the Lord
is emphasizing here in verse seven. And it's true also when
we have the spirit of Christ dwelling in us, we can be at
peace with that old Adamic nature that's still part of us. We've
been made partakers of the divine nature, but we still have that
old nature that wars against the Spirit of God that dwells
in us, and these two are contrary, the one to the other, so that
we cannot do the things that we know we should, and we do
things we know we shouldn't. I can't wait until I'm delivered from this
body of death. This is referring, verse seven
is referring to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only man who
ever walked on this earth the whole of his life without sin. Everything he did pleased God
the Father. He allowed himself, and consider
the humility of Christ, he allowed himself to be formed as a baby
in the virgin womb of Mary. John Gill emphasized that strongly. He said, consider the humility
of God dwelling in the womb of one he had created. He was in
need of the tender care of Mary, his mother. She had to bathe
him, change him, He needed the milk that came from the breast
that he himself formed to put that milk in. What a humble man our Lord was. And every step he took, every
thought he had, every word he spoke, and I know I'm repeating
what I said earlier, but it's so important to embrace this.
There was a voice that came from heaven while he was here on this
earth that said, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased,
hear ye him. God was pleased with everything
the Lord Jesus Christ did. He sat down in the temple, made a whip, and he intended to use it. Those
evil religious men had made his father's house a den of thieves. Do you think our Lord was a little
angry when he stood up with that whip in his hand and drove those
money changers out of the temple? I believe he was. I believe it
was righteous indignation that moved him to do what he did and
That was pleasing in the sight of God the Father. Everything
Jesus Christ did was pleasing in the sight of God the Father.
And our text says, when a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh
even his enemies to be at peace with him. Not the reprobates, not the goats. There's no peace, saith my God,
unto the wicked. But to His chosen blood-bought
children at the appointed time of love, He brings them unto
the preaching of His gospel, gives us His Spirit, and though
we were enemies full of wicked works, God makes us to be at
peace with Him. What peace! It passes all understanding. It's a peace that our Lord Jesus
Christ gives to us, knowing whatever happens is for our eternal good
and for His glory. We had a man up in Northern California
by the name of Larrick Kent. I grew up with him, really, he's
a little older than me, he just turned 85, so he's about four
years older than me. And him and his wife love the gospel,
they love the Lord Jesus Christ. We had a conference at our church
twice a year, and they came down, they had a little camp trailer,
they parked it on the church property, helped us get ready
for the conferences, and wouldn't miss one of those conferences,
and even came to worship with us as often as he could when
we weren't having a conference. They just love Christ. They just
love his gospel. Well, he fell not too long ago
and he wrenched himself as he grabbed for something to hold
on to and fractured his back. And I called him a couple of
weeks ago just to encourage him and see how he's doing. And I
shared this with him. I said, Larry, isn't it wonderful
to know that one of these days we're going to be delivered from
this body of death and we'll be in the presence of the King,
absent from the body as present with the Lord. And we'll see
him in all of his glory. What a sight. That must be. I long for that day. But also,
along with the joy of being in the presence of the one who loved
us and gave himself for us, there'll be no more sorrow, no more heartache,
no more pain. But more than that, we'll be
just like our Savior. faultless, and will never, ever
sin against Him again. And Larry said to me, I never thought about it that
way. Oh, he thought about seeing Christ in His glory, and he thought
about being without pain, without sorrow, but he never, ever thought
about never ever again sinning against our God. And for all
eternity, we'll be in eternal bliss with our Savior, faultless,
spotless, no sin, no desire to sin, just a desire to worship
the King and all of His beauty, giving Him all the glory. for
this unspeakable gift, eternal life through Jesus Christ, our
Lord and our Savior. Thank you.