We're going to begin by singing
two hymns. Our first one is going to be
110 from your heartbeat. 110. Alas, and did my Savior
bleed. Blessed did my Saviour bleed,
and did my Sovereign die. He gave oath that sacred hat
for such a worm as I. Was it for crimes that I have
done, He groaned upon the tree, O basic pity, grace unknown,
And love beyond degree. The light, the sun, in darkness
hide, and shun His glories in. When Christ, the mighty Maker,
died, poor man, the preacher sinned. A drop's of grief Our
second one is 283, Yesterday, Today, and Forever. 283. Oh, how sweet the glorious message
simple faith may claim. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. Still he looks to save the sinful,
heal the sick, and lame. Cheer the mourner, count the
tempest, glory to his name. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name! Glory to His name! Glory to His name! All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name! He who parted erring fear never
needs to fear. He who came to faithless Thomas,
all thy doubt will clear. He who let the love disciple
on his bosom rest, Gid'st thee still with love as tenderly upon
His breast. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. Only change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name! Glory to His name! Glory to His name. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. He who made the raging billows,
Walked upon the sea, Still can hush our wildest tempest, As
on Galilee, He who wept in pain, in anguish, in Gethsemane, Drinks
with us each cup of trembling in our agony. Yesterday, today,
forever, Jesus is the same. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. As of old He walked with us with
them to abide. So through a long way He walketh
ever near our side. Soon again shall we behold Him
hasten, Lord, a day. But to fail he is, saith Jesus,
as he went away. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name! Glory to His name! Glory to His name. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. Lord, we're thankful that you
brought one of your servants here to preach your word to us
today, Lord. We ask that you would guide his
his sermon, and guide our hearts, Lord, to rest in your Son, Lord.
Give us rest in him this morning. In your name we pray. Amen. Alright, turn to Psalm 1. Psalm
1. We're just going to read the first
three verses of Psalm 1 for now. We're going to go through the
whole Psalm. Psalm 1-1. Blessed is the man that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is
in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day
and night. And he shall be like a tree planted
by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in the
season. His leaf also shall not wither,
and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." Now the word Psalms
means praises. So the book of Psalms is the
book of praises. And here is where we learn how
to worship our God in this book. Now to worship God is to lie
prostrate on one's face there in the dust. before holy and
almighty God. So it's in this psalm that we
first see Christ. That Christ is the blessed man. So that once you see that Christ
himself is that blessed man, you have no problem in understanding
that it's only in Christ that we're blessed. And the reason
why I so often emphasize that is because for years in religion,
I just never got that. It was like he was just a little
helper there on the side or something like that. But that is where
we're blessed is in Christ Jesus alone. As long as you think you're
somebody, then you're not going to think that you're nobody.
And as long as you think that you're somebody, you're going
to continue to have a problem with the fact that it's only
in Christ that God blesses us. And it's only in Christ that
God receives us. As long as you think you're somebody,
you're not going to lie with your face in the dust before
God. You're not going to beg Him for mercy and for forgiveness. You're not going to be seeking
the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness alone. Because
you think you're somebody. You think that there's something
that you can do to please Almighty Holy God. My title this morning
is Christ the Blessed Man. We're going to have three points
this morning. First, that we must be found
in Christ. Second, we'll see that it's Christ
who is the blessed man spoken of here in this psalm, and that
it's in Christ that the believer is blessed. Alright? It's in
Christ that the believer is blessed. And third, we're then going to
consider a few points on the ungodly spoken of at the end
of the psalm. So, Point one, found in Christ. Second, Christ the blessed man.
And then third, the ungodly, the sinner, and the scorner. All right, so Psalm 1-1 says,
blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the
scornful. Now, one of the first things
you notice here in this verse is that there's a contrast going
on here between the blessed man and the ungodly, the sinner,
there in that verse, all right? The carnal, the worldly person
who does not know God. There's a contrast being given
here in this first verse so that we are to understand that the
man who is blessed of God will be found in Jesus Christ. Paul wrote to the Ephesians in
1 3, this is what he said, Blessed be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ. That's important. That's where
God blesses his people, in Christ. If you're not in Christ, then
you're not blessed. Now I realize there may be someone
sitting here today saying, you know preacher, I don't think
I agree with that statement. I've got a good education. I've
got a good job. I've got prospects and opportunities
before me in my life. I think I'm pretty well blessed.
Things have gone well for me for the most part in life. So
I think I'm blessed. I don't think I understand what
you're talking about, how that it's in Christ alone that we're
blessed. That may be so that things seem
to be going well for you here in this life, but it may just
be that if God, well it will be that if God does not deliver
you out of this dark kingdom into his glorious kingdom, then
you're nothing more than a cow being fattened for the day of
slaughter. If you die without Christ, if
you die in this life without Christ, then you're nothing more
than that which is like a cow being fattened for the day of
slaughter. That's why the scriptures say that even the wicked are
reserved for the day of judgment. So it's only in Christ that we
will be saved. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians,
he said, That day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction
cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they
shall not escape. James was writing, in James 5,
verse 5, he wrote to the rich man, he said, Ye have lived in
pleasure on the earth, and been wanton. Ye have nourished your
hearts as in a day of slaughter. The rich men and the wealthy,
they seem to do well in this life, if you will. They seem
to be able to slaughter those people that are poor and seem
to be simple to them. They have no real respect for
us and they think that we're weak and foolish for believing
on God and that somehow God is a crutch for us or something
like that. So they slaughter now, but it's
them who will be slaughtered in that day. So James writes
to us in James 5-7, he says, brethren, be patient therefore
unto the coming of the Lord. He knows that we see these things
and they would cause us to stumble. And if you read Psalm 73, you
could see that where the righteous man looks on the wicked and he
thinks, why is it that they seem to have everything going well
for them? But then he says, but then I went into the house of
the Lord and then I knew their end. That's when I understood
what is going to become of them. All right? Notice this downward
path. What we see here is that the
blessed man in Christ, he's delivered from that broad road that leads
to destruction. There is a broad road that leads
to destruction. There's many people on it. There's
all your friends are on there. All these people in this life
that you meet, they all seem to be on this broad road. So
that's not an indication that we're blessed. But watch the
path of him that is outside of Christ there in verse one. That
man does walketh in the counsel of the ungodly, that man standeth
in the way of sinners, and he sitteth in the seat of the scornful. These are all actions in the
flesh. You can picture a young man walking by, he's just beginning
his life, he's just beginning his life in business or in industry
and he's kind of going out into the world and someone catches
him as he's about to pass on by and he says, come here son,
let me tell you how to get things done in this world. Let me tell
you how to make friends and how to get business deals done and
how to prosper in this world. And so that person hears those
things and they kind of try them out and they seem to go well
for them and they're like, oh, that's very interesting. I kind
of want to hear a little bit more about this way of the world
and what I can do to improve my status in this life. So that
now he's not just walking by, but eventually he's standing
among them and he's conversing with them and he begins to adopt
and take on their ways. He may not become a drunkard
necessarily, but before long he begins to covet the things
that this world covets. He wants to go on island vacations
and have big houses and boats and fancy cars and go to nice
dinners and that begins to consume him so that that's what he thinks
is reaching some level of status in this life and he begins to
fix his eyes and his attention on those things. And Christ just
drifts off into the background and becomes less and less important
to him because now he's just covening the treasures of this
world. He's not waiting for that day when the Lord shall return.
He wants in this little, tiny, maybe 80 years of life, to have
all that he can get, the best that he can do, and that's what
he thinks is going to satisfy him and save him and be sufficient
in his day. And finally, that person, we
see them sitting in the seat of the scorner, so that now this
person is no longer being taught, but is now one who's teaching
others the same way. He says, you know, you can go
to church. It's okay. You can go to church, but just
know that's just for the sheeple. That's for the people who just
need to be led, not the leaders of this world. Don't worry about
it. Don't get too caught up. get too religious, that'll make
it weird over there. So that's what they begin to
do, and before long that person now is one who's sitting in the
seat of the scorned. The Word of God says that he
is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son. He's Antichrist,
that's a spirit of Antichrist that denies the Father and the
Son. That is Antichrist. Thank God
that He has called us out of this darkness into the kingdom
of His Son. 1 John 2.15 goes on to say, Love
not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any
man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the
lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father,
but is of the world. and the world passeth away, and
the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth
forever." James said, don't you know that friendship with this
world is enmity against God? That's what the love of this
world is. It'll produce in you a hatred
of the true and the living God. Alright, so Psalm 11 says, Blessed
is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the
scornful. Our Lord's Word declares of man,
this is what it says of man, he says that he's wretched, miserable,
poor, blind, and naked. So Revelation 3.18 says, I counsel
thee therefore to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou
mayest be rich, and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed,
and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine
eyes with eyesalve that thou mayest see. Christ is that one,
is that gold that's been tried in the fire. Christ is the one
that makes the poor man rich in him. It's Christ's righteousness
that is that white raiment that covers our shame and our nakedness. It's Christ who is the eyesad
that when applied to our eyes enables us to see these things,
to see that this world, sorry, what you see here in this world
is passing away. These are not, this is not reality. This is a brief moment in time
and it's going to pass away. It's the eternal things which
we see only by faith that those things are eternal and lasting. Only in Christ are we blessed.
If I turn to Matthew 5, Matthew 5, verse 1. Let's start in verse
1. We're going to read the first
12 verses there. And seeing the multitudes, Christ went up into
a mountain, and when he was set, his disciples came unto him,
and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the
poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed
are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are
the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which
do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed
are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are
they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall
revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil
against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad,
for great is your reward in heaven. For so persecuted they the prophets
which were before you. By nature, we're none of those
things until His Spirit effectually calls us out, leads us to Christ,
and teaches us Christ through this Gospel. And He shows us,
He's the one that breaks us from this world. We don't just naturally
get it and just, oh yeah, this world is just all passing away.
It's His Spirit that teaches us over and over again through
this Gospel to see and through the experience that we go through,
the trials, and the afflictions that we go through that just
burn up this dross, that burns up this flesh, so that we see,
you know what, these things are not important. You learn that,
you know, hopefully you learn that at a young age just to see
the vanity of this life and how cutthroat it is. It's not a pretty
place and it's not a place that is going to give you or treat
you well. Even when you arrive, you're
constantly working harder and harder and harder to maintain
that and to get further because it just, it's all against you,
but it's a mercy if you see it and you stop and you realize,
you know what, this is just a lie. This is just nonsense here what
I'm trying to do. And the Lord shows you by grace
and mercy that He is all you need to stand before holy God.
It's a real mercy. And the world though, they'll
hate you. You know, like speakers of the
truth, they're never in fashion. You ever notice that? Like nobody
ever wants to hear someone tell them the truth. It's just never
something that comes into fashion. They took Jeremiah who was warning
them and telling them, look, we're going to go off into captivity.
And they even saw it. I think by that time, when he
was still preaching the truth to them, they had already seen
him come in and take some of the most prominent people away. And yet they still didn't want
to hear what he said, so they took him and they threw him in
a slime pit prison just for preaching the truth. So brethren, you don't
need to focus on what it is that you need to do to stop walking
among the wicked and the ungodly and stop standing among the sinners
and stop sitting among the scorners. Just keep looking to Christ.
Sit under His gospel, hear that gospel, and it's Him who will
turn you. You don't need to focus on making
yourself stand out and focus on being different from them.
You love Christ. When the Lord has your heart,
He's going to deliver you from it. They're not going to want
you walking among them. let alone sitting and standing
among them. They're going to be glad when
you're away, and you'll actually be glad because, just as Paul
said, you'll have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness. You'll see them more and more for what they are, that
there's nothing to them. Alright, our second point. Christ
the blessed man. He's the one that's spoken of
here in Psalm 11 again. Blessed is the man that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. Consider our Lord with
regards to the counsel of the ungodly. John 6.15 says, When
Jesus, therefore, perceived that they would come and take him
by force to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain
himself alone. You didn't care about what they
thought should be done. They wanted to make him a king.
He didn't want to hear it. He wasn't held to their counsel. That isn't what he was following.
Their counsel was for him to be a king. that our Lord does
not walk in their counsel. Now, consider our Lord with regards
to the way of sinners. Hebrews 7.26 says, For such an
high priest became us, who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. The Scriptures
declare that no guile was found in his mouth. He himself committed
no sin. He always did that which pleased
the Father. And because of that, because
he spoke the truth to them, because God spoke to him and he spoke
exactly what God spoke to him, they hated him for it. But to
us who are sinners, we actually do relate to him. The scriptures
say in Luke 15, 1, it says, Then drew near unto him all the publicans
and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes
murmured, saying, this man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.
And it is because his work in their hearts is irresistible,
because he is kind, it's not that he's separate from sinners
so that he'll have nothing to do with us, but those that are
sinners, who know what they are, who have been shown by God that
they are ungodly, unrighteous, unholy sinners, who are vile
and wretched in themselves, that are confessing that, They draw
near to Christ because Christ is sweet to them, He's dear to
them, He's precious to them. He allows them to come near to
Him and He receives them. All who come to Christ seeking
mercy, find it. If you're an ungodly sinner,
go to Christ. He'll never cast you out. Anyone
who seeks Christ for his mercy, Christ receives them to Himself. All right, so they drew near
to him for to hear him and he delivered them from their sins.
Consider our Lord with regards to the seat of scorners. While
our Lord hung there on the cross satisfying God's holy, just law,
satisfying his justice being poured out against him for our
sins, putting them away, Christ remained perfectly faithful in
all of that. When he carried our sins in his
body, he didn't break down and become angry and say, God, why
are you doing this to me? He remained faithful, trusting
the Father, that God heard him, that God would receive him, that
God would raise him from the dead. He never faltered. He never
misstepped. He never stopped believing God.
Think about that. When God forsook him, he continued
to pray to God. He continued to trust God through
that all, while the wrath of God was being poured out upon
him. And not only was he faithful
to God, but he was faithful to his bride. He remained there
on the cross. Satan did everything he could
to get him off the cross. It was Irenaeus, I was reading
once, Irenaeus was saying that Satan at the very end realized
what was happening, and only then he tried to stop it. You
know, when he had Pilate's wife come and say, hey, I had a bad
dream. Don't, you know, let this man go. Don't do anything bad
to him. You know, try to wash his hands of him, to get rid
of him. But nope, it was the determinate counsel of God that
he should go forth, that he should bear the sin of his people and
put it away. But he wasn't done yet. When
he was there on the cross, all these men came by to mock him
and to try and put him to shame. It says in Matthew 27, 39, And
they that pass by reviled Him, wagging their heads, and saying,
Thou that destroyest the temple and buildest it in three days,
save Thyself. If Thou be the Son of God, come
down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests
mocking Him with the scribes and elders said, He saved others.
Himself He cannot save. If He be the King of Israel,
let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him.
He trusted in God. Let Him deliver Him now. if he
will, have him, for he said, I am the Son of God. Christ was
faithful. If that had been you or me, like
I know if it was me, I would have wanted to come down there
and show them, you know, oh yeah, I am the Son of God, I can do
whatsoever I want, I can prove it to you. But had he done that,
then we would have remained in our sins and had to work out
our own salvation, which is no salvation, because we know that
we can't. Can any of us boast of being
this blessed man? Can you honestly look at this
psalm and say, yeah, that's me, I fulfilled all that? No, it's
Christ, Christ alone who has done it. When you consider him,
you know that he is the blessed man. All right, verse two. But
his delight, this blessed man's delight, is in the law of the
Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. There was a scribe who asked
our Lord, saying, what is the greatest of all the commandments?
And our Lord said in Mark 12, verse 29, the first of all the
commandments is, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.
This is the first commandment. And the second is like it, namely
this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other
commandment greater than these. And that's what our Lord did
in fulfillment of love to his neighbor, and loving his people,
He said, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends. The scriptures say that they
liken us to a child who was just cast out from his mother, lying
in a pool of blood. And that's us, helpless, filthy,
vile, polluted. There's nothing in us that God
should love us. And yet the scriptures say that
God has mercy on us sinners who have nothing by which we can
boast or pick ourselves up to present ourselves to God as something
that he should receive. Nope. In spite of us and our
sin, in spite of all the years of religion that you spent, God
doesn't hate you. God called you out of that darkness. and brought you under his gospel.
He's having mercy upon you and grace and feeding you, giving
you the gospel, gathering you together. That's God's mercy. Thank God for that, because only
He does that. Of Christ it says in Hebrews
10, 7, Then said I, Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Above, when he said, sacrifice
and offering, and burn offerings, and offering for sin, thou wouldest
not, neither hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the law."
What that's saying there is, if you, like, you can't offer
a sacrifice by the law that will be pleasing to God. God's not
pleased with our works of the law. So many people think that
We've got to go back to the law and try to please God now. And
he's not pleased by the law. And so it says, Christ said,
then said he, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away
the first, that working of the law, by which we could never
be saved, he takes that away, that he may establish the second,
by the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body
of Christ once for all. So it's Christ that has slain
the enmity, between us by the offering of his own body for
our sin, he fulfilled the will of God the Father. Philippians
2.9 says, Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and
given him a name above every name. That's why we declare Christ
over and over again, because he's the one that has that glorious
name whom God has exalted on high, by which we bow before
God, and through whom we come To present ourselves to God,
it's through Christ. He presents us. He gathers us
and brings us to the Father. All right, in Psalm 1-3 now,
back in our text. He, Christ, shall be like a tree
planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit
in the season. His leaf also shall not wither,
and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Have you ever noticed
how all that we do in his flesh is bring forth dead fruit? We
don't bring forth anything really good or pleasing, certainly not
when we're looking at the works that we do. By nature, Isaiah
says of us, Isaiah 1.30, we are as an oak whose leaf faded. That's that same word withers
there spoken of in Psalm 1.3. Nothing that our Lord does withers,
but we are like that oak leaf that just withers. That's about
all that we can do. We're as a garden that hath no
water. So our works are rotten and they're
corrupt. That's what the flesh does. It
brings forth rotten and corrupt fruit. Um, on my patio, I have,
I like to, I like, I have a little garden on my patio. I have some
tomato plants that I like to keep, you know, just a few extras.
And there was one growing there on the patio and it looked really
nice. And eventually three other ones came up and I had four nice
looking tomatoes. And so I went out there one day,
I was going to pick them and kind of make them up with some
breakfast. And I picked one up. And it looked nice and red, and
I looked at the bottom, and there was that black spot, all rotten
and corrupted and vile. And I went to throw it, and it
just splattered, although it didn't even make it far into
the air. It just splattered and fell apart. And that's us by
nature, brethren. We might look good on the outside.
We might look good from our viewpoint, from our angle. But look at us
more closely, and you'll see that we're nothing but a black
spot, corrupt and vile, and you don't want to have anything to
do with us. Christ said, If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth
as a branch, and is withered, and men gather then, and cast
them into the fire, and they are burned. But here's how we
bear fruit, because we do bear fruit. He says in John 15, 4,
Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except
ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches,
he that abideth in me and I in him. The same bringeth forth
much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing. And there again
is another reason why we preach Christ continually, because without
Christ we can do nothing. As soon as you forget that, he's
merciful and kind to remind us. He brings us once again to fall
on our face to see that we're nothing in ourselves and that
we need him. And that's a mercy. When we were
in religion, we thought, oh, we're being cursed of God. He's
punishing me for my sin. God's not punishing you. He's
keeping you and preserving you and bringing you to himself.
And you see that it's only in Christ do we have anything. It's
only in Christ that we bring forth any fruit that is profitable
to others. All right, so it's only in Christ
shall we be, only in him shall we be like a tree planted by
the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in the season.
His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall
prosper. So it's Christ who brings us
forth as fruit and it's in Christ that we do bring forth fruit
by serving one another, by willingly laying down our lives for one
another, and just being glad to use the gifts that God equips
us with to serve one another, right? Whether it's administration
and just being able to do those things and execute those things
in an efficient manner, and you do that with joy and with gladness,
or you come and you prepare the hymns and you lead the brethren
in singing, or you're asked to read a scripture, you're asked
to pray, and just coming here, just being here present with
the brethren is such an encouragement. And that's how he gathers his
body and he enables us to serve the women. You bring the food
and you provide for one another and the women keep the children
and take care of them. It's all working towards serving
one another and in the hopes that God's body be established
here, that he would put his candlestick here and send forth the gospel
from this place, brethren. Christ said, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground
and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit. And that's what our Lord does,
just like He did. If He stayed alive, that Spirit
would have stayed with Him, would have remained with Him. But because
He laid down His life, not only did He take away our sins, but
now His Spirit goes forth unto each and every one of us. blessing
us and fitting us with various gifts to serve one another. Whatever
Christ does, it shall not wither. Also, it speaks of everything
that he does shall prosper in Isaiah 53 verse 10. Yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed,
he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand. He shall see the travail of his
soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. You know, our ways are so often
frustrated. You know, but his ways are not.
You know, we think sometimes, we think, ah, if this would just
happen, wouldn't it be great? You know, but our ways are so
often, so frequently frustrated so that the things that we think
should happen don't happen. And the Lord uses those to instruct
us, to remind us over and over again that we're but flesh. He's
God, and we must trust him and rely on him and wait for him
because the just shall live by faith. If you could just think
it, and think, yeah, this would be good. And then it all happens
all the time. Like, we wouldn't be living by
faith. We would be thinking, I just need to sort of think
this thing up, and then it's going to be. But now, things
don't go our way, and they don't go on our timetable. But it's
all so that we continue to trust in Him, to pray to Him. There's
a verse that says, when He slew them, then they sought Him. And that seems to be the time
when we really get down on our knees and beg God is when things
aren't going our way. So he uses those. And we see,
we testify, yeah, if everything went my way, man doesn't really
pray that much very often when things are all going his way.
So those things come to wither the flesh because that outward
man, Paul speaks with it, though the outward man perish day by
day. These things just wither us and
they break down that man so that we're not leaning on that and
not having confidence in our flesh. We keep going, being driven
back to the Lord, back to the Lord, back to the Lord. That's
why we go through these adversities and trials and afflictions. Turn
to Isaiah 30 verse 20. Isaiah 30 verse 20. It says there, verse 20, And
though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water
of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into
a corner any more. But thine eyes shall see thy
teachers, and thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying,
This is the way, walk ye in it. Not that way of sinners which
you once walked, but in this way, walk ye in it, when ye turn
to the right hand and when ye turn to the left. Ye shall defile
also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament
of thy molten images of gold. Thou shalt cast them away as
a menstruous cloth. Thou shalt say unto it, Get thee
hence." Isn't that how the Lord teaches us? To see that all those
religious works, they're just a filthy, menstruous cloth. Just
menstruous, rag religion. That's all it is. And then once
you see it, what's in your hand, you just I don't have anything
to do with that, and he drives you to Christ. All right, let's
look at our third point here, the ungodly, the sinner, the
scorner. So in contrast to Christ, the
blessed man, and in contrast to what Christ makes us in him,
right, we look here and we see the ungodly. It says in verse
4, Psalm 1-4, through 6, we'll just read it. The ungodly are
not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners
in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way
of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish."
So there's no place for the ungodly in God's presence. Not those
who think themselves to be righteous, not those who think themselves
to be righteous, but really are full of sin, full of corruption.
There's no place for them before God. When they stand before God,
they'll then see in that day that their righteousness is not
sufficient. They were once wise in their
own eyes, but then terror shall seize them. The way of the righteous
is peace and prosperity and eternal things, but not so the way of
the ungodly. You know, I know a man that's
dying of cancer, and it's such, it really pains me and troubles
me to see him, because when I try to speak to him, you could just
see he has no peace whatsoever and yet he refuses Christ. He's
carrying around this burden. I don't know what he did in his
life but he just will, he refuses to look to Christ and so he just
begins to trash whatever I say and say that's, you're all alike
and that's of the devil and he just curses up a storm about
it to try and offend me and put me off and I can just see how
they are brought into desolation as in a moment they are utterly
consumed with terrors and he's just so fearful and I'm just,
you know, I don't know what to do except pray that there's an
opportunity to speak to him because it's my dad, you know, and I
just wanted to hear the gospel, because that's the only hope
of the sinner. And yet, terror is just seized
upon the ungodly in that moment. You can just see them spiraling
down, having no hope. And so I urge you, you know,
children who don't believe on Christ, look to Him. He is salvation. He is the only hope for sinners. Look to Him. Because it says,
not so the way of the ungodly. And it's so easy in the spring
of our youth to think, you know, things are going my way, and
I don't need that. But if you're the Lord's, He'll
show you. He'll teach you that this way, this world is not lasting. It's going to pass away. And
therein, they'll grasp for some hope. They'll look for some habitation,
for some sure hope. They'll say things, you know,
like, I made a choice. I made this choice. I could have
gone down an evil way, but I went this way. That's why you're born.
And I can say, well, I'm thankful, Dad, that you made that choice.
But don't go before God with that as your hope. Don't stand
before Him because you made a choice to do good. You want to stand
before God in Christ, in His righteousness alone. Don't be
grasping for nonsense. You're nothing but nakedness
and destitute, having no righteousness to cover your shame. Hosea 13.3
says, Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud and as the
early dew that passeth away, as the chaff that is driven with
the whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.
And that day, when they stand before holy God, they'll seek
to stand among that righteous congregation. They'll want to
stand and speak with them. They'll want to stand in that
day of judgment. But the Word of God says they shall not stand
in the day of judgment. And that day they'll seek to
be sitting there among the righteous, but there will be no place found
for them. And they'll be cast out naked
and ashamed. They trusted in their own flesh. They didn't want to hear the
voice of God in that day. And so the last thing they'll
hear is, depart from me, ye workers of iniquity. I never knew you."
And that'll be a terrifying thing to hear. Turn to Jeremiah 17.
We're going to be ending here in Jeremiah 17. Jeremiah 17, verse 5, it says,
Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth a man,
and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the
Lord. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall
not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places
in the wilderness, in a salt land, and not inhabit it. That's
the way of the ungodly. Don't look to your heart, and
don't trust in yourself. look to Christ. That's why Christ
came to put away the sin of the sinful. That day, that final
day is fast approaching. It's going to come upon us suddenly.
It may be for you alone and someday you have a car crash or something
like that, or the Lord will just stop your breath, or it might
be in that final day when we're all, when it all comes to an
end for us all. Don't refuse Christ. Look to
him today. Today is the day of grace, the
day of salvation. Jeremiah 17, 9 says, The heart
is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can
know it? I, the Lord, search the heart.
I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways
and according to the fruit of his doings. You want to be judged
for your righteousness? That's how God will judge you,
according to the fruit of your doings. To the wicked, those
whose righteousness is sufficient in their own eyes, the psalmist
says, not so the ungodly. They are not planted, they shall
not bring forth fruit, they shall wither, and they shall not prosper. Proverbs says, there's a way
that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways
of death. So the way of the ungodly shall
perish. It's the way of death. Now hear
the way of the righteous there in Jeremiah 17, verse 7. Jeremiah
17, 7 and 8. Blessed is the man that trusteth
in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is, for he shall be as a
tree planted by the waters and that spreadeth out her roots
by the river and shall not see when he cometh. But her leaf
shall be green and shall not be careful in the year of drought,
neither shall cease from yielding her fruit. I love those last
phrases because Even though the Lord brings his people through
trials and adversities, doesn't he give you a heart to care for
one another? And even though you're going
through a drought in and of yourself, you know, you're going through
some hard time, yet the Lord opens up your hand and you're
willing to serve one another and be there for one another
and think about others who have a need, even though you yourself
have a need. And yet the Lord gives you that
heart to think of one another and to lay down your lives for
one another. So brethren, it's Christ, it's
in Christ that we're blessed. He alone is the blessed man,
turning us from this world's vain thoughts and we would never
have known, but he did all the work of blessing us and calling
us to himself, fitting us with these gifts, giving us faith
and hope and love in him. And that we're willing to look
at that religion, that menstruous rag religion and throw it away
and give it all up that we might win Christ and have him and rest
there in him, knowing in that final day we shall stand and
that the Lord is pleased with us in Christ under his blood. I pray the Lord bless his word
to the heart of his people. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
Father, we thank you for your mercy. Lord, you know how weak
and simple and frail we are and that we have no good thing to
please you, all but the blood of Christ. makes us able to stand
before you in faith and in full assurance that we are now righteous
with God and that there's no more spot or wrinkle or blemish
in us that Christ has washed us clean and made us white as
snow and that we are the righteousness of Christ and can stand before
you. We pray, Lord, that you convince these sinners here. Lord, convince us all of our
need of Christ and His sufficiency enable us to flee to Him. We
pray this in Jesus' name, our Lord and Savior. Amen.