Let's open our Bibles together
to Proverbs 31. I just want to say again how
encouraged I am with the desire that the Lord has given you to
meet and to hear the Gospel. and to be a congregation, a fellowship. And your brethren in Orlando
will be praying for you. I look forward to going home
and giving a warm report of what the Lord's doing here. And just
so hopeful and looking forward to what He's going to do. We love you and we're thankful
for you. Some years ago I was driving
through West Virginia and I noticed a minivan in front of me that
had a license plate that said PROV31WF. this woman was driving around
publicizing herself as a Proverbs 31 wife. And I thought, you know, she's
kind of like the guy that wins the medal for being the most
humble in the church, but they had to take it away from him
once he wore it. You know, there's not a believing woman that doesn't
want her life to be like what's described here in Proverbs 31.
But there's not a believing woman that would promote herself as
a Proverbs 31 woman. That all having been said, there's
another meaning to Proverbs 31 that's much richer for you and
for me than to think about it as it describes a particular
woman. And then that is that it describes
the bride of Christ. This is a picture of the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what a glorious picture it
is. This is what we are to strive
for as the body of Christ. And this is what the Lord will
do in a faithful gospel assembly. This is what she'll look like. And so I just thought, you know,
this morning it would be good for you to look at this passage
of scripture and to set your affections on things above where
Christ is seated at the right hand of God and ask the Lord
to make you as an assembly like this woman. The words of King Lemuel. Now that's a this is written
by Solomon and Solomon's mother was Bathsheba and Bathsheba is
obviously counseling Solomon on how to pick a wife and to
avoid the problems that come with having being drawn away
to a harlot but If we only see it as that, then
we must conclude that Solomon didn't learn much from his mother.
Because what did he have? 600 concubines and 300 wives
and his wives took his heart away from the Lord. Solomon didn't follow any of
this advice that he got from his mother. If the Lord enables you to see
yourself as this woman, then he'll develop this character
in every one of his assemblies. So he says, the words of King
Lemuel, that's translated, his name means for God, and all of
God's people, are for God. And so, I hope the Lord will
see us in Lemuel as being for the Lord. Our vote is for the
Lord. Our hope is for the Lord. It
is for His glory and by His grace that we are here. And so, the
words of King Lemuel, the prophecy of His mother, or that His mother,
taught Him. And then she begins, What, my
son? Now here's the Spirit of God
speaking to me and you. Saying, what, my son? What advice should I give you? What counsel should I give you?
You're my son. I gave you birth. And we've already seen that that's
what we are. We're not only the children of
God, but we're brothers and sisters birthed from the same womb, the
womb of the gospel, the womb of the covenant, the womb of
the church has birthed us into the family of God. And so the
Lord said, what counsel shall I give you? and the son of my womb and the
son of my vows. That's what we are. We're the
children of the covenant. The vow. What vow is being referred
to here? It's the vow that God the Father
made with God the Son and God the Holy Spirit in the covenant
of grace before time ever began. God the Father vowed to give
His Son a bride. And in so doing, He chose a particular
people and made them in the covenant. He put them in the covenant.
He put them in Christ. Wrote their names in the Lamb's
Book of Life. The Lord Jesus Christ entered into that vow.
He entered into that covenant. And He agreed to do everything
necessary to redeem His wife unto Himself. And God the Holy
Spirit entered into that vow. And He said, I'll go. I'll go
and I'll make them willing. And I'll put into their hearts
a grace that they won't be able to resist. And a call that will
be effectual. And so we're called the sons
of the womb and the sons of the vowel. And now the Lord is going
to counsel us on how we ought to conduct ourselves as the people
of God. And look what He says, Give not
thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth
kings. Now, obviously, you don't have to
see that the Lord's advising Solomon not to do what he actually
ended up doing. But you know what won't do that? What man won't do that? What
church won't do that? Spiritually speaking, the church
of the Lord Jesus Christ won't go to another woman. The Babylon is called the mother
of all harlots and Babylon is that other woman. She's the one
that we're to avoid. She's the one that we're to stay
away from. She's the one who commits spiritual
prostitution. She's the one who is the spiritual
harlot that would draw men's hearts away from Christ and cause
them to have their affections somewhere else. And so the Lord's
instructing us as a church, don't look at her. Don't look at her. Don't go after her. And once we understand that that's
the woman that the Lord's advising us not to have anything, we say,
well, no, I don't want anything to do with her. The Lord's delivered
me from her. What is Babel? It begins at the
Tower of Babel, doesn't it? And what did the men at the Tower
of Babel say? Let us make a name for ourselves. That's the foundation of man-made
religion. Let us make a name for ourselves.
We're going to promote ourselves. And then the scripture says,
so they had brick for stone and slime for mortar. And they built
this tower trying to get to God with man-made bricks and tar. Now, that word, slime, is the
same word that's used as a pitch for Noah's Ark. You remember
Noah's Ark was pitched within and without and it didn't leak? And that word pitch translated
means covering or an atonement. And so the pitch that Noah used
on the ark, which the ark is a picture of Christ, no question
about that. The reason why the wrath of God
was kept out of the ark was because of the atonement. The atoning
work of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross, putting away
our sin once and for all, and Him standing as our advocate
before the Father. That's the only reason the wrath
of God doesn't come against us. And pitch works really good as
a water repellent on a boat. But it doesn't work well at all
as mortar for bricks, particularly in the desert. Can you just see
this this this tower that they built? They built it with bricks
and tar. And the heat of the sun comes
up. And what happens to those bricks? But in that man made
religion, They don't have the rock, the stone. They make for themselves bricks
fashioned with their own hands. Wasn't that what the children
of Israel were commanded to do when they were under the taskmasters
in Egypt? They were given a quota for making
bricks and they could never measure up to the demands that were placed
on them. And so it is in religion. Men
are put under the law. They're to fashion their salvation
with their own hands, prove their salvation by their own works,
and then take the atoning work of Christ and try to hold the
works together with the atonement. Doesn't stand up, does it? That's
Babylon. That's Babylon. Works and grace. And if it is of grace, it can
no longer be of works. Otherwise, grace is not grace.
You cannot mix works and grace. But that's what religion does.
They give lip service to Christ. They say, oh, we need the atonement.
And they say you're not under the law, but then they put you
under the law. They monitor your lives. They intimidate you. They're not like the Timothy
we just looked at. That's Babylon. And what's the
Lord saying? Stay away from that woman. Don't
have anything to do with her. She's going to meet her end when
the Lord returns. Babylon, oh Babylon, has fallen. Isn't that what Scripture says
in Revelation? She's the great harlot. that
has drawn away the kings of the earth? And the Lord's instructing
us to say, remain faithful, remain faithful to the church of the
Lord Jesus Christ, to the gospel, and have nothing to do with that
woman who will put you under the law and put you under works.
She's trying to hold together The bricks that she's made with
her own hands with the atonement. And that's not what the atonement
is for. The atonement is not for holding together your works.
The atonement stands all by itself. And it's the only thing that
can hold out the wrath of God. Give not thy strength unto women,
nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings. You know, religion is
complicated. It really is. In religion, they'll
say, well, you're not under the law. But then you turn around
and everybody's monitoring everybody else, and everybody's intimidating
one another, and they really are putting you under the law,
aren't they? They want you to prove your salvation by your
words, which is just legalism. And then free will religions,
they'll say, well, you know, God's sovereign. He's omnipotent. He's all powerful until He comes
up against your free will. And then His hands are tied.
And the omnipotent God becomes impotent. And he can't do anything
unless you let him. That doesn't even make sense.
You can't make sense out of religion. Any more than you can make sense
out of nonsense. It's just a contradiction. Contradictions
don't make sense. And that's the woman that the
Lord's telling us to stay away from. Stay away from Babylon. Babble is always babbling, isn't
it? Babbling this, babbling that, talking out of both sides of
her mouth. Stay away from her. Don't have anything to do with
her. She will destroy you. Verse 4,
For it is not for kings. Now the scripture says that God
has made His people to be kings and priests. Now that means we have a place in the family of
God and we have direct access to God in the Lord Jesus Christ. Each one of us. Men, again, priestcraft
is practiced in every form of Babylonian religion whereby People
are told, if you're going to get to God, you're going to have
to come through. You're going to have to come through this
man. Don't believe it. Don't have anything to do with
that woman. You don't need another man to
get to God. You've got the God-man. He's interceding on your behalf.
But people are drawn to priestcraft because it relieves them of the
responsibility of having to deal directly with God. I've actually
heard elders say, we might be wrong, but you still have the
responsibility to do what we tell you to do, and if we're
wrong, we'll answer to God for that. That's foolishness. Don't believe it. It's a lie.
It's priestcraft. But people love priestcraft because
it relieves the man in the pew of responsibility and it gives
the man in the pulpit power. And the Lord says, that's another
woman. Stay away from her. That's Babylonian
religion. Give not thy strength. Give not
thy strength to that woman. Don't give up your access to
God. by submitting to the authority
of another man. Nor thy ways to that which destroyeth
kings. It is not for kings, O Lemuel,
it is not for kings to drink wine. Now, there's no prohibition
in the Scriptures about drinking wine. Obviously, it's shameful
to be drunk, but the Lord's not saying if you're a believer,
you can't partake of alcohol. So, this is a spiritual book. You know that, don't you? This
is a book about Christ and the Gospel. What does the Lord tell
us in 1 John 2, verse 1? Try the spirits. It's not by mistake that alcohol
is called spirits. Try the spirits to see whether
they be of God. What happens when a man becomes
intoxicated? You find out what's really in
his heart, don't you? The words of a drunk man are
the thoughts of a sober man. He just loosens his tongue, doesn't
he? And the Lord's talking about
being intoxicated with religion. How do you know if a person's
intoxicated? Listen to what they say. Listen
to their speech. You can tell. You talk to a person
who's drunk, you know right away they're drunk, don't you? By
the way, they talk. And the Lord said, it's not for
kings to be partaken of that spirit. That's a bad spirit. And it robs you of your hope. It robs you of your peace. It
robs you of your joy. Don't have anything to do with
her. It is not for kings, O Lemuel,
it is not for kings to drink wine, nor princes to drink strong
drink. What's going to happen if you
do that? How do I know if I've partaken of a bad spirit? Well, here's what happens. Lest
they drink and forget the law. They forget the law. Now, the
intoxicated harlot of Babylon will tell you that forgetting
the law is living a life of disobedience. That's not what forgetting the
law is. Forgetting the law is forgetting what the law requires.
What does the law require? Does the law require your obedience? Well yeah, in a sense I guess
you could say it does. The law requires perfect obedience. And men forget the law when they
lower the standard of the law down to something that you can
do. Or they pretend to be keeping the law themselves. Or they put
a yoke on you that they themselves are not able to bear. That's
when they forget the law. A drunk man forgets the law by
putting you under the law. A drunk man forgets the law by
forgetting the standard of the law. The standard of the law,
you've never ever kept one of God's laws one time, and you
can't. But if you're drunk, if you're
intoxicated with the spirit of Babylon, and you've messed with
that woman, you're going to think, well, you know, I can at least
get a little bit closer to keeping the law than I am now. No, you
can't. There's only one way to keep
the law. That's the faith of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the only one that ever kept
the law. Resting in Him, looking to Christ who is the author and
the finisher of your faith. Men, Romans 10, go about trying
to establish their own righteousness through their own keeping of
the law. ignorant of the righteousness of God, they don't understand
the law. They forgot the law. For Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. You
want to keep the law? Look to Christ. He's the only
one that ever did it. He did it perfectly. We don't
crack the whip of the law at one another, do we? That's what the intoxicated spirit
of Babylon does. It forgets the law. Lest they drink and forget the
law and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. Have you ever had the spirit
of Babylon pervert the judgment of the spirit
of the afflicted? Here I am, I'm afflicted by my
sin. I'm reminded every day of my
violation of the law. I can come to no other conclusion
than Job came to. Behold, I am vile. I can come
to no other conclusion than what the apostle Paul came to when
he said, In me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
I can come to no other conclusion than what Isaiah came to when
he said, Woe is me, I am undone. My eyes have seen the King. I'm
a dead man. I'm afflicted by my sin. Now,
if you're going to put me under the law through the Spirit of
Babylon, then you're causing me to pervert the judgment of
my affliction. You're changing my judgment.
In other words, you're forcing me to lie to myself. That's what
that means. You're forcing me to lie to myself
and to tell me, you know, everything's okay. I'm doing all right. I'm
better than those folks at least. That's what the spirit of Babylon
does. The intoxicated spirit of Babylon causes you to forget
the law and forces you to pervert the judgment of your affliction
over your sin. And there's only one way that
my sin can be judged. And that's through the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The only covering for my sin
before God is the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
oh, what great hope I have in knowing that He has separated
my sins from me as far as the east is from the west and remembers
them no more. What great hope I have in knowing
My brethren, I write these things unto you that you should know,
but if any man sin, he has an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ, the Righteous One. I've got a righteous advocate
before God who pleads my case and presents himself for all
my righteousness. I'm not going to forget the law.
I'm not going to pervert the judgment that comes against my affliction.
I'm going to look to Christ for all my judgment, to get relief
from my affliction. Verse 6, Give strong drink to
him that is ready to perish, and wine to those that be of
a bidder. You look up that word heavy,
it's the word bidder. Let those who have a bitter heart.
Let those who know nothing about the love of Christ. Let those
who have forgotten the law. Let them drink that drink all
they want. They've got a bitter heart. But I've taken out your
heart of stone. I've put in a heart of flesh.
I've given you the love of Christ. And that spirit, that strong
drink is not going to be sufficient for you. You just want to hear about your
Savior, don't you? You want to hear about what He's
done for you. Let him drink and forget his
poverty. You see, when you drink of that
intoxicating Spirit of Babylon, which is a mixture of law and
grace, the building of your bricks, along with the atoning work of
Christ, It's an attempt to try to mix law and grace. You drink of that spirit, you're
going to forget your poverty. You're going to forget that you
don't have anything. You're going to forget that you
can't save yourself. You're going to forget that you don't have
any righteousness. You're going to forget that your only hope
before God is in the glorious person and finished work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. You will forget that. What the
Lord is saying to you and me is, leave her alone. Don't have
anything to do with her. You know what? One time the disciples
came to the Lord and they said, Lord, you've offended the Pharisees. And the Lord said, leave them
alone. They are blind guides leading
the blind. They're all going to fall into
the ditch. Let them drink of that wine all they want. Just
leave them alone. Let him drink and forget his
poverty and remember his misery no more. Let him lie to himself and tell
him that I'm okay. You can't do it. God's taught you the gospel,
you can't lie to yourself. There's a place in Isaiah where
Isaiah said, my children will not lie. They will not lie. Isn't that true? We can't tell a lie about God.
We can't tell a lie about ourselves, can we? We can't tell a lie about
how it is that God is pleased to save sinners. We know that
God is holy. We know that we have no righteousness. We know that the only hope of
our salvation is through the finished work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's our only hope. We've got
no place else to go. We've been shut up to Christ.
And the Lord says, He's saying to His bride, now you remember,
Bathsheba is counseling Solomon about those women out there. And the Lord is saying to His
church, stay away from her. Now look at verse 8. He's not
saying, have no concern for them that are in Babylon. Look what
He says in verse 8. Open thy mouth for the dumb,
all the case of all such as are separated to destruction. Pray for them. They can't pray
for themselves. They don't know they're lost. They're dumb. They can't speak
to God. They don't know God. They have
no access to the throne of grace. You do. Intercede for them. Ask God to have mercy on them. That's all the Lord is saying
here. Open thy mouth and judge righteously. Judge righteously. Make righteous
judgments. We're not interested in being argumentative and judgmental
just for the sake of proving ourselves to be right. But we
do want to make righteous judgments for our own salvation. We want
to discern the difference between that which is true and that which
is not. And the Lord says, make righteous
judgments. Open thy mouth, judge righteously,
and plead the cause of the poor and the needy. Now, I want to
make this point. I spent many years in religion,
as many of you did, and religion is all about commitment. Look it up. The word commitment
is nowhere to be found in the word of God. It's nowhere to be found. Now, the Bible speaks of committing
your soul unto Him, but the word commitment, as far as boosting
your resolve to be more committed, that's nowhere to be found in
the Scriptures. Now, the reason I want to make a point of this
is because the Lord calls you out together to be a church,
there's going to oftentimes be thoughts about people, well,
they're just not committed. they don't have the commitment
that they need to have and because they kind of have a take it or
leave it attitude about services or you know you can't get them
to be faithful the problem is not their commitment the problem
is their need that's it and your problem and my problem
has nothing to do with commitment when it comes to following after
Christ, or being here to support the ministry of the gospel, it
has nothing to do with commitment. It has everything to do with
being poor and needy. If God makes you poor, and if
you have a need, you're going to be where the food is. You're
going to be there. That's just the way it is. It
has nothing to do with commitment. Don't even think that. That's
what religion is all about. How can we make them to get more
committed? Or what can I do to make myself
more committed? It has nothing to do with commitment.
It has everything to do with how poor am I and how needy am
I. Blessed are the poor in spirit. You can look up that word poor.
It doesn't mean I can't make my mortgage payment this month
or I have to get an extension on my electric bill. That's not
what poor means here. It means I don't have two pennies
to rub together and I don't have a stitch of clothing on my body.
I am naked. I am destitute. I've got nothing. Nothing. I'm poverty stricken. I don't have a bite of food to
eat. I don't have any clothing. I don't have shelter. I've got
nothing. Now my question to you is, is
that your condition before God? Because if it is, if it is, that's
who the gospel is for. Lord, I can't clothe myself. I can't cover my nakedness. I
can't feed myself. Did the Lord not say, Suffer
the little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of
God. Lest you become as a little child, you should not enter the
kingdom of heaven. He wasn't talking about two and
three and four year olds. He was talking about infants.
Now those two little precious girls, they can find their way
over there to the cookies and help themselves. But you take
a six-month-old or a six-week-old, they can do nothing for themselves. And you set them down and they
will die right there, unless you care for them. Unless you become like that,
you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Lord, I can't feed
myself. I can't clothe myself. I can't
walk. I'm dependent upon Christ for everything. Everything. And the Lord says, plead for
the poor and for the needy. Pray for each other. Pray for
those out there that are dumb, that can't pray for themselves.
Ask God to have mercy upon them and pray for one another. Intercede
on behalf of each other because you're all poor. We're all poor.
We're all needy. Look at verse 10. Who can find
a virtuous woman for her price is far above rubies? Where are
you going to find a group of folks like this? How far do you have to drive
to find another assembly of believers that understand this and that
believe this? Gospel church is a rare thing.
Religion is not rare. Religion is on every street corner.
You come to our church, you can drive one, two, three, four,
five, six churches within a block, one block of our church. There's
one on every street corner around our church. Religion is that
you can find a gospel church, as far as I know, Well, we can
drive to Sarasota, that's two and a half hours away, and find
an assembly of believers there. Otherwise, I've got to drive
to North Carolina. Who can find a virtuous woman? It's hard to find. If you find
her, marry her. Marry her. You find this woman, You marry her. Her price is far above rubies
and the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. Who's her husband? Christ? The Lord Jesus Christ trusts
his wife? We were talking during the break
about some of the experiences that we've had with these mean-spirited,
hard-hearted, whip-cracking elders who like intimidating men. The Lord Jesus Christ never did
that. The harlots, the publicans, the
worst of society were drawn to Him like a magnet. No sinner
has ever been intimidated by the Lord Jesus Christ. Why would
a man who pretends to stand representing Him be intimidating? The Lord wasn't that way. He drew men. He drew sinners
to Himself. You know who was intimidated
by Christ? The Pharisees were. The self-righteous were. The
sinners weren't. They were drawn to him. The heart of her husband doth
trust her. He loves her. He trusts her. He doesn't intimidate
her. He doesn't put her under the
law. He doesn't threaten her. He trusts her. God's people trust each other.
Pastors trust God's people. And God's people trust their
pastor. Our relationship, every relationship
is built on trust, isn't it? But you can't trust a person
who's intimidating you. You can't trust a person who's
demanding something from you. You can't trust a hypocrite who's
pretending to live a better life than you. The heart of her husband trusts
in her so that he has no need of a spoil. Isaiah chapter 53, and we'll
finish. This whole chapter is about the church. Just read it. You can see it. He doesn't have
a need to go out and get the approval of men anywhere else. He's got his wife. Isaiah chapter
53, God saw the travail of his soul and was satisfied and divided
unto him a portion of the spoil. Turn to me. We'll close with
this passage. Look at Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53, verse 11. He, God the Father, shall see
the travail of his soul. The Lord Jesus Christ, the only
one that ever experienced Here's another thing that that intoxicating
spirit of Babylon will do. Well, you need to feel more sorry
for your sin. It's impossible. You can't. You can't experience the sorrow
for your sin that God requires. You can't even get close. People wallow in the guilt and
shame of their sin for the purpose of atoning for themselves. It's
just penance is all it is. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one who experienced the weight of sin. And that's what
he experienced on the cross. And that's what he prayed to
the Father. Father, if there be any way this cup can pass
from me. He knew that when he drank the bitter dregs of the
cup of God's wrath, he was going to experience the full weight
of your sin and my sin. The shame of it. And God saw the travail of his
soul and was satisfied. God's not satisfied with our
sorrow. Our sin is so much worse than
we could ever imagine it to be. Ever imagine it to be. God saw
the travail of His soul and was satisfied. For by His knowledge,
the Lord Jesus Christ had knowledge of your sin and my sin, like
we don't have any knowledge of our sin. We're so used to sinning,
we don't even know when we do sin. We only are convicted when
we do something really bad. He had knowledge of sin. By His
knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for He
shall bear their iniquities. as a reward. Therefore will I
divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the
spoil with the strong." What's the spoil? It's his church. Her
husband has no need for spoil. Why? Because he's already got
his spoil. What's his spoil? His bride.
That's his spoil. God gave him his bride as a reward
for what he accomplished on Calvary's cross. That's his spoil. Because he hath poured out his
soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he
bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
The Lord Jesus Christ bore our sins, put them away, satisfied
God's justice, finished the law. One to Himself, His bride. Where can you find a virtuous
woman? Pray Lords, raise Him one up
here. If He is, the poor and the needy,
the poor and the needy, We'll find a place. Our Heavenly Father, we're so
very thankful for the revelation that You've given us of Christ
and Your church in Your Word. Lord, how we do hope that Your
Holy Spirit would enlighten the eyes of our understanding and
cause us to set our affections on Christ Lord, we do pray that
you would call out a man after your own heart and that you would
be pleased to plant a gospel witness here for your glory. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.