this in just a moment. This is 40 verses in this chapter,
and we're going to go through this chapter, but I wanted to
preface that there's a lot of this that's kind of reiterating
some of the things it says before, so it's not a total verse by
verse. I don't have 40 points. Let's
just put it that way. Psalm 37. The psalmist writes, fret not thyself
because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers
of iniquity, for they shall soon be cut down like the grass and
withered as the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good,
so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires
of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in him, and he shall
bring it to pass. He shall bring forth thy righteousness
as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord,
and wait patiently for him. Fret not thyself because of him
who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked
devices to pass. Cease from anger and forsake
wrath. Fret not thyself in any wise
to do evil. Look down at verse 16. that a righteous man hath is
better than the riches of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked
shall be broken, but the Lord upholdeth the righteous. The
Lord knoweth the days of the upright, and their inheritance
shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in
the time of evil. In the days of famine they shall
be satisfied. The wicked shall perish, and
the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs, and they
shall be consumed. Into smoke shall they consume
away. The wicked borroweth and payeth
not again, but the righteous showeth mercy and giveth. For
such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth, and they that
be cursed of him shall be cut off. The footsteps of a good
man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way.
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the
Lord upholdeth him with his hand. I have been young, and now am
old. Yet I have not seen the righteous
forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. He is ever merciful and
leadeth, and his seed is blessed. Depart from evil and do good.
dwell forevermore. For the Lord loveth judgment,
and forsaketh not the saints. They are preserved forever. But
the seed of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall
inherit the land." In John 6, how he tried his disciples, he
preached the gospel He fed those 5,000 and had, I mean, consider
this, there was only 12. Maybe a little bit more than
that. Maybe there were about, at that time, maybe about 100 or
so followers. I mean, very few, right? He was
the Christ, and he only had 100 and plus. Well, he fed those
5,000, and all of a sudden, he had 10,000 followers. That seemed
pretty good, right? When the Lord preached the gospel,
guess what? They lost the 10,000 plus the other 100. And there
were only 12 left. What was he doing? He was trying
their faith, wasn't he? And he asked them this question.
Now listen to me. If you're in a trial, the Lord
asks you a question. Listen. Will you go away also? You don't understand. You don't understand why you're
hurt? You don't understand why you're sick? You don't understand
what's going on? And the Lord asks you, well,
are you going to go away? What's your answer? Mine is the
same as him. Where else am I going to go? When faith is tried, it has no
place else to go but Christ. You see why the wicked prosper
and the righteous suffer? To try your faith. To make sure
that you know it's real. So, I know I gotta move on here. Let's go ahead. Skip down to
the first precept here. So if you believe on Christ,
know this, your faith is going to be tried. The wicked will
prosper. You just mark that down. Listen
to me. They will prosper. Everything they touch turns to
gold. And everything you touch turns to mess. When that happens, What are you
to do? Eight precepts given in this
chapter. First one is very clear. Threat not because of evildoers. When we are in great trouble,
when we are laid low by the sovereign providence of God, and our flesh
begins to look around us at our lot in life and compare it to
theirs, when we see their prosperity, their beauty, their comforts,
their carelessness. We see the outward joy and strength
of false religion, we begin to fret. This word fret, it does have
an anxious connotation to it, but it means to burn, to envy, to envy. He's saying don't envy them. Do not envy them. This is a wisdom. This is a precept. Do not fret
because of evil doers. Do not be envious of them. Instead
of being envious, the lost wicked man should be viewed in horror. seeing they are laid down with
the trappings of the world, seeing they are in bondage to sin, and
they are under the condemnation of God. Though ignorant of it,
they are still under the condemnation of God. I remember the story of the emperor
who had this critic of his. always criticizing him, being
the emperor. And he said, well, you know,
what is your trouble? You sit here all day and eat, and you
have anything you want. And he said, well, come here,
I'll show you what it's like to be the emperor. And he made
him an honorary emperor for the day. He sat there, he said, sit
in my throne. Here, I'm going to bring all
the food you want. And that guy was happy for a
moment, until he noticed above his head there was a sword. tied
with a horse hair. He was not allowed to move. If that sword would have fell,
it would have fell straight on him. This is what the wicked
don't understand. The sword of justice stands over
their head, waiting to fall in a moment. They are enjoying all the pleasures
of the world and have no idea above their head hangs the sword
of God. So they should not be envied. Rather, they should be
pitied. Jesus said it's easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter
the kingdom of heaven. What does He mean? Not just physical
riches, but somebody who is self-righteous. Somebody who is rich in self-righteousness. Somebody who is rich in the things
of the world, yes. Very few of those ever come to
Christ. What Christ was saying is this,
it's impossible for men to save themselves. It's impossible. All the comforts and outward
joys, listen, they are fleeting. Have you found that out? David in this psalm is an old
man. He said, I was young once. Now I'm old. What do you notice
when you get old? Do you notice that the joys,
tickled your fancy when you were young have no interest now. Why? Because they fleed away
the joys of this world that they indulge themselves in. Why would you envy such a person? Can you think of one good reason
you would want to be in their shoes? Look what he says in verse 2.
They shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the
green herb. Our Lord gave that history, a
parable of the rich man. The rich man had, the scripture
says in Luke 12, that his ground flourished. Now who makes the
ground to flourish? man planted some crops and his
crops man he had he planted one seed and he got ten who did that
God did that for him didn't he This man says, he filled up his
barns and he says, ah, my barns are full. You know what I'm going
to do? I'm going to tear these barns down and I'm going to make
builders, big, big, big barns now, great barns, stupendous
barns, magnificent barns. See them walk around like a peacock?
You see these men walk around like peacocks? They have everything. And then they prosper more. What did the Lord say to him?
Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required thee. Who shall
these things be? Seeing that the lost and wicked
have nothing but judgment over them, and all their riches shall
soon be done away with. Do you realize that when we this
generation passes, nobody's going to really know we've even been
here. You realize that? All the striving you do, all
of the work you do, all of the industrious things you do, and
then pretty soon nobody's even going to remember that you existed.
I drove by the cemetery today, I looked at all those names,
didn't know anybody. I know Eric's out there. Other than that, I
didn't know anybody. Seeing the dates on some of those,
you know what? Nobody in their family knows
them either. You see why it's not right to envy them? Why? They shall soon perish. That's
the first precept. You're troubled by the wicked?
You're troubled by the suffering of the righteous and the prosperity
of the wicked? Don't! Secondly, look at verse 3. Here's
the second precept. Trust the Lord and do good. Trust the Lord. Mark this down. Faith is the
cure for fretting. Faith in Christ. Not faith in your faith. Don't
misconstrue that. If you start looking at your
faith, there's only more fretting. But faith in Christ is the remedy
and cure for anxious thought. The eyes of the flesh look at
how things appear. Isn't that true? You look around
and you see how things appear to be. But faith in God tells
us how things really are. Trusting Christ tells us how
things really are regardless of how it appears. It doesn't
matter how it appears. Faith tells us this, Christ has
died. Christ has risen. Christ is my
mediator. He is my intercessor. He has
given me His Spirit. He has given me faith and nothing
is going to remove me from His love. That's what faith says. Why? Because faith has faith
in the Word of God. Not in what we see. In other
words, the precept is this. Don't trust what you see or what
you feel. Trust God. Faith sees that Jesus Christ
has borne my sin. Now you got that? He's already
done it. Faith sees this. It's already done. Is that how
you feel? Do you feel like your sin is
removed from you? Scripture says, God has removed
our sin as far as the east is from the west. Now, that's true,
but that's not how I feel. What are you to do? Trust God,
or trust how you feel? Scripture says, trust the Lord.
Why? That removes all anxiousness
about sin. Christ bore my sin. He's made
me righteous. He has redeemed me from the law.
He has purged my sins. He has robed me in His righteousness. He has made me acceptable before
God by His one offering. Faith sees this, that we have
real peace. When you are in the midst of
trials, you do not feel at peace. It's chaos. To me it feels like I'm in a
tornado. Like everything is spinning around
me. And there's no order for anything.
I don't see order. I see chaos. I see random events
here and random events here. I mean, whoever thought that
what happened in Texas this week, that those poor children were
just killed. Who would have thought that?
Nobody. Wouldn't their right mind would
have sent their children if they'd known that. It appears chaotic. But what does faith tell me?
Faith tells me it's not chaotic. It's ordered. Faith tells me God is ruling
over all things. Faith sees Christ on the throne,
not wringing His hands, but ordering all things after the counsel
of His own will. That's what faith sees. Jesus said, Peace I leave with
you, my peace I give unto you. The peace that he made with God,
he said, that's the peace I give you. Now do you have peace with
God? If you believe on Christ, listen
to me, you have peace with God. You have it. Therefore being
justified by faith, we have peace with God. So when you feel like
you don't have peace, What are you to do? What's the precept?
Trust the feeling? Trust what men say? Trust what
the world says, religion says? Or, hey, no, I think I'll just
trust Him. Trust the Lord. And listen, do
good. Trusting the Lord will always
produce this. Do good. All who have true faith
in Christ long for true obedience. Is that not true of you? Do you
not long for obedience? Do you not long to serve your
God? You do. But we know this, that
this only works from the inside out. Without trusting, there
can be no good works. You just can't. Every good work
must be done in faith. Not trusting the work. Trust
the Lord. He didn't say trust the work
and do good. Trust yourselves. Trust your
feelings. Trust the circumstance. Trust
the providence. No. Trust the Lord. Regardless
of those things and what? Whatsoever thou find fine to
do, do with all your might as unto the Lord. Do good. And notice
the benefits He gives. You're going to dwell in the
land. What does this mean? You're going to have eternal
life. Who trusts Christ? Who believes
solely on Christ? Alone! Without any hope in yourself! You got no hope in yourself?
None whatsoever! Who do you trust? I trust Christ. Listen, you shall dwell in the
land. And that's what he's talking
about, that land flowing with milk and honey. He's talking about
Canaan, which is a picture of what? Heaven. You shall dwell
in heaven. How short is this time we got
here? How short? Listen, it was short
when we first came in. It's much shorter now, isn't
it? So what is our hope? What are
we to be looking for? More of this stuff? We're not
looking for more of this stuff. Why? We shall dwell in the land.
And listen, until then, thou shalt be fed. God promises all
who trust Him to be fed. When I think of being fed, I
think of the Shepherd Psalm. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me
beside the still waters. Listen, this part really always
gets me. He prepares a table before me. Where? In the presence of mine enemies.
I think it's just the Lord showing off. He's like, I dare you. to touch one of them. It's like
taking your sheep and putting them down in a wolf's den and
then daring the wolves to take them. What do you do? Fret? Are you
going to fret about the wolves? Why? That's where the Lord prepared
my table. You think He's going to let them
get to me? Trust the Lord. And what? I'll feed you. What
does He feed you with? He feeds me with Himself. His
body is my food. His blood is my hope. His presence is all I want. It's
all I need. I have Him. What else do I need? Trust the Lord. Third, look at
this next one. Verse four, delight thyself in
the Lord, and he shall give thee desires of thine heart. Believer in Christ, as you trust
the Lord, let us set him deliberately to be our delight. Though in the flesh we will suffer, We still may have joy in the
midst of our suffering, if what? If the Lord is our joy. What happens when you set joy
on things? What happens to it? Does it last? It doesn't last. That's why they
call it happiness, because happiness depends on happenstance. What
happens to you determines your happiness, whether you have it
or you don't. Joy depends on nothing that happens. It depends on a person. It depends
on Christ. Christ is my delight. Christ
is my joy. You know we like to sing, we
at least use the tune of this hymn. We don't have it in the
book. Listen to this, how tedious and tasteless the hours when
Jesus no longer I see. Sweet birds, sweet prospects,
sweet flowers have all lost their sweetness to me. The midsummer
sun shines but dim and the fields strive in vain to look gay. But when I am happy in Him, Decembers
as pleasant as May, content with beholding His face, my all to
His pleasure resign, no changes of season or place can make any
change in my mind. While blessed with the sense
of His love, a palace, a toy would appear, and prison would
palaces prove if Jesus would dwell with me there. If I have
Him, I have joy. The Lord is my delight. This is a precept that we must
constantly be aware of. Don't set your joy on things
here. You can rejoice and have benefit. God gives us these things that
we may enjoy them for a moment, but there's no lasting joy in
any of them. The only joy is in the Lord,
in His presence. We delight in His presence. You see how the wicked delight
in the world. You see how they strive and labor to enjoy the
pleasures of the flesh. As much as they labor for those
things, let us labor to joy in Christ. Paul said, labor to enter into
his rest. Not that we labor for rest, but
we labor to enjoy it. Isn't that something? That you
have to labor to rest. We're a screwball people. We just are. God calls us a peculiar people. You ever need anybody to labor
to rest? And yet we must labor to rest.
We must also labor to delight in our Lord. to see His grace and love, His
willingness to save us, to die in our stead, to see the great
riches of His blood and righteousness, these are the things we need
to delight in. And here is the promise, go back to your text,
delight thyself in the Lord and what? He shall give thee the
desires of thine heart. If the Lord is your delight,
He is what? He's your desire. If you delight in His presence
and His person, you know what He says? I'm going to give you
what you want. I'm going to give you what you
want. I want you! I'm going to give you that. Is
that the desire of your heart? To delight in Him? Well He says,
I'm going to give you that. This is a promise of His. And fourthly, look at this, look
at this next one, verse 5, commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in him and he shall
bring it to pass. Now I tell you, one of the great
causes of sorrow in the church is this, lack of commitment. A lot of believers are kind of
just a loose band, just kind of floating along with no real
commitment to the service of God, to the worship of God, to
the care of other believers. They're just kind of floating
along, no commitment in this generation. Many believers, now
I'm talking about believers, many believers have mistaken
freedom in Christ with freedom from Christ. We have freedom in Christ. We are free from the guilt of
sin. We are free from the power of sin. We are one day hoping
to be free from the presence of sin. We have freedom in this,
that I'm not going to die. I'm not going to perish. I am
free to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. I am free. But yet, you
know what? I'm also bound. I'm not free
from Christ. I'm not free from His rule. We have freedom from the law,
but not the law of Christ. You understand that? You're free
from the law. Are you free from the law of Christ? Are you antinomian? No. No, we're not. Our Lord has given us commandments,
hasn't He? Look at these commandments. We're
talking about commitment. He says, commit thyself. Commit
thy ways unto the Lord. Look at 1 John. 1 John chapter 3, look at verse 22. And whatsoever you
shall ask, you shall receive of him. Why? Because we keep
his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his
sight. What do you mean by that? He's talking about the law of
Moses? Absolutely not. Look, he tells you what he's
talking about. And this is the commandment that we should, number
one, believe on Him. Believe on the name of His Son,
Jesus Christ. Is faith a one-time thing? It's a constant thing, isn't
it? Faith ten minutes ago and faith ten minutes from now will
not help me. I have to believe now. And guess what? I have to
believe now. And I have to believe now. Why? That's His commandment. Isn't
it? Isn't it? You that believe, do
you want to do anything else? Does His commandment bother you?
Is it troubling you? Matter of fact, I fear when I
don't see any faith. My desire is to believe. And
notice the second thing. He said, Love one another as
I gave you commandment. That's a command that is not
troubling, is it? To love one another? It's really
troubling to me when I... If I couldn't love you, that
would be troubling. But if I have number one down,
number two is easy. If I believe on Him and what
He's done for me, then loving you would be easy. And you know
what this produces when we obey His commands, when we have faith
in Him, and we have love to the brethren. You know what that
does? It causes us to want to preach His gospel. We want this
message to be heard. We want others to hear and believe
and receive what great things God has done for us. We preach
His Word. We're committed to it. By God's grace and mercy, I'm
sold out to it. I'm committed to this. I know this, if you believe Him
and you love His people, you're committed to hearing it. You're
committed to preach it to others, wanting others to hear it and
believe. And you're committed to support the ministry of the
Gospel. You're committed because you know the importance of this.
You know that preaching is the only means God has chosen to
save His people. You know that. You know that
that's true. Paul said, Christ sent me not
to baptize. Well, baptism, is it important?
Well, yeah, it's important. The Lord said for us to go and
baptize. He said, but that's not my main purpose here. Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to what? Preach the gospel. Have you ever wondered why the
Lord didn't take you home immediately? Why He saved you? He saved you. You're just as saved. The moment
He saved you, you are just as saved if you live 900 more years. So why give you the space of
900 years or 100 years or 50 years after He saved you? Why?
What's the purpose? Why didn't He just take you home? The purpose is because He has
a people here. And they must hear the word.
How does he do that? Through us. This is it. This is why you're here. You have jobs. You have family. That's not why you're here. That's not why you remain. Now
they may have purpose. Job may provide. That's good.
You need a job. You should have one. You should
have something to bring in the income so you can support and
help others and so forth. But what's the main purpose of
it? It's to support the Gospel. That's it. That's why God left
us here. And so when He says, commit thy
way unto the Lord, He's telling you this. Commit thy whole self
unto the Lord. Isn't that what we've been studying
in Romans 12? Because of the mercies of God present your bodies
a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto the Lord. This
is a precept for fretting. You want to stop fretting? Look,
commit yourself wholly unto His way, unto His service. And what? Trusting Him. Why do
you do it? You don't see much results, do
you? I'm not in the results business. That's not my purpose. The results
come from God, not me. So it doesn't matter if one or
all the earth. It doesn't really matter. What
are we here for? We are here to preach the Word. We must commit ourselves and
our way unto the Lord. This also means this, commit
all providence unto Him. Recognize this, that our God
is sovereign. that your life and the way that
you have traveled is not happenstance. Are you here by accident? Anybody
here? Are you here by accident? You
may not have thought much about it. You may have thought, well,
I just have to be here. Still not accident. God purposed
you to be here. To commit our way unto the Lord
is to trust Him. Look at that, trust also in Him.
And look, what is He going to do? He's going to bring it to
pass, whatever it is. Whatever He determines to do, what is
He going to do? He's going to bring it to pass. Whatever He promised
you, He will bring it to pass. And He shall bring forth thy
righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. What is He going to do as we
commit ourselves? He's going to reveal Christ more
to you. He's going to show you more. Do you know everything
there is to know about Christ? Can you wrap your mind around
so many of these wonderful truths that you know? You know many
things about Him, but you don't know the fullness of it and the
joy of it yet. What's He promised to do? He
said, I'm going to show you. I'm going to show you. Isn't it just reasonable then
to commit ourselves unto Him? It just is reasonable. And I'm telling you, we live
in such a time where the church is not committed. There's so
many people saying, well, you know, I believe the Lord, but
you know what? It's just too inconvenient to
go somewhere where there's worship. It's much more convenient to
listen up there, on that thing. Isn't it? Yet we say, I'm committed. Are
you really? What if Abraham said, I believe
you Lord, but I think I'm just going to stay in Ur of the Chaldees.
I think I'll just stay here. Could you say he really believed?
No. Faith always brings commitment. If you really trust Him. I thought about this, some people
say, you know, well if God wants me to be in a church then He'll
just move all obstacles out of the way. No, He'll probably throw
a bunch in the way. Matter of fact, I remember this
when we were kids, us trying to get to church My dad, my poor
dad, I feel so sorry for him now. All the evil things we tried
to do to get him to stop coming to the church. I mean, we would
just do anything possible, short of getting whipped. We would
push him just to the point of him getting angry enough to whip
us, then we'd have to shut up. But my dad experienced obstacles
to get there. One thing about it, he was committed. And this is what every believer
should, if we really trust the Lord, we should be committed,
regardless of the obstacles. What if a man gives up everything
he's got, comes and moves to where the church and the gospel
is, and he's committed to the ministry, committed to that gospel,
and then God kills him? So what? He did what God required of him. So sometimes we sing this song,
Thy way, not mine, O Lord, however dark it be. O lead me by Thy
own right hand, choose out the path for me. Smooth, let it be,
or rough, it will still be the best. Winding
or straight, it matters not, it leads me to Thy rest. I dare
not trust my lot, I would not if I might, but choose thou for
me, O my God, so shall I walk aright. Take thou my cup and
it with joy or sorrow fill, whatever best to thee may it seem. Choose thou my good or ill."
That's someone who's committed. Thy will be done. I know I've ran out of time. We'll
just have to pick up sometime in the future. I'll just go over
just the ones we went over tonight. Let me get my page back here. First of all, don't fret. Don't
fret because of evildoers. That paradox is always going
to be there. The wicked will prosper and the
righteous suffer. It's always going to be there.
What's your precept? Don't worry about it. Don't fret
about it. Why? They're going to be cut
down like the grass. Why would you envy them? Don't
envy them. What do we do instead? Trust the Lord. Lean your whole
self on Him. And do good. and delight thyself
in him. Desire his presence, ask for
it, and he'll give it. And then commit thy way unto
the Lord. Commit thyself. Would to God
that the church would again commit itself wholly to the service
of God. We are free in Christ, but we're
not free from His rule. We're not free from His commandments.
We're not free from His precepts or His ordinances. We're not
free. Why would you want to be? I don't want to be free from
those things. Those things bring me joy, faith,
love, preaching the gospel, being here with you. Being here with
you, you don't realize it. It is the highlight of my week. This is the highest point of
my week, right here. To be with you. It is. That is the honest truth. I'm telling you that after this,
I go down to the pit again. But this is my joy because Christ
is here with us. He's come here. He's always here.
He's faithful to be here. Is it not reasonable for us to
be faithful? It's just reasonable to commit
our ways unto Him. You ain't going to do that unless
you trust Him. I preached a message one time,
is it safe to trust the Lord? Is it safe? You suppose it's
safe to trust Him? I tell you, it's dangerous not
to. It's only safe to trust Him. I pray God will help us with
these and then we'll, I told you I may want to preach it Sunday,
I guess I'll just preach it again Sunday. Hopefully I'll get through
the first four faster than this, so I can get to the next four. But oh God, bless this to your
hearts and help us not to be anxious and fret, sorrow, trust. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer.