Psalm 52, verses 6 through 9,
the title of the message is, The Righteous. The Righteous. The Scripture here says in verse
6, The Righteous. The Righteous also shall see
and fear and shall laugh at him. Last week we saw this psalm,
the beginning of this psalm, started out by saying it was
a mashil, and we know that that means a psalm of learning, a
psalm of learning. All scripture is given for our
learning, for our reproof, for our correction, for our instruction
in righteousness. The Scriptures of God are given
specifically for His people. He gave them to us. They are
ours, and they are for our learning. And we should avail ourselves
to them. Avail ourselves to God's Word. And it was written that
we should learn concerning this man of hatred, this man Doag,
this man who told Saul concerning David, so that Saul might kill
David, but ended up killing this priest, Ahimelech. Saul ended
up killing this priest because of this evil man, Doag. As a
matter of fact, it was Doag that killed this man and his family
and all the people of that province. This was a wicked man who hated
God, who hated his church. But yet we know this, God is
good. Friends, if someone were to come
into this building tonight and kill every one of us, would God
be any less good? He would be good. He would still
be good. He's always good. His goodness
endureth forever, continually. Moment by moment, we can see,
if we're believers in Christ, we see His goodness. We can see
His goodness. Even though men hate us and hate
the gospel and long to destroy the gospel, God even uses them
for our good. God uses their hatred for our
good. Believer in Christ, our God is
good, and His goodness never fails. He never fails to be good. Now, we, on the other hand, do
fail constantly. Matter of fact, I don't even
know what's good. I don't know what's good. Simply
trusting what God says is good. Just simply trusting. We don't
need to put our two cents into this matter. Whatever it is,
God is good to us, to us who are believers in Christ. Flip
over to Jeremiah, chapter 32. Jeremiah, chapter 32. In verse 36, it says, And now, therefore,
thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel concerning this city,
whereof ye say, It shall be delivered into the hand of the king of
Babylon by the sword and by the famine and by the pestilence.
Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whether I have
driven them in mine anger." Is that not amazing? He said, I'll
gather my people even though I'm the one that has driven them
out in mine anger. Oh, friends, we were born sinners.
born guilty, and yet God has allowed, has given us the curse
of our father Adam. It descended to us and we were
born dead in sin. And yet God says, even though
I've driven you out and killed you spiritually, I will bring
you back to myself. I will deliver you to myself.
And I will bring them again into the place, and I will cause them
to dwell safely. And they shall be my people,
and I will be their God. And I will give them one heart
and one way that they may fear me forever for the good of them."
For the good of them. God says, I do this for their
good. I will make an everlasting covenant
with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good. Later on in this chapter, he
says, if you can stop the sun from coming up in the morning
and the moon from coming up in the evening, then I'll cast my
people off. But you won't, and neither will
I." God said He won't cast us off. God said He will not fail
to do what's good for us. The Lord will show us great things. He tells Jeremiah in that chapter,
He says, I will show them great things. Believer in Christ, has
he not shown us great things? I'll tell you what, the most
learned men in all this world don't know what you know. And
they can't know what you know. Because they don't know who you
know. The scripture says they know you not because they don't
know me. They don't know you because they
don't know me. You know me. That's what he said.
You know me. And to know Christ is a good
thing, isn't it? Isn't it good to have him at
all times, to call on him when you're in trouble, to call on
him when you're distressed? And he immediately is there. Now, he doesn't save us always
from being put in the fire, but he's always with us in the fire. He's always. He said, I'll be
with you, and I won't leave you. I won't forsake you, though the
world forsake you. I won't leave you. He said, I'll
do you good. And friends, He showed us great
things by cleansing us of our iniquity, hasn't He? He said,
I will cleanse them. I will forgive them of all their
iniquity, their sin, and transgression. All three of them. Sin is us by nature, and yet
God in grace has forgiven us all our sins. Even the sin that
I have not yet committed, it is already gone. Christ has already
suffered in my stead, in my place, and God was satisfied with His
offering for my sin. satisfied. And I will not be
charged again. Is that not great? That's a great
thing. It is a good and a great thing
that we should rejoice in the salvation of our God. Isn't it
great? I'll tell you, there's a lot
of people don't rejoice in this. They don't have any interest,
don't have any desire for it. But praise God, He has given
us an interest. He's given us a desire, a heart. How great things God has done
for us. He's given us the branch of David,
His son. And He has called us to Himself. What tenderness! What great affection
our God has for us that He would call such unworthy sinners. Two wonders, I confess. God's
redeeming love in my own worthlessness. All the great things God has
done for us. Behold your King. Behold Christ
your King. He has triumphed over all our
enemies. He has triumphed over sin and
death and hell and Satan by his obedience even unto death, the
death of the cross. Behold our eternal faithful High
Priest that is now risen from the dead and intercedes for us
even tonight as we try and worship Oh, the flesh gets in the way! It gets in the way! But I know
this, He intercedes for us, even now, so that our worship is accepted. God accepts our worship. And as He did for these Jews,
As He brought them out of the captivity and slavery of their
sin, that Babylon, even so will He turn the captivity of His
people. Every one of His people will
be called. There won't be one missing. There won't be one in
glory missing. We don't have to worry about
that. God will save all who He intended to save. And so that all who come to God
for mercy, All who come to God for mercy will find mercy. This is because of God's electing
love, God's redeeming love and God's calling love. All of those
are necessary for a man to be saved. He must believe on Christ
and God's people will. Is this not a great thing that
God has caused us to rejoice in these things? And so then, in our text, it
says here, the righteous. This is who the goodness of God
is given to, the righteous. Believers in Christ, we have
been given the righteousness of God. You see, there are no
other righteousnesses. There is only one righteousness,
and that is the righteousness of God. We who are sinners have by grace
received the very righteousness of God in this present world. In this mortal frame dwells a
new man that is as holy as God is. That's amazing. It's a great thing. It's unfathomable. If God didn't say it, I wouldn't
say it. And I'll tell you, at times it
even makes you tremble to say it. But I'll tell you this, it's
true. Because God said it was. God
says He creates in us a new man, a new nature, after holiness,
after His holiness. The Scripture says that even
the righteousness of God, by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ
unto all them that believe, Jesus our surety and Redeemer, the
Scripture says that He was made sin for us who knew no sin. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him." Now, let me ask you, was he successful? Does
the Word of God reveal that Christ was a successful Redeemer? You bet it does. And if he's
successful, I'm righteous. If he's successful, I'm righteous.
He's accomplished the work. righteous because of Jesus Christ. I have his righteousness. The
scripture says, for the joy that was set before him, he endured
the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right
hand of God. You see, Christ had a joy. The joy that was set
before him was to provide for you salvation, to provide righteousness
for you. And to do that, he must have
endured the shame. The shame of the cross. Despising
the shame. You know, Christ being righteous
is the opposite of sin, and yet he was made sin for us. How? You know, I know what it is to
be sin, and I don't like it. I hate it, but I can't imagine
how much he detested it. I cannot imagine how much he
suffered, taking our sins in his own body on the tree. The
only way that we can rejoice and have peace is to know that
we have the righteousness of God. There's no other way to
have peace. There's no other way to make
it from day to day to day without knowing if I have the righteousness
of God, because that's what God demands. God's not asking. God's not requesting righteousness. He's not an option. Without the righteousness of
God, we won't see the kingdom of heaven. Without the righteousness of
God, we'll suffer eternity in hell. Oh, but with the righteousness
of God, we will enjoy heaven forever. And this is the only
way we can have peace, though the outward man perish, the inward
man is renewed day by day, by day, by day. Every morning his
mercies are new to us. They're fresh. And I'm so thankful. Second of all, the believer in
Christ shall see the righteous shall see and fear. What is it
that the righteous see and fear? Well, this has reference to the
destruction of the wicked. The righteous shall see the destruction
of the wicked and fear God. Just because God's justice seems
to be slow, And as the sentence of hell is
not executed immediately, men are set to do evil. Set. Ready to do evil. But we see by faith, by faith in Christ, We see the cross of Christ, and
what do we see when we view the cross? What is it you see? What
is it by faith we see concerning this dying one, this blessed
and holy dying Lamb of God? What do we see? Friends, I see
the destruction of sin. I see God's holy vengeance being
poured out on His own Son. We see the fullness of God's
hatred for sin. When Christ, the Holy Son of
God, was nailed to the cross and bore our sins, God showed
his own Son absolutely no mercy. No mercy. The Old Testament Scriptures
prophesied this. He said, My bones burn within
me. Friends, he suffered in his own
body ten million hails for our sins. And God was willing to do this
because he would do us good. Scripture says, not willing to
impute our sins to us. Instead, He imputed them to Christ
and He bore them in His own body on the tree. What a gift! What a great blessing that He
endured our sins, that He endured our suffering and bore the fullness
of our guilt. I'll tell you, I don't know of
anything in this world like that. I've never seen any justice like
that in this world. It's just beyond comprehension. Somebody could take your place
at the electric chair, but they can't take your guilt. He took
our guilt. And God poured out on him the
wrath in its fullness without mercy. when God's justice cried out,
Awake, O sword, and smite the shepherd, and against the man
that is my fellow, my kinsman, my son. If God, who imputed our sins
to Christ, did not show him mercy, how much more will he show vengeance
on those who despise the blood of his son? Now, I see that. I see if God didn't show mercy
to his Son, he won't show mercy to anyone else who has sin. He won't. It is a fearful thing
to fall into the hands of the living God. Therefore, we see by faith our
sin. When I see the cross, I see my
sin. that we stand in need of great
mercy and great forgiveness because we are great sinners. Great sinners. And God is greatly holy. And by the grace of God, we look
to Jesus Christ and the spirit of God gives us all that we needed. So that we might have life, eternal
life, without fear of hell. And we not only see this, but
we fear God because of it. This is not a slave fear. This
is a reverence fear. Andrew asked me the other day
about the fear of God. He said, you know, I'm afraid
of God. Is that what it's supposed to
be, fearing God? Well, if you're without Christ, you should fear
God in that way. But we who know Christ, we fear
God in a reverential way. And I said, do you, when you
fear me, do you think I'm going to really harm you? Do you think I'm really going
to do you any physical harm to where you would be hurt or without
food or anything like that? He said, no, because he reverences
me with a fear as a son. And that's how we reverence God.
We know that God is holy. We don't fear. We don't see God
as our buddy. We don't see God as our our equal. We reverence him. We fear him. We know that he's holy and we're
thankful for his mercy. And we know he will punish. Peter
said we should live this life, knowing that God will punish
the guilty, we should live this life in reverential fear of our
God. We should. We see that God is just and the
justifier of the ungodly. And yet all who believe not on
Christ, you are despising the blood offering
of God's Son. How deadly, how deadly to despise
God's offering. You remember that story, the
parable of the Lord about the wedding feast? And those men despised it. They
made light of it. There's a lot of people that
make light of this, that make light of salvation, the cross,
the blood, the righteousness of God. They make fun of us because
we believe this. But I'll tell you what, there's
some who don't make fun of it, but they come in with their own
righteousness. Remember when that man came in,
he had his own robe. He had his own robe. And the
king come up and he said, friend, where'd you come from? Where'd
you come from? I can tell you're different.
You don't have a robe. You don't have a wedding garment.
You know where he went? The same with those that made
light. He was cast into outer darkness. We reverence God. The gospel
of God's grace is not to be trifled with, but it is to be believed. It is to be embraced by faith. Faith is not a one-time action,
it is an ever-present grace. It's always with us. We always believe. I believe
now and continually because of the grace of God. But those who
despise it, God's going to cast them out. God will have vengeance. But praise God that He has given
us such a reverence for Him, to honor Him, glorify Him, and
praise His name. I'm so glad He has allowed us
to worship that He has, by His grace, made us righteous to see
and to fear. See that sin will be punished. And we fear Him. And now look
at this, the righteous shall laugh at Him. What does that mean? I know,
I confess, when I first read that, I had no idea what that
meant. Surely a believer in Christ does
not rejoice that men perish in their sin. We know that. We don't
rejoice. I'll tell you, we are sad. When
our family members die and they die in no hope, we're sad. It
grieves our hearts. What does this mean? Laughter.
It's not a laughter of folly, but friends, It is a righteous
joy over the defeat of our foes. Make no mistake about it. People
who do not believe in Christ are an enemy of God. And they
are our foes. Not that we would attack them,
but friends, they definitely at every opportunity would attack
us. if God would move His restraining
hand. I'm talking about our children.
I'm talking about the people we love the most. It grieves a believer to see
a man die in his sins, but we glory in God's justice. I'm thankful
God's just, because if God's not just, then we have no hope
that He'll save any one of us. God is just and I'm so thankful
for it because he paid for my sins. He's not going to charge
him to me. I'm thankful for God's sovereign
mercy. But how much more will we be?
Thankful. When we drop this robe of flesh.
When we get into heaven and have eyes of our Savior, when we see
things as God sees things, friends, make no mistake about it, when
we are in heaven, the Scripture says, as the smoke of the whore
rose from hell, the saints said, Hallelujah! Praise God. They
praised God that He destroyed the wicked. And so will we. Victory. Do you imagine that the Jews
felt any remorse concerning the Egyptians that were pursuing
them when their dead bodies washed up on the shore? Do you think
they were sad? No, they were happy because their
enemy was destroyed and God did it. God did it. Friends, my enemy
of sin, death destroyed. And one day, death itself will
be cast into the lake of fire forever, and there will be no
more death. There will be no more separation
from us. I'll tell you what, we're a small
group here, but we're not all there is. Praise God, and we'll
never be separated from them again when we enter into glory. will be one uniting together
with one voice, one heart, one soul, lifting our voices in perfect
harmony to God himself. Glorious day when all sin is
done away with. And friends, what a day of laughter
that will be. It will be a day of great rejoicing,
great rejoicing. Let me ask you this, is God your
strength? Is God your strength? Is Christ the rock and foundation
and refuge of your souls? If He is, then friends, we shall
rejoice. We shall rejoice over our enemies. When men are confronted with
the gospel, friends, they'll do everything they can to unite themselves and gather
wicked men just like themselves. Look back at your text just a
second. Look at the people that we will rejoice over. It says,
Lo, this man that made his made not God his strength, but trusted
in the abundance of his riches and strengthened himself in wickedness,
strengthened himself in wickedness. This is what the wicked do. They
strengthen themselves together. In Isaiah 41, God says that the
that the coppersmith and the carpenter, they get together
and they encourage each other in their business of making gods. That's exactly what happens when
a man hears a gospel, the next thing you know, he's going to
run to somebody that agrees with him. And they're going to get
together and they're going to pat themselves on the back and
say, well, that's good. I like your opinion. Here's my
opinion. Let's just agree on everything. But God's people are not so.
Our strength and trust is in God and not ourselves. Our strength
and trust is in not in what other men say, but what God says. Our
strength and trust is in Him. And lastly, the righteous will
praise God forever. Let's read verses eight and nine
together. It says, But I am like a green olive tree in the house
of God. I trust in the mercy of God forever
and ever. I will praise thee forever because
thou hast done it. A believer is like a green olive
tree. I enjoyed reading and studying about that. A green olive tree. Do you know that olive trees are
green all year round? They never fade. Their leaves
never fall. Their fruit is always producing. I am like a green olive tree,
ever fresh, ever new. My faith is new every morning. Because his grace is new every
morning to me. His grace is like the dew that
falls from heaven. I don't know where it comes from,
but there it is. And it soaks into my heart and
gives me strength. We are like a green olive tree
that is not. It may be blown around, it's
flimsy, but it doesn't break. You see those big trees in the
winter when it comes when you get a good freeze and they they
crack. under their own weight. You see
those little flimsy trees that just kind of bend over with all
the snow and ice on them, and when the snow falls, what happens?
It goes right back to where it was. That's like us. Friends, the cares and troubles
of this life will not stop us from growing in the grace and
knowledge. Matter of fact, they help us on to grow in the grace
and knowledge of Christ. our troubles that God gives us. We are like a green olive tree.
Where? In the house of God. Friends,
this is where we grow. This is where we learn. This
is where we study. This is where we worship. It's
together. I had a man the other day, I
was talking about him. He had to get something from
me and I forgot it. I said, won't you come up to
the church now? He said, you're just dying to get me in that
church. I said, I don't care. The church isn't there. That's
a building. The church is not there. The
church is at home. It was during the week. You are the church. You're the
house of God. Is that not great? It's great. This is just a building. We are
living stone. that make up a holy temple where
God dwells. We are as a green olive tree
in that we yield fruit unto God that's profitable. Friends, we are a green olive
tree because we will endure all the sufferings of God because
we know that God has done it. What? Everything. God has done everything. Troubles? Thou hast done it. Salvation. Thou hast done it. Therefore, I'm a green olive
tree because of what you planted. We're just the branches, remember.
He's the vine. If we abide in Christ, we'll
bear fruit. God has planted us by the rivers of water and we
will yield abundantly in our season. I'll tell you, I don't
yield as much fruit as I want to. Do you? Matter of fact, I don't see any
of it at times. And usually when I do, I become
proud and it just vanishes away. But it's true because we abide
in Christ that we have fruit. He has done it. And friends,
the trial of our faith, the trial of our faith is much more precious
than gold. Is your faith being tried? I'll tell you, it's going to
be. It's going to be tried with fire. But I'll tell you, when it's
found to be real, it's more precious than gold. It's precious as more
than gold to me to know that I have faith in Christ, that
he's given me that faith. So no matter what season of life,
no matter what the troubles we face, no matter the cold or how
long the winter of night, joy cometh in the morning. And friends, We will praise and
wait on our God. It says, I will wait on thy name
for it is good before thy saints. Do you wait on the Lord to deliver
you from your troubles? I know the answer to that, it's
the same answer I have to give. No, I'm usually trying to fix
it and making it worse. But friends, God says wait. And you know what this is? It's
good for you to wait on God. It's good for me. Because when
I see you wait on God, it thrills my soul. And it's the same with me. If
I wait on God, if I if I'm waiting on the Lord patiently in troubles
and you see my troubles and you see that I'm waiting on the Lord,
it'll encourage your heart to wait on the Lord, won't it? I'll
tell you what, that's contagious. I like to catch it. Waiting on God. Who else cares
for us but him? Who else really cares? There's nobody who cares like
Him. He does us good all the time. He saved us. He made us righteous. And friends, He will keep us
until we see Him in glory and rejoice with Him forever. He
doesn't fail. Take that and hold to it. I pray
that God bless us. This stand be dismissed in prayer.