Psalm chapter 37. And tonight we'll be looking at verses
seven down through verse 40, Psalm chapter 37. The title of
the message tonight is the precepts of God for his people. This is
the second part of this message that I began the Lord's Day this
last Sunday. We began to study in this chapter
concerning the precepts of God, and tonight I want to finish
that. I want to go through and show us again these loving precepts
of our Father. Now, these precepts, the word
precepts can truly be translated a commandment. But this is not
a law. This is not something that we
are binding like the law of the mosaic law. This is a law of
love. As you would instruct a child
in love, even so our Father has given us instructions. Our Father
has given us instructions that are good for us. These are good
for us. When we were saved by grace,
when the God of heaven, the Spirit of God, came down and took the
gospel that was preached to us, He applied the blood of Christ
to our heart. He imputed and imparted righteousness
to each one of us who are believers in Him. And we were made aware
of that eternal, effectual love. Now, the love of God had been
there always. But when God came in His Spirit, we realized the
love of God. We recognized that God has loved
us with an everlasting love. That He chose us in free, unmerited,
sovereign grace. And that by grace, He put us
in union with His own Son. that Christ, the Son of God,
came down, redeemed us from the curse of the law by being made
a curse for us. And God sent forth His Spirit
into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Abba, Father. Daddy. That's what it is. Daddy. It's
a very effectual term between only a father and a son. God sent that Spirit into us. Is this our testimony? Is this
our witness? Is this what God has done for
us? Has He sent His Spirit into our
hearts to see that Christ is all our salvation? Have we been crushed by the law?
concerning our guilt before God, and then raised up by the Spirit
of God to life and faith in Christ? If we haven't, then you should
flee to Christ. For God has sent Him to redeem
us who are under the law. And He has, by His blood, accomplished
that redemption. He has finished the work that
God had sent Him to do. He suffered under the law of
justice, and now then all who are free, all who are in Christ
are free from the law. Free from the law, free from
its demands, its precepts. Why? Because we have in Christ
honored the law of God. And now God speaketh unto us
as unto children. As unto children. Therefore,
these commands, these precepts, are not a set of laws to obey
for life, but rather they are commands of a loving Father for
His good, for the good of His children, and the glory of His
own name. Now then, in studying these precepts
again and looking at these, I also noticed this. I said Sunday I
made a mistake. I said there were eight precepts,
and as I studied more, I saw that there were nine. There were
nine precepts, but we hadn't missed any yet, so don't worry.
We covered four at the beginning and I didn't miss any, so I'll
be able to get that last one in this evening, Lord willing.
But I also noticed this. In Galatians chapter 5, do you
notice that there are nine fruits of the Spirit? And I notice that
each one of these precepts can correlate with a fruit of the
Spirit. God is so gracious to repeat
things over and over and over again to us. We need that. It's not grievous, the Apostle
said, for me to repeat those things which you have heard.
It's not grievous. So these things overlap to us. And that's good. That's good. First of all, we
saw last week that we are not to fret. Look at that in verse
one. There's the first one fret not thyself. This correlates
with rejoicing or joy, the fruit of joy. How can we rejoice or have joy
if we're worrying about the prosperity of the wicked? We should rather
rejoice instead of worry, rejoice in Christ rather than envying
the wicked. Look at verse 16. I like this
verse 16. A little that a righteous man
hath is better than the riches of many wicked. Isn't that great? That should bring us joy. It
shouldn't matter what we have. Don't fret. We have Christ. We have the riches of heaven.
Number two, trust the Lord. This correlates with faith. We
know that we're not saved by our faith. Our faith does not
save us. Yet no man is saved without faith. But faith is the gift of God
that looks to the object of faith, Jesus Christ. Trust in the Lord. The just shall live by faith.
Not by law, but by faith. Number three, delight thyself
in the Lord. This has to do with love. The
fruit of love. And affection toward the triune
God who first loved us. If you trust in your love for
Him, you'll be destroyed. But if you look at your love
in the light of His love, that's wonderful. He loved us. Therefore, we love Him. Therefore,
we love him and we delight in him. We delight in his gospel.
We delight in his Christ. We delight in his spirit. We
delight in his salvation, his election, his redemption. He
has done everything for us. We delight in his grace. And
number four, we saw last this last Sunday, commit thy way into
the Lord. This has to do with the grace
of gentleness. When we commit our way unto the
Lord, friends, we are a frail, fragile people. And when we commit our way to
the Lord, is He not gentle? He's a lot more gentle than we
would be with anybody else. He is gentle with us. When we
come broken, and we come not understanding, and we commit
our way to Him, He doesn't whip us down with the law. He comes
in gentleness. I used this illustration before,
but if you had a broken arm, you'd want somebody to set that
gentle. You'd want somebody to be gentle
with you. That's what Christ is. He's gentle. Commit your
way to Him. And friends, that makes us gentle
with other people. It makes us kind toward other
people in the way. Now then, we're going to begin
here in verse 7. Rest. This is the fifth of the
precepts of the Lord. Rest in the Lord. Or rest in Christ. Now let me
ask you this. Who was the first one to rest?
Who was the first one to rest? Was it not God? He is the one
that first rested. The Scripture says in Genesis
2, it said when He had made everything, that was made. It said on the
seventh day the Lord rested from His work. Now what does that
mean? What does this mean to rest? Does it mean to sleep?
A lot of times that's what we think about rest. is sleep or
relaxation. But what this means is that God
rested. He didn't stop working because
the world would have stopped being if He didn't sustain it. What it means is, is that everything
was done. That's what it means. Everything
was perfect. Everything that God was going
to make, He made, and it was perfect when He made it. What
else could he do? If he made it perfect, what else
could it be? Now, we have very little understanding
of what that is, because when we do something, it's always
imperfect. Now, we may rest from it, but
that doesn't mean that it's perfect. Because when we do something,
we have to fix our house. And I know this, that when we
fix it, it's eventually going to decay again. So it's not perfect. It's never
fixed. Our work here is never finished
because we live in a sinful and decaying world. But God's rest
was a picture of something for us. It was a picture of the perfect
rest of Christ. When He when He had finished
the work that the Father gave Him to do. The Scripture says
in Hebrews that He entered into His rest even as God did to His
rest. Even as God entered into His.
Jesus Christ labored under the Law. Praise God, He labored under
the law for us as our substitute. Praise God, He is our federal
head, labored under that law to accomplish righteousness that
we could never do. We could never do. You know,
sometimes we look at the Pharisees and we start mocking the Pharisees.
But I'll tell you this, nobody outwardly today that I know of
could live to the standard that those men lived to. The rigorous
standard of legality. The problem is they never had
righteousness. Christ obtained righteousness
by His laboring. And He also obtained redemption
by His death. So that God poured out all of
His justice on His Son. So that there is not one drop
of anger, not one drop of vengeance left for one of God's chosen. Not one. He finished it all. And when He said, it is finished,
that's exactly what He meant. And it was done. He rested. Friends, there is no rest for
the souls of men but in Christ. And this has correlation to peace,
the fruit of the Spirit, peace. He is our peace because He has
made peace by the blood of His cross. Don't look to make peace
with God. There is no way for a man to
make peace with God other than Christ. He is the only one. Now, if Christ has made peace,
what in the world are we doing trying to work for peace? Why have we not ceased from trying
to do that? How many times do we labor under
that when there's no need? We worry ourselves and concern
ourselves with these things. When Christ has done it all,
and He's entered into His rest, we should enter into rest in
Him. Don't be deceived by the prosperity
of works, free will, religion. Don't be deceived by that. They
have no peace with God. Don't be excited by all their
outward professions of religion, their programs of discipleship
and their committees and the things about... You know, when
I was a young believer, I saw that and I go, you know, maybe
we're missing something. No, we're not missing anything. That's nothing. That will not
bring anyone rest. I'll tell you, if people end
world hunger and legislate morality, there still will be no peace.
The only peace is in Christ. He says, come unto me, all you
that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Rest. Therefore, Paul says in Hebrews
4.11, labor, labor, to enter into that rest. Labor
to enter into that rest. That means continually put off
the works of the old man. Continually put them aside and
rest in Christ. Rest. Paul says this, I counted all
things and do count them. present tense,
as dung that I may win Christ. All of his righteousness, all
of his self-righteousness, he counted it worthless and he counts
it now presently worthless that he may be found in Christ. In Christ. This resting in the
Lord is peace. Believer, may the peace of God
that passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and minds through
Jesus Christ. The next one, which is the sixth
precept, look at your text again. Verse 8. Cease from anger. Cease from anger. Is it not the
sinful nature to be quick to be angry? Immediately, when somebody
does something to us, we immediately, it is the nature of our old man
that raises his head and immediately becomes angry when somebody afflicts
us or those that we love. And I'll tell you, our anger
is not necessarily justice, is it? We don't want justice. No,
we want something greater. If they threw a rock at us, we
want a mountain to fall on them. We don't want just something
equal. We want something greater to happen to them. Seize from
that anger. Put it aside. Cast it out. Our Father of love is telling
us, don't be angry. Put the anger aside. I know that
we as in human nature cannot stop that. Martin Luther says,
I can't stop the birds from flocking, but I can stop them from nesting.
I can stop them from from rooting down. And that's what we have
to do with anger. Let it go. And friends, anger is nothing
less than the sin of pride. That's all it is. Thinking we
deserve something better than we got. That's it. That's all
anger is. We think we deserve better treatment. And you know what? We're robbing
God of what belongs to Him. Scripture says that vengeance
belongeth Unto me. That's what God says. Vengeance
is mine, saith the Lord. I will repay. And if we take
vengeance, then what are we doing but robbing God of something
again that belongs... Isn't that what our Father did?
Our Father Adam tried to rob God of His glory and the human
nature has been trying to do that ever since. God says, I'll
be vengeful. I'll take anger. Now friends, Paul says in Ephesians
4, 26, that there is an, be angry and sin not. Now there is an
anger that is a righteous indignation. But this anger arises from a
love of God, not a love of self. This anger arises from a love
of God's Gospel, a defense of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul,
when he withstood Peter to the face, we know that the Lord Jesus Christ
turned the money tables over in the temple and cast out the
money changers. You see, that's a righteous indignation
that is in defense of the Gospel. Friends, if people were to come
in here preaching another gospel, I would have righteous indignation
against that because of you. God has sent me as an under-shepherd
to preach the truth and to cast out all error. But if we would be honest with
ourselves, most of our indignation is not righteous. Most of our
anger is not righteous. And we should judge, we should
see. And if it be anger that is of
pride and of self, cast it out. Our Father says, cast it out. We must not be angry because
if we are, we're not only trying to rob God of something that
is His, but we're also angry at His providence, aren't we?
Did not the hand of God bring whatever it is we have that caused
us anger? Did He not allow the evil men
to come in and hurt us? Of course He did. Of course He
did. And to be angry is to take away,
to be angry at His providence. But rather, this correlates with
the grace of meekness. Instead of being angry, we should
be meek. as our Lord Jesus Christ who
was meek and lowly in heart. Now, meekness does not mean weakness. Moses, the Scripture says that
he was the meekest of men. The meekest of men. Moses was
not weak. Moses, by no means could you
ever see Moses as being weak. Our Lord Jesus Christ, being
the God-man, was the meekest of all men. And yet we know he
was not weak. Remember when the rulers came
to take him away? He didn't cower down before these
men. He had no fear of them. Remember, he walked up and he
said, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth.
He said, I am. And they bowed down. They bowed
down to him. And they got up again, he said,
hey, who seek ye? Jesus of Nazareth. And remember,
Peter took his sword and tried to cut off the ear of that man,
and he said, put it away. If I pray my Father, don't you
think He'd send me twelve legions of angels? He was not weak. He
was not weak. But meekness and humility are
things that go hand in hand. And how can we be humble if we're
angry? How is that possible? Look at verse 11, but the meek,
that correlates with verse 8, cease from anger, anger at the
wicked, anger at your circumstances, anger at God, cease that, but
the meek, be meek, for they shall inherit the earth and shall delight
themselves in the abundance of peace. All right, number seven,
which is the seventh of these precepts, look at verse 27. Verse 27. Depart from evil. Depart from evil. This has to
do with temperance. Temperance. Remember, I did a
message on this a long time ago. Temperance is moderation. Moderation. God has liberally given us all
things to enjoy, hasn't He? Everything that we have to enjoy
is of God's hand, and we should enjoy it. And the thing itself
is not sinful. The thing itself is not sinful. It's when we will not use things
in moderation. It's when we will not use things
in the light of God's love and God's grace and be thankful for
the things and depart from evil. Food is a good thing, isn't it?
We just had soup and it was wonderful. You know, I love food. But there's
a point at which food can become sinful. Isn't that right? If
we become gluttonous, it is a sin. It's a sin. Because we used it
not for the purpose that God gave it. We used it to gourd
ourselves. The same as with wine or any
other thing. God has given it to us, but if
we cannot use it for good, leave it alone. Depart from evil. Apart from evil. And I'll tell you this, if we
as believers in Christ think that we are above any sin, watch
out. Watch out. Prone to wonder, Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love. If we think we are above any
sin, we think that we cannot be moved because we are so strong,
then friends, we are ripe for a fall. We are ripe for a fall. 1 Corinthians 10, 12, Paul says,
Wherefore, let him that thinketh, he standeth. Take heed, lest
he fall. I want to use Peter as an illustration
of this. You remember the denial of Peter.
of our Lord. Now, Peter, being an apostle
of Jesus Christ, was a man who truly was convinced that Jesus
Christ was the Son of God. He was truly saved by the grace
of Almighty God. He was a believer in Christ.
Let me ask you, what began Peter's spiral down from his high and
lofty place, down to the bottom where he had to deny the Lord,
where he denied the Lord three times. Not just once, twice,
but three times he denied the Lord. And began to curse at the
man for saying he was with him. Well, the first thing that began
this descent was Peter's pride. Pride is always the beginning
of the descent and the fall of a believer. You remember he told
the Lord, he said, though all are offended with thee, I will
not be offended. And Jesus turned to him and said,
tonight you're going to deny me three times before the cock
crows. And he said, Lord, no. I'll go
to prison and I'll go to death with you, but I'll never deny
you. Believer, beware of the little
foxes that spoil the vine. As I said before, we are as a
tender plant in the vine of Christ. And it doesn't take much for
us to be bruised, for us to be damaged. And it begins with this
pride, this, I'll never, I'll never leave you! I'll never! No. We must recognize that we
are capable of any sin at a heartbeat. We're just a heartbeat away from
any sin you could possibly imagine. Our depravity is so great that
we could plunge down into the worst of sins, even as a believer
in Christ. We're not exempt from sins. And
when sin starts, friends, it doesn't start. He didn't start
denying the Lord then, did he? No! It starts subtly. It's just a subtle thing. A little
here and a little there. Before you know it, you've fallen. When we began to trust our own
self-sufficiency, we begin to spiral down into sin. I like this. Someone said this, trusting in
the means of grace to be effectual, to keep us, rather than seeing
the means of grace useless unless it's made effectual by the Spirit
of God. Preaching is good. It is the
only means by which God saves sinners. But, friends, preaching
is not going to keep you from sin. The only thing that will
keep us from sin is the presence and power of the Holy Spirit
of God. That's the only thing that will
keep us. And if we start trusting in these means rather than trusting
in the Spirit of God to keep us, we're going to start to spiral
down. Depart from evil. Depart from
those things. Flee to God. Trust in Him. Rely on His faithfulness and
His strength and not our own. Believer, we can do nothing on
our own strength. Can you name one thing you can
do on your own? I don't think about breathing,
but I know this, I can't do it on my own. I can't do it. God sustains me every second
of every day. How much more sustaining us and
keeping us from sin? If God did not keep us, we were
capable of any sin, including denying the Lord. Also, we must not rely on past
experiences to keep us and prevent us from sin. Peter was an apostle
of God. He saw miracles. He walked on
the water. He saw the Lord Jesus transfigured
before his very eyes. And he failed. Friends, we may have a lot of
experiences of God's grace, but don't rely on those experiences
to keep us from sin. Well, I did this, and I did this,
so then I will be free from being tempted. No. No, you won't. No, don't rely on those things.
I've said this before, faith is present, isn't it? It's a
present thing. It's not a past thing. It's not
a future thing. It's a present thing. Faith ten minutes ago
or faith ten minutes from now will not help me now. I must
believe now. I must flee to Him now. He must
sustain me now. He must keep me now. Peter not
only was prideful, but Peter was told, watch and pray. Well, Lord, I don't really need
to watch and pray because I got this thing all sewed up. You
know, I'm not going to leave you. Why should I? I could just
take my ease and be restful and don't worry about it. The Lord
said, watch and pray. And he was found what? Sleeping.
Sleeping. How many times does that pride
lull us into a false sense of security and spiritual sleep? Spiritual sleep. And the next
thing we know, Peter was not only sleeping, but he was indecisive. He was indifferent. One minute he was hot, oh, and
he cut off the ear of that man. I'll kill them all for you, Lord.
And then the next minute we read that he was gone. Scattered. When the Lord was taken, they
all fled. including Peter. Hot one minute,
cold the next. Hot one minute, cold the next. I like this. Someone once said
what's what's born in the storm usually dies in the calm. And soon we find Peter. following
a far-off, the Scripture says. He was in the presence of the
Lord. He did enjoy the Word of God. And now, he's a far-off. It doesn't take long. And you
won't be able to tell a believer from the rest of the world. There
he was, warming himself in the fire of the enemies of Christ. and hiding. He was hiding among
them as though not to be discovered. How far? Did this apostle fall? Do not think that we. Are above. What happened to him? Depart. From. Evil. The Scripture says, depart from
the very appearance of evil. If you're not sure, go away. That's the easy way to do it.
I'm not sure, I'll just leave it alone. That's good. I'll just
leave it be. Depart from evil. Let me ask
you, do you love Christ? Isn't that what the Lord did
to Peter? Simon, son of Jonas, Lovest thou
me more than these? You know, Lord, I love you. And he had to do it three times,
all the pain that must have come on Peter's heart. And when Peter, he realized that
sin, the scripture says he wept bitterly. You know the only difference
between Judas and Peter? Christ said to Peter, Satan hath
desired to sift thee as wheat, but I have prayed for thee. The only reason we do not fall
off as Judas is because the Lord prayed for
us. And I'll tell you, if we've fallen
into sin, He'll bring His people back. He'll bring His people
back. How? By His love. It's His love
that will draw them back to Himself. Number 8. Look at this in verse
34. Wait on the Lord. Wait on the
Lord. This has a correlation with longsuffering. The fruit of the Spirit, longsuffering. As a servant waits on the call
of his master, even so do we by faith wait on the Lord. Believers, let us not be hasty
to deliver ourselves from trouble.
How tempting is that? When you fall into trouble, immediately
we start trying to deliver ourselves. Now, this does not mean that
we do not call for help. Yes, when you are in trouble,
call for help. He says, come boldly before the
throne of grace that you may find help. When? In time of trouble. The scripture
says the Lord is a very present help. When? In trouble. We may cry unto the Lord with
all our might. God never forbids us to cry to
Him, but He does tell us to wait on
His answer. Waiting on His answer is altogether,
again, must be by the grace of God. You remember I told you
Sunday Habakkuk was the prophet that could not understand why
the Lord would send these evil Chaldeans to destroy Israel. These people were more wicked
than His people. His people were wicked, but these
were way more wicked people. How in the world could you, being
of pure eyes than to behold evil, allow them to come and do this. And you know what he did when
he cried? He said, now I'll wait. And he sat up in that tower and
he waited. He waited for the answer of the Lord. And that's
exactly what we must do. We must wait for God's deliverance. We must wait for His response.
We must wait for His answer. And He will make it known to
us. He'll deliver us. He'll take
us out of the trial when He is ready. And I know this by experience. This last few months have been
a very trying time for me. But I know this, the Scripture
says, wait! Friends, we must wait no matter
how heavy the burden is. God will give us strength and
He'll give us a way of escape that we can bear it. He's promised
these things. We must trust Him and wait on
Him. We must be obedient, for the
just shall live by faith. And I'll tell you, waiting for
the answer of God is not something readily seen, is it? But God will give us what we
need. God will give us what we need.
He'll deliver us in the right time. You know what? You never
read of Joseph complaining. You know that? When he was sold
by his brothers, sold into slavery, accused of Potiphar's wife, sent
to the prison, got those guys out, and then they didn't say
anything about him like they promised, but you never hear
him complain. Why? They meant it for evil,
but God meant it for good. And God delivered him at the
right time. And God will deliver us at the
right time. And the last one is this. This is the last one
I noticed. Verse 37. If you ever get to a place that
you can't remember any of the others, remember this. And all
of the others will take care of themselves. Mark the perfect
man. This is goodness. This is the
fruit of goodness. Goodness, friends, recognizes
goodness. Who is the perfect man? The Lord Jesus Christ. You mark
him. You behold the Lamb of God. Mark the perfect man and behold
the upright, for the end of that man is peace. Keep your eyes on Christ. He
is the righteous man. In him is peace. In him is goodness. In him is righteousness. And his offering for sin has
imputed all of those things to us. All that the righteous man is, we are. All that the righteous man is,
Christ, we are in him. You mark him. Is there any other so deserving
of our attention and affection. Is there anybody else that you'd
rather mark? That you'd rather behold? Is there anyone more precious,
more gracious, or more glorious than the Son of God? Mark Him. Behold Him. Trust Him. Wait on Him. Follow Him, depart from evil,
and hold Him continually as our first love. Friends, we don't just preach
doctrine. We preach a person. And tonight, we have come to
worship a person. We could do none of these things
without Him. And in Him, we've done all these
things. Is that not amazing? In Him, we have perfect righteousness. As you go through the week, you
mark Him. Think on Him. He's worthy of it. I pray God
will bless these precepts to your heart. They are His. and
they are for you, may teach us and guide us. Pray these things
only in Christ's name. Let's stand. We'll be dismissed.