Psalm 15, this is a short psalm,
only five verses. But this is a wonderful, very
clear, to the point psalm. Very, very clear, very to the
point. And David begins this psalm in
verse one by asking the question of all questions. He said in verse 1, Lord, who
shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? Here's what he said, Lord, who
is going to get to go to heaven? That's what he said. Lord, who
is going to get to go to heaven? Now is that not the question
that every man and woman, if they have any kind of concern
about it, if the Lord in any way, shape or form has impressed
a concern about it, is that not the question that everybody wants
to know the answer to? Who is going to go to heaven? Am I going to get to go? That's
where we start. Am I going to get to go? Are
my parents going to get to go? Are my children going to go? Who is going to go to heaven? Verse 1 says, Lord, who shall
abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? Now this is a very important
question. Because most of the world thinks one of these two
things. One of these two. They either
think everybody's going to heaven. And there are a lot of people
who think that. There are a lot of people who
think that. Go to a funeral. All right, go to a funeral. Do
you ever hear anything other than, well, he's in heaven now. He was a good man. He always
tried to do the right thing. Boy, he was good to his neighbor. He was a godly man. That's what
they're getting at. Yeah, he lived a godly life as
a godly man. People say that not realizing
that the scripture says in Romans 5 that all of us are ungodly. All of us. But people think that
mankind is. In spite of what God's word has
to say, people think that everybody is godly in their own way. Well, in his own way, he was
a godly man. She was a godly woman. A large
portion of the world believes everybody goes to heaven. All
right, then the other train of thought is, There are a large
number of people who believe that not everybody will go to
heaven, but they believe they sure are. I don't know about
everybody else, but I know I am. I know where I'm going. The only problem with that, that
mode of thinking, the only problem with it is many people in the
scripture thought that too. and they turned out to be wrong.
They were convinced and they turned out to be wrong. Look
with me, if you would, at Matthew chapter seven. Matthew chapter seven. Verse 21 says, not everyone that sayeth unto
me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he
that doeth the will of my father, which is in heaven. And I'll
go ahead and tell you that Psalm 15 will tell us what that is. Not everyone that saith unto
me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he
that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven, many will
say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not preached in
thy name? And in thy name have cast out
devils and in thy name done many wonderful works. And then while
I profess into them, I never knew you depart from me, ye that
work iniquity. I wish that more people could
understand that he is going to say that to a lot of preachers. We preached in your name, cast
out devils in your name. I wish men and women could understand
that. Lots of preachers, he's gonna
say, I don't know you, you cannot come in. In verse 15 right here, he said,
beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing,
but inwardly they are ravening wolves. In 1 John 4, he said, try the
preachers, try the spirits, whether they are of God, he said, many
false prophets have gone out into the world. And he said, when they come to
me expecting to walk right on into heaven, they're not going
to. They're not going to be able
to. Look with me at Luke 13. Luke 13, he gave the parable
of the grain of mustard seed right here. And after he gave
that parable, it says in verse 23, then said one unto him, Lord,
are there few that be saved? He listened to what the Lord
said. And after gathering what the Lord said, this man said,
wait a minute, Lord, are there few that be saved? And the Lord
said unto them, this is how he answered, verse 24, strive to
enter in at the straight gate. For many, I say unto you, will
seek to enter in and shall not be able. When once the master
of the house is risen up and hath shut to the door, and you
begin to stand without and to knock at the door saying, Lord,
Lord, open unto us. And he shall answer and say unto
you, I know you not whence you are. Then shall you begin to
say, we have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast
taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you,
I know you not whence you are. Depart from me, all ye workers
of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth, When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the
prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves thrust out. So we can see that David is asking
a very important question. And I don't want to just think
I know the answer to it. I mean that I don't want to just
assume that I know the answer to that. I want to know with
David, Lord, who is going to go to heaven? Who is going to be allowed to
dwell with you in eternity for all eternity? Who is it really? Well, let's go back to our text
and find out. Go with me to Psalm 15. In these five verses, I want
us to clearly see, number one, who is not going to get to go
to heaven, okay? I want to get to the answer to
the question, but give me just a minute to set this up. And we're going to define first
who is not going to get to go to heaven. And then after that,
let's see who is going to get to go to heaven. And it's going
to very clearly tell us. And then after we see those two
things, I want us to see the glory of the gospel. So that's
what we're going to look at. Who is not going to get to go?
Who is going to get to go? and then the glory of the gospel.
All right, verse 1, David said, Lord, who shall abide in thy
tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? That's the question. Here's the
answer. These are the requirements. All
right, verse 2 says, he that walketh uprightly. Walketh means, when you look
up the word, it means lives. how you live your life, your
manner of life. That's what walketh means, lives.
Uprightly means without wrong. It means completely innocent. He that lives with who is going
to dwell in heaven. He that lives without wrong. Completely innocent. And he doesn't just mean in general.
He doesn't just mean from this moment on, he means period. All right, that's the first requirement. A man or a woman must live an
entire life without any wrong in it. And verse two says, not only
does he have to walk uprightly, but he also has to work righteousness. He that walketh uprightly and
worketh righteousness. Worketh means to do. First he said you have to not
do. Now he says you have to do righteousness. And that word means perfection. It means only what's right. Rightness. You can't do any wrong. you have
to only do what's right. Verse two says, he that walketh
uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his
heart. The truth means only what you
can trust. Only what you can trust is so
what's trustworthy, no lies. And not just the truth, the whole
truth. Sometimes, and you'll know what
I mean by this, sometimes men tell half of the truth because
they know that maybe they can get you to think a certain way
about it if you don't know the whole truth. Well, that's still
deceiving. That's not trustworthy. That's
holding back. You can't do that, not even one
time, if you want to go to heaven. Verse 3 says, He that backbiteth
not with his tongue. To backbite is to try to slander
somebody. You don't really like them that
much. You're not a fan of them and you want to bring them down
a notch in other people's eyes. So you try to hurt them or you
try to hurt their character with words, but you don't do it to
their face. You do it to somebody else where
they can't hear. That's what backbiting is. If
a person does that one time, if a person says something about
somebody else behind that person's back that is slanderous and hurtful
to that character, to their character, if a person does that even one
time, he will not be allowed to go to heaven. Verse three says, he that backbite
is not with his tongue nor do with evil to his neighbor. Neighbor
means friend. Evil means anything that's unpleasant
or disagreeable or bad, hurtful, unkind, wicked in any way directly
to his friend. You can't do it behind somebody's
back. You can't do it to their face.
You can't say, well, at least I'm not doing it behind their
back. I'll say it right to their face. You can't do that. Not
if you wanna go to heaven. Verse three says, he that backbiteth
not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh
up a reproach against his neighbor. Taketh up means receives or believes
a slander from somebody else about your friend and your neighbor.
You can't commit the slander. You can't believe the slander
that somebody else tells, not until you have two or three witnesses. So if man number one comes up
to man number two and slanders man number three over here, and man number two believes it
without any witnesses confirming it, if man number two believes
it, then man number two is not allowed to go to heaven. Now verse 4, in whose eyes a
vile person is condemned, just only condemned. If a person enjoys
watching murder mysteries, if you enjoy those and if they're
entertaining to you, or if you ever have thought that a dirty
joke was funny, and you didn't just in your heart hate and condemn,
that person's not going to be allowed to go to heaven. Verse
four says he has to honor them that fear the Lord. Has to truly
honor them and only them that fear the Lord. It says he has
to swear. That means promise. It means
covenant to his own hurt and changeth not. He can't change
from it. What that means is every time he signs a contract, it
has to be to his own hurt and to the other one's gain. If he's
going to buy a house and the price of the house is $150,000,
he has to negotiate. If he wants to go to heaven,
he has to negotiate. He has to say, I am going to
pay $160,000 for this house or I'm not buying it. You're asking
$150,000. I'm either paying 160 or I'm
not buying it. He has to swear, he has to covenant
to his own hurt. His bank account has to go down.
The other one's bank account has to go up. And verse five
says, he cannot put out his money to usury. He cannot invest his
money for any type of return. Not even one time, not in the
stock market, not in a savings account. Not in any way, shape
or form, not anywhere. Verse five says, he that puteth
not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. That means taketh reward means
he cannot receive a gift. He cannot receive a present or
a reward of any kind from someone who does not owe it to him. If
it's owed, it's not a gift. But somebody who just innocently
gives him something, he can't receive it. The end of verse
five says, he that doeth these things shall never be moved. That's the man or the woman who
is going to stand in the presence of God. Now, I said this is where
we were going to start. Who will not get to go to heaven? Here's the answer. I won't. And that's not trickery. That's
not, I won't. I will not. That's real. People don't go to heaven all
the time. People don't go to heaven all the time. Based on how I have lived my
life, I'm one of them. I am one of
them. I have lived wrongly. I have not done rightly. I have withheld the truth in
my heart, that whole half-truth. I hate to confess all my faults
to you, but I have. I've told half-truths. I have
flat-out lied. I have backbitten. I have slandered
people behind their backs. I have done wrong straight to
people's face. I have believed slanders on people
without having any witnesses to back it up. I have not condemned violence. I have not honored them that
fear the Lord. I have entered into agreements
before that were to my benefit and to the others hurt. I have
invested my money for return. I have tens of dollars in the
savings account right now. I do. Earning a fraction of a
penny a year, I do. I've taken from people who didn't
owe me anything. Based on how I've lived my life,
if anybody is not going to heaven, I'm not. Based on how I've lived
my life. You are not either. You're not
either. Based on how you have lived your
life, you're not going. Lord, who's gonna dwell there?
Not you. You're not going. Our fathers
are not going. Our grandfathers are not going.
Our great grandfathers are not going. Every man and woman, all
the way back to Adam, in the flesh, based on how we
live our life in the flesh, we're not going. Lord, who shall abide
in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? Here's the answer. With man,
it's impossible. Look at Psalm 14, verse 2. It says, the Lord looked down
from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any
that did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside. They are all together become
filthy. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Every single man and woman that
has ever been born into sinful flesh has tried to earn heaven
and every single one has failed. Every one of them. That's why
Christ came. Had that not been so, Christ
would have never come. Had one man been able to achieve, Psalm 15,
Christ would not have come. That's why Christ came. He came to redeem a ruined people. He came to give to them what
they could not earn for themselves. He came to open a door they could
not open. He came to satisfy a demand that
they could not satisfy. And that's exactly what he did.
That's what he did. He came and walked uprightly. Psalm 15 describes one man. Only one man has ever fulfilled
Psalm 15. Jesus Christ, our Lord. He came
and walked uprightly for his people. He came and worked righteousness. He came and spoke nothing but
the truth. Nothing but the truth, the absolute
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. No lie was in
him, not one. Not one time did he ever slander
with his tongue. Not one time did he ever do wrongly
to his friend. Not one time. Not one time did
he ever receive the accusations of the adversary, the enemies
against his people. I love the story that's in John
eight of the woman who was caught in the act of adultery. I love
that story. I love that story. She was caught.
Those Pharisees caught her and grabbed her and yanked her to
the Lord for him to judge her. They said, here she is. This
is what we caught her doing. Now, what do you have to say
about that? And the Lord stooped down with his finger. He started
writing in the dirt, writing the sins of the Pharisees. He
didn't say anything, he just started writing. And they started
looking at what he was writing, and he wrote the sins of that man,
and that man hung his head down and walked away. And he wrote
the sins of that man, and that man hung his head down and walked
away. And one by one, they all walked away, till they were all
gone, and then the Lord stood up, and he said, Woman, where
are thine accusers? Hath no man accused thee? And
she said, No man, Lord. He said, neither do I. He did
not receive one accusation. This is what she did. We caught
her. Neither do I. Go and sin no more. Go, be completely
free from sin. This woman's a sinner. We caught
her in the act of sin. No, she's not. You go be completely
free from sin. Not one time did he receive a
reproach against his friend. Not one time did he ever not
condemn the vile. He condemned all the vile and
honored them that fear the Lord. Now here's the question. How
could he do that? She was caught in the act. How
can a woman caught in the act be freed to go and him not receive
it. Here's how. The end of verse
4 says, he swore to his own hurt. He promised, he entered into
a covenant that would bring all the hurt, all the guilt, all
the blame, all the shame, all the condemnation upon himself. so that all his people might
be guiltless, blameless, shameless, condemnless. Because Christ came, there's
therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ. Who is he that condemneth? It's
Christ that died. It's Christ that swore to his
own hurt. And it's Christ who, the end
of verse four says, changes not. He'll never go back on it. Never.
Verse five says, I love this. He did not put out his money,
his riches. Oh, the unsearchable riches of
Christ. He did not put them out to usury. He did not do one thing in order
to get something in return. Not one time. Everything he did
was by grace. Everything he did was for grace. It was in the name of grace.
It was all a free gift. It went out. That's it. It just
went out. He did all the giving and not
one time did he ever take a gift in return. He never took reward
against those that he'd made to be innocent. which is wonderful
news because we didn't have anything to give. Nothing. So here's where
we stand now in the outline. Who is not going to get to go
to heaven? In our flesh, in our works, we're not. Who is going to get to go to
heaven? Who has earned it? Who's worthy
to walk right through the gates in His flesh According to His
works, Christ is. He's the only man worthy to.
Only He that came down from heaven is worthy to turn around and
walk right back into heaven. Now here's the glorious message
of the Gospel. Look with me at Psalm 2. Psalm 2 verse 8. This is God
the Father speaking to Christ His Son. He said, Ask of Me. And I shall give thee the heathen
for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth
for thy possession. He said, if you ask of me, I'll
give you a particular number of those ruined people. They
will belong to you forever. They will be with you. They will
be in you. They are the ones that you will
walk uprightly for. They are the ones that you will
speak the truth for. They are the ones that you will
enter into that covenant for. They are the ones who will receive
your grace. They are the ones that you will
redeem. As you are, so will they be. Where you go, they will go. Your people will be their people. YOUR FATHER WILL BE THEIR FATHER. ALL OF THIS WILL HAPPEN FOR THEM
IN YOU. I'M GOING TO PUT THEM IN YOU. ALRIGHT NOW LET'S LOOK AT DAVID'S
QUESTION ONE MORE TIME IN LIGHT OF THAT. GO WITH ME BACK TO PSALM
15. LET'S READ THIS LINE AND LET'S
READ BETWEEN THE LINE. PSALM 15 VERSE 1 SAYS LORD Who
shall abide in thy tabernacle? John chapter 1 says the word
was made flesh and dwelt among us. You know what the word dwelt
means? Tabernacled. The word tabernacled among us. Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? in you. Lord, who is going to
abide in you? Who is going to dwell in the
holy hill? Who is going to get to go to heaven? Here's the answer. Whoever abides in Christ. It's a sinner's only hope. Our
Lord said in John 15, except you abide in me and I in you,
there's no life. All who do abide in Christ. Now, I want to abide in Him. All who do abide in Christ will
be given faith to believe that. All who do abide in Christ will
be caused to see. God's Spirit will reveal to them
that being in Christ is their only hope. They will read Psalm
15 and say, that's not me. Being in Christ is my only hope.
And all of them will cry out from the depths of the soul,
Lord, who is going to abide in thy tabernacle? Please say it's
me. Is that where you are? Please
say it's me. Lord, please let me be one of
them. I must be in you. It's my only hope. It's the only
thing I have. If that's you, if you see your
need of being in Him, if you must be in Him and you're crying
out, begging to be in Him, then you are in Him. Only those who are in Him see
their need of being in Him and cry out just like David did.
Only those who are in Him cry out just like David did. And
if that's you, If you are only a sinner begging God to save
you by grace, then when the time of glory comes, that moment we
just sang marching to Zion. And every time I sing it, I do,
I imagine the Lord coming back. We all rising up, we meet him
in the air and I guess we'll be flying or floating or something,
but somehow marching. And I imagine us realizing this
is the moment. This is it. Here we go. We're marching through Emmanuel's
ground to Pharaoh world's on high. And when that moment comes, if
you want to know who is going to go and how we're going to
go. It's in Him and this is what
it's going to look like and this is what it's going to sound like.
Go to Psalm 24. Verse 1 says, The earth is the
Lord's, and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell
therein. For He hath founded it upon the
seas, and established it upon the floods. Now here's the question. Who shall ascend into the hill
of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy
place? Here's the answer. He that hath
clean hands, and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul
unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. And we've seen that's only one
man, only one man, Christ alone. Verse five says, he shall receive
the blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of
his salvation. Verse six says, this is the generation
of them that seek him, that seek thy face. The margin says, oh
God of Jacob, all who seek him are in him and in him, This is
what all of His people are going to experience with Him, alright?
After He comes back, gathers all of His people to Himself,
gathers all of them up in Himself, He's going to head straight back
to Heaven. And this is the announcement that's going to go forth. Verse
7, Heaven says, Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye
lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come
in. Who is this King of Glory? The
Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle, the one
who finished the battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory
shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The
Lord of Hosts. He is the King of Glory. Who's going to enter into Heaven?
Jesus Christ is. And every soul that the Father
has placed in Him is going to march right in with Him. Every
single soul. Now this is my prayer. I pray
that every person here sees their need of being in Him. Every person here. I hope God
has revealed to us that it's the only hope we have. It is the only hope we have. Because if He has, we have a
good hope. If He's caused us to hope in
that, we have a good hope. All whose hope is in Christ will
get to go to heaven. Who's going to go to heaven?
Every soul whose hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Hope thou
in the Lord. Hope thou in the Lord. Hope in
everything that He's done to carry us straight on in. Alright,
let's all stand together.