Chapter 23. Most of the Proverbs in this
book were written down by Solomon. God gave him remarkable wisdom. And he gave him wisdom because
that's what he asked for. Did I say Proverbs? Oh, Proverbs
23. We're going to look at verse
10 and 11. But most people look at these
proverbs and just see them on the surface, and they're good
for that. You won't do yourself any harm
just following these proverbs as though they were any other
book of wise sayings. But if that's what you do, you
will miss the primary point. For we hold, as our Lord Jesus
taught, we hold that all the scriptures are about Christ. And if we don't understand a
particular scripture as it relates to our Lord Jesus Christ, we
have not understood it as it should be understood. And so when we look at this scripture
this morning, we'll read here in just a second, we can see
the wisdom of it, the value of it, the righteousness of it,
just on the surface. but there's something much more
glorious underneath the surface. Verse 10, do not move an ancient
boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless,
for their defender is strong. He will take up their case against
you. Now, it's a wonder to see the
special compassion that God has toward the weak and the lonely,
excuse me, the lowly. And sometimes the lonely fits
into that category. We'll call that a spiritual slip. And we know this not only because
of the things that might be written here in the scriptures, we know
this because of the way our God acted when He came here among
us as a human being. The Word, the eternal God, the
Word was made flesh and made His dwelling among us. If you
want to know what God in heaven is like, God is, you know, we
try to fathom in our mind what God is like and, I mean, There's
no harm in doing that, but don't think that you're ever going
to understand God in his absolute essence. God as he was before
the worlds were made. Because that's too much for our
minds. That would be like Romeo trying
to understand Shakespeare. Romeo may think, you know, I'm
in a play. There must be an author. But
he cannot understand what it is to be an author. That's outside
the categories of mind. Same with us. God is the author
of our existence. He's the author, the sovereign
decreer and writer of everything that happens. And you and I are
the characters in his play, a play he wrote as a stage upon which his glory
is to be manifested. But he did something remarkable,
something I don't think Shakespeare ever did. God wrote himself into
his play in the character of Jesus Christ. And all we can
know about God And all we need to know about God is revealed
in Jesus Christ. The book of Hebrews says He is
the express image of His person. Now this is a mystery, and we're
not going to be able to get our heads wrapped around it. And
if we think, well, I'm just not going to believe it until I can
understand it, then you're never going to believe it. But Jesus
of Nazareth is the eternal God. That's just so. He is the God who said, let there
be light. He spoke and it was. He commanded
and it stood firm. That's just how it is. You say,
well, how can he be the eternal God and die? I'll leave that to God to figure
out. Well, how can he be omnipresent and yet he was only in one spot? I'll leave that to God. I mean,
I got my own ways that I can reconcile it in my mind, but
I might not know how to express them. How can he be the omniscient
one, knowing everything, and yet be surprised by anything? If you read in the King James
that he marveled at something, that means he was surprised by
it. But our God did that. He who knew no boundaries put
himself within a boundary. Why? Because we could never know
him apart from that. We could know that he is. Common
sense tells anybody there's a God. We could know that he is, but
we wouldn't know anything about him. We wouldn't know what kind
of God he is. But God came. and in the very
nature of humanity, even looking like the sinful flesh that you
and I are. He lived among us, and the way
he lived is a revelation of what God is like, his character. And when our Lord was here, whom
did he seek out and who sought him? The lowly, the poor, the disadvantaged. Yes, there were a few. There
were a few from the upper echelons, but not many. That's why Paul
said to the Corinthian church, you see your calling and election,
brethren, how not many mighty, not many noble, not many wise
by the world standards, meaning educated class. Not many significant people are among you. No, God has chosen
the lowly things and the things that are not. He's chosen the
fools to prove the wise of this world
to be fools. He's chosen nothings to bring
to naught, bring to nothing what the world counts as something.
You see, God glorifies himself not in choosing out those which
appear to have great talents, great abilities, and then using
them for the furtherance of his kingdom, as though there was
something about them that made them usable. People have told me, I don't
see how you do what you do. I mean, stand up here and preach.
Now, maybe they're just like everybody else, and I read that
the greatest fear, even more than the fear of death, is the
fear of public speaking. People are just terrified about
that. You want to know why I'm not afraid of it anymore? What
you're afraid of is making a fool of yourself, and I've done that
so many times, I'm accustomed to it. You say, aren't you afraid
you'll make a fool of yourself? Well, I'm pretty sure I will,
but everybody already knows that. But also, you know, to preach
the truth week after week. How do you do that? I don't. Not by anything natural to me.
When I came here in 1987, I didn't bring anything with me that would
be useful to you or anybody else. I didn't bring my education.
Well, it came with me, but that's not what made me useful. I didn't
bring my zeal. Zeal is not a word that you people
would usually apply to me anyway. I didn't bring anything. God
brought me and said, open your mouth. I'll fill it with something
to say. Yes, I studied and all that, but still. When I stand
up here, I'm utterly dependent on God to be able to say anything
that would benefit anybody or bring even the slightest amount
of glory to His name. Paul said, we have this treasure. And boy, the gospel's a treasure,
isn't it, Eric? You pointed that out in your prayer. We were children
of wrath. Not anymore. Oh, wow. That's riches. But Paul said we have this treasure
in clay pots. You hear the treasure, friends,
but what you see is the clay pot. God chooses lowly things. We're
so busy. You know, one reason that I believe
so many people, They hear the gospel, they think they understand
it, but they can go somewhere else where the gospels preach
differently and say, well, that's the same thing. And you go, can't
you tell the difference? And here's one reason I think
they can't tell the difference, is they think they are something. And because they think they are
something, that they have something of essential value to them that
God really wants them. they never do come to understand
the God of nobodies, the God of the worthless. When the apostles went out to
preach, they had basically a two-fold message. The first one is Jesus
is the Christ, or Jesus is the Messiah, same thing. The second
part is Christ, Messiah is all. Now that's a pretty radical statement.
Christ is all. People say make Christ the center
of your life. That's not enough. The Bible says Christ is our
life. Christ is all. He's all to God. Everything about salvation, was
put into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything about
salvation's about him. So far as the performing of it
is within the realm of our existence. It's he who came and lived the
life we couldn't live because we're sinners. It was he who
died the death we dare not die because we're sinners. And it's
he who rose again. and rose on high to be seated
at the right hand of his father. The place of privilege. The throne
that already belonged to him as God, but now it belongs to
him even as man. One of the old preachers used
to say, there's a man in glory. And that means there's hope for
men on earth. All about him. And if anything of your gospel
contains anything other than Christ. It's a polluted gospel. Now, of all the things I've said
to this congregation in the nearly 35 years, that's the sum of it. Christ is all. Do you really believe that? Well,
if you've been born again, half of you believes it. The spirit
believes it, the flesh, no. Flesh never will believe it until
God makes it new. And you're going to struggle
with this mixture of spiritual belief and fleshly unbelief. One day you're going to think
you could believe and you've got faith so strong you could
just walk upstairs to heaven. And other days you'll have faith
so weak that you don't even know it's there and you'll wonder
if you died right now the earth would open up and swallow you
alive into hell. Why? Because we're this mixed
up mess of born again spirit and the
same old flesh we were born with. But oh, what compassion our God
has. When he spoke, he said, blessed
are the poor in spirit. Blessed are
those who mourn. Blessed are those who are persecuted.
You say, well, that doesn't sound like the blessings I want. Well,
I didn't. Quote all of those beatitudes.
Blessed are the poor in spirit. They will see God. Blessed are
the mourn. Who's mourn? They'll be filled.
Excuse me. They'll be comforted. Blessed
are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. I get so
sick of hearing people talking about what progress they've made
in righteousness. I'm still just hungry. I don't have any. Now let me,
let me qualify that. I have the righteousness of Christ
charged to my account as though I myself performed it, even though
I know I didn't. But I hunger and thirst not only
that Christ's righteousness be upon me for my justification,
but that that righteous, holy, and perfect nature be given me
to the full. Oh, to wake up. and not be immediately
flooded with thoughts of sin. Oh, to be able to pray and get more than two sentences
out before you're thinking of something else. That's frustrating, isn't it?
It's a struggle. But we shouldn't be surprised
about it. The Bible told us about it. And God has a mercy and pity
upon such. He said, let us boldly come to
the throne of grace, not the throne of obedience, not the
throne of law, not the throne of behavior, not
the throne of success, the throne of grace, the place where people
go who have nothing. where people who know they are
nothing go. And I love it, the writer of
Hebrews said, let's go boldly. Boldly? We may think that it's the better
part of humility for us to go crawling into the presence of
God. Wait a minute, that's not what the Bible says. For those
whose desire is grace, whose need is grace, he said, come
boldly unto the throne of grace, sovereign grace, ruling grace. Let us come unto the throne of
grace that we may find mercy. mercy. Our God says this, I delight
in mercy. Meaning He delights to show it.
Let me ask you something, do you delight to receive it? Most
people don't want mercy. Let me give you kind of another
word for it, charity. That's what he's talking about.
We don't really want folks to think that we're dependent. Well,
we're independent. If you're spiritually independent,
I can tell you where you're headed. It's not hard to figure out at
all. You're headed to hell if you're
spiritually independent. We are utterly dependent on him. Blind Bartimaeus, Jesus, thou
son of David, have mercy on me. Now, was he asking Jesus to do
it? And some people limit mercy this
way. They say, well, mercy is getting
what you didn't earn. And they're always thinking of
it in terms of punishment. So by grace, we get what we didn't
work for. By mercy, we don't get. what
we did work for. That is, we don't get the punishment
we deserve. But it's much broader than that.
The word actually means to pity. And what blind Bartimaeus was
saying to the Lord Jesus, Jesus, Son of David, look over here,
look at me, a blind man. I can't see, which means there
isn't anything productive for me to do that I can make a living. I've got to sit here and beg
day after day after day, hoping somebody will have a little pity
on me and give me some money, but I think you can do more. And it's funny, our Lord was
being crowded around by people, being pushed and shoved, everybody
wanting something, wanting this. He was healing people, you know.
Our Lord's healing practice wasn't like the guys you see on TV.
He didn't just heal once in a while. He waded through crowds, touching
people, and they were healed. And you can imagine how there
was a press around him, and lots of people crying out. And then
all at once, something caught the Lord's ear. It wasn't his
name. I'm sure there were a lot of
people saying Jesus, probably several of them saying Son of
David. But one word cut through all
that noise and got God in human flesh to stop. Jesus, thou Son
of David, have Mercy on me. Our Lord has never turned his
ear away from a cry for mercy. Look on me, Jesus. You see this mess. Oh, have pity. And our Lord said, well, what
do you want? All that I could see. Lord said,
okay, you can see. And immediately he could see. That's our God. But his grace
and mercy, his pity and kindness go much deeper than the natural
things of life because it would be a small thing to spend your
life in natural blindness if you had spiritual eyesight. It would be a small thing to
endure whatever troubles this life may throw at us. If, when
this life comes to an end, we are ushered into his presence
faultless and full of joy. Oh, what mercy he has on us miserable
wretches. Most famous hymn of all, I guess,
is Amazing Grace, and they ruin it. In our day, I hear them,
they won't say that word, wretch. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a soul like me. They just can't admit their
wretches. The man who wrote it, John Newton,
knew what a wretch he was. And that's what made grace amazing. That when God reached down in
grace and mercy, he reached down and scraped the bottom of the
barrel and found the most needy. It said he has taken us from
the garbage heap, the dumpster, and set us among princes. Everybody's too busy trying to
be a prince. Now we live in a society where
a person can get a reasonable amount of justice. Even the lowly can go to court,
and more so than in other nations in history, even the poor can
find justice against the rich. Even the weak can find justice
against the powerful. I know that our system's not
perfect. I'm not saying that, but it's probably as good a one
as man's ever come up with. It wasn't so much that way in
Solomon's day. You didn't have policemen everywhere. You didn't have, well, the structure in place
that helps us get justice. And therefore, the rich and powerful
would often go to the inheritance of the lowly. And while nobody's
watching, move a boundary stone and take somebody's land. He'd encroach on the fields of
the fatherless, the orphan, who had nothing but what his father
left him. And they'd find some way to scooch
the boundary line a little onto that property, a little more. And Solomon says, do not move
an ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the
fatherless. Now, here's King Solomon. who is a picture of
our Lord Jesus Christ. And in Israel, he was as big
and powerful and rich and influential as anybody could get. And he
says to all the other rich and powerful in that nation, and
this is just on the surface looking at it, he said, don't you move
a boundary stone, their defender, and taking it merely on the surface. He said, for their defender,
me, I'm strong, I'm powerful, and I will take up their cause
against you. If it's found out that you've moved somebody's
boundary stone, I will make you suffer for it. And more deeply than this, he
was speaking to those who through their riches and the deceitfulness
of riches thought themselves above justice and thought so
long as in their power they were able to silence this or that
judge or whatever or, you know, bribe them. He says to them,
understand this too, they have another defender stronger than
even me. And he sees and he knows. And I won't try to figure out
for sure just how much Solomon understood that this scripture,
which speaks of a defender, was speaking of someone greater than
him and was actually, the whole thing was about spiritual matters. Who are the fatherless in this
world? Believers. Oh, we have a heavenly
father. Don't get me wrong there. But in this world, spiritually
speaking, we have no father. This world does not count us
part of its family. The world has its religion. It
comes in a lot of different forms, but it all boils down to this.
Do the right things, and when you die, you'll be blessed. And they have their fathers.
They have their leaders. They have those who will gladly
take, you know, bring them under their arm, usually to fleece
them, but they know how to make it look good. And the world finds
its comfort in its religious leaders. And we who are believers
in our Lord Jesus Christ, there is no father for us of this world. And the world of religion. And
the world's religion. Even those versions of the world's
religion that take to themselves the name of Christ and Christianity.
And there's a lot of them. The world says, you know, the
business of comparative religion says there's 2 billion Christians
in the world. And I'm thinking, no, I think
it's a lot less than that. There's 2 billion people call
themselves Christians. But just as among the Jews, there
were many who called them Jews, but Paul said, but only a remnant
were truly of the people of God. And of all those people that
call themselves Christians, only a remnant are truly God's people. And I'm not saying that to elevate
us. That remnant is saved by grace.
They were just like the others who weren't part of the remnant.
And God said, but I'm going to take this piece out of this bolt of cloth.
I'm gonna rip it off and it's gonna look like a rag to everybody
else, but it's my remnant. It's mine. I'll make it glorious
in my time. The Lord said that in that day
many will say to him, Lord, Lord, did we not I heard Brother Henry Mahan preach
on that. He said that word, many, terrifies me. If it said a few
are going to say, he said, I wouldn't be so scared. I said, many. And
we go around and we say, oh, yes, I'm a Christian. I believe
Jesus. Many shall say unto me. They thought everything was OK.
They were Christians. They went to a Christian church.
They were born in one, raised in one, and stayed in one. That
makes you a Christian, doesn't it? No. Don't move the ancient boundaries.
When the Jews went into the land, allotments were given to the
12 tribes, where they were. And then within
each of those tribes, allotments were given to the various clans
and families. And boundary lines were drawn.
Boundary stones were set in place. And the reason they do that is,
and of course, I'm sure they would choose a stone that was
rather hard to move, because they knew the nature of men,
so they wouldn't make it hard to move them, but it wasn't impossible. And he was saying, don't go move
those boundary stones. They're ancient. They were established
long ago. You don't have a right to move
them. Now, what is the boundary stones are referenced to. Truth. One of the things that amazes
me, I don't understand how these, it mostly happens in the seminaries
of denominations. These guys sit around and they
study too much. They think they've got to come up with something
new. And a boundary stone has been there forever. That's not
right. And move it over there. Wait a minute. God put that boundary
stone there. Don't you move it. It outlines
the inheritance, the heritage of the people of God. Now world,
you've got your heritage and you're welcome to it. Don't try to intrude on ours. There's a boundary stone like
grace. Our brother read, for by grace
you have been saved. People say we're saved by faith.
No, you're not. You're saved by grace through faith. Nobody's
ever saved without faith, but here's the thing about the faith
that saves. It's the gift of God. That didn't even come from
you. Many of you believed, thought
you believed God, and then one day, The preacher was preaching
the same thing he'd been preaching for who knows how long, and you'd
been listening to for who knows how long, and all at once, it's
like a light went on. Oh! I never understood that before. Now that's the faith that's the
gift of God. It's not just being trained in
proper doctrine. It's coming to see the wisdom
of God in his grace. the wisdom of God in his mercy,
the freeness of God's grace and mercy, and to embrace it, not
as one who deserves it, because the moment you deserve it, it's
no longer grace. The moment you deserve it, it's
no longer mercy. There's nothing you even qualified for. Some
people think they qualify for it by convincing themselves about
how sinful they are. Nobody has ever come to an understanding
of just how wretchedly sinful we are. The only one who actually
knows the true measure of our sin is the one who bore it, the
Lord Jesus Christ. But I tell you this, I know enough
about my sin to know it's bigger than me. It's more than I can
manage. I need a deliverer. I need God
to receive me by grace and mercy, or I will not be received. Don't
move that boundary stone. Don't put it somewhere else that
includes some territory of works, and yet you're trying to call
it grace. Well, I know that salvation's by grace, but you gotta live
right. You moved an ancient boundary stone. We should live right. How many
here have? That's a rhetorical hand up.
I'm not putting my hand up as though I think I've lived right. Nobody. In fact, not only have
you not lived perfectly, you have never done anything that
God could call righteous or good. Well, since I believe, no, not
since then either. Well, you're up there preaching,
isn't that good? Well, I'm up here opening my mouth and saying
some words. And I hope that God does something, because if God
does something, that'll be good. But what I'm doing, I'm not going
to go up and say, Lord, I know that nearly all the time I sinned,
but do you remember how on February 6, 2022, I preached? I'm not
going to bring that up. Because you'll say, yeah, I heard
that. And the wonder of it is, I was able to take that mess
and bless my people with it. Grace. Don't move that ancient
boundary stone. The blood. The blood. Don't move it. Well, Jesus died to show us his
love. Well, his death for us certainly
did demonstrate his love, but there were other ways he could
have done that. Why did Christ die? Because that's
the payment for sin. And much as God may love his
people, their sin still has to be paid for. He's a just God.
He punished it in Christ. What can wash away my sin? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. Don't move that stone. It's all
I got. It marks the territory I live
in and live off of. Don't move it. There's a stone of Christ. Lots of people carrying a stone
with that name on it. But it's not him. But there is a stone upon which
God has written the name of his son. And he placed it. Don't move it. Don't encroach. Spiritually speaking,
don't you try to take anything away from the believer. Well, you know, believers, they
get so much, but if they live a really dedicated life, they
get extra crowns. Really now? Yeah. There's a crown of life and a
crown of righteousness and a crown of this. Yeah, and I'm working
for them. You know, if I have them up there, I'm going to try
to balance all the ones I'm getting. Praise be to the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in the heavenly places, where? In Christ. You got Christ, you got it all. You believe that? You got Christ,
you've got it all. There's no more rewards to work for. And
tell me, what more is there than Christ? Is there anything else
God could give you more than his son that would put you in
better shape than you are with only his son? Christ is our heaven to have
him, to be with him, and to be like him. That's our heaven. All the other things that we
count as blessings are merely subheadings under the heading
Christ. We are chosen in Him. We are
accepted in Him. We are forgiven in Him. We are
blessed with everything in Him. You and I that believe, we don't
have anything to work for. Got nothing more to earn. because everything good has already
been handed to us in Christ. Or maybe we should say willed
to us. It's an inheritance. And it's
waiting for us, and it's up there where thieves can't get to it. They'll try, but they can't.
Don't encroach on the fields of the fatherless, the orphan
in this world, and say, you know, yes, that's your allotment. But
you don't get all of it unless, no sir. Brethren, the whole thing
is ours in Christ. For their defender is strong. He will take up their case against
you. You know what scripture I'm reminded
of? 1 John chapter 2. Dear children, I write these
things unto you so that you won't sin. But if any man sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, a defender, a defense attorney. Jesus Christ, the righteous one. It is written that the devil
is the accuser of the brethren and that's what he does day and
night in the presence of God. He's trying to change the boundary
lines. We claim all blessings in Christ and God has promised
us all blessings in Christ and he goes up there and charges
us with sin in the presence of God in an attempt to move the
boundary line so that maybe we end up on the wrong side of it. And it says that the accuser
of the brethren has been cast out. By whom? Well, in the case of
the book of Revelation, it's by believers because it says
they overcame him by the word of their testimony. What was
that? The gospel that they were preaching. The gospel that they
believed. Overcame him by the blood of
the Lamb. The blood that paid for all the
blessings they claim. I've got to wrap this up. Again,
I say, well, I wish we didn't have schedules. This is such
a precious scripture. They're defender strong. You
say, I am weak. I know, so am I. It's irrelevant. You're defender strong. But I
can't stand. Well, that's not the issue. He
did, he can, and he does stand. You know, when Stephen was being
stoned to death because of his testimony of the gospel, he said
he saw the heavens open and Jesus standing there. He stands. You say, my conscience convicts
me. Yeah, it will. Your fleshly conscience, remember
this, you do with your conscience the same thing you do with the
devil if he tries to accuse you before God. You just cover it
over with the blood. Say, yes, I've sinned, I don't
deny that, but the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me from all sin. Before him, I have no sin, and
I possess the land. Don't move the boundary. Don't
encroach on my field. I've got my defender on speed
dial. and he's strong, and he'll take
up my cause against you. Now what should we do? Well, for one thing, let's not
try to move the boundary with one another. We go around and
say, salvation's by grace, you know, and we're all doing well
until somebody crosses us. Well, I don't know if that person's
saved. Don't move the boundary line. You thought he was saved
yesterday, and you said he was saved by grace. Do you think
his offense against you has put him on the wrong side of the
line of grace? Grace put him on the right side
when he had millions of offenses against God. Believe me, an offense
against you is not going to throw him out. Now he's not doing right
by me. Forgive him as God, for Christ's
sake, forgave you. And when you go out, Don't move
the boundary lines in order to include people you want in, but
really, they're not willing to submit to the gospel of the scriptures. Well, I know he believes that
in order to be saved, we gotta be baptized, you know. But he
loves God. Wait a minute. He doesn't know
what the scriptures say. Yes, everyone who believes should
be baptized, but that baptism doesn't do anything to them except
make them wet. It's a demonstration of what
God has already done. I know he can't be perfect, but
if a man doesn't do the best he can, he's not going to, well,
I'm sorry. You may like him. It may be one
of your parents, may be a brother or sister or child or whatever.
Don't move the boundary line. The gospel of pure grace, pure
grace in Christ. I'm not saying be judgmental
of other people, but if they're not willing to believe that,
then they're not on the right side of the boundary line and
you moving the boundary stone isn't going to put them in. Tell the truth exactly as it's
declared in the scriptures and know this, Every one of God's
sheep will be found by that. And they'll all be inside on
the right side of the line. And in the end, all the efforts
that men have made to remove the ancient boundary stones will
have failed. Why? Because the one who defends
those stones and the people inside is strong. And I'm glad, because
as the children's song says, Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so. Well, my memory's gone. Thank you. Little ones to him
belong. They are weak, but he is strong. And therein is our hope and confidence.