Would you open your Bibles now
to Proverbs chapter 16. Proverbs 16. And we will begin reading with
verse 20. Last week, I forgot to turn on
the camera and I forgot to turn on the backup recording device
here. So we didn't get any recording
at all last week. So I'm trying to make sure we
get it this week. There we go. Let's seek the Lord's blessing
before we enter this portion of our worship. Our Father, how good it is that we can hear
from your word and understand the things that are said there
to apply them in such a way that the words become life to us. You said to the religious leaders
long ago, you search the scriptures, for in them you think you have
life. These are the scriptures that testify of me, but you will
not come to me that you might have life. Our Lord, we pray you would protect
us from that spirit today, that we would realize that the scriptures
themselves are not life, but the one of whom the scriptures
speak, he is life. Lord, we read when Christ, who
is your life, shall appear, we're glad that you are our life, that
you are the source of our life, the sustainer of our life. You
are the one who gives it to us by grace. And we desire no life but that
life which comes from you. But Lord, as we go through the
remainder of this slow and walking death that the
world calls life, we pray that you would be with us. For often,
our time here is difficult. And we're not surprised by this.
All your people through all the ages have given testimony to
that and you yourself did. And we do not complain, Lord,
of our troubles, as though we are being treated worse than
we deserve. But we do ask, Lord, that in
the midst of our troubles, you would draw near to us and testify
of your presence with us. Lord, in this congregation there
are those who undergo severe trial and we ask that you would
be with them in this time. Not only that you'd be with them,
Lord, but testify to them that you are with them and say to
their souls, I am your salvation, I am your deliverance, I will
never leave you nor forsake you. For Lord, what is there that
a person could not bear? if he knew that in the midst
of it, you were with him, that you were sanctifying all his
troubles to his good. Lord, we pray for those that
maybe right now are going through a time of unusual prosperity. For Lord, prosperity can sometimes
be a much worse trap than difficulty. Lord, keep them. May they not
take their eyes off of the one who blesses and set their eyes
upon the blessings. Lord, may our eyes never be taken
away from you. We pray that as the word is preached
this morning, you'd give to me grace to preach it, to say something
worth saying, a word of glory to the Lord Jesus Christ and
a word of blessing to his people. It is in the name of our Lord
Jesus we pray it, amen. Now beginning Proverbs chapter
16, verse 20, Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers, and
blessed is he who trusts in the Lord. Many of the Proverbs are
two statements coupled together, and we're supposed to draw some
conclusions from that, not simply read the words as though they're
isolated statements. And here it speaks of instruction,
and the one who receives or gives heed to instructions, prospers.
And then following right on that, it seems like something that
might be unrelated. Blessed is he who trusts in the
Lord. But they're not unrelated because
the instruction of the Lord is that you trust him. Trust in
the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge
him and he will direct your steps, your paths. That's the instruction. Blessed is the man who gives
heed to that. And then verse 21, the wise in heart are called
discerning and pleasant words promote instruction. Those who
are wise in heart are those who indeed have followed the instruction
of the Lord and they do trust the Lord with all their hearts.
And such people are discerning. That is, they have wisdom, they
can rightly give value to whatever is set before them. You know,
not all things have the same value, and the unfortunate thing
is that our nature is to put great value on things that really
aren't that valuable after all. to assign minimal value to those
things which are of eternal consequences. But a wise man, one who has been
taught in grace and has grown in grace and the knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ, he discerns, he understands what's important
and what's not. He understands what's good and
what is not. And then it says, pleasant words
promote instruction. One of the things he comes to
understand is that whenever he gives instruction, whenever he
teaches, he does so with gracious, pleasant words. He's come to
the realization that people, for the most part, are never
properly instructed, taught by a harsh, tone of voice, by pounding pulpits
and things like that. Verse 22, understanding is a
fountain of life to those who have it, but folly brings punishment
to fools. Meaning of that is quite obvious.
Verse 23, a wise man's heart guides his mouth and his lips
promote instruction. It is written, Out of the abundance
of the heart, the mouth speaks. A popular phrase is that the
eyes are the window to the soul. The Bible says the mouth is the
window to the soul. Whatever is coming out of a person's
mouth first was found in his heart.
He speaks according to what is in his heart. And that can be
applied in virtually any set of circumstances, but in particular,
this is true with regard to spiritual things. The other day, our sister, Missy
DeBoer, came by the house. She said she wanted to interview
me, and I suppose I'm just too fond of talking about me, so
I said, okay. And she came over and she's been going around to
several preachers. And she has a series of seven
questions she asks them. I think it's kind of neat what
she's doing. And she may turn it into a book and I'm anxious
to read it if she does. But questions like, I think the
first one was, what do you believe? And another question was, how
do you get to heaven? And she's been surprised at the
answers she's gotten because of course virtually all her life
she has heard what we preach here. It's been surprising to
find out what comes out of the mouths of many preachers but
all it is is revealing what's in their heart. One of the questions
was can you lose your salvation? And I kind of surprised her when
she asked me that, she says, can a man lose his salvation?
I said, yes, he can. And the sooner he does, the better.
Because he won't be able to have the Lord's salvation until he
loses his own. But most people take that up
as, can a person be saved, truly saved, and then become truly
lost? And she was talking to one person,
the fellow said, oh, yes, yes, you can lose your salvation.
Well, there was a follow-up question, can you get it back? Yeah, you
can get it back. And he said this, it's all about your choice. All about your choice. Well,
this fellow revealed quite clearly what was in his heart. And what
was in his heart was himself. And therefore, out of the abundance
of the heart, he spoke about what he has done or must do and
continue to do in order to make himself a recipient of God's
salvation. And others are more subtle, but
if you listen, eventually their talk turns to themselves. Because out of the abundance
of the heart, the mouth speaks. Now a wise man's heart guides
his mouth and his lips promote instruction. That is a wise man
who has been taught grace by the Holy Spirit of God. It is
written, they shall all be taught of God. Now I can teach you and
you can remain ignorant. I can teach you and your hearts
remain unchanged. But if God teaches you it changes
your heart and your changed heart will change the tone of what
you say. Now I listen to people talk. I listen to those even
who claim to believe like we do and unfortunately I find that
many of them as they speak they really aren't speaking about
Christ. They're talking about the fact that they believe this
or that about Christ. They still keep getting back
to what they're doing instead of what Christ has done. But
the one who is born of God quite naturally speaks of Christ. Why? Because Christ fills his heart. And Christ is a little bit too
big for the heart and he flows out. Somebody said, Henry used to
tell this story, a little fellow was asking his mom, I believe
it was, and you know, children are, they're very literal thinkers.
And when you teach your children about spiritual things, all the
illustrations pretty much go over their head because they
haven't learned how to make the connection. It's not until teenage
years and whatnot that they really begin to understand the concept
of allegory and that sort of thing. But little children, they
just take it quite literally. And he'd heard the preacher said
that Christ was in us. And the little boy came to his
mother and says, is Christ really in us? And she said, yes. And he goes, well, if he was
in me, wouldn't he stick out? Because of course Christ was
bigger than him. You know something? The little kid without realizing
it, spoke the truth. Brethren, if he's in you, he'll
stick out. He's gonna come out. You probably
won't see it, others will. And then it says this in verse
24, and this is the scripture I want to spend the rest of our
time on. Pleasant words are a honeycomb,
sweet to the soul, and healing to the bones. Words are powerful. It is written the pen is mightier
than the sword. And in many ways it is. It may
not be as quick as the sword. The sword can force conformity
to certain actions. Words have the power to change
people. We probably learned, at least
I remember being taught that little phrase, sticks and stones
may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. And I'm not
saying we shouldn't tell our children that, but we should
explain it a little bit further. When we say that, what we're
trying to do is teach them, don't allow yourselves to be negatively
affected by people calling you names and teasing you and stuff
like that. Because in the end, it's just
words. And it's good if we can learn
to ignore the negative words of people. And boy, we have a
flood of it going on now, don't we? If the internet brought us
nothing else. It gave a worldwide audience
to everybody in the world and most of them are just spewing
their dissatisfaction with things. And it's remarkable to see grown-ups
talking like children on the playground. But when we say, sticks and stones
may break my bones, but words will never hurt me, we're actually
saying something that's not true. If you break my bones with a
ball bat, my bones will heal. There are words which can be
said which carry a hurt that never fully heals. Words that
can't be taken back. Words that cause people to shrink. Words which their very meaning
contains such negative power to them. that folks are belittled
by them, and they're crushed by them, or words spoken in such
a humanly powerful way that folks are made to cower under them. My mother, who dearly loved children,
probably as much as any woman alive, worked at Walmart Sometime
probably in her 60s, I can't remember exactly the time, but
she was a cashier. And she could get away with doing
things that others couldn't do. And she would, she didn't mind
rebuking people. She always did it rather gently,
my mother's way, but she didn't mind correcting people, particularly
when their behavior towards children was out of line. And there was
one. and I can't remember if it was
a dad with one of his kids or a mom with one of her kids. I
can't remember. But it was a parent and child.
And they come up there, and you know, they got all those candies
and everything right up by the cashier there. And the little
kid wanted some. And he said, can I have this?
No. And I mean, it wasn't, you know, no honey, you know, we're
going to be eating later, don't want to run your house. Nothing
like that. No. But can I have this? Stop it.
And finally, the parent called him stupid. Now, because of the way I was
brought up, I cannot imagine ever calling my children stupid,
even if I thought they were. I just wouldn't do it, you know?
It hurts. Can you imagine what that feels
like to a little kid? His parent calls him stupid.
Words hurt. And when that parent got up there,
my mom, my mom's ringing him up and said, do you want your
child to grow up to be stupid? And of course, the parent wasn't
expecting anybody to say to them. And he said, no. She said, if
you call him stupid, he'll become what you call him. All words are powerful. And while
we understand that with children, you know it's true with adults,
too. I know as adults we learn to hide the hurt, but somebody
comes breathing fire at us, or somebody belittles us. Most of us, when they belittle
us, we feel small, and it takes some time to get over it. Harsh
words are bitter, pleasant words. Gracious words. Kind words are like a honeycomb. Now, in our culture, we got so
many sweet things, honey just doesn't seem all that spectacular,
does it? But back then, if you wanted to get a good shot of
sweet, honey's about the only way it's gonna happen. Honey. And to go out there and be able
to find a beehive, and grab a piece of
that honeycomb. I understand they'd use it like
candy because you know honeycombs is wax and then inside is the
honey and they'd take some of that honeycomb and they'd chew
on it and of course the honey had squirted out and that was
a sweet, but the wax provided something to chew on. Closest
thing to bubblegum they had back then. But honey, one of the most
remarkable things God ever made. I mean, it's nourishing in many
ways, provides a great deal of energy. Imagine that you're famished
as some of these people could be. You know, they didn't have
a convenience store on every corner that they could go in
and grab something. And if they're on a long hike and they've run
out of food and they're getting hungry and they're getting downright
weak for lack of it, why, there's some honey. And you can eat some
of that, and that honey will hit your system, and the sugar
will hit your system, and immediately you're revived, and it was sweet
to the taste, good for the body, hardly anything better than honey. And from what I understand, I've
read it to be so, that honey won't go bad. You can put it in a jar, and
it'll just stay there. I don't know why. It's beyond
me why it won't go bad, but it doesn't. Honey is a remarkable thing.
Pleasant words are like that. Paul said, let your speech always
be with grace, seasoned with salt. You know, as one who's a leader within a church,
sometimes I got to say things which in and of themselves may
not be pleasant to hear. Now, God's been very gracious
to us and I've been very little of overt correction necessary. The Lord has been gracious to
let the simple preaching of the word accomplish what needs to
be done. But I have tried, not always
successfully, but I try that even when giving a word of correction
to take all the harshness out of it. You know why? Because
even correction can be pleasant. Whoever heeds to instruction
prospers. Even words that may come to us and
they reveal in us an improper way, an improper way of thinking,
an improper way of acting or whatever. Now in the flesh, we
don't like to be corrected, do we? We take it real personal. I keep saying we, I'm really
thinking me. I do. And I'll assume to a greater
or lesser degree, it's true of you also. We don't like it even
when we know it's right because we just don't like admitting
there's fault in us and it would do us and everybody else a whole
lot of good if we fix it. So we don't want somebody to
come to us and say now you need not to do that. Over the years I hope I have
gained some ability to hear a word of rebuke and even if it stings
to at least hold my tongue and see if there's some truth
in it. And if I believe that there is any inappropriate attitude
in it, just remove the attitude, listen to the words. Is there
truth in them? And if there's truth in them,
why should I be upset that somebody told it to me? Let each of us be willing to
be corrected. Because if you're not corrected,
you don't grow. Sometimes when I've said things in these Facebook
discussions or even other places where I might comment on stuff,
somebody will take exception to what I've said. And I'll respond
something like this. I said, look, if I'm wrong, correct
me or show me where I'm wrong. I would rather be corrected than
be wrong. Are you of the same opinion? Even if it's some cherished belief,
cherished opinion, I would rather be corrected than continue to
be wrong. It is pleasant when we are corrected. If we'll take it as correction
rather than an attack. but let us speak with pleasant
words. The God who teaches us to speak
pleasantly has himself spoken pleasantly to his people. Pleasant words are a honeycomb
sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Our Lord, when he was here, they
said never a man spoke like this man does. And you know why? Well, among other things, I'm
sure this was involved. They had listened to all the
legalistic rabbis. They had listened to all those
rabbis who came and told them how bad they were and denounced
them And not only showed them the error of their ways, but
did so in such a way that they understood what the rabbi was
saying was, I'm right, you're wrong. I'm better than you. And you really don't have a right
to be near me. Such people are described in
the book of Isaiah, the Lord says, they are a smoke in my
nose, who say, stand by yourself. I'm holier than you are. And
that's what the folks in the Lord's Day were used to listening
to. These religious uppity-ups, these guys who supposedly, like
Paul claimed of himself, that he had risen above his peers,
these guys thought they were something else. And they would
come, and with their demeanor, and with the tone of their voice,
and the content of their message, they beat the people down. It
was altogether unpleasantness. Can you imagine what it was like
to be among those sinners with whom the Lord was willing to
associate? And then watch some of those
Pharisees start talking to one another and you overhear them
and they're going, this man eats with sinners. And know that as
the contempt dripped from their lips on the word sinners, they
were talking about you. That's what they were used to
hearing. And here comes our Lord Jesus Christ, and He dresses
those who are poor in spirit, who not only had heard the distasteful
words of the religious people around them, but God had taught
them about their innate sinfulness. And they hungered and thirsted
after righteousness. They mourned within themselves
over what they were. And Jesus Christ said, blessed
are those who are poor, they shall be filled. Blessed
are those who hunger and seek after righteousness, they shall
be filled. Blessed are those who mourn,
they shall be made happy. Nobody else ever told them that
before. Nobody else had spoken such pleasant words to these
heartbroken people. Pleasant words. You know, we misunderstand where
the power of the gospel is if we think that by harshly rebuking
people that we're going to convince them of what we have to say.
Really. It just doesn't work. I mean,
I've tried it before. I've gotten all full of what I thought was
right, and boy, I was going to speak with some authority, and
I thought the authority that I would have would be my ability
to say something with a whole lot of volume and maybe even
a little bit of a growl in my voice. I'd heard other preachers
do it, and I thought it was effective. You know what? Well, it's effective,
but not spiritually effective. It'll irritate some people, and
rightly so. Others will be enamored of it,
and they end up following the preacher. Here is Here is a truth. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God and the salvation.
That meaning that the gospel is, not the manner of preaching
it. There's no power in that. I endeavor to preach the gospel
to you in one fashion or another every time I get up to preach.
And I cannot help but preach it in a way that goes with my
temperament and emotions and all that. You understand that?
But I know this, it's not going to be my manner of preaching
that makes it the power of God unto salvation for you. It's
just going to be the gospel itself does it. And that's why we find
throughout history all different kinds of preachers. Preachers
that just about jump up and down and maybe really get wound up
and preach. And then you got people that,
and I call them flat-footed preacher, and I'm getting to where I like
them more and more. But anyway, they just stand up here and say
it. And you know something? The Lord, well, the same thing
happens. Some people hear it, some people
don't. Some people believe it, some people don't. Why? Because it's not the preacher. It's not his manner. It's the
word itself that has the power. Therefore, I am free to preach
it in pleasant tones and do the best I can to show people that
everything the gospel has to say is a pleasant word to hear
it. And the only way that it can
ever become unpleasant to you is if your pride refuses to allow
you to receive it. For example, do you know what
I think is one of the most pleasant declarations of the gospel? That
the gospel tells me that I am so sinful there's nothing I can
do about it. You say, well that doesn't sound
very pleasant. It sounds really pleasant to
a man who's working himself to death trying to do something.
For if nothing else, that testimony to him will say you may as well
give up. you may as well give up. And
the first step of trusting Christ is giving up on yourself. And
when I hear some preacher declare the doctrine of total depravity,
I take no offense in it, first of all, because I know it's true,
at least it's true of me, if it's not true of anybody else.
But not only that, that knowledge that I am incapable of doing
anything, which the Lord could look at and say, okay, for him
doing that, I will bless him. That means I can quit trying.
I can quit all this effort I expend in trying to achieve something
that's absolutely impossible. Pleasant words are a honeycomb,
sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Now, I want to
look at three words from our God that are without question
pleasant. Pleasant when you first hear
them, pleasant the more you think on them. and they are sweet to
the soul. If these words are not sweet
to you, then the only thing that I can conclude with regard to you is
that your soul has not yet been made alive to God. But look over
at Jeremiah chapter 31. Jeremiah chapter 31. The Lord, in speaking of the new
covenant, which we understand to be the everlasting covenant,
the covenant of God's grace in Christ, and he describes it this
way. Beginning in verse 34, no longer
will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying,
Know the Lord, because they will all know me, from the least of
them to the greatest, declares Jehovah. For I will forgive their
wickedness, and will remember their sins no more. Now there are some to whom those
words would not be pleasant. And if those words are not pleasant
to you, it's obvious that you are spiritually dead. But I want
you to think of what the Lord God is saying. Who is it that's
saying this? This is a judge of all the earth
is saying this. Who says this? The same one who
at another time says that he would by no means clear the guilty. This is the same one who said
the soul that sins, it shall die. this is the one who said to Adam
in the garden regarding a very slight infraction what we would
call a slight infraction in the day that you eat of the tree
the fruit of this tree in that day dying you will die and he says regarding his Israel
with whom he makes this new covenant I will forgive their wickedness Now, a lot of people don't like
forgiveness. Why? Because you can't forgive someone
unless they've sinned. And most people don't really
want to admit they've done anything that just needs outright forgiveness.
You know, so often when we apologize, we not only say, I'm sorry that
I did such and such, we begin to make an excuse for why we
did. Because what we really want from
the other person is not forgiveness, but an understanding that, you
know, well, what you did probably really wasn't that bad considering
the circumstances. You snap at someone and later
on you feel bad about it, you go, I'm so sorry for what I said,
it wasn't right that I said it, but you know, I'd just gotten
some bad news. And what we're wanting them to
say is not, I forgive you. What we want them to say is,
I can understand, I'd probably do the same thing myself. But
you see, that's not forgiveness. You cannot be forgiven without
recognizing the outright sinfulness of what you have done, nor can
you forgive unless you see that what someone has done is actually
sin. If I say I understand, I'm saying
it wasn't wrong under the circumstances. We don't want forgiveness. We
want quote understanding. Well, God doesn't say I understand. No, he doesn't understand. Not in that way. But he does
say this, I forgive. And brethren, that's better.
That's better. When God forgives, He's saying,
I recognize that what you did is sin. It's sin without excuse. No matter what the circumstances
were, you shouldn't have done that. And my justice recognizes
that you have sinned and that your sin merits you everlasting
death. I acknowledge that, says God. But I forgive you. Now forgiving
is actually an economic term. You ever hear of a debt being
forgiven? And that's what God's saying here. You got a debt,
I'm forgiving it. I'm wiping it off the books.
You owe me. Not anymore, I'm wiping it off
the books. The debt is no longer there. And then he says, I will remember their sins No
more. Now brethren, if you're like
me, you can't forget your sins. Certainly not the most notable
ones. I realize we sin a whole lot more than we realize. But
most of us have things in our past that truly trouble us. We
find it difficult to believe and to confess, that's what I
did and because I did it, it proves that's the kind of person
I am. And so we keep trying to shove it out of our conscious
thinking because we don't want to think of ourselves that way.
And we can for a time shove it out of our consciousness, but
it comes back. Have you ever had that business
of maybe you want to pray, maybe there rises up within you a kind
of a spirit of I don't know how to put this,
but just suddenly you feel connected to the Lord and you want to pray
and you want to give him thanks and you start to do it and suddenly
floods into your conscience the kind of things you've done. You
remember your sins and they come in and accuse you all over again. Brethren, that's difficult, but
you know what would be worse yet? If they came flooding back into
God's consciousness. Now understand when the Lord
says I will not remember them anymore he does not mean he doesn't
remember that they happened. There's nothing that has happened
that God doesn't know. That's not what he's talking
about. I read one commentator said this could be translated
I'll not bring it up again. Have you ever had that kind of
forgiveness where you do somebody wrong and you realize it's wrong
and so you go and say to them, I'm sorry, and they say, I forgive
you. And then the next time you do that, you know, or something
similar, you know, you apologize. And they say, well, I remember
you did that to me before. You did that to me before. Well,
they didn't get around to the forgetting part, did they? They
brought it up again. And therefore it is a second
occurrence to them. I recall one time that, and I
think I mentioned this to you recently, but I was under a sense
of grief for sin, you know, and I went to the Lord and I said,
Lord, I've done it again. And it is as though the Lord
said to me, you did what again? Yeah, it's not as though the
Lord is ignorant, but to him, it was gone. I couldn't do it
again, because by his record, I hadn't done it the first time,
or the second time, or the hundredth time, or whatever it was by then.
Do you see what it is? I will remember no more. There's gonna come a day, and
this is sobering thought if we can get a hold of it, or it gets
a hold of us. There is a day when you will stand before God
to give an account. It's appointed unto man once
to die and after that the judgment, and we can't erase that verse
from the Bible. And there will be one standing
at your side that day ready to accuse you, the accuser of the
brethren, he is called. And he would like nothing better
than to be able to make one of your sins stick, because he knows
full well that God will by no means clear the guilty. So he
does everything in his power to make you guilty in the sight
of God. And it is written that in that
day, there shall be a search made for the iniquity of Israel,
for the transgressions of Judah. They're gonna look for it. But
the next words are so wonderful. But it shall not be found. It
shall not be found. The book shall be open. And we'll
probably be standing there, if we're still thinking the way
we do now, oh, they're opening the books, oh my, what they're
gonna find in there. And they start going, they go
to there, you know, and okay, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T,
T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T,
T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T,
T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, T, Oh, wouldn't that be a terrifying
thing? And the angel with the book in his hand says, he did always those things which
pleased the Father. It was his very sustenance to
do the will of God. He did no sin. He knew no sin
in him. is no sin. What? Let me see that. That's what it says. Why? There's sins and iniquities and
forgiven and they'll never be brought up again. I can't think of anything more
pleasant than that. Secondly, turn over to John chapter
6. I eat up most of our time on
that point, but I'll tell you, it's difficult for me to get
past the forgiveness of sins. You know, David said, bless the
Lord, O my soul, and all that's within me, bless his holy name,
bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
who forgives your transgressions. And I, you know, there's some
other things listed after that, but I get stopped right there.
Well, that's enough. I realize if God gets rid of
my transgressions, if he forgives them, all is well. But let's
look at what our Lord says in John chapter 6, beginning in
verse 35. Pleasant words. I am the bread
of life. He who comes to me will never
go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
But as I told you, you have seen me, and still you do not believe.
All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and whoever
comes to me I will never drive away. One of the most pleasant
doctrines in all the scriptures, the doctrine of election. You
see, people get upset at it, they think it's unpleasant. They
think that it's awful that God does the choosing and takes the
choosing out of our hands. I thank God that's the way he
did it. Because I know where my choice would go if he left
me to me. Is that not true of you? Of course
people have an idea that there's something good in them that can
respond to God and therefore they want it to be left to them
because then out of the quote goodness of their heart they
can choose to let God save them. That just sounds ridiculous on
the face of it. Out of the goodness of the heart we can be saved?
Well if there's any goodness in our heart we wouldn't need
saving now would we? But there's nothing good in our hearts. There's
nothing good in our natural selves to which the gospel can appeal
to cause us to make a positive reaction towards God. Rather,
God must first come to us and change our hearts, then the gospel
appeals to us. But here's the thing, long before
he even did that, he chose to save us. And he gave us to Christ. I can't think of anybody else
I'd rather him give me to. Some people like to think, well,
you know, I come from a good heritage. My parents and my grandparents,
they all believe that. That's nice. Do you want your
soul to rest in that? You want your parents and your
grandparents to be the ones to keep you? Oh no, let it be Christ. All that the Father gives to
me will come to me. I love the fact that God chose
and gave to Christ. I love the fact that the Holy
Spirit works in those given to Christ so that they will come
to him. I'm glad. Aren't you? Isn't that a pleasant word to
you? He did it. He caused it. And then to make it more pleasant
still, we have this promise. And the one who comes to me,
I will by no means reject him. After God has chosen us, and
after He sent His Spirit to call us, and He gives us spiritual
life and all that, we come before Him. And you know something?
We come before Him remembering all our sins and iniquities,
and we think, He's surely going to turn me aside. I'm coming
because I've got no choice. I'm coming because I can't think
anywhere else to go that would be any better. But I really don't
have a lot of hope that a holy God would have me. But here we
have the promise, He that comes to me, I will never reject Him. Let me ask you something. Have
you come to Christ? I'm not talking about have you
believed doctrines about Christ. Have you come to Christ with
purpose of heart? Have you come to him telling
him what you are and asking him to save your soul? Here is his
promise. You come to him like that. He
will not, he'll not reject you. He will never say you're not
one of the elect. You'd be gone. Nope. He won't say that. He won't
say, well, I really didn't mean guys as bad as you. I was thinking
of, you know, you better, you know, people that have tried
and done their best. Nope. He says nothing about that
in the promise. Here's the one thing that characterizes
the people of God. They come to Christ. He that
hath heard and have learned of the father comes to me. That's
a little later on this same chapter. Pleasant words. Now let's look
over at Hebrew chapter 13 and we'll close with this. Verse 5, keep your lives free
from the love of money and be content with what you have. Because
God has said, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you,
so we say with confidence, the Lord is my helper. I will not
be afraid. What can man do to me? In another place, the scriptures
say, if God be for us, who can be against us? One of the promises
of the old covenant came by the way of a little boy that they
named Emmanuel, which means God is with us. And if God is with
us, and if God is for us, what possible harm can come to us?
Some people have this idea of salvation and the experience
of salvation that, you know, you go to church service and
the preacher gets you all cranked up and you make a decision for
Jesus and God says, okay, I've saved you, okay, I'll see you
when you get to heaven. I'll be waiting for you. The Lord
is not waiting for us in heaven. He is with us all the time. People say, you know, but the
Lord's going to meet me at Jordan. Well, if the first time you meet
the Lord's when you get to Jordan, you're in trouble. Even though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. for you
are with me right now. Now, this means the most to us
when we see our natural blessings crumbling, our natural hopes
being dashed, because it's right at that point that the devil
will come to us and say, you know, if you were really one
of the sons of God, this kind of thing wouldn't be happening
to you, would it? That's what he said to the Lord Jesus. If
you're really the son of God, why don't you do this? Why don't
you jump off the temple? It says he'll give his angel
charge over you, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Prove
it. And God brings us into some very
difficult providence. Hard set of circumstances. The
devil says, eh, looks to me like you've been abandoned. I will
never leave you. I will never forsake you. And
one of the nice things about the Greek language, you know,
you're probably taught in grammar class, don't use a double negative
because a double negative is a positive. You know where I
come from, people say, well, I don't have none. And the teacher
would say, well, that means you have some. because you don't
have none. That's not the way it was in
the Greek language. You could intensify the negativeness of
something by just piling it up. And as I recall, these are triple
negatives. I will not ever, never even leave
you under any set of circumstances. That's what he's saying. It's
absolutely impossible that you will ever be found in a situation
where God is not with you. You said, but oh, but I've been
sinning. Remember that? He's not. He's not. Remember
what he said? You say, but I've been such the
rebel against him and such the disobedient child. Your sins
and iniquities, I'm not remembering those. Those don't belong as part of the equation. Yes, but
I mean, I've wondered. He that comes to me, I don't
know why he's cast out. I'm with you. I follow you wherever you
go. They used to tell us, of course,
they were trying to keep us out of the movie theaters by this,
but they'd say, you know, God said he'll go with you wherever
you are, so don't go a place he wouldn't want to go. And I'm
thinking, everywhere in this world is a place he wouldn't
want to go if he's got an opposition to being where sin is. But you know something? And I
don't mean to make light of the Lord's Word or to encourage us
in our sinfulness, and I don't think it'll do that to any of
the people of God. But if you went into unspeakable
sin, the Lord is still with you. Now
you think on that. Now we take great comfort that
in our most severe trials, the Lord is with us. He will not
abandon us. But you know something, when
we willfully out of rebellious flesh, walk ourselves in the
most awful transgressions, the Lord is with us. And of course,
the example we always go back to is David and Bathsheba. What
a mess. Took a man's wife, then he took
the man's life. And in all of that, the Lord
never left him. You know, he left Saul. It says the Spirit of God departed
from Saul. And when David, in the midst
of his grief over his sin, was praying there in Psalm 51, he
did make the statement, he said, take not thy Holy Spirit from
me. Why? Because he remembered what happened
to Saul for his sin. But David was one of the Lord's. And under no circumstances would
God leave or forsake David. Do you know there's only been
one of the Lord's people who was ever forsaken by God? And
that was the Lord Jesus himself. My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? But because he was forsaken by
God, God will never forsake us. And such words, such pleasant
words, or like a honeycomb. They're sweet to the taste and
strength to the bones.