Turn back to Psalm 119, verse 113. I wrote an outline on this Psalm
113 through 120, but I got carried away on verse
113. And so that's all we're going
to look at tonight is verse 113. I thought it'd be better to try
and keep it short than. Sometimes I try to say too much
and I know that I try to cover too much. So tonight I'm going
to try to just take one verse 113. It may take me 15 minutes,
may take me 45. I never know. The title of the message, I hate
vain thoughts, but I love God's word. I hate vain thoughts. There was a time I didn't know
what a vain thought was. I thought all my thoughts were
good. And then I've learned and I learned
when the Lord saved me, I hadn't had a good thought in my life. Not one good thought. Not without
sin. Not without sin. But he starts out here and he
says, I hate. That sounds strong, doesn't it? That's strong. I hate and I love are two of
the strongest emotions, I guess you could say, we have. When
you love something intently, it says love's stronger than
death. But when you hate something intently, it's to the strongest. But you know, there's a proper
hate and there's a proper love. Solomon said in Ecclesiastes
3.8, there's a time to love and a time to hate. There's a time
to love and there's a time to hate. And in their proper place,
they balance out the believer. They do, they balance out the
believer. We can't be all negative. no
positive and we cannot be all positive and no negative there's
a healthy hate and a healthy love there is and they are in
the spiritual realm they're not in the natural realm one of the things that we never
hear in any modern day preaching is how God hates. God hates sin. He hates it. I'm going to read
some scriptures on this in a minute, but God hates sin as well as
he loves those whom he loves. It says in Psalm 5, 5, the foolish
shall not stand in thy sight. Thou hatest all workers. of iniquity. That's so. It doesn't say thou
hatest iniquity, though he does. It says God hates the workers,
the workers of iniquity. He hates them. And he starts out in this verse
here. He says, I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love. is written
in Proverbs 6, 16 through 19. These six things doth the Lord
hate. A proud look, a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked imaginations,
thoughts, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false
witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among
brethren. And I thought as I read this
today, all of these start with a vain thought. You know what
a proud look comes from? You know where a proud look comes
from? Thinking you're somebody. A proud look, proud ancestry.
We be Abraham's seed. That's a proud look. We be not
sinners, we are Abraham's seed. We've never been in bondage.
That's a vain thought. That's a vain thought. In Proverbs 8, 13, the fear of
the Lord, and this is to God's people, the fear of the Lord
is to hate evil. It's to hate pride. It's to hate
arrogancy. is to hate every, or is to hate
the evil way, the false way, the false gospel is to hate it.
I hate a false gospel. We cannot be indifferent to a
false gospel. We cannot be lukewarm. That's
why the gospel is so offensive. It's so dogmatic. You know, we
can't be indifferent to it. I hate it. And the forward mouth,
he says, do I hate? now in this verse this first
verse i can hear the voice of the lord jesus speaking now we
know we know this we know he never had a vain thought jesus
christ never had a vain thought Hard to imagine, because that's
all we've ever had. We see ourselves as this or that. We're just full of vain thoughts,
but he never had a vain thought. But yet he could say, I hate
vain thoughts. I hate them. Because he knew
the thoughts of all men, that they were vain, empty, futile. worthless worthless he knew their
thoughts and it was a listen and he knew the source of those
thoughts look over here in isaiah 14 in isaiah 14 look in verse 12 how
art thou fallen from heaven oh lucifer Isaiah 14 12 Oh Lucifer son of
the morning How art thou cut down to the ground which this
week of the nations? For thou has said in thine heart
you thought in your heart. This is a thought going on in
his heart. I Will ascend into heaven I Will exalt my throne
above the stars of God and I will sit also upon the mount of the
congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. I will be, and what he said,
I will be the Most High. I will be God. There is nothing
wrong, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be like God in
holiness. There's nothing wrong with wanting
to be like God in love, kindness, goodness, long suffering. But to be God is a problem. That's a deal breaker. To be
the sovereign, to be the one that calls the shots, so to speak. I told a man one time that There's
a man I had been in business with. He was questioning some
things, wasn't gonna talk back and forth. And I said, I'll tell
you what, when you pay the bills, you can call the shots. You pay the bills, you call the
shots. This is God's world. When you and I create one, we
can call the shots, but this is his. But Satan thought in his heart,
I'm gonna be God. I'm going to be God. That's what
he's saying. I'll be God. It was a vain thought to turn
on God. God made him this glorious angel,
and yet he envied the position that God held, and not the place
where God put him in the position. And he had a high position. It was a vain thought in the
Garden of Eden When Adam thought to be like God. That's what Satan
said. You'll be like God. You'll be
like God. There's no good and evil. We know what the evil is. That's
what we don't know what the good is. You have to lie on that one. You know good and evil. No, we
know what the evil is. The good is God. And we lost
that. We lost the knowledge of God.
We lost the way, the truth, and the life. That's what we lost. Another meaning for this is this.
It also means this. I hate, and most of the translations
have this translation. I hate double-minded men. It means double-minded. David
is saying, I hate double-minded men. And what he's making reference
to here, you know, James said this, A double-minded man shall
receive nothing from the Lord. A fence-straddler. Or to put
it like this, in 1 Kings 18, Elijah said, Choose you this
day whom you'll serve. If God be God, serve Him. If
Bel is God, serve Him. But quit straddling the fence.
That's double-minded. You see, a double-minded person
is a person who's unsettled. He's unstable as water. And it's
a person who really, who's trying to live for the world, in the
world, and have the things of the world, and then also hang
on to God. Cause he don't want to go to
hell. Somebody, some joker along the way told him to accept Jesus
as his personal savior. You know, you don't go to hell.
And then of course he's going to do that. Anybody's got enough
sense to step in out of the rain, he'll do that. But it's vain and it's, and it's
a double-minded, it's a double-minded person. Now, when we love something,
we love someone, we love them. We love them. We also at the
same time hate the opposite of it. We hate the opposite of it. Psalm 97 10, ye that love the
Lord hate evil. You see, that's the opposite.
Ye that love the Lord hate evil. It's against the Lord. It's everything
the Lord is not. Listen here in Hebrews 1.9, speaking
here of the Lord Jesus Christ, Thou hast loved righteousness
and hated iniquity. You see, if you love righteousness,
you have to hate iniquity. You have to. You can't love both. They're two opposite. Psalm 139, here's a strong one. Here's a real strong one. in
verse 21 22 do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee let me see if I can remember I didn't
write it down Spurgeon said that I may love those I am to love
those who oppose me I hate those who oppose God I thought that's
a powerful statement that's as powerful as that do not I hate
them O Lord that hate thee And am not I greed with those that
rise up against thee? I hate them, listen, with perfect
hatred. You see, the hatred of this flesh
is not a perfect hatred. It's a get even, it's evil. But here, I can hear my Lord
saying that He hates those with a perfect hatred. God, listen,
God's hatred, and I thought a lot about this before I write these
things down. I mean, I give thought to it. But God's hatred is as
perfect as his love. There's no sin in it. There's
no sin in God's hatred. Listen, God's hatred of Esau
is as perfect as his love for Jacob. God had every right to
hate Esau as he did to love Jacob. Esau hated God. He didn't love God. And there's
a time Jacob didn't either, but God loved Jacob. There's a time
you and I did not love him, but the Lord has brought us to himself
and it caused us to love him. He caused us to love him. You know, that's usually how
it is in a, this is usually how it is in a relationship. When
two people come together, usually one falls in love with one before
the other one really falls in love. It rarely happens that
they both happen at the same time. One falls in love and then they
just, and it draws the other one in. Our Lord loved us and
he drew us in. He said, I drew you with cords
of love, didn't He? Isn't that what He said? And this, listen, listen, this
is why we cannot love the world and God also, they are opposites. They are opposites. In 1 John
2, 15, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
Don't be enamored and taken up and fall in love. Because if
you fall in love with the world, if I fall in love with the world,
I'm not in love with Christ. That was the charge against the
church at Ephesus. You left your first love. Love
not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any
man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
They can't dwell in the same house. One's gotta go. It's not in him. Listen, light
and darkness cannot dwell together. It's impossible. It's impossible
to have complete darkness here and light at the same time. It's
an impossibility. Light and darkness cannot dwell
together. You are children of light. You're
children of light. You can't live with darkness. You can't be yoked up with darkness. You can't do it. You can't do
it. And he says here, I hate vain thoughts. And believers,
as this applies to believers, believers hate vain thoughts
in themselves. There was a time I didn't. There
was a time I never hated a thought I ever had. It didn't bother
me. I mean, I can think of anything
that didn't bother me. There are things now I just like, no,
no, we're not thinking, you're not thinking that. You're not
going to dwell on that. You're not going to chew on that.
You're not going to feed on that. Because vain thoughts are against
God and they lead, listen, they lead to sin if left unchecked. They do. All sin, now listen,
all sin starts with a thought. All sin starts with a thought. Adam sinned in thought first. When he thought of eating that
fruit, when he thought of what might happen if he eats this
fruit, he already failed. You see, our
Lord never even thought of the temptation in the wilderness. The three things that Satan tempted
him with. Christ never even thought. He never went, you know, you
give something a thought. He never gave it a thought. Adam did. And when he gave it
a thought, you know what scripture says? The thought of foolishness
is sin. There was no more foolish thought
than to rebel against God. No more foolish thought than
that. I like what someone said. We are to hate sin in its embryo. That's the thought. That's the
embryo. We are to hate it when it comes
in. We are to do it. If we do not
hate the thought of sin, we will soon love the action of it. Now, what are vain thoughts?
Well, they are secret sins. I can't see your thoughts. You
can't see mine. You can't read my mind. It's
blank. You can't read it. But God can. God can. I took the concordance
today and looked up a lot of these things on thoughts. It's
amazing. It's amazing. God knows the thoughts
of the heart. He knows the thoughts. He knows,
David said, He knows my thoughts are far off before I even think
them. He already knows them. You see,
they are secret sins, sins of the heart. Heart sins are the
worst sins. They are the root sins. You see,
the root of all sin is in the heart. And it starts in a thought. As a man thinketh in his heart,
so is he. Now, what's the vainest thought
one can think? What's a vainest thought you
and I can ever have? It's written in the Word of God.
Look over in Psalm 50. Here's the vainest thought anyone,
any of us, can ever have. And at one time, at one time,
we all had this thought. Every one of us. Verse 21, Psalm 50. These
things hast thou done, and I kept silent. Thou thoughtest that
I was altogether such a one as thyself. to think of God on the
same level as I think of myself. That's to put me on the level
of being God. You thought, you thought in your
mind, in your heart, in your imagination, you thought that
I am just like you, which puts you on the same level with me.
In other words, that's really thinking, I'm God. The fool has
said in his heart, no God. But the translation of that is,
the fool has said in his heart, no God for me. No God for me. I don't need one. I'll be God. I'll be the master of my faith. That's human nature. That's the
way men and women think. I'll be the boss. I'll be the
boss. Thinking too highly of oneself
is a vain thought. Thinking too lowly of God is
a vain thought. It's a vain thought. And man's thoughts, and at one
time our thoughts, and still too many of our thoughts,
are continually vain. Continually vain. Here's what
makes the gospel so offensive. Here's what makes it so offensive.
Take everyone in the world. You know, when you get into the
political arena, everybody's throwing out their thoughts,
their opinions, and this is the way it ought to be. Another one
said, this is the way it ought to be. The Lord, in Psalm 94, 11, the
Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity. Vanity. His thoughts of God are
vanity. God's not like he thinks he is.
His thoughts of Jesus Christ, vanity. I listened to a man today,
which is one of the most brilliant minded men I've ever listened
to. But he's a Jew, he's a devout Jew. And I listened to him talking
to another man today, and this man and other man's, you know,
he's a, he was a doctor of divinity, so called. And he, this, Young
man said, the Jew, he said, Jesus Christ was not a prophet, not
a good man, not a teacher. He said he was, he rose up, he
was a man against the Roman army and got killed for it and put
to death for it. He seriously, and this man, I've
listened to him different times in debates. Brilliant, brilliant. But ignorant as can be. Ignorant as can be when it comes
to God, when it comes to the scripture. And he knows this
Old Testament. He knows the Old Testament. And
yet, blind as can be. I thought of that scripture,
and I listened to that. I thought of that scripture,
seeing they see not. There in John, was it John 8? It might have been, yeah, I think
it was John 8. He said, if you were blind, then
you would have no sin. He said you couldn't see. But
now you say you see. He said you're blind. Now not
only are you spiritually blind, you are judicially blind. And
I could see that today. I could see that scripture just
as clear as could be fulfilled in that man, that Jew, devout
Jew. Blind as a bat. Intellectually, I mean, just
as far as secular and other things go, brilliant, you couldn't stand,
you couldn't, I mean, he takes everybody down, I've never seen
him go up against, except God. And that's sad, that's sad. Listen
to Genesis 6-5, and God saw THAT THE WICKEDNESS OF MAN WAS GREAT
IN THE EARTH, AND THAT EVERY IMAGINATION OF THE THOUGHTS OF
HIS HEART WAS ONLY EVIL CONTINUALLY. AND THAT HAS NOT CHANGED. I CAN SAY ABOUT EVERY UNBELIEVER,
EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE ON CHRIST, DOES NOT CONFESS CHRIST,
THE IMAGINATION OF THEIR HEART IS EVIL CONTINUALLY. THAT'S WHAT
GOD SAYS. See, God opens the heart up and
He's letting us see it. He's basically doing heart surgery
in that verse and just opens it up and says, Here's what the
heart looks like. This is the human heart. I know we've heard people say,
Boy, they have such a good heart. God said no. God said no. He said the imagination of the
thoughts. You see, we can't get in. We
ought to, because we have the same imaginations. We've had
them, and we still have them from time to time. But now we
fight them. Now we do fight them. But vain thoughts, back to what
vain thoughts are. It's a too high thought of yourself,
low thought of God. But it's also to think of sin
too flippantly. That's a vain thought. My sins are the reason Jesus
Christ died. It troubles me when someone is
speaking about how they were such a rebel with a gleam in
their eye. Christ died for my sins. We can't even comprehend the
evil of our sins that he died for. He was executed for our
sins. He was put to death on the cross
for our sins. He was tormented by God and men
for our sins. God allowed men to whip him and
just lacerate him to where you couldn't even recognize him.
And then God took over, turned the light out for three hours,
and went at him. The least sin ought to make us
shudder is The least sinful thought that goes through our minds ought
to make us shudder. Look what it did to my Lord.
Look what he had to do to put that thought away, to put that
thought away. Look what he had to do. And here's another vain thought.
And I thought about this for a little bit, but when we think
negatively of our brothers and sisters, that's a vain thought. That's an empty, useless, evil,
wicked thought, is what that is. Zechariah 8 and 17. And let none
of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbor. Don't imagine
evil in your heart against a brother or sister. Think the best of
one another. The Lord said, and let none of
you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbor, and love
no false oath, for all these things are things that I hate. I hate. Someone said, you know,
God hates, he hates sin, but he loves a sinner. It wouldn't
be no sin if it wasn't for the sinner. You tell me how in the
world God can hate sin and love a sinner. this is going to be a this is
this statement here i thought about it all day thought about
it there's no one in hell for whom
jesus christ loved everyone there god hates that's true he hateth the workers
of iniquity This is what makes the gospel unpopular. You know
why? It's the truth. It's the truth. You're not going to tell me that
God loves this sinner so much and then lets him perish. I'm telling you, we gotta tell
the truth. Now what are we to think? Well, it says in Philippians
4, 8, Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things
are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good
report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think
on these things. I thought of this. A thought
takes no effort. It just comes into your mind,
doesn't it? You be sitting around, just one thought after another
just pops in like birds. A thought takes no effort, but
to think takes effort. To really think on these things,
to meditate on these things, takes effort. Because you and
I have a nature. in us that is opposed to thinking
on these things. And it takes effort to do it.
It takes effort. It takes grace. It takes the
power of God's spirit. Now here's why, here's why Christ
and his people hate vain thoughts. I don't really
want to go through this quickly, but, but thy law do I love. i law
do i love let me give you a few things i'll pick back up here
uh next week lord willie the word law here means torah it's
mentioned 25 times in in this one psalm psalm 119 his parent
verb means to teach or direct which means coming from god it
is it is both law and revelation I hate vain thoughts, but I love thy law, thy word. That's what it's speaking of
here, thy word. Christ loved God's law perfectly. He loved God's law, and that's
our righteousness. He loved it and he kept it, and
that's our righteousness. And believers love God's law.
God's law is good. Love listen. I love God's law
There's nothing wrong with God's law. It's what Paul said the
law is good If a man use it lawfully if you don't use it to try to
get acceptance before God If you do you're using it unlawfully But we love God's law God's Word
we love is the whole Word of God and Did that kinda make you cringe
when I said God hates those in hell? You know, God
hates the workers of iniquity. I love God's word. Whatever he
says in it, I love it. It's right, it's true. I may
not understand, I don't understand a lot of it, but it's right because
I know who God is. And then, listen, IT IS THIS
LOVE FOR GOD'S LAW, HIS WORD, THAT CAUSES SUCH HATRED OF VAIN
THOUGHTS. Listen to Psalm 119, 104. THROUGH
THY PRECEPTS I GET UNDERSTANDING, THEREFORE I HATE EVERY FALSE
WAY. You see, THROUGH THY WORD I GET
UNDERSTANDING, AND BECAUSE OF THIS UNDERSTANDING, SPIRITUAL
UNDERSTANDING, I HATE EVERY FALSE WAY. I HATE EVERY FALSE GOSPEL.
I HATE EVERY LIE. I HATE IT. I hate it. I love God's law though. And
the more, listen, the more we grow in love to God, in love
to His word, the more aware of our vain thoughts we are. And
we pray, we pray that our thoughts be brought into subjection to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to this scripture. 2 Corinthians
10 5 casting down imaginations your thoughts casting them down and every high thing that exalts
itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ Lord guide my thoughts, control
my thoughts. I seriously pray that, I do.
Help me to think right today. Help me to have right thoughts
of you today. Help me to have thoughts of you and right thoughts
of you today. I pray, I pray that way, I pray for you. Because
I know, I know that The thoughts that come into your mind are
like the birds that came down on the sacrifice that Abraham
was going to offer. He had to shoo them away. That's
the way thoughts are. You've got to just shoo them
away. And then we love God's law because
it reveals God as He is. You realize how ignorant we'd
be of God apart from His Word? You see, we've been taught. Do
you know there's 4,000 years of Gentiles, our ancestry was
left without the Word. And they had gods, they made
altars to unknown gods, and I mean, they worshipped four-footed beasts,
creepy things, they worshipped anything and everything in case
it might be a god. And yet now we have the precious,
precious Word of God, and we know who God is. God has made
Himself known in this book. And He's made Himself known to
some of us. We see Him. We know Him. We talk to Him.
We walk with Him. We worship Him. We sing praises
unto Him. In His Word, we know who Jesus
Christ is, like that man I listened to. He said He's just a heretic. He's just someone that was against
the Roman government and was put to death for it. And he was
glad that he was. But we know who He is. He's God.
This is our God. We know what He did. He redeemed
us from our sins. God has purchased us with His
own blood. We know that. And He reveals
us as we are. I thank God I know I thank God
that I know, and some of you know, what a rich we are. Now, psychiatry would say, there's
medication for that. That's what they tell you. I
can give you a prescription for that. I don't want a prescription
for that. That's the truth. Don't give
me a prescription to numb the truth. Don't give me a prescription
to numb my conscience. Just give me the truth. God does
not save by a lie. Give me the truth. And it reveals
how God Almighty can save a wretch like me and you and be just in
doing so. And then last of all, God's law,
His word is truth. It's truth. It's truth. This is the truth. You know,
this is the truth. You're not going to get it anywhere
else. You can go anywhere else, go to the Library of Congress,
go to all those, go to the biggest library in the world. The only
truth is right here. And we have it. I'm holding the
truth. You got it in your lap. That's
the truth. Oh, he says, I hate vain thought,
but I love God's word. I thought about this before him
coming out here. We don't love God. We do not
love God any more than we love His Word. To say I love God, oh how I love
God, and never get into His Word. Not open this book, just toss
it on the table. No, it don't work like that. I hate vain thoughts, but I love thy word. I love it. All right, we'll pick up more
William from there next time.