Psalm 27, one thing have I desired, and
that will I seek after. That is what I will give my life
to. You know, the older that I get,
I say this more often, the older that I get, but the older that
I get, I realize that the one thing that is needful, the one
thing that is important, is the Lord Jesus Christ and my relationship
to Him. Now, when God saves a sinner,
the desire of that sinner changes. That sinner begins to love what
he once hated, and he begins to hate what he once loved. I wrote in the bulletin, I hate
myself. I wrote that because I was thinking
of something the other day, and I thought, why think like that? And that thought hit me. I thought,
I hate myself. And then from that I wrote that
article. And I do, I hate my sinful self. But there was a time I didn't. There's a real change in a sinner
when God saves him. He gives him light, he gives
him understanding. He begins to love the things
of God instead of the things of this world. His affection
is set on things above and not on things of this earth. Now
it takes a while for that to grow. And that's one of those
things like Paul said, I have learned in whatsoever state I
am therewith to be content. He learned it over time. He learned
it through trials, God taking, God giving, and he learned. As
Job did, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. And we
learn that. And as we learn that, we learn
to set our heart on things above. We learn to love righteousness.
There was a time that you didn't love righteousness. No, you loved
self. And you loved self-righteousness.
But you did not love God. You did not love God's righteousness.
Scripture says the righteous Lord loves righteousness. And
for the first time, we begin to love the things He loves.
Now, David says here, the Lord is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my
life. Of whom shall I be afraid? I tell you what, with that kind
of confidence, you can go to sleep at night, can't you? you
can sit out and rest with that kind of confidence in God. There's
not many people that can say that the Lord is my light and
my salvation, because there's not that many people who know
the Lord in such a way. Many sit in darkness, as we once
did, and they have no light. They have no understanding of
who God is, not at all. But when God shines the gospel
in their hearts, they are illuminated. God illuminated you. There are
people in this room who are light. You are light in the Lord. You
are the light of this world, the scripture says. You are the
light of this world. You wonder why you work where
you work? You wonder why God puts you where
He puts you? You think, I don't know, why
do I work here? I don't have to work with these
people. I'm thinking of Lot. It says,
He vexed his righteous soul there in Sodom. I'll tell you why He
put you there. You're the light. You're the
only light they got. You're the only light this world sees. They
see your conduct, they hear your witness, you're a light, and
you're a light in the Lord. The Lord has illuminated you,
and you're a light in the Lord. When God shines the gospel in
the heart of a sinner, that sinner is light. He's light. And he has received this light
from God's Word and God's Spirit. It says in 2 Corinthians 4.6,
"...For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Before a sinner
receives such light, that sinner lives in spiritual darkness."
I mean spiritual death and spiritual darkness. He has no real knowledge
of God except what he imagines God to be. You take every person
that's lost, and their imagination of God is formed by the way they
think of themselves. Because God said, you thought
I was altogether like yourself. You think I'm like you. And that's
exactly what man does. He wills out of God like himself. until God shines the gospel light
into his heart and gives him a knowledge and understanding
of who God is and what He is. And for the first time, he sees
God in a new light. In fact, he sees God in God's
light and not this light of darkness. You remember the Lord said, if
the light in you be darkness, how great is that darkness? But
now he sees God in his light. It says in Psalm 36.9, For with
thee is the fountain of life, in thy light shall we see light. For the first time, this sinner
sees God as holy. Holy takes on a whole new meaning.
He sees sin in a new light. Sin is not just something that
we do, or that people do, and it's not just the bad things
we do. It's what I am. Sin is what I am. From head to
toe, when you see that, and not until you see that, do you understand
there's none good, no, not one. Until then, people will always
think, well, I know somebody that's good. No, you don't. Because
you don't understand what good is. When God speaks of good,
He's speaking of perfection. It must be perfect. And for the first time, you see
what holy is and you see what sin is. And for the first time,
you're made to cry, woe is me, for I am undone. It's not my
neighbor. It's not everybody outside of
my house, outside of my family. It's me. Listen, woe is me, for
I am undone. I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips. The people I dwell with, everybody
is lost. Everybody is dead in trespasses
and sin. Unless God saves a sinner, that
sinner is dead. And he's dead in trespasses and
sins. That's the way it is. But there's something else here
this gospel light reveals. It reveals that, it reveals the
Lord. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Now, He gives
me light, He gives me understanding, He illuminates me. He gives me
salvation, He saves me. But David is saying this, the
Lord is my light. It says over in 1 Corinthians
1.30 that Jesus Christ is made unto us, wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. He is these things to us. He
doesn't just give them to us, though He does. But He is my
wisdom. Christ is my wisdom. Christ is
my righteousness. Christ is my sanctification.
Jesus Christ is my redemption. And that's the gospel. That's
the gospel. Now this being so, whom shall
I fear? Why would I be afraid? If God
is my light and God is my salvation, who is greater than God? Who can overcome God? Romans 8 says, If God be for
me, who can be against me? You and I ought to live on these
promises. We ought to live on these truths. There's a lot of people against
me. There's a lot of unseen spirits against me. But it doesn't mean
anything. They can't do a thing. A dog
can't even bark at me unless God lets him. That's the truth. The Word of God tells us that
for a house to be taken over, the strong man of the house must
first be bound. And for a child of God to be
taken over, Jesus Christ, who is the strong man of the house,
or the stronger man of the house, He would have to be bound before
you and I could be taken over. And that's not going to happen.
It's not going to happen. It speaks in Hebrews, it says,
whose house we are. We are His house. And he says here, the Lord is
the strength of my life. I've learned that I can do all I want to do physically
and exercise wise, eat properly, but I tell you this, it comes
down to this. The Lord's the strength of my
life. He's the strength of my natural life and He's the strength
of my spiritual life. He's the strength of my life. Someone said this, we are immortal
till he makes us mortal and takes us home. You're not gonna die
before your time. David said, my times are in his
hand. You're not gonna die before, there's a day to the second marked
on the calendar, the day you were born and the day you're
gonna die, the day you're gonna leave this earth. I've seen people in a car wreck. I'm thinking of one particular
person. That car was mangled all to pieces. You'd think, how
in the world can anybody come out of that car alive? And that
young man never had a scratch on him. Not a scratch. We can't die until our time has
come, the appointed time. Job said that man's days are
like a hireling. What's a hireling do? He punches
in, he punches out. Our days are like a hireling.
We have a certain time to be here. And nothing can touch our
life or our life is hid, as Scripture says, with Christ in God. And
when the wicked, he says here, when the wicked, even my enemies,
my foes, they came upon me to eat up my flesh, their design
was to destroy me. We're gonna see that, and then
next time we look in Hebrews, the high priests got together,
and they said, let us kill, let us lay wait and kill the Lord
Jesus Christ. Let us kill him, they said, but
not on the feast day. I mean, this is religion. False religion
is so false. It's so foolish. They said, let
us kill him, but then they said, but not on the feast day. That's
like saying, let's not kill him on Sunday, let's shoot him on
Monday. That's what they're saying. I read that today. I thought,
how foolish. How foolish. Let's do it on the
next day or the day after so it won't be so bad. We don't
want to mess up our feast day. But David says here, when the
wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came to eat up my flesh,
they came to destroy me, God put a stumbling block. God put
a stumbling block in front of them. They stumbled and fell. I know I told you about my little
experience in one company I was running one time. I had caught
the management stealing. They called me in the next morning
because they found out I had called the company, the head company
that owned it all, and they brought me in and was going to fire me.
They was going to fire me. And we'd gotten into a heated
argument. But anyway, to make that story short, when they were
getting ready to fire me, first time I'd ever been in that situation,
the owners walked in the door. They walked in the door and they
said, tell the plant managers to come down here and meet with
us. They turned as white as that wall. And I was sitting there,
and every one of them, the whole management, six of them, I think,
all of them, fired that whole management, fired them. They
all walked out the door. And there I stood. And there
I stood. And so I can identify. I mean, that's
what I'm saying. I can identify with what David's
saying. When my enemies and my foes came
up to eat up my flesh, destroy me, God put a stumbling block.
They failed. They stumbled and fell. They
probably thought, who put that in the way? God did. God did. But we have our enemies. We have our enemies. I don't
care how much, I don't care how peaceful you are, how peaceful
you try to live. You've got your enemies. If you're
God's children on this earth, he says, our Lord said, if they
hated me, they'll hate you. But be of good cheer, I've overcome
the world. they'll stumble and fall. Though a host should encamp
against me." And they did. A host encamped against him. He said, and as they did our
Lord, they came out, my, they came out there to get him. How
many times did they try to kill him and he just slipped right
through the midst of them? How many times did we read that?
Though a host, shouldn't camp against me. My heart shall not
fear, it will not fail me." I'm not going to wring my hands and
say, where in the world is God at? He's on the throne, just for
your information. The war should rise against me.
In this will I be confident. God will deliver me. God is my
salvation. God will deliver me. David's confidence was born from
experience. Experience is a tough teacher,
but experience in spiritual matters grows faith. It grows faith. It matures. Put it this way,
it matures faith. You can look back on experience,
and you can see where the Lord has delivered you so many times.
And I can tell you this, as He has been and as He has done,
so will He do. God changes not. So David's confidence was born
from experience. He knew that God in faithfulness
would deliver him out of all his troubles. One writer wrote
this, where there is no confidence, there will be no continuance. Now, there's no confidence in
God. There'll be no continuance in following Him. Remember when
the Lord said to His disciples, when many of the disciples went
away, they said, this is a hard saying. Who can hear it? And
they went away. And the Lord said, will you also
go away? And they said, to whom shall we go? We have no place
to go. Thou hast the words of eternal
life, but we have no place to go. We've left all and followed
you. You're it. Sink or swim, Lord, you're it. But here, David says this, there's
one thing have I desired of the Lord. There's one thing I've
asked of God. There's one thing, one thing.
Now, you and I have asked God many things in prayer, haven't
we? We pray about many things. But there's one thing. There's
one thing that is a desire, a burning desire, a yearning desire, a
real desire, it's a spiritual desire. One thing have I desired
of the Lord, and that will I seek after, I'll give my life to.
Now David was a king and he had a kingdom to run. But I tell you this, in all of
our busyness, in all the responsibilities we have, there's still one desire
that overrides all of them. There's one desire that overrides
all of them. And that will I seek after. That's why you're here
this evening. You're seeking after that one
desire. That's why you're here. And I'll show you this here in
a second. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek
ever, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days
of my life. When you came here tonight, Seriously,
did you desire to come here?" You know, when the Lord ate the
supper with the disciples, He said, with desire, with desire,
I'm doing this. Henry said this in a message,
dealing with this one verse here once. He said, and I remember
this, he said, If you really don't have a desire to be here,
you really don't have a desire to be there either. You're not
going to enjoy that either. If you don't enjoy God's people
here, you're not going to enjoy it there. If that desire does
not start here, if you and I don't have that real desire to be under
the gospel and to seek the Lord, which is right here, and it's
in His Word, it's sitting under His Word, We don't really have a desire
to be with the Lord. Paul said, I have a desire to
depart and be where? In heaven? I have a desire to
depart and go to heaven? No. I have a desire to depart
and be with the Lord. Wherever He is, that's heaven.
That's heaven. So the one thing have I desired
of the Lord That will I seek after, that I may dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life." That's in this life
first, it starts here first, and then in life hereafter. "...to
behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple."
To worship Him, to call upon Him, and to behold the beauty. The
beauty, you know, when he came over in Isaiah 53, it says, when
we see him, what's it say? There's no beauty that we should
desire him. Well, you gotta have different
eyes. You gotta have different eyes to see the beauty of Jesus
Christ. Our Lord speaks of the beauty of the lily of the valley
that Solomon was arrayed with was not to be compared with the
beauty of the lily of the valley. But I tell you what, if God doesn't
give you eyes, you're going to think what Solomon has is more
beautiful. You're going to slobber over all the riches and all the
gold and all that he has. But when God gives you eyes,
You see more beauty in what He's made than what we've accumulated. One thing have I desired of the
Lord that will I seek after. The Word of God forbids division
of aim. You know that. The Word of God
forbids division of aim. Seek ye first the Kingdom of
God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added
to you. He said a man cannot serve God and mammon, money,
riches. He said he can't serve both.
It's not possible. That's not saying that God doesn't
make a man rich. He made Abraham rich. Abraham didn't seek after
riches. Abraham sought after God, and
God made him rich. But you can't serve two masters.
You either hate the one or love the other. You can't serve two.
And the chief desire of God's children is to be with Him now
and forevermore. And I do believe, and I've seen
this over the years, I've seen this, that desire grows in a
child of God as that child of God grows older and older and
older. And then they get to the point
in life, it's just like, It's like the Lord has weaned them.
It's like the ripe. It's like the ripe for the picking. And
when you're ripe for the picking, that's when He'll take you. Our desire is not to live on
this earth forever. Really? Do you want to live here
forever? Is this life... Is this life... But what we desire is to live
in the immediate presence of our Lord. To see Jesus Christ. I'm anxious to see Him. I've
never seen Him. Followed Him. Believe on Him.
Trust Him. Moved down here to preach Him.
I've never seen Him. I've never seen Him. But I'm
going to. I believe that. I believe by
His grace, I'm going to. And I believe many of you are. You're going to see. And David says here, that I may
dwell, not visit. Not visit. I don't want to visit
His house. I want to dwell there. And this is one thing I'll seek
after. Now listen. One thing. It's not one of the
things I'll seek after. It's the one thing. Now, David speaks of time of
trouble in verse 5. Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble.
We got them, don't we? We got them. They're like flies
at a picnic. You can't get rid of them. It's
like they're like a train. It's just like one after another.
It's a train with no caboose on it. Trouble, trouble, trouble. I'm trying to think of a song
that I heard that goes like that. I hate it when something goes
through my mind. And I'm trying to preach too. Trouble, trouble,
trouble. In time of trouble, He shall
hide me in his pavilion. You think he hasn't. You don't
realize how hid you are. You feel everything's going on.
You know, I was, I think it was Vicki, I was saying this to the
other day, I said, pain is good. Pain is good. What if you couldn't
feel a hot stove? What if you couldn't feel the
pricking of your conscience? Pain is good. In the time of trouble, He shall
hide me in His pavilion. I'm hid in His pavilion. In the secret of His tabernacle
shall He hide me. They won't find me. They can't
find me in Christ. He shall set me up upon a rock. Every believer will have his
or her time of trouble. Some not so big, but then some
are big. Some are life-changing. There
are some times that God sends trouble to the life of His child
that will change them for the rest of their life. I mean, things
will never be the same. You'll never see the world the
same. You won't see anything the same. But you'll see Him. You'll see Him in a light that
you've never seen Him before. Job said, By the hearing of the
ear I've heard of you, but now my eye seeth you, and I abhor
myself in sackcloth and ashes. We're all going to have our time
of trouble, but God has promised that He'll bring us through all
of them. I was saying this to Vicki the
other night. I said, you know, God is in the
troubles that we've gone through. I said, God has never removed
any of them that I can remember as far as just removing the trouble,
but He's brought us through them all. He'll bring us, when you go through
the water, I'll go with you. He's not going to remove the
water, when you go through the fire. It'll not burn you, but
you're going through the fire. You're going to be like maybe
like a kid squalling or complaining, but you're going through it.
And then when you get out the other side, you're going to realize
what a blessing. Job said, when he has tried me,
he knoweth the way that I take when he's tried me and that I
will come forth as gold. Job knew that whatever God did
to him, that God would bring him through it, and he would
come out of it better than he went into it. More purified coming
out than when he went in. God will not only deliver me,
but he will hide me in his pavilion. A pavilion was like a tent in
the middle of the army. And the king or the king's son
would be put in that pavilion, and that pavilion had guards
around it 24-7. Protected. That was protected. God has given His angels charge
over us. You realize, and I know we don't
realize this, I know we don't realize the very truth of this,
but God has surrounded us with angels. God has surrounded us
with His Word. You know this world stands in
order like it is by the Word of God. It hangs on nothing but
His Word. And you and I are protected by
His Word? You know, as Satan said to Job,
or said to God concerning Job, he said, You have put a hedge
about him. There is a hedge about every
child of God in this room. You're safe. You're like that
young man, you know, when Elijah, the place where they were at,
was surrounded by the army. And that young man was just freaking
out of his mind. And Elijah said, Lord, open that
young man's, I'm paraphrasing, open his eyes. And that whole
hillside was full of chariots of angels of fire. Now is that
a myth? That's real. That's real. And in the secret of his tabernacle
shall he hide me. You know, think about the tabernacle
here. It was a tabernacle, it was with Israel. In that tabernacle
was the presence of God, the Shekinah Glory, the Holy of Holies,
the Mercy Seat. And he said, God has hidden me
in the tabernacle. Nobody was allowed in that tabernacle
except those whom God led into that tabernacle. And there was
definitely nobody allowed in that Holy of Holies except the
priest who offered the blood. And there was the Mercy Seat.
And he says here that God has hidden me in the tabernacle.
Well, who is our tabernacle? Jesus Christ. God has hid us in Christ. His tabernacle. In that tabernacle, that was
the place where the sacrifice and the blood was offered. And
that is the place, now listen, where reconciliation was made.
Reconciled to God. David said, he's put me in that
tabernacle. You know what that means? That
means God is reconciled to me. It doesn't matter if all of this
world and all of hell, if they are my enemy and they want to
do me in, if God is for me, if God has put me in the tabernacle,
if God is reconciled to me, have at it, guys. You ain't going
to do nothing. You're going to stumble and fall. We can have, I thought of this
today, we can have enemies, but we cannot have God as an enemy.
Cannot have God as an enemy. And He'll set me up upon a rock,
and you and I know that rock is Jesus Christ. And nobody gonna
climb that rock, nobody gonna take that rock over, nobody gonna
do it. Satan tried, men tried, All of
hell has tried. That rock is solid. It is solid. And you and I are upon it. And now, he says, shall mine
head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me? Therefore
will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. You see, the
real sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ, has already been offered.
But the sacrifice you and I offer is one of joy and praise. I will sing, yeah, I will sing
praises unto the Lord." As I was praying, it just hit me while
I was praying that when we sing tonight, let's sing as unto the
Lord. Let's just not sing page 126. Let's sing to the Rock of Ages. He says, "...now is my head lifted
up, The Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Head, has been lifted
up from the grave, seated at God's right hand, and you and
I have been lifted up in Him. Our head is lifted up. And because of this, I will offer
in His tabernacle sacrifices of joy." And then he turns here
in verse 7. I'm not going to get through
all this, am I? Hear, O Lord, when I cry with
my voice. Have mercy upon me and answer
me." Hear, O Lord. David's not presumptuous. Oh,
God save us from being presumptuous. Don't ever presume upon the mercy
of God. I'm a sinner. Saved by grace, but I'm still
a sinner. As Paul said, I've not yet arrived. I'm not yet
apprehended. But I follow after, I strive,
I run after. that I may apprehend that which
I am apprehended of, that I may lay hold of eternal life, that
I may lay hold of Jesus Christ. Have mercy on me. You know, it's
an act of mercy for God to hear and answer our prayers. As David
said in one place, who am I and what is my house? Who am I? Why has God not answered me?
Who am I? Who am I? Oh, have mercy. He said, have mercy. If there's
anything in prayer that I pray, more than anything, it's that
right there, have mercy. Because I do know this, I don't
deserve what I'm asking for. I don't deserve it. When thou
saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord,
will I seek? God's willing to reveal Himself
to those who seek Him with all their heart, we know that in
the Scripture. But notice here, who acts first? Thou saidest. Thou saidest. God's always the one who acts
first. This is a real picture of conversion. God turns us and
we turn. Conversion is a heart work. He
said, my heart said, you said, my heart said, and I turned. Hide not thy face far from me. You can just take that word far
that was put in italics, it can be lifted out of there. Hide
not thy face from me. Hide not it from me. Don't put
your sermon away in anger. Every child of God in this room
knows, you know God has plenty that He can be angry with on
us, don't you? I know myself, there's enough
about me, enough that I think, and the things that I do, and
the things that I say, there's enough there for God to be angry
with me. And I mean to have a holy anger,
a just anger. And I know that, and I understand
why David says, don't be angry with me. Oh, put not thy sermon
away in anger. I'll spend my help, leave me
not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation." You know, I
love the way he talks, when he's speaking out, when he's speaking
out, his faith is confident. The Lord's my light, the Lord's
my salvation, it doesn't matter if an army camps against me,
my heart will not fail me. And then he turns to God and
he says, don't forsake me, don't leave me alone. I need mercy. I need forgiveness. I need forgiveness. Leave me not, neither forsake
me, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother
forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. I think it has two
meanings here. First of all, when they kick
me out of the house, you know, there is a time to kick them
out of the house. There is. There is a time to move on. There
is a time to make a living. You know, we have to do that.
That's the natural process of this life. But he's saying here,
but the Lord won't do that. He'll not kick me out of the
house. He will neither leave me nor forsake me. He said he
wouldn't. I'll never leave you nor forsake you. And then there
comes a time when our mother and father pass away. They pass
away. Those who loved us, took care
of us, they go. But you know what? My relationship with Jesus Christ
will not vanish. My relationship with all flesh,
my wife, my sons, my parents, my brothers and sisters, will
all be dissolved. It will all be dissolved. My
relationship with Christ will never be dissolved. Now my relationship
with you in Christ will not be dissolved either, but everything
else will. Therefore teach me thy way, O
Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of my enemies.
Teach me thy way, so that I walk not in my way, which leads to
death. His way leads to life evermore.
And also this, lead me in a plain path, lead me in a simple path,
a gospel path and a simple path. Henry was talking to a young
man some years ago. He was young. He'd gotten a college education.
He wanted to go back and be a doctor. And he was talking to Henry about
it. Henry said, let me talk to you. He said, that's fine and
good. That's a good profession. He
said, but how many doctors do you know that the Lord has saved?
He said, that's going to be a fast-paced life. It's going to be a lot
of money. You're going to be faced with
a lot of things. He said, there's nothing wrong with this simple
life, plain path, this plain path. It's a good path. The more simple your life is,
the better, the better. lead me in a plain path, a clear
gospel path, lead me in a simple way of life." And then David
calls it a plain, he calls it a path because the Scripture
says, "...straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads
to life, and few there be that find it." And then in verse 13 and 14 I
close, "...I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness
of the Lord in the land of the living. I tell you what, if you
take the landscape we live in today, I'd faint too. I'd faint
if I didn't believe to see the goodness of the Lord in the land
of the living. If I didn't believe to see that
God has a people in this world. He still has it because we're
still here. And because of that, we will see the goodness of the
Lord. I had fainted unless I had believed
to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." It's
easy to become so faint on our journey home. But if we can lay
hold of Christ and the promises of God in Christ, it will encourage
us along the way. Ever keep the Lord's goodness
and mercy before your eyes. It's the eye salve for the believer's
eye of faith. Wait on the Lord. Be of good
courage. And He shall strengthen thine
heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Wait on Him in prayer. Wait on
Him in humility. Wait on Him in duty. Wait on
Him in faith. But wait on Him, the Lord. The believer's position is to
wait, watch and wait. And He promises strength. He
shall strengthen thine heart. Wait on Him. Wait on Him. He'll strengthen those who wait
on Him. If we remember who it is we're waiting on, it won't
be hard to wait, will it? If you're waiting on somebody
that's dishonest, that's a long wait. One thing have I desired of the
Lord, that will I give my life to, and that I'll dwell in His
house. I'll be with Him forever and
ever and ever. I say amen to that. All right.