Turn back to Psalm 15. The title
of the message is, Who Shall Dwell in God's Presence? That is what David is asking. Who may dwell, who shall dwell,
he says, who shall dwell in thy presence? That's the question.
And when he's saying who shall abide and who shall dwell in
the holy hill or abide in his tabernacle, he's talking about
here the presence of God. The tabernacle is where God's
presence was known. It's where God met with men,
it's where the work of the priest was done and sacrifices. And
that tabernacle lasted for centuries, all the way through David's time.
And David has a real interest here. I think every child of
God, I know every child of God is interested in this question
and the answer to it. I know that most people want
to go to heaven, at least their idea of heaven. But few want
to dwell in God's presence. They don't think of heaven as
dwelling, abiding in God's presence. Most people see heaven as an
eternal vacation. Or the only option other than
going to hell. That's how they usually see heaven.
But the believer Desire is to dwell, it is to
abide in God's presence, is to be with the Lord. Paul said,
I have a desire to depart and what? Be with the Lord. He didn't
say I have a desire to depart and just go to heaven. I have
a desire to depart and be with the Lord. And that is the desire
of believers. And he asked this question, who
shall dwell, abide in thy tabernacle and thy holy hill? This is a
serious question. For not just anyone can do this.
Not just anyone. There is a certain character
that one must fit in order to do this. You know, if you've
been taught of God, and you read this, Boy, do you realize your
need of the Lord Jesus Christ when you read this? And if you'll notice, the question
is not how, but who. Who shall abide and dwell there? Now here's the question. Lord
Jehovah, as what he's saying, Jehovah, and he's speaking to the right
person, He's not speaking to some preacher or some priest. He's speaking to the Lord. He
went directly to the Lord and asked this question. Because
it's His presence He wants to dwell in, so it'd be wise to
ask Him the question. Lord, who shall abide? And that
word abide means sojourn. If you'll remember, the tabernacle
was movable. It would be wherever Israel was,
they'd have the tabernacle set up, and then when they'd move,
they'd take it down and move. Lord, who shall sojourn in thy
tabernacle? The tabernacle is where the seat
of the ark was. It represented God's presence. And who shall dwell in thy holy
hill? And this represents the church
on earth and the church in heaven, to be a member of that church,
to dwell there. This also is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the tabernacle. Remember
the scripture says that God tabernacled among men? How did He do that?
In Christ, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the first thing I want us
to see is this. This psalm speaks really of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And then it speaks of us in Christ,
but we are going to look at Christ first. We know that in ourselves
we do not fit this character, don't we? When you read this,
You think, wow, I fit Psalm 14. When the Lord looked down from
heaven to see if any did seek or understand, He said, there's
none. They've all gone backwards. There's none good, no, not one.
That fits. But when I read Psalm 15, now
to understand Psalm 15 and get some comfort out of it, there
has to be some real gospel knowledge given of God. to understand this,
because if I don't have real gospel knowledge, I'll end up
like that rich young ruler who said, Lord, I've kept all these
from my youth up. I'd be like that rich young ruler
and read this and say, well, I've done all that. No, you and
I know, we know that we've missed the mark. By nature, we've missed
the mark. Jesus Christ is the answer to
this psalm. And that being said, I want us
to look at it here in the light of what I've just said, gospel
knowledge. Apart from that, we can't understand
it. The question is this, who shall
abide and dwell in God's presence? Who shall be able to go into
the Holy of Holies and stand before God accepted? Who shall stand accepted in God's
sight? I'm interested in this. Are you
interested in this? In a little while, I have to
die. And you do too. And every one of us, every last
person that's ever been on this earth or ever shall be on this
earth must stand before God. Have to. And so I'm interested in who
shall abide and dwell in God's presence. This is far more than
where am I going to end up when I die. It's who am I going to stand
before and how am I going to stand before Him and be accepted. Now there is a person, thank
God, there is a person who fits this description. Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ. And what
we have here is a righteous person described. We have a righteous
person described and we have the expression of that righteousness
in His conduct. Now, He says, here's the answer. Lord, who shall abide? He says,
who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall sojourn? Or who shall
dwell in thy holy hill? And the answer comes back from
the Lord. He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and
speaketh the truth in his heart. It starts with the person's walk.
Here now is the expression of righteousness. We have a righteous
person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have the expression of
that righteousness as He walked on this earth. He walked on this
earth. And His walk was upright. And
this has to do with the strength of His character that He bore. The person spoken of here is
one of honesty, I mean, listen now, not just
someone who might be honest about something once in a while, but
an honest person. It's one of honesty, it's one
of morality, a moral person, trustworthiness, righteousness. This fits one person, our Lord. The Lord Jesus. This describes
His walk on earth. He knew no sin in His person. He knew no sin of thought. I can't, you know, I really can't
wrap my mind around that. Because all I've known is sin.
It's hard not to have a thought that doesn't have sin involved
in it. But he knew no sin in his person,
in his thought, in his word. He never spoke a word out of
character. He never spoke a word that was
even tainted with sin in his conduct. When he was reviled,
what's it say? He reviled not again. When you
and I get reviled, if somebody messes with us, We can't say that, can we? We
cannot say that. But the Lord can. They slapped
him on the face. They slapped him on the face.
They plucked the hair from his beard. And he never, never turned
and said, I'm going to get you. He never, this is something,
he never turned in anger on those who turned on him. The one time
he was angry was when he went into the temple and the money
changers were in there. And he said, you have turned
my father's house into a house of thieves and den. You've just
turned it into merchandise. And he turned over the tables.
That's the one time he was angry. The one time he said, my father's
house is a house of prayer. And you've made it a den of thieves. When it came to the way he was
treated by others, he never grew angry at them. He walked uprightly. He worked
righteousness. And listen, get out of this. He worked righteousness and that
righteousness is ours. That is our righteousness. He
worketh righteousness and it's ours. and He speaks the truth
in his heart. A person can do none of these
things if none of these are in him. Can he? Doing something
righteous or doing something right doesn't make me right.
I've got to be right first before what I do is right. And the Lord
Jesus Christ was righteous in His person. And therefore, everything
He did, He did righteously. And he says here, "...speaketh
the truth in his heart." Truth must be in the heart before it
can come from the heart. This is more than saying some
things that are true. This is his character. Truth
was in his heart. He said in one place, "...I am
the way, the truth, and the life." Our Lord didn't say some true
things, although He did, but He's the embodiment of truth.
When He spoke, truth was speaking. It was truth speaking, not just
saying some true things. It was truth speaking. The Scripture
says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. And our Lord in His heart, starts
in the heart, In his heart, he spoke the truth. And then notice how he treats
his neighbor. He that backbiteth not with his
tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor,
nor taketh up a reproach, a slander against his friend. That's what
that word neighbor there means. It means his friend. Our Lord never destroyed another
man's character. He never did that. He truly loved
his neighbor as himself. Someone said a man's character
is known by his speech. If you listen to him talk long
enough, you'll understand something of their character. Righteousness is expressed in
the way we treat others. And that is the way our Lord
expressed His righteousness in the way He treated others. He
said, love your enemies. You know, He called Judas friend. Our Lord never slandered anyone
with His tongue. His tongue, now just think about
this, James talks about the tongue that's set on fire of hell. He
said it's such a little member of what destruction it can cause. There's probably more destruction
done by the tongue than any war that's ever been on this earth.
And our Lord used His tongue to pray, He'd pray all night. He used His tongue to praise God. He used His tongue to worship,
to give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name. He used His
tongue in doing good. It says that grace poured from
His lips. Nothing ever came out of or across
His tongue that wasn't holy and right. There was no poison. You know, the Scripture says
concerning us by nature, us by nature, the poison of asp is
under our tongues. But it was not under His. It
was not under His. Grace poured from His lips. Never a man, they said, never
a man spake like this man. Never a man spake so kindly,
so graciously, and with such authority. Never a man spake
like this man. He that backbiteth not with his
tongue, nor doth evil to his neighbor,
he doesn't devise evil. toward his neighbor. And he doesn't take up a reproach. Listen, he never listened to
anyone slander his friends. He never listened to it. He never
allowed it. He never allowed anybody to slander
his friends. Our Lord never gossiped. He never gossiped. The Word of God says this, speak
evil of no man. And he didn't. Whatever he did
say, it was the truth about a person. It wasn't gossip. It's not gossip
if it's true. And in whose eyes, in verse 4,
in whose eyes a vile person is contemned or despised, But he honors them that fear
the Lord, he that swears to his own hurt and changes not." Listen,
he makes his judgments about men on a godly basis, on a righteous
basis. Not from favoritism, not from
flattery, not from corruption, but from righteousness. The Lord truly hates the workers of iniquity. He hates
those who despise God. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated. And he despises those... I tell
you this, there is no one in hell whom Jesus Christ loved.
That's so. That's so. You say, well that's
a hard say. It don't matter. It's a true
saying. There's no one in hell whom he
loves. But he honors them that fear
the Lord. You know, the father honored the Lord Jesus Christ
at his baptism. You know, the man Christ Jesus
feared the Lord, and yet he's the Lord. And he feared Him perfectly. At the Mount of Transfiguration,
He was honored. He honored Him in all the miracles. And He honored Him by raising
Him from the dead. And listen, and He that swears
to His own hurt and changes not, He keeps His Word. He keeps His Word. I got this
from the Amplified. Let me read it to you from the
Amplified. He keeps His Word even to His own disadvantage
and does not change it to His own advantage. He keeps His Word. Our Lord became
our surety, didn't He? He became our surety. And because
of that, He was put to death. Because of that, he was tormented,
tortured, and put to death. And he never backed down. He
never changed. He never went back on his word.
He never went back on it. And it says here in verse 5,
And he that putteth not out his money to usury, that's interest.
Now that does not mean that you cannot get interest on your money.
That doesn't mean that. There's nothing wrong with that.
But here's what he's saying. Two things here. Number one,
he does not take advantage of the poor by overcharging them. And secondly, in the Old Testament,
an Israelite was not allowed to charge interest to another
Israelite. In other words, he could not take advantage of his
brother. And he's saying here, he that puts not out his money
to interest in taking advantage of his brother, he doesn't do
that. Nor does he take a reward against
the innocent. He doesn't take a bribe. You
know, one of the hardest things that I had to deal with in business
for 25 years was not bribing. to get work
because it was, I mean, it was not hard for me not to do that,
but it was hard in the sense that so many others were doing
it. And I kept losing business. I
mean, I lost business after business because I didn't pay some people
off that asked me to pay them off. And I didn't do it. And I could have been, well, he, listen, nor takes reward
against the innocent. He's not bribed. He doesn't take
advantage of the poor and he doesn't bribe people. He hates
bribery. You know, bribery is one of the
greatest offenses to justice. You bribe the judge, you bribe
the jury, you bribe the law officer, you bribe everybody. You bite
them off. You just threw justice at the
door. You threw right at the door. And he hates that. He hates that. He doesn't take reward against
the innocent. Now listen, he that doeth these
things shall never be moved. Our Lord did these things perfectly
and is now seated at God's right hand. This fits Him. This fits Him. But I want to know, I want to know, Lord, how can I
be there? I want to know, can I be there? How does this apply to me? How
does this apply to me? Now this is where gospel knowledge
comes in. This is where being taught of
God comes in. First of all, when I read this,
and I know that when you read this as believers, it makes you
flee to Christ. It makes you flee to the Lord
Jesus Christ because you know You're guilty of every one of
these. You know it. You know it. Because I have given somebody
money before. I have done this and I have done
that. You know that. Being a preacher, I gotta stand
up and tell on myself. But I know this, telling on myself, I'm
telling on you too. Unless you're so self-righteous, you think
you haven't done it. But I know I'm guilty of every
bit of this. I'm guilty of backbiting, doing
evil to you, you know, not doing your neighbor right, take up
slander against your friend, you listen to it, and you kind
of enter into it maybe. You know, instead of in whose
eyes a vile person is content, you kind of take up with them.
That one time you did, I'm saying that one time you did. This is why we cry, oh wretched
man that I am. That's what Paul said. And the
older I get, the more I find myself crying this, oh wretched
man that I am. Not that I was, that I am. We know that we are sinners of
the highest order, and that's why we flee to Jesus Christ.
But here is where gospel knowledge comes in, and here is where we
find comfort. We know that in Jesus Christ,
we are a new creation. We know this. We know that in
Jesus Christ, all of this is fulfilled in us. And we know
that in Jesus Christ, that new man that is created in righteousness
and true holiness does this. That new man does. An old man
doesn't. An old man, still, he's ready
to do all that's opposite of this. But that new man that is
created in righteousness and true holiness, that new man that
is born of God, is also described right here. That new man in Christ is all
the above. The Scripture says, as He is,
over 1 John 4, 17, as He is, what's it say? So are we in this
world right now. Is He holy? So are we. The answer to the question, who
shall abide and dwell in the presence of God And the answer
is this, Jesus Christ and all who are in Him. All who are in Him. If you take
the Lord Jesus Christ out of this picture, none of us, none
of us can dwell in God's presence. We can attain to this. This is
a work of God. This is the work of the God-man,
Jesus Christ. Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle,
who shall dwell in thy holy hill, he that walketh uprightly and
worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart, He that
backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor,
nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor, in whose eyes a
vile person is contemned and despised, but he honoureth them
that fear the Lord, he that sweareth through his own hurt, and he
doesn't change his word, he that puts not out his money to usury
against his brother, and takes advantage of him, nor takes a
reward against the innocent, he that doeth these things shall
never be moved." Thank God for Jesus Christ. Thank God for Jesus
Christ, because in Him, this is fulfilled in us.