There's a whole lot of people
in this world that know about Charles Spurgeon. They love him.
They like the man. They look up to the man. And
boy, it would be a great privilege to sit underneath him, wouldn't
it? What we don't know. You ever took a day off from
work? I'd like to go to France for three months. That's what
he did. He'd take the sabbaticals, wouldn't
he? Psalm chapter 4. This is called
the song in the night. We just read that, didn't we?
Psalm 77. Asaph called and said, this is
the psalm in the night. I remembered the psalm in the
night. I went back and I read Psalm 4 in my troubles. It was
nighttime. I couldn't sleep. Let me go read
a psalm. It didn't work. The Lord had
to give new mercies for that day. This is the psalm in the
night. David was being mocked. He fled
his son, Absalom, who raged against him, plotted against him, whispered
in back rooms, hey, let's have a talk. Dad can't take care of
you like I can. We need to appoint me the judge.
I'll take good care of you. Let me kiss your hand. Oh, it's
sweetness. This is for the Lord's glory. And they took 200 men
unknowing. That's how wise we are. Look at all my wisdom. Yeah,
you can get suckered right into Absalom too. Took 200 men. Went to chase off David. David fled. His own son. A foe
in his own home. Own flesh and blood. Half of
David's DNA is sitting right there in Absinthe. Turned on
him. Would you have trouble sleeping? You're hiding out in a cave somewhere.
Would you have trouble sleeping? They said, God can't help you.
You are not His there in chapter Psalm 3 verse 2. Many there be
which say of my soul there is no help for him in God. That's like Job's miserable comforters,
isn't it? You having a hard time? What
did you do? What did you do, Job? God's punishing
you. That's a falsehood. God chastens
His children. He doesn't punish them. All that
punishment was in Christ. Our surety. Our atonement. But this is Christ first speaking
here in Psalm 4. David wrote it. You and I can
read it, find comfort in it. Asaph read it. Try to find comfort
in it. We can see ourselves in it. But
first and foremost, this is Christ speaking. It's the Psalm of Christ. It says in verse 1, Hear me when
I call. The Lord heard him always. Remember
the tomb of Lazarus? And he said, Lord, I'm going
to pray to you out loud. I know you hear me always. But
I'm going to say this out loud so those people standing around
can hear it and see what you can do. See who I am. See who you are. He says, O God
of my righteousness, speaking to His Father, that's the one
whose will He is performing on this earth. He says, Thou hast enlarged me
when I was in distress. That garden of Gethsemane, the
Lord sent angels to Him, didn't He? We can never, ever enter
into the distress that was put on Him. I can't enter into it
just if I was the only one that He was dying for. What distress
of my sin, the wrath that was coming forth, the separation,
God turning His back on God. Sweating great drops of blood.
Just for one, I can't enter into it. A man can never enter into
the distress that he had. And the Lord enlarged him. He
filled him. What a thought! Now, Christ, our preacher, He
says in verse 1, Thou hast enlarged me when I was in stress. Have
mercy upon me. If you've got a marginal reference,
that means be gracious unto me. Grace and mercy go hand in hand,
don't they? Have mercy on me and hear my prayer. Verse 2 says,
O ye sons of men, here's Christ our preacher, our prophet, our
priest. He preached to the great congregation
in Psalm 40. O ye sons of men, how long will
ye turn my glory into shame? How long are they going to mock
Him on the cross? How long do they pursue Him in
life? The Pharisees plotting against
Him, thinking how they're going to stone Him, thinking how they're
going to get rid of Him. How are we going to correct Him? Let's tangle
Him up in His words. How Herod pursued Him in infancy. That was His glory. Come to this earth. Fulfill the
Father's will. Die for His people, what He promised
He would do in eternity before. be our surety, redeem His people. How long are you going to make
out of shame? It says, how long will you love vanity? How long will you seek lies? Let me go look some lies out.
What's vanity? What's vain? Everything in this
world. What's vain? Religion is vain.
And all of man's thoughts, man's, I think, wrong. Lies. You're seeking lies. Plug your
ears. You're loving vanity. It's warm
and fuzzy the way everybody else is doing it. It's like Christ
comes to his people and preaches to them. How long are you going
to keep up doing what you're doing? What do you ask John?
How's that working out for you? And he speaks effectually and
power to the hearts of his people. We respond, don't we? All that
leasing, all that lying, contrary to the Word of God, contrary
to security in Him. It's security in anything else.
What do we seek? By nature, man says, well, what's
everybody else doing? God wants things. That's vain. He doesn't want nothing. He's
God. He's trying to do. God doesn't try nothing. He's
God. If He tried and won, He wouldn't be God. He's the sovereign.
And lies. All you got to do is accept Him.
He's wanting you to do something. Do this. Do that. God loves everybody. No, He don't. You ever read your
Bibles? What's that about Esau? Jacob,
have I loved Esau? Have I hated? No, I didn't. I
didn't like Esau much. I hated him. God says he's angry
with the wicked every day. He hates sin. That's what we
are. What a horrible thing when we
see ourselves, when we see love, when we pause on that. All of
my religion that I played with, like a child growing up, was
vanity. It was all lies. Because it came
from man. And I made a god like unto me,
as the psalmist said. Pause on that. Think on that.
If we left there, we're in bad shape anyway. But God. Look at verse 3. But no, don't
consider, don't think, don't weigh out the possibilities.
You want, let's sit around and debate this. No, but know that the Lord has set
apart him that is godly. Here's the answer to all those
rhetorical questions the Lord asks us. Are you in vain? Do
you shame my glory? Are you lying? Is that what you
look for? Do you seek out lies, controversies, conspiracies?
Is that what you're looking for? But no. God set apart. He sanctified. He's anointed
the godly. The Lord set apart. Who's godly?
Human fools? A great writer of old? Oh, that's
a godly man. Those are godly people. Christ
is the godly man. The firstborn of God. The anointed. The ordained. The elect. The holy one of Israel. God has
set him apart. He has distinguished him. Then
in verse 3 he says, for himself, for himself, the Lord will hear
when I call unto him. The capital L, capital O, capital
R, capital D, the Lord of hosts, the Lord Jehovah. He will hear
when I call. Is that bold? That's a bold statement. I'm going to call to God and
He's going to hear me. That is our Lord talking about
prayer with His Father, communion, intercession He makes for His
people with His Father. Verse 4 and 5, the Lord gives
us six points of instruction. He's preaching to His people.
He convicts them of sin. He shows them that He is all
righteousness, that the work is accomplished. And then He
gives us six points of instruction. How everyone is to respond to
the preaching of the gospel. To God. And He did each of them. Look here in verse 4. Stand in
awe His whole life. From a cradle to the grave. All
that suffering. He stood in awe of His Father.
Honored the Father in all things. Have I done that? And sin not do I sin. He knew no sin. He was made sin
for us who knew no sin, that I might be made His righteousness.
He stood in awe. He didn't sin. Commune with your
own heart upon your bed. How often I commune out loud. How often, like Asaph, I complain
out loud. Commune with your own heart upon
your bed in private. Where'd the Lord go to pray?
He'd always go away from a crowd, wouldn't he? He'd go up into
a mountain. You know, we're more than religious folks. Play in
church. He'd go pray to his Father, wouldn't
he? And be still. Be steady. Be confirmed. I remember sleeping in those
boats. Storm raging. Professional sailors
and fishermen were on the boat and they got nervous. They were
losing their minds. Go wake the Lord up. We're going
to die. They knew what they were talking
about. We got one wave over the top.
That's what they did for a living. Go wake Him up. He was asleep,
still, resting. It says in verse 5, Offer the
sacrifices of righteousness. He's the righteous one. He sacrificed
Himself. He laid down His life for His
friends. And put your trust in the Lord. His whole life trusting the Lord.
Hanging on a cross, trusting His Father. Bearing the sins
of many, trusting His Father. Giving up His ghost, trusting
the Father to raise Him from the grave. Because He said, I
will not let my Holy One see corruption. He believed God. Has there ever
been a day that I walked around not believing God? Once or twice,
maybe? We think awfully highly of ourselves,
don't we? I think awfully highly of me. Verse 6, there will be many that
say, who will show us any good? Lord, tell us something good. Show us a miracle. I want to
see a sign. Can you show me a sign? I'll
believe if you show me a sign. You come down off that cross.
I'll believe you then. I know you heal people and the
lame walked and the blind see and the deaf. You preach the
gospel and nobody cares about that. That's a miracle he listed. Come off that cross and I'll
believe. Show me something good. He replies, Father, Lord, lift
up thou the light of thy countenance upon us. Lift up your Son. Exalt your
Son. Glorify your Son as He glorifies you. Thou hast put gladness in
my heart more than in the time that their corn and their wine
increased." Everybody had good profits. They had good increases
in money. They had plenty of wine, plenty
of corn. And they were chasing the Lord, casting His teeth on
that cross. Show us something good. We got
it made. I got stockpiles at the house. Show us something
good. And he prays, let thy son be exalted. Lift up the light
of thy countenance upon us. Us. What did he say when he got
baptized? John baptized me. He said, I
need to be baptized by you. I ain't got no business baptizing.
He said, suffer it to be so because it behooves us. His people, those
put in him before time was. I will both lay me down in peace,
sleep. I try laying down sometimes.
I can't sleep. I'm gonna go to sleep now. Don't
work, does it? He laid himself down. He gave
up the ghost. He slept for His people. Not
just physically slept on this earth, He slept eternally for
His people. Suffering that wrath of eternity
for His people. Why did He do that? For Thou,
Lord only, makest me dwell in safety. The Father put gladness,
joy, rejoicing in the heart of Christ to bear our punishment,
to bear us, that feminine noun, sin, what we are, to be made
one with us. And He gladly did it. He dwells in safety. He said,
I will not leave thy soul in hell, nor suffer my Holy One
to see corruption. He said, I'm going to raise you.
You know what that means? He is risen. He laid himself
down in peace. He slept and he is risen because
the Lord himself, the triune God said, I'm gonna raise you.
Payment is complete. It is finished. Redemption's
accomplished. We're purchased possession. Sealed
forever. The work's completely finished.
This is our Lord speaking. But let's read this as David
read it, as he wrote it. Let's read it as you and I read
it. That's good for us, isn't it? Give us some shoes to walk
around in through the week, Tuesday morning, and it'll give you something
to chew on. Look here in verse 1. Hear
me when I call. This is not a command to God. This is not just a salutation
to Him, beckoning Him. This is prayer. Prayer. I need to be heard. Did you know
that? When we pray unto God, we need
heard. Do you? Is that the one thing
we need? We need Christ. We need to hear
Him. Hear me, God. Not for my much speaking. Not
for my vain repetitions and this prefab stuff that somebody else
said, and I think that sounds pretty good. I'm going to say
that too. Put my hands out, make a show. God hear me. That's the start and the end
of a prayer. You pray that, God hear me. Oh, if you would hear
me, what that means, what that holds. We have access to Him
too. Isn't that amazing? Through the
blood of Christ we have reconciliation. We have access to that throne
of grace. We can be heard of Him. We can approach Him. Because
of Christ. Because of the Lord our righteousness.
What makes a human think that the Holy God would even listen
to us? We know what we are. Has it been revealed to me what
I am? Am I troubled to where I can't speak, as Asaph said? Says there, O God of my righteousness.
His righteousness is my righteousness. As holy as Christ is, that's
how holy his people are in the eyes of God. Because they are.
Because they are. God of my righteousness. I wrote
this down too. This is the only time in scripture that it's worded
this way. Oh God of my righteousness. And what a thought. I can't lose
it. Because he's the God of it. Who
manages? We always manage things. Let's
make some decisions. Let's run some stuff. Who manages
my righteousness? Who's security established my
righteousness? Who keeps it? There's a God of
my righteousness. He is my righteousness and He's
the God of my righteousness. What a thought, huh? It says, He has to enlarge me
when I was distressed. That was past tense. That happened
before, Lord. In the past, not puffed up, not
enlarge me, but You've filled me with Your Spirit in times
past. This has happened before. Like
Paul was writing, you get troubled about something. Something troublesome.
That bothered me. Did you get any patience out
of that? Did the Lord teach you to be patient? Did you gain experience
out of that? There's a whole lot of babes
in Christ. Little tiny babies. Takes time. This ain't fast. Over years and years and decades
and decades. Not under a false gospel. Under
the truth. You want a corrupt seed or an
incorruptible seed? That corrupt seed's been growing a long time,
ain't it? An incorruptible seed. Over a long time, we keep having
these trials, these troubles. Lord be hard with us. Because
it'll develop patience. He'll grow patience in us. He'll
teach us to be patient, and then we'll have experience. Well,
this happened for 25 years. I've had this happen nine times
to me. I've had some experience with this. What do I think's
gonna happen? God's gonna show me Christ again
at the end of this trial? I'm going to be grown again at
the end of this trial. Now I have hope because hope's a person. A hope's
not a thing, not an event, not a baptism whenever I was a little
kid or something. Hope's a person. That's who is
my hope. Lord, you've enlarged me before.
You know how I enlarged you? You are shrunk. We need to be withered. Like
a California raisin, when he'd be out in the sun in his lot,
getting shriveled up to where we can't talk, to where we can't
do nothing. We're brought down to nothing.
Shriveled up, dry, so dry your mouth can't say good or bad.
You can't say nothing. You shut up to sin. Shriveled
up, he enlarges us. He enlarges us. when we're in
distress. Have mercy upon me, Lord. Be
gracious to me. Grace and mercy. They go hand
in hand. That's gracious mercy. That's
what we need. Mercy. And Lord, hear my prayer. When are we going to cry out
for mercy? Everybody wants mercy. When are we going to cry out
for it? When are we going to cry out for it? Lord, be gracious to me. When are we going to hear
our prayers? When are we really going to pray? Not get up and
say words. When are we going to pray? When
you're shriveled up. You're begging the Lord to fill you. to enlarge
them. Verse 2 says, O ye men, how long
will you turn my glory into shame? People shame my Lord. God forbid
that I should glory save in the cross of Christ. He says in Psalm
2, He is my glory. People all around me shame my
Lord. They turn into shame. Man says
it was an attempt of God to save people. That's a shame. That's a lie on God. Nature wants
to contribute. We start hearing Galatians on
purpose because of what wolves are in this part of the country.
It's another gospel. It's not another. It's a completely,
wildly different another gospel. That's what the word means. The
different another is different. It's not close to the same. It's
not close to the same. It's turning the cross of Christ
into a shame by saying He didn't accomplish your righteousness,
your holiness, your sanctification, and you've got to add to it.
His faith ain't enough for you. You've got to grow in your own
faith. It's a shame and a vanity of
lying. That's man's thought. That's man's religion. Nothing
but vain thought and vain religion, making gods outflank themselves
that want things. Why? All that vanity is going
to perish. All those lies and those thoughts
are going to perish. The Lord is going to burn them
up. It won't stand in His presence. In verse 2 it says, Selah. Consider
that. How long? How long? But we are not of them that draw
back, are we? We're not conforming the gospel.
to keep everybody happy. That hurt my feelings. You just about told me that one
time. Now, I knew God for a long time.
It was under a false gospel, under a God that wants things,
under a God that didn't finish it. You've got to get holier
yourself. Kevin, you saying that, that hurts my feelings. You're
saying Galatians was all wrote about me and it's better doctrine,
they say. It's better church. That's all
around us, Kevin. That hurts my feelings. That
ain't changing. That'll be my test. My test as a young preacher,
young pastor, is going to be, will I change the message? Will
I soften the message to keep people happy? Will I do some
jumping jacks and dances? I'll play guitar while I preach
to keep emotions going. That's what God's going to test
me in. We're not of them that draw back. Why? My God didn't
draw back. Look at verse 3. But no. Don't you forget this. You know
it. That the Lord has set apart him that is godly. Those that
are in Christ. Those that He set apart. He sanctified. He's anointed. His elect. Those He elected in His love. He set them apart. Here's a word
that will grab you, keep you from sleeping. You know what
Spurgeon called this? Discriminating grace. Ooh, in our day, that's a bad
word. When man discriminates, it's a bad thing. But pray God
discriminates. He chooses to be gracious to
some. What's your glory, Lord? Moses asked him. He said, I'll
be gracious to whom I'll be gracious. I'll be merciful to whom I want
to show mercy to. And I'm going to put you in the rock, in the
cleft of the rock. I'm going to put you in Christ,
and you're going to see my back parts. I'm going to walk past
you. I'm going to be in your presence. That's distinguishing
grace. That's not what man deserves.
That's not what we've earned in ourselves. It's what we grew
up to be. That's God's salvation. Discriminating
grace. Distinguishing grace. What's
the start and the end of that? What's the Alpha and Omega of
our faith, of our salvation, of anything that's required of
us? What's the root cause of God saving a man or a woman?
And what's the assurance? Do you want assurance? I want
assurance. I want comfort. Don't you? How
can I have assurance in God? I don't care what it says. But
know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself. It's not depending on man, is
it? I chose you, God. No, you didn't. God chose His
people for Himself. What's the security in that?
What if I don't feel like it's secure? It don't matter. I ain't
my security. He is. I'm not my assurance. He is. That man prayed in the
temple, Lord be merciful to me a sinner and he pounded upon
his chest and he got up and it didn't say he did cartwheels
all the way down the hill, did it? He justified. He was God's. He prayed to God.
He worshipped God. That's what matters, isn't it?
That's primary. The glorification of God. For
Himself. How eternal is the Lord's promises?
He did this for Himself. It's eternal. Forever. Can't
be undone. Why? For His name's sake. For
Christ's sake. For Himself's sake. He chose
us and set us apart. Made us godly. For our benefit,
yes, but for His glory, which is infinitely more important
than my benefit. I want with Him. What's in it
for me? You show up to a job interview.
What's in it for me? How much do we get paid? Where's the comfort? Where's the fun? Where's this
peace and sleep at night? Lord, Your glory. Your will be
done. That's the way He teaches us
to pray. But they go hand in hand, don't they? His glory and
our good. Ain't you thankful for that?
Ain't you thankful we're set apart for His sake, to Him, unto
good works? We're His workmanship. When we
see the God of our salvation, we respond. We will respond. We always need instruction and
reminding though, don't we? This is, it always, it never
fails to blow my mind. the ability of this two-edged
sword of the Lord's Word. Like we looked at the other day,
in Psalm 3, the same Word cuts asunder. I mean, get people so
mad they'll grit their teeth and they'll get up and they'll
storm out. All right, listen to this no more. The same Word from the same earth
and vessel, the same water, takes His children and says, Oh, thank
You, Lord. Thank You. That's amazing, isn't
it? These six things here, It's a word of comfort and instruction
to believers, but a word of warning to those outside of Christ. That
keeps all men and women without excuse. But these six things
are a blessing to those in Christ. It says firstly there in verse
4, stand in awe. Be ye angry. That's what it means. When Paul was writing there in
Ephesians 4, 26, he says, be ye angry and sin not. That's
what he's quoting. Stand in awe. Be angry. What
are we going to be mad about? We won't get mad over anything
anyway. We don't have enough sense to shut up and wait on
God to fix it. I get mad all the time. I ought not to do that.
Oh, but to be angry at myself. Be angry at the sin that I am.
To despise sin. to despise false religion, to
despise lies on God. A sheep cannot sit and listen
to a lie about their God, about the God. If you're the Lord's
child, you can't sit underneath the preaching that tells lies
on God. You can't stand it. Somebody's
telling lies on my wife, I ain't going to stay in that room. I'm
going to stand in awe. I'm going to be standing in anger.
I'm going to be angry. It means stand in anger, but
it also means stand in reverence. Stand in adoration. Stand in
amazement. We use the word awesome now for
everything, don't we? I got new shoes. Awesome. Really? Should we stand in amazement
at shoes? Same thing the Lord gave to us.
We throw words around our generation as other generations did too.
But consider the things that are all. You stand in awe of
God's grace towards His people. It's amazing grace. My pastor
growing up said, if amazing grace ever loses its amazingness, it
ain't no longer grace. Grace is gone. That doesn't get
old, does it? The Lord was gracious to us.
Stand in awe. Stand in reverence. In awe of the redemption of His
blood. The worth of His blood. The completion of that redemption.
Total, eternal redemption. Never-ending mercy. Because we
sing grace greater than all of our sin. We can't out sin it. We can't mess it up. We can't
undo what God has done. We can't unbind what He's bound.
And longsuffering. Do you ever stand in awe of longsuffering? Does that break your heart? Is that a broken and contrite
heart? When you say, You keep coming to me. You keep being
patient to me. You keep teaching me. You keep
feeding me. You're providing everything for me. You keep showing
me Christ. Oh, how long is suffering. What
suffer I cause. And you're standing in awe of
the love of God. Not my love towards Him. I love
Him because He first loved me, but my love is nothing. His love,
hearing His love, not that you loved Him, but that He loved
His people and He sent Christ the propitiation, that bloody
sacrifice, that mercy seat. I need a mercy seat. I need to
go in between to be able to approach God. If I go in there, I'll die.
If I get close to it, I'm going to be like Uzziah and I'm going
to get leprosy. The Lord's going to strike it down. It ain't happening.
He's our mercy seat. what's inside that mercy seat.
That's where they sprinkled the blood, the broken tablet to the wall. He completed it. It was in him,
fulfilled. Now we can approach God. While
we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. We didn't get
better. Well, you've got to quit that
now. You've got to straighten up. Comb your hair right. Get
a haircut. Put some nice clothes on. Get
down here, and you say these prayers, and now God will accept
you. Now you can have a mercy seat. Now you can have His love.
No! A dead dog sinner, like that demonic man, just stark naked. Crazy! Not in his right mind.
That's who God came to die for. Sinners. Sinners. Harlots. Lepers. Publicans. Worst of the worst. That's love. Give yourself to somebody that
wants nothing to do with you. And then to come to Him. To redeem
Him and then to come to Him. And reveal yourself to Him. And
keep Him. And sustain Him. And be long-suffering to Him.
And show Him that redemption. Show Him that they're sealed.
Show Him their assurances because He did it for Himself, for His
glory. Oh, that's love, isn't it? That's the first thing. Stand
in awe. I'll try to go quick. Number two, sin not. Stand in
awe and sin not. I've sinned more this morning
with you looking at me, to send me to an attorney's worth of
hell tenfold over. People stop sinning. No, we want
to. We stand in awe, we stand in
anger of ourselves. How wretched man that I am. But he's speaking
of that sin unto death that John spoke of in 1 John. To turn from
Christ. Turn from that one that saved
us back to vanity. back to our righteousness, our
pride. Turn from that one that saved
us back to leasing. Shameful lies. Why don't we draw back, as Paul
said? Because he said, we're not of those that draw back.
Christ prayed that Peter's faith fail not. Did you know that?
He said, Peter, Satan wants you. He wants to sift you like wheat.
That's what wheat would be, wouldn't it? Just dust. He'd chew us up
in a heartbeat. He said, but I've prayed that
your faith fail not. Go through there and take your
faith out and put Christ in. I prayed that your Christ fail
not. It's His faith, isn't it? If we have any faith at all,
it's His faith. Faith of Christ. And He said, I prayed that I
stay with you. And so, that's why we don't draw
back. The Lord keeps us. Verse 4 says
the third thing. Stand in awe and sin not, commune
with your own heart upon your bed. You commune with your own
heart, I'm to commune with my own heart, and I can do it on
my bed. Privacy in my own home, in my
closet. Pray to God. Worship God. Apply this at home. Public worship is vital. The
Lord stresses it. It's in His Word. I hate that
it upsets anybody, but don't forsake the assembly of the saints.
You know the gospel, you should sit underneath it. That's where you want to be if
you're where He is. He'll make you. He'll put that desire in
you. But we're to dwell on these things at home, too. We don't
just worship God, and we don't just call to Him. We don't say,
Lord, hear my prayer once on Wednesday evening and Sunday
morning and Sunday evening. And then, well, it's Tuesday
now. I got work to do. I got a world to live in. Nonsense. A pastor told me, we had some
nursing students in the congregation that's about to be nurses. One
of them's a doctor now. And they said, you go to school
and you learn the book stuff. And then you go and you have
a practicum, or you do an internship. That's where you apply what you
learned in the book, isn't it? You've learned these things.
Now you're going to put them to use. You can put them in shoe leather. You
can go put that IV in somebody's arm. You can go do it. We come
here at the preaching of the word. We get the instruction
from the Lord. And you know what's going to
happen Monday morning when you wake up and go to work? If He sees
fit, if He decides to not wither you, and to fill you back up,
He's going to put His Word in your heart. Make you dwell on
Him. This ain't part-time, but it's
life. Life. All day, every day. We dwell on these things, don't
we? Personal worship. That's what
this is speaking of. I'll tell you, I'm gonna tell
you plainly. Personal worship, communion with God without public
worship, is a sham. It's fake. What would y'all think
if I retired, if I wasn't a pastor, and I worked the job for 30 years,
saved up a whole bunch of money, I retire, and I say, well, I'm
retired now, I ain't gonna be with my wife no more. That was
my working wife, that wasn't my lifelong wife. It's crazy. Something's wrong with you, son.
You better sit down. What are you thinking? I've seen
people do this. Well, I retired now. I don't
go to church no more. What in the world? Paul, I'll bite my
tongue. Paul wrote to Cory and had some
hard things to say to him. He said, you got problems eating,
you need your house. That's what your house is for. And laid them down. And
he said, you can't bear the rest of it, but when I get in person,
I'm going to get on with you. You didn't do it enough. There
are some important things that need to be had done. It says
in verse... No, the fourth thing there. Stand
in awe, sin not, commune with your own heart upon your bed,
and be still. How many times have we been told
to stand still and wait on the Lord? Stand still and look to
the Lord. See His salvation. I was called as a child, the
frozen chosen. See, you're chosen to God, and
you're just as cold as ice. It's like a funeral home in there.
We're reading the will, ain't we? Somebody says, you're dressed
like you're going to a funeral. Maybe I am. Might be mine. These are serious matters. You
be still. Calm down. There's no hands waving
and yelling and carrying on. Stand in awe. Rejoice in trembling. Serve the Lord in fear, is what
He says. Do you know whose presence you're in? If He has gathered
two here today, He said, I'll be in their midst. God Almighty's
here. You know whose presence you're
in? Who you want to hear? Selah. Consider that. You know,
if you're talking, you can't hear. Do you know that? Words
coming out of this, these are shut, ain't they? Or you can't
distinguish, or you're going to mess it up and get the words
backwards. Uh-oh, that's even worse. Be still. Fifth thing. It says in verse 5, offer the
sacrifices of righteousness. We don't bring nothing to God.
What's our righteousness? Filthy rags, and stretched cloths. That's what that is. We have
nothing. But we sacrifice, we kill. We cut in two our righteousnesses. Everything that was good, everything
I thought was good, all this good work I did, all this charitable
things, all this, I was serving the Lord. I didn't know Him.
You kill it, burn it, put it away, and we bring to God Christ,
the righteous one. What sacrifice are we going to
bring to the Lord? You better bring Christ and nothing
else. He said, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased. Not
Him plus something. Not Him and your help in Him.
Him alone. He's the righteousness that God
accepts. Remember Cain and Abel both had
their sacrifices. And the Lord said He had respect
to Abel's sacrifice. He had respect to the sacrifice.
Not the blood of bulls and goats, is it? Christ's blood, that's
what that would show. Christ's blood. Lastly, number six. Verse 5,
put your trust in the Lord. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness
and put your trust in the Lord. Trusting in anything else is
vanity. Trusting in anything else is a lie. You look to money,
you look to you choosing the Lord works. Oh, I pray so much. I have devotionals. You ever
heard devotionals come out of my mouth? Try to be a good example
for you all. I'm going to give God 10 minutes
today. What nonsense. I'm going to serve Him one day
a week. It's the Almighty God. Trust
Him. Trust Him. After that response
to the shame, the vanity, the lies, after the preaching of
the truth, declaring the Word of God, Christ Himself, many
people want more. They hear all these things. I want to stand in awe of the
Lord. I want to be still. I don't want to sin. I want to
wait on Him. I want to bring only Christ to the Lord. So I want
Him to be my only hope and plea. Many people. Many! That couple. Many! Many people, they want
more. Broad is the path to destruction
and many they are that walk there, you know. Many. Many. Many want
more. Verse 6 says, There be many that
say, Who will show us any good? What's good in this world? There's so much badness around
us. There's 72,000 children about to starve to death on the other
side of the world. There's abortion clinics all over. There's big
mean people making decisions for us. Oh, show me good. It's all bad. How are we to respond to that? Lord, show us your good. We need
to see Him, don't we? How long are we to respond to
that? Are we to debate it? Are we to take a long time explaining
each one of these things of standing in awe of rejoicing and bringing
only Christ to God? Do we explain that and debate
it and teach Him? No. Pray Christ is exalted. Look at the second hand. There
will be many that say, who will show us any good? Lord, lift
up the light of Thy countenance upon us. What a thought. Lord, show us
to yourself one more time. Verse 7 says, Thou hast put gladness
in my heart. Gladness, rejoicing, joy, peace. Peace. And just plain old being
glad. I got a friend of mine, been a pastor for a long time,
and I'll write him some big text like, Oh, I love that article
you wrote. That's exactly what I need. The Lord spoke to me.
The Lord used you to speak to me today. Thank you. And he'll
write back, glad. Glad. Good. Gladness in our heart. Contentment in our heart. Settled. Settledness. Like the seas, tossing
into the front. Calm down. Settled. Christ lifted
up. Glorified. Salvation is forever
in Him. That's more important than the
increase of wine and corn. So I almost wrote, oh I'm so
jealous of them, their eyes are bugged out with fatness. I was
jealous until I went to the house of the Lord. Until I saw Him,
until I saw Him hot and lifted up. Glad was I said when they
told me, let's go to the house of the Lord. That I was put gladness
in my heart more than in the time that their corn and their
wine increased. It says in verse eight, I will
both lay me down in peace and sleep. Lay down in peace. Why are we at peace? There's
no warfare anymore. Condemnation's put away. There's no condemnation
between us and the God we offend. There's peace. There's reconciliation.
That's justification we're talking about. I will lay me down in
peace. I'll lay me down in justification.
When I was a kid, they taught us justification means just as if
I had not sinned. That's not it. That's not it. That's the best they knew at
the time for that generation, for those people. They're dead
now. That's not what that means. Justified. If somebody broke
into my home and I shot them and I went to court and they
said, no, it was legal. They come in and will kill your
family and you're justified. Justified homicide. That's the
best way I can think to put that. And then I walk out, there's
no more charge. Everything I did was right. I did not offend the
law. In Christ, it's not as if we
are as righteous as Christ is, as holy as he is. Lay me down in peace and sleep.
Physical sleep, yes. Believers don't always get eight
hours of sleep or whatever they want you to get. I didn't sleep
much last night, but also the sleep of the grave. Peace always
comes before sleep. Do you know that? To God's child,
that's how it comes. He speaks peace to their heart
before they die. He won't lose one of them. He'll make us glad in our hearts,
make us rejoice in our hearts, make us stand in awe of Him and
see His righteousness. And He'll hear us and we'll know
that He heard us. We'll have peace and then we'll sleep. Then
we'll go to the grave. Every one of them. My friend
John Chapman said one time, he said he's a pastor and his job
is threefold. His primary job, when I get up
here, My primary goal is to glorify God. If I ain't doing that, why
are we here? It don't matter what you think.
My job is to glorify God. Secondly, is to feed the sheep.
Not feed the goats. Not feed the wolves. Not feed
the giraffes. Feed the sheep. And the third objective, my third
commissioned task is to prepare you to die. to meet a holy God. I care for you. I want you to have peace before
you lay down to sleep. How can we sleep in peace? How
can we do that? End of verse 8, I will lay me down in peace and
sleep, because for Thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety."
He's our safety. He's our security. In this world,
when's the time that you're most vulnerable? It's when you're
sleeping in it. You don't sleep with one eye
open. You ain't sleeping, that's keeping an eye open. It's shutting
one eye. When we're asleep, we don't know what's going on around
us. Thieves could come in at night. All our defenses that
we think so strong could be overcome with a whisper. That's when he's
our security. Our safety. And while we're awake,
that's when he's our safety. And when we're withered and shriveled,
he's our safety. And whenever we're filled all
to the brim and my cup runs over, Lord, praise you! Woo! I'm just
excited. We're safe. You can get too puffed
up. He's your safety. We are safe only in Him. He said, for thou, Lord, only,
only, makest me dwell in safety. Wouldn't it be a blessing to
go to sleep in peace every night knowing that we'll be safe in
the Lord in all things forever? Wouldn't that be a comfort? If
it ain't, somebody has a problem with doubt, you're going to have
to tear out half the Psalms. A whole lot of doubt, a whole
lot of suffering, a whole lot of sleepless nights, ain't they? but to know
that eternity, when we lay down and rest, because of Christ our
righteousness, what He did for His people, and only Him will
be in Him forever. He'll be our security forever.
Wouldn't that be something? I hope that makes you sleep.
Let's pray together.