We are in Psalm 37 tonight. This
is the first part of a two-part. I'm hoping to get through it
next time, but it's a long psalm. It's 40 verses, so I want to
go through this with you tonight. This Psalm, it's easy to read. It's not, some things, it seems
like it's very abstract, but this one seems, at least when
you read it, very concrete. So I wanna read it with you,
and we will read through it, and then we'll go back and look
at the first, probably the first eight verses tonight. It says
in verse one of Psalm 37, fret not thyself because of evildoers,
neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. for
they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the
green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good,
so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires
of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord,
trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. and he shall
bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment
as the noonday. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently
for him. Fret not thyself because of him
who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked
devices to pass. Cease from anger, and forsake
wrath. Fret not thyself in any wise
to do evil. For evildoers shall be cut off,
but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the
earth. For yet a little while, and the
wicked shall not be, yea, thou shalt diligently consider his
place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the
earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The
wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his
teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him, for he seeth that his day
is coming. The wicked have drawn out the
sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy,
and to slay such as be of upright conversation. Their sword shall
enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken. A
little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of
many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall
be broken, but the Lord upholdeth the righteous. The Lord knoweth
the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in
the evil time, and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. But the wicked shall perish,
and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs. They
shall consume into smoke, I'm sorry, they shall consume. Into
smoke shall they consume away. The wicked borroweth and payeth
not again, but the righteous showeth mercy and giveth. For
such as be blessed of him shall inherit the earth, and they that
be cursed of him shall be cut off. The steps of a good man
are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way, though
he fall, yet he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord
upholdeth him with his hand. I have been old, and now am old. I'm sorry, I have been young,
and now am old. Yet have I not seen the righteous
forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. He is ever merciful and
lendeth, and his seed is blessed. Depart from evil and do good,
and dwell forevermore. For the Lord loveth judgment,
and forsaketh not his saints. They are preserved forever, but
the seed of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall
inherit the land, and dwell therein forever. The mouth of the righteous
speaks wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment. The law
of his God is in his heart. None of his steps shall slide.
The wicked watcheth the righteous and seeketh to slay him. The
Lord will not leave him in his hand, nor condemn him when he
is judged. Wait on the Lord and keep his
way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land. When the
wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it. I have seen the wicked
in great power and spreading himself like a green bay tree.
Yet he passed away, and lo, he was not. Yea, I sought him, but
he could not be found. Mark the perfect man, and behold
the upright, for the end of that man is peace. But the transgressors
shall be destroyed together. The end of the wicked shall be
cut off. But the salvation of the righteous
is of the Lord. He is their strength in the time
of trouble. And the Lord shall help them
and deliver them. He shall deliver them from the
wicked and save them because they trust in Him." So you can
see in this psalm over and over again, the Lord speaks of those
who trust in Him. And He gives us that instruction,
trust in the Lord. And so we want to look at this
psalm. Now in this psalm, in the first eight verses, the Lord
instructs his people to not fret or to be envious over the wicked. That's in verse one. And then
also he says the wicked shall soon perish in verse two. But
in contrast to this, the righteous are to trust in the Lord and
they are to do good. That's in verse three. The righteous
shall inherit the land, verse three. The righteous are instructed
to delight themselves in the Lord, and they have this promise
from the Lord that he shall give them the desires of their heart,
in verse four. They are to commit their way
to the Lord and trust also in him, and they are assured that
he will bring it to pass, whatever that is. In so doing, the Lord
will bring their righteousness to light, he says in verse six,
and their judgment as the noonday. Therefore the righteous are to
cease from anger, forsake wrath, and fret not in any wise to do
evil. So that's just a summary of what
it says in the first eight verses. So how are we to understand this
psalm? You can see that the psalm is instruction from the Lord
to his people concerning these two kinds of people, the wicked
and the righteous. Okay, that's evident in this
psalm. Over and over again, he refers
to these two different types of people, the wicked and the
righteous. In fact, he says in verse one,
fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against
the workers of iniquity. for they shall soon be cut down
like the grass and wither as the green herbs. So it's clear
that the summary of this psalm is don't fret, don't envy, don't
fret over and don't envy the wicked, these workers of iniquity,
these evildoers. They're going to soon be cut
down. If you were to be envious of whatever is passing away,
that would be a foolish thing. So he says, don't do that. But
how can we understand all of this psalm when we look at it
together? Because it seems, as you read
through this psalm, it seems to repeat things. It seems to
grow and repeat different concepts here over and over, like trusting
the Lord, committing your way to the Lord, and the sudden destruction
that's coming upon the wicked, and certain destruction, and
how we're not to envy them. So how are we to understand this?
How are we to understand this phrase, the wicked, in this psalm? Is it those people who live an
immoral life? Is that what he means here by
the wicked? Are we to observe the behavior of the wicked in
our life and compare to our own behavior, conclude that they
are wicked and we are righteous by what we do differently than
they do? Is that the way we think about
things? Another question, are we to trust the Lord for the
affairs of our life? Is that the expectation of our
trusting Him, that if we do trust Him, that our life will go well?
Do we commit our way to Him, trusting He will make us successful
and prosperous in our way? Is that what verse five means,
when it says, commit thy way to the Lord, trust also in Him,
and He shall bring it to pass? Is He saying, For example, our
finances, our job, our family, our marriage, our relationship
to our neighbors and in the nation that we live. Is he talking about
that way, that we commit that to the Lord? And then the next
question I have, if we delight ourselves in the Lord, like he
says in verse 4, delight thyself also in the Lord. If we do that,
will he give us what we want? In verse 4, because he says,
delight thyself also in the Lord, he shall give thee the desires
of your heart. I mean, if you do, this would be, the question
is, if I delight in the Lord, then he's gonna prosper me in
this life. I'm gonna be prosperous in things
that I want. I'll be successful. Maybe I'll
have a lot of children. I'll have nice things. I won't
worry about finances or, you know, my relationship with people
will be great. Is that what he means here? By
delighting ourself in the Lord, everything's fine. So the next
question I have is, if we commit our way in this life to the Lord,
like these things, our job and finances and marriage, or our
protection from harm and so on, will the Lord bring that way
to pass that we've chosen? Should I move to this place?
Should I stay here? Should I build a house? Should
I not? I'll commit it to the Lord. He'll bring it to pass.
Is that what he says? I mean, is that what he means
here? And the next question I have
is, if we do these things, are we to understand that the Lord
will bring to light that we're righteous, as he says in verse
six, he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light? If
we are to do what these questions suggest, does it mean that God
will show that we're righteous and that our judgments will shine
as the noonday, as he says there in verse six? So the question
is just this, really. How do we understand this psalm?
And as I was turning these things over in my head, if we answer
these questions that I've raised with a yes, that's consistent
with what we sometimes have thought when you first read it, maybe
that's the way you think about it. That's the way I first think
about it. In fact, in my own experience, people have, In my
life, I've tried to encourage them one way or another in these
different things, their job, their questions about what the
will of God is for them, whether it be moving or getting married
or any other thing. I say, well, just commit it to
the Lord and He'll bring it to pass or something like that.
So I've even used the yes answer to those questions as a way of
understanding this psalm. So that's the reason I ask these
questions this way. So I have told people that if
they do not trust and commit their plans to the Lord, then
they, like the wicked, will be cut off. They'll be envious of
the wicked if they look at the wicked and say, well, I'm going
to do the right thing. But is this really what the psalm
is talking about? So I just ask that question because
I think that we have to sort of ask what we would naturally
think of as the meaning of the psalm. So let me ask this question
then, this next question here, to help us get to the true understanding
of this. We know from scripture there
are none that do with good. Remember Romans chapter three?
There is none that do with good. There's none righteous, all right? That includes everybody born
to Adam. Adam and all of his children
born throughout time, there's none among them who are good,
none are righteous." Then you have to ask this question when
you look at this psalm, then who are the wicked? And where
are these righteous that he's talking about here? I mean, if
there are, if among men there's none that do with good, then
where are the righteous? He's obviously talking to the
righteous. And who are these wicked? The problem with all
of these explanations of Psalm 37 that were suggested by these
questions I asked is that it does not deal with the plain
truth and this evident fact that we must deal with in all honesty.
And that fact and that truth is this, I have done the same
things that the wicked in this Psalm do. It does not honestly
face the fact that I'm no different than the wicked if we take these
superficial explanations of this scripture as the explanation
of this psalm. Okay? So if I just say that this
psalm has to do with my everyday life and I'm just gonna live
my everyday life trusting the Lord and God's gonna take care
of my everyday things in my life. Well, that's true in some sense,
but is that really what he's talking about here? It may include
that. But if we do think of it that
way, and we understand the righteous as those who do right, and the
wicked as those who do wrong, then we put ourselves in the
category of those who can look at others as having bad behavior,
and ourselves as doing the good things. And so we have to ask
all these questions. Honesty, and Scripture forces
us to be honest, doesn't it? Each one of us, when we talk
to the Lord in prayer, The one thing that I want to do is be
honest with the Lord. He knows as it is. And to pretend
it is different than it is, it won't help at all, will it? I
might as well not pray. But this is what Scripture causes
God's people to do, is to be honest with Him. Okay? So the
gospel begins with this fact. It states it abundantly clearly
throughout scripture. The fact is this, all have sinned.
All have sinned. And then it floods, it brings
a floodlight of truth. Once it convinces that of this,
once God convinces us of this truth, all have sinned, then
God also floods our minds with this second truth, which is Jesus
Christ is the righteous. Okay? That he alone is good. This is the next truth that we
come to know. I've sinned. There's none good,
none righteous. All have sinned, so that doesn't
leave me out. I can't pretend not to be one
who does the things that the wicked do. Otherwise, I'm lying
to myself and lying to God. But the Lord teaches us that
and then he teaches us, but there is one who is good. Remember
the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and asked him, good
master, What shall I do to inherit eternal life? Well, the question
was just rife with all sorts of bad thoughts in it. But Jesus took it apart in order
to teach this man the floodlight of truth. He started with this
fact. You have to recognize that there's
none good but God. There's none good, he said, but
one, and that is God. And that forced this young man
to have to realize that therefore, if he called him good, he had
to acknowledge he has to be God. So that's where the gospel starts
with. Jesus Christ is the Lord God. But he's also man, and as
man, he's good. He's the only one who has and
came to fulfill God's law. So that's the floodlight of God's
truth, and it's throughout scripture, whether you read it there in
Matthew 19 or any other place. So that's the first honesty that
comes to us from scripture is, I'm a sinner, Christ alone is
good. He's the good one. Okay? And I could go on and talk about
that rich young ruler, but I'm not going to do that right now.
So the gospel not only reveals all men to be sinners, but it
floods the light of God's forgiveness for sins. And that forgiveness
comes to us, how? By the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. so that the Lord Jesus not only
fulfilled the obedience required by God's law to righteousness,
and he alone did, but he also, by himself, has purged our sins
with his own blood. That's the gospel. And that always
comes to us against the dark backdrop of this first revelation
that we're sinners. Okay, now we have to understand
these things in order to get to the meaning of this psalm.
Because the gospel always guides us in our understanding of scripture. It not only reveals our sin,
but it reveals Christ, the righteous one who is God and man, and whose
righteousness is the righteousness God looks upon for his people.
So the title, I want you to understand this other truth about scripture,
about the gospel. There's a title. that Jesus,
we refer to Jesus as, it's Christ. Remember? He's Jesus Christ. In other words, his name is Jesus,
his title is Christ. The title is the office that
God appointed him to. Okay? What, who is he? Jesus. What is his title? What is his office? The Christ
of God. But what does the Christ of God
mean? Well, it means a lot, but in so far as understanding this
psalm, we need to understand that it means that he is the
one God appointed for his people. And God chose him, he chose his
son, the son of God, to be the Christ of God. He chose him as
the son of God to come in human nature and to fulfill that office
as the Christ of God. But he didn't just choose him,
he chose him with his people, so it was choosing Christ Alone,
I mean choosing Christ first and choosing his people in him
as that title suggests. Okay, whatever that title is.
And the title of Christ means the one who would save his people
from their sins by shedding his blood and fulfilling the law
in all righteousness. not just doing it independent
of them, but doing it as their head and representative. So that
all that Christ, the Christ of God would do, Jesus, the Christ
of God, all that he would do would be done for his people,
for them God had chosen and given to him to save. So much so that
all that Christ did is considered theirs as what they did in Him. In this relationship God made
when He chose us in Him, and gave us to Him, and appointed
Him to act in this way in all of His life. So that when He
came into the world, He says, I come to do Thy will, O God. Thy law is within my heart. from
the cradle to the grave, he did all that he did for his people.
In fact, not only to the grave, but beyond the grave and for
all eternity, God sees his people with him as one. And this is
in this relationship that they have to him, a union and such
a close relationship that they're called brethren. And whatever
Christ did is counted as theirs so that his obedience in Romans
519 makes them righteous. And his blood cleanses their
sins because he suffered the penalty due to God in justice
and according to his law, for their sins. He suffered the curse.
He was made a curse for us, and that's the way he redeemed us
from the curse of the law. And so if we understand this
relationship, the gospel reveals the Christ of God. The good news
of the gospel is, yes, all have sinned, but there is one who
is righteous, Jesus Christ, the righteous. In 1 John 2, 1, that's
what it calls him, Jesus Christ, the righteous. So that when it
says things in scripture like, God has made him, Christ, to
be for us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.
He's talking about this appointment of God, of Christ to this office
with his people, choosing them in him so that his life, his
mind, his will, his knowledge and his obedience with that,
his worship of God, his prayers, everything was accepted from
him for them. as if we did it in Him, because
we did in this appointment. So as in Adam all die, but in
Christ shall all be made alive. He's our life, He's everything
to us. Now this truth is so important to understand that it serves
as the lens through which we look at all of scripture. Because
this is the only way that God can identify these people that
He calls here in this Psalm, the righteous. The righteous
are not righteous of themselves. There is none righteous. How
do we become righteous? Righteousness is given to us
in Romans 5, 17. It's called the gift of righteousness. And so when in 2 Corinthians
5 21 it says, God has made him sin for us who knew no sin, that
we might be made the righteousness of God in him. It's teaching
us that the righteous are righteous in Christ. And it says this in
the Old Testament too. In Isaiah 45, for example, it
says that all the seed of Israel shall be justified in the Lord.
They shall say, surely shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness
and strength. That's in Isaiah 45 in verse
24. Or in Isaiah 54 in verse 17,
he says, and their righteousness is of me. That's in Isaiah 54,
17. He's talking about his people.
In Jeremiah 23, five and six, he says that the Lord Jesus Christ,
who would be of the branch, the seed of David, would be called
Jehovah, our righteousness. And as I've mentioned it in Romans
519, as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. And so this
gift of righteousness is ours because God chose us in Christ
and all that he did is considered ours. He did it for us. And we
did it in him. Now that's essential that we
understand that from scripture. It's essential that we're absolutely
convinced of it. And the way that God convinces
us of this is through the preaching of the gospel under the power
of the Holy Spirit operating in our hearts. So in John 16,
verses eight through 11, he says, when he, the spirit of truth,
shall come, he shall convince the world of sin, of righteousness,
and of judgment, of sin, because they believe not on me, of righteousness
because I go to the Father and you shall see me no more, and
of judgment because the prince of this world is judged. He's
showing us that our sin, we didn't believe Christ. That's our sin. We didn't believe his word. We didn't believe his person.
We didn't know him. We were in unbelief. And he left
this world because he fulfilled the righteousness that God required
him to fulfill. He goes to his father, you see
me no more, because the righteousness is fulfilled. And the judgment
because the world, our sin, and Satan and his kingdom are all
judged. Like Jesus said in John 12, 31,
the prince of this world is judged now when he goes to the cross.
So all these things teach us that what Christ did is what
put away our sin, established our righteousness, and put the
judgment upon our enemies. Not only our sin, our biggest
enemy, but Satan and this world and everything in it. So now
we begin to see, considering these things as we rehearse in
our minds what we've learned from scripture in the gospel,
that we're sinners, yes, but there is one righteous, and that
one who is righteous was designated by God to be the righteous one,
as both God and man fulfill all righteousness, both in the precept,
the obedience to the precept, also in the obedience to the
sacrifice, and making atonement for sin, and making our redemption
in His own blood, purchasing us, and setting us free to return
to our Father, having loosed us from that debt and the bondage
of sin, a bondage of the curse of the law and the law itself,
so that we might return free, having fulfilled the law to our
Father again as His children in Christ. Everything has to
do with this lens through which we look at and understand What
the righteous are, who they are, they're those who are in Christ,
and their righteousness is of the Lord Jesus Christ, okay?
Now when we look at this Psalm, it makes a lot more sense. Because
when we realize this, what we see is that all of us by nature,
until the Lord opens our eyes, we're no different than the wicked
in our behavior, in our mind, in the way we lived. We're just
like them, and we still sin. We're still sinners. In fact,
if you look at this Psalm, in Psalm 37, he says in verse 23,
the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth
in his way. Though he fall, he shall not
be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.
Okay. Now let's think a little bit
about this, the interpretation of this. How does a good man
walk? Now, don't just take your first
gut response here. Think about what the scripture
says. What does the scripture say? The just shall live by what? Faith. And who are these who
live by faith? They are those who have been
justified by the obedience and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God has justified them. And they live considering Christ
and not themselves as all of their righteousness, all of their
acceptance, and they come to God only by his precious blood. They don't come in any other
way. They don't dare trust in their flesh. That's their steps,
right? And so the Lord says here, the
steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. God ordained this.
The law says there is no flesh that will be justified by their
own personal obedience to the law, that men are justified freely
by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. That's
in Romans chapter three, verse twenty four and twenty five.
So here the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord because
that's what the gospel requires. The law says, no, do not come
here for justification. Do not come here for your righteousness.
You go to Christ. Isn't that what Moses wrote about?
Jesus says, you search the scriptures for in them you think you have
eternal life, but these are they that testify of me. And you won't
come to me that you might have life. If you obeyed Moses, you
would know he wrote of me. So that's the steps of a good
man. They're ordered by the Lord. And the Lord delights in his
way. What is the way of a good man? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the way we come to the Father.
We trust only in him. And verse 24 says, though he
fall, though this man fall, he shall not be utterly cast down.
For the Lord upholds him with his hand. God preserves his life.
He upholds his faith. He certainly upholds the righteousness
which Christ fulfilled for this man. He doesn't deny his justifying
righteousness. The Lord himself has justified
the man and none can condemn him. None can charge him because
God has justified him because Christ died for him. So if we
look at this psalm in that light then, then we can see that it
takes on a perspective that helps us to understand the meaning
of the words and also the difference between the righteous and the
wicked that we see here. Okay? So now let's go through
these first few verses here that help us to see these things.
All right. In verse one it says, fret not
thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against
the workers of iniquity. So take the last phrase, the
workers of iniquity. You know what Jesus said in Matthew
chapter seven and verse 22? To those men who came to him
and said, have we not, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied
in thy name? In thy name. And haven't we cast
out devils in thy name? Haven't we done many wonderful
works in thy name? And Jesus said, depart from me,
you workers of iniquity. The same phrase. I never knew
you. So he identified those who trusted
in their own works as the workers of iniquity. Now, this helps
us to distinguish not only that the righteous are righteous in
Christ, but it helps us to understand what the characteristic, how
the righteous carry themselves or how they live in this life. And there's a man who lived in
the 1600s. He was a mathematician, a genius, really, a prodigy,
a mathematics prodigy. His name was Blaise Pascal. And
he said this, he had a different language, so it doesn't matter
if I paraphrase it, because the translation won't be exact anyway,
but I've heard this before, but he's the one who said this. That
the righteous all think they're wicked, and the wicked all think
they're righteous. You've probably heard this many
times, if you've listened to Todd, for example, he loves that
statement. The righteous all think they're
wicked, and the wicked all think they're righteous. So what you
see here is that the way that God's people view themselves
and their relation to God is the same way as the publican
in Luke 18, verse 13. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. They view themselves, in themselves,
they are nothing but sin. But in the Lord Jesus Christ,
God can be merciful, because he shed his precious blood, and
God required it. God made him to be the propitiation
for our sins. And so that helps us to see this,
so that when we read, for example, in Genesis chapter six, when
God said that every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart
was only evil continually, and then a couple verses later it
says, but Noah, found grace in the eyes of the Lord shows us
Noah was a righteous man. He was a sinner. And yet God,
by grace, had already chosen him and anointed Christ to perform
all things for him. And by that, God would give him
all that was Christ, his righteousness. He would also give him his spirit.
He would give him faith, repentance unto life. He would give him
everything. All the things that God gives to his people were
lavished upon Noah. And Job said, how can a man be
just with God? He said in Job 40 verse 4, Behold,
I am vile. So Job knew he was a sinner.
He knew that it wasn't possible for a man by his own behavior
to be just and righteous before God. So he lived by faith and
that faith was in Christ. Isaiah said it in Isaiah 6. Woe
unto me! Woe, woe is me, I'm a man of
unclean lips. So he saw it when he saw the
Lord Jesus Christ. Peter said in Luke 5 verse 8,
he said, Lord, depart from me, I'm a sinful man. And we could
just go down the list, couldn't we? The publican and the apostle
Paul. The Apostle Paul said, I obtained
mercy. I obtained mercy. Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners of whom I'm chief. So he understood
himself to be a sinner. You can look at these men and
you see honesty before God in their confession of who they
are. And also, don't stop there. Oh, woe is me. I'm a foolish
sinner and I can't stop. I'm just as bad as I can be.
I'm going to keep on like this. No, no, the Lord said to these
same people, he had shown them his righteousness and his judgment. Christ fulfilled all righteousness.
God judged because of his righteousness in his favor against his enemies
and ours. So he says in verse one, fret
not thyself because of evildoers, because neither be envious against
the workers of iniquity. We understand these are the people
in themselves who think themselves to be righteous before God, which
we did until the Lord saved us. We don't think that way anymore,
do we? We do not think of ourselves
as righteous in ourselves, but only righteous in Christ. And
there's an eternity of difference between those two things. And
it's the reason that makes a difference between life and eternal death,
and God gives that reason. And the Lord provided that reason,
and he's the one who speaks that reason to our hearts and speaks
for us in judgment with that answer, okay? So the workers
of iniquity characterize the Pharisee in Luke chapter 18,
who said, God, I thank Thee, I'm not like other men are. He
thought he was righteous. Or the men who appear before
Christ at the end of time in Matthew 7, who say, well, we've
done these things, we prophesied, cast out devils, did many wonderful
works, all in your name. It doesn't matter. your workers
of iniquity because you use the law unlawfully. The law condemns
you if you try to be justified by keeping the law, by doing
yourself what God requires rather than trusting Christ who did
all and trusting him alone. You see the difference? So why
would we envy those who have only a pasted on outward righteousness
before men? To men, they look good. They're
like the whited sepulchers. They look good on the outside.
On the inside, Jesus said, they're full of dead men's bones. And
that's in Matthew 23, where Jesus soundly condemns the Pharisees
and all who are like them, who trust in their own righteousness.
So with that in view, we can see why God says don't fret.
Don't fret yourself because of evildoers. They preach, they
teach that you have to do what they say, but they can't even
do it. The rich young ruler said, I've
kept all these things from my youth up. He hadn't. He was deceived,
his heart was perverse, and that's why Jesus had to show him, well,
okay, you've done everything, let me give you one of those
things you said you've done, like covetousness. Let me say
this, go sell everything you have and give it to the poor
and come follow me. He couldn't do that because he couldn't overcome
that evil wickedness that his own heart was, that corruption
he was. So don't fret because of them.
They look good on the outside. They seem to prosper. Whereas
the believer languishes in his sorrow of not being able to do
what he wants to do, these have no problem. They're strong. Because
they have a different gospel, don't they? Their gospel is about
what men do to inherit eternal life. Our gospel is about what
Christ did. That's it. It doesn't go any
further. Now, he says, for they shall soon be cut down like the
grass and wither as the green herb. That means that they're
not going to last. The Lord is going to bring them
to their end and the end will be sudden, unexpected. When they
say peace and safety, then sudden destruction will come upon them
as a woman in labor and they won't escape because they have
no covering. They have no shelter. They've
never fled for refuge to Jesus. They've thought, even in little
things in religion, well, you know, I said the sinner's prayer.
Well, you put I in the sentence, didn't you? Leave yourself out. It's an equation, as Jeffrey
Thomas said, I don't know if it was original with him, he
says, there's only two factors. It's what Christ did and what
God thinks about him. And if we understand that, then
we've got the gospel. Otherwise, we're still trying
to get ourselves before men to be, by comparison, a righteous
person in comparison to them. It won't work. So he goes on. We know the righteous cry out.
We know there's no reason to envy this outward righteousness
of men. We have nothing about their Gospels
to be jealous of, do we? We have the truth. We have the
Gospel that frees us. We have the gospel that sets
us free to be honest with God and before men and to point away
from ourselves to Christ alone. That is freedom. That's joy,
isn't it? The joy of the Lord is my strength. And what does God joy in? He
joys in his son. We do, too. We're happy that
the Lord Jesus Christ has done everything God gave him to do.
We couldn't be happier about it because everything that He
did is ours in Him, and all that God rewards Him with, He rewards
to not only Him, but us with Him. He says in Romans 8, 32,
if God delivered up His Son, if He didn't spare Him, then
how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things with
Him? Okay, let's go on. The best of
men will fade and fall, like it says in 1 Peter 1. He says,
all flesh is as grass. Here he says it again, they will
be cut down. In verse 3 he says, trust in
the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily
thou shalt be fed. So trust in the Lord. That's
what he tells his people to do. Trust Christ. What a blessed
thing that is to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, trust
and do good. Trust in the Lord and do good,
but don't trust in the good you do. You see, you're trusting
the Lord for your goodness. You're not trusting in the good
you do. There's a big difference. People even think, well, when
I stand before God, God will accept me because he sees that
I was good with by his grace. No, no, we do not trust that
God will look upon what we've done at all. He looks to Christ
alone. We have to get this solidly in
our in our understanding. The object of our faith is Christ,
not us at all. It's not what we said, not what
we prayed, not when we walked the aisle, not when we lifted
a hand, not what we said at a Billy Graham concert. It doesn't matter
what our meeting or whatever it was. None of that matters.
If you find yourself answering the question of how shall I stand
before God in judgment, if your answer includes anything from
you, then go back to the gospel and learn it again. It's Christ
alone. And that's what the righteous
do. Trust in the Lord. That's what he's saying here.
And do good. When you trust the Lord, you
want to do good. But don't trust the good you
do. To dwell in the land here, he says, he says, trust in the
Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land. To dwell in
the land, well obviously, there's no land of Canaan here for us
to dwell in. That land was just a type, a
figure of another land. It was called the land of promise.
And what is God's promise to His people? Eternal life in His
Son. Remember, 1 John 2.25, this is
the promise which He hath promised us, eternal life. And this life
is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life,
but he that has not had the Son shall not see life. So we understand
that eternal life is knowing Christ. God has revealed Him
to us. We see that He is everything
to us, to God, and we're delighted to have Him glorified in everything.
And we find in that our own life. We find God to be all holy and
good. He reveals Himself to us in His
Son and it's all very pleasant. We dwell in this land, this land
of eternal life, eternal salvation in the Lord. He says, and verily
thou shalt be fed. What are we feeding? What are
we eating? The food that God gives. And what is that? Again,
it's Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We live upon Him by faith. And
even in heaven, we're going to drink from the river of the water
of life. The Lord Jesus Christ will still,
even then, be our delightful drink and meat. All right. In verse four, he says, delight
thyself also in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires
of your heart, of thine heart. Now, this is God's promise to
his people, to those who trust him. And his promise is this,
to give Christ to them who hunger and thirst for him. Because they
delight in the Lord. Who is the Lord? The Lord our
righteousness, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord our shepherd,
the Lord our peace, the Lord who was provided, who provided
himself the lamb, the Lord our banner, our victory. The Lord,
our all, Christ is everything. He's our all and we're completing
him. So this is his promise. We delight
ourself in Christ and that is what God has done, hasn't he?
He's made Christ so precious to us in the gospel. We actually
delight in the Lord. No man can delight in the Lord
under the system of personal obedience makes me righteous
before God. You're constantly looking at
yourself in arrogance or thinking God owes you something. You can
never be honest. You actually repudiate the death
of Christ when you're trusting in yourself. How can God delight
in you? But delighting in the Lord comes
through the gospel. So we understand that when he
says delight in the Lord, it means to delight in Christ and
God is going to give us him. He shall give thee the desires
of your heart. What's your desire? Christ. He's going to give you
Christ. If you believe that Christ is
all, guess what? You'll have what you believe. He will be
all for you because God gives you the object of your faith.
God puts that desire in us. He not only gives us the desire,
I mean, He gives us what we desire, but He puts the desire in us.
It was God who did this. In one sense, this promise is
that God will give us a desire for Christ, and in another sense,
this promise is He will fulfill that desire that He gave to us
and give us Christ. Again, like a child, what's the
answer to every question? The Lord Jesus Christ, isn't
it? Is there any other desire that God's people want with their
hungry and thirsty souls but Him? Psalm 27, four, one thing
have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek after, that
I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord, to inquire in his temple, God's
dwelling place, where he reveals Christ to his people. That's
where I want to be. So what is that that we ask for? I'm sorry. Remember, Jesus told
the woman at the well, if you knew the gift of God you would
have asked, and he would have given you, what? Living water.
So what do we ask for? Who do we ask? We ask the Lord
Jesus, give us living water, and that living water is Christ
and him crucified. Then he says, commit your way
to the Lord, and he will bring it to pass. Sorry, commit your
way to the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to
pass. God's ways are higher than our ways. But there is one way
that God gives to the believer that he desires to have and must
have, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth,
and the life. So the believer must find that
way. We must find the way to the Father
to be Christ alone. Isn't that our it's intent within
us? I must have a way that doesn't
depend on me, but depends on the one God set up to be my savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's his office. We can't find
this way on ourselves. God reveals him to us, and when
we do, we commit ourselves to Christ, who is our way. We trust
in him, like he said to do. And God promises to bring this
way to fulfillment, to bring it to pass. because our way in
Christ is to actually bring us to himself. Every time the Lord
Jesus Christ comes, he's our door, he's bringing his sheep
with him. He enters heaven, he appears
there for us, he brings us with him. His cause is our case. And it's all wonderful. And since
Christ is the way, and since by his grace God has made him
our way, therefore God shall bring our way to pass All of
our confidence, all of our hope, Jesus said it this way to those
who believed him in the New Testament, be it unto you according to your
faith. What is our faith? Christ. What will he give us?
All that Christ has done for his people. And then he explains,
this helps us to understand verse six. Look at this, he says, he
shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light and thy judgment
as the noonday. Isn't that what we say? Look,
the Lord is my light. The Lord is my salvation. He's
going to bring your righteousness to light. He's going to show
this is God's righteousness. He created it. It's the Lord
Jesus Christ for us. And we profess this. And the
Lord's gonna declare his people to be righteous in his son. And
the onlooking universe won't be able to find one thing wrong
with that. They will praise and honor God for his grace that
he would be so wise and holy as to require of his son what
he requires of all those in him. What a wonderful gospel this
is. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your Word
that points us back over and over again to our Savior, the
Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to trust Him. Commit
ourselves to Him in all that He did as our way to the Father. Help us not to envy the false,
idolatrous religions of this world and those who hold to them.
Help us to realize that not only those religions will fail, but
all who trust them shall also fail. There's no reason to put
ourselves in the way of trusting in these idolatrous, false doctrines
and false religions of free will and man's religion, because it
will fail and those who trust them will be utterly cast out.
In fact, we fear that we would trust such things and we desire,
we have a positive desire and love for the Lord Jesus to be
found in him alone, that you would be so wise and so good
and gracious to us as to set him up for us in everything.
And so we love to hear how we are complete in him. Love to
hear what you've done to make him all of our righteousness
and everything in every thing you require of us and help us
to praise you and thank you and glorify your son that we may
see him and be found in him, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.