Let's go back to that passage
of Scripture he read to us, Psalm 37. If you would, Psalm 37. And after you get that again,
go to the book of Proverbs chapter 11, and then hold your place
in Proverbs. I'll get to it in a couple of
minutes. See if you can do two things
at once here. Remember these instructions.
Instruction number one, Psalm 37. Instruction number two, Proverbs
11. Now just deal with that. Alright? I want to begin the message this
way by saying, in this world, there are but two groups of people.
In fact, in the end, when everybody stands before God, what an awesome,
solemn day that will be. Our Lord is coming back. He will separate the nations
as a shepherd separates sheep from the goats. The goats will be on His left
hand. sheep on his right. Oh my soul, where will I be in
that day? Everybody ought to be asking
themselves that question. Where am I going to be? Well,
I'll tell you this, if you washed in the blood, if you robed in
the righteousness of God's dear Son, You are one of His sheep. You'll be on the right side. His side's the right side. I
tell you, the question's not, is the Lord on my side? But the
question is, am I on His side? His side's the right side always,
isn't it? Those of His sheep, those who
believe Him. who love Christ as He's revealed
in the scriptures, who believe Him, not resting in their works. I will have baptismal service
at the very beginning of the service this evening. In fact,
it will begin the service this evening. And I was asking Joseph
Burchett Last Lord's Day, are you depending upon anything or
anybody else other than Jesus Christ, His blood and righteousness
for your salvation, for the forgiveness of your sins, for eternal life? He said, Christ only. Christ
only. I'll tell you, those who believe
Christ only, in that day, at the shepherd's right hand, You
know, we've really always been in His right hand, because we've
always been accepted in the Beloved. Then there's another group, the
sheep will be on the right hand, but we read there in Matthew
that the goats will be on His left hand. Just two groups of
people. I know there are lots of different
denominations. Several years ago, I did a count
of how many denominations there are in the United States, and
I can't, it was several hundreds. And of course, if you go worldwide,
there are all kinds of religions and all kinds of denominations. You name any belief, there's
some church out there that preaches it somewhere. And if they don't
just start you one, you'll probably get a following, because there
are just a bunch of them out there. When you boil it all down,
just get right down to where, as we say, the rubber meets the
road. There are just two groups of people. The Lord's people
and the rest. The elect, those who have been shown grace,
those to whom God has been merciful in Christ Jesus, and the remainder. the goats. In Psalm 37, I've got three verses
I want you to look at. Verse 25, 26, and 28. Psalm 37,
verse 25, I have been young, David says. Psalm 37, 25. I have been young and now I am
old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed
begging bread." That is the Lord's seed. And he says this in verse
26, He is ever merciful and lendeth, and his seed is blessed. But there's another group. Look
at verse 28. For the Lord loveth judgment,
and forsaketh not his saints. The saints, that's his seed.
That's his generation. That's his offspring. They are
preserved forever. If you're one of his children,
if you're of his seed, If you're one of the saints, you don't die and then later
on somebody decides you're worthy to become a saint. We're saints
in Christ Jesus. We're already saints. And I tell
you, you're looking at Saint James. I'm Saint James. I'm not inspired, but I'm a saint. I'm a saint in Christ Jesus.
And this is Saint Ron down here. This is Saint Bill. I go around
the room. We're saints in Christ Jesus. We're set apart in God's
grace for Christ Jesus. He redeemed us. We're sanctified
by Christ. We're sanctified in Christ Jesus. We're set apart from the world.
We're saints. We're saints. And the saints
are preserved forever. Who are the saints? They are
His seed. They are His generation. But the seed of the wicked, or literally
the seed of the wicked one, they shall be cast off. There is the seed of that wicked
one. They shall be cast off. Now,
if you would, go to that passage in Proverbs 11. Chapter 11 of the book of Proverbs,
verse 21. Proverbs 11, verse 21. Though
a hand join in hand, the wicked They shall not be unpunished. Though all the wicked should
gather together and form some kind of confederacy against God. Though all the wicked gang up
against the Lord of glory. Though they unite in their opposition
of God. Yet they shall not go unpunished. They shall not. But, but, here's this other group,
they're called the seed of the righteous. They shall be delivered. So here's what you've got. You've
got the seed of the righteous, and over here in Psalm 37, 29,
you've got the seed of the wicked. And that's all there are. That's
the two groups right there. And that's the title of the message.
The seed of the righteous and the seed of the wicked. Just
two groups of people. The seed of Christ Jesus and
the seed of the evil one. It does two classes. In this
verse here in Proverbs 11, 21, Who is the righteous? But the
seed of the righteous shall be delivered. Who is the righteous
but Christ Jesus the Lord? Is He not the Lord our righteousness? Do we not stand in His righteousness? Are we not robed in His righteousness? Has not His righteousness been
imputed to our account by God Himself? The same God who charged
our sins to the Savior, has He not charged or credited our account
with the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ? In fact, is
He not Himself our righteousness? In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, who
of God is made unto us? That is Christ Jesus is made
of God to be unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption that according as it is written, he that glorieth
let him glory in the Lord. the seed of the righteous. Who
is the righteous one? The righteous one is the Lord
of glory, Christ Jesus Himself, who is our righteousness. He is the only one who is essentially
and originally righteous in and of Himself. Yes, we are righteous
before God. But our righteousness is the
righteousness of somebody else. It was given to us. It was credited
to us. It has been imputed to us. We
have no inherent righteousness. Rather, the Scripture says, there
is none righteous, no not one. So we have no natural righteousness
of our own. We are not just before God. But there is one who has always
been righteous. and who well deserves the name
the Lord our righteousness. He is essentially righteous. He is originally righteous. And He is the one who must give
us His righteousness which He worked out for us in His life
and through His death. He is the source of our righteousness. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse
21. For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Another word
for righteous is just. The Lord Jesus is that just One. He's the just One. Stephen spoke about Him. in his
message in Acts chapter 7. Listen to this, verse 52. Which
of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they
have killed them which showed before of the coming of the just
one, of whom ye have now been the betrayers and the murderers. He's the just one. He's the righteous
one, the apostle Paul. spoke of that which happened
to him when the Son of God dealt with him in saving grace, in
effectual mercy, and he says, chapter 22 and verse 14, Ananias
said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest
know His will, that is, know His redemptive will, know how
God saves sinners, know how God can be just and justify the ungodly
through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. God hath chose
you. This is how he starts off. God
has chose you. You say, preacher, but elections
should only be preached to mature Christians. Oh, I beg your pardon. I'll use the Apostle Paul as
my example of a great preacher. And he says, when the Lord was
dealing with me in convicting mercy and in grace, when He had
showed me myself and brought me to the end of my way, the
first thing the preacher said was, the God of our fathers has
chosen you. Right out of the blocks, he came
face to face with the fact that God chose him. The reason he
was knocked off his high horse of pride, the reason he was brought
to be confronted by Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, is because
God in old eternity ordained him unto eternal life. God chose
him. It's the first thing Anne and
I said to him. The God of our fathers has chosen
you. Watch this, "...that thou shouldest
know His will." God chose you to know how He would save sinners
through the death of Christ. And God chose you to see that
Just One. That Righteous One that you should
see Him. And I'll tell you, if God chose
you, under salvation before the world began, He chose you that
you should see. Not with these eyes, well, you'll
see Him someday with these eyes, but in this life that you should
see by faith. The Lord Jesus Christ. See Him
as the one you need. See Him as your all. See Him
as your righteousness. See Him as your life. See Him
as your salvation. See Him as everything that God
requires and everything that you need. God has chosen you
to see Christ Jesus so that you would look and live. So that
you would behold the Lamb of God. So that you would look to
Him every day of your life. God has chosen you that you'd
know His will and see that just one. See that righteous one. And then hear the voice of His
mouth. We hear His voice. We hear His
Word. We hear His Word in our souls.
This is not like these kooky preachers today who say, I just
got a word from God. God just told me to tell you.
Listen, if some preacher ever says to you, God just told me
to tell you, run as fast as you can, because he didn't get a
message from God for sure. God's given us His Word right
here in front of us. Everything God's got to say is
in His Word, and He speaks to us by His Spirit through the
Book. And thank God He does speak to
us. He takes this Word And He makes
it alive to us. It's like this live coal that
He puts within us. And it burns its way deep down
in our souls. It goes past these physical ears,
though it's got to come through the ear gates. It comes by hearing. Hearing
by the Word of God. God does use the ear gate. We
do hear the Word of God, but we hear it in another way. We
hear it with a spiritual ear. We hear it with spiritual understanding. We hear it with spiritual appreciation. We hear it with spiritual thanksgiving. We hear it deep inside of us
as God speaks to us through His Word. And He says to us through
His Word, I'm yours and you're mine. He speaks to us through
His Word and says, my son gave his life. The just died for the
unjust to bring folks like us to God. We hear that deep down
in our souls and we are made to rejoice. And I ask you this,
does God speak to you through His Word? He speaks to His children
through His Word. Ananias said, God has chosen
you Saul. that you should know His redemptive
will, and that you should see the Just One. This is the Righteous
One. The Righteous One. See, our Lord Jesus is the only
truly Righteous One. He's righteous in and of Himself.
Like I said, ours is an imputed righteousness. Oh, it's real! It's a real, what He's imputed
to us, it's a real righteousness. And it's valid. And it is eternal. And we thank God for our Lord
Jesus Christ who is our righteousness. God demanded righteousness and
the Lord Jesus Christ has established righteousness. He has worked
out a perfect righteousness agreeable to the very demands of God's
law. Daniel said he would bring in
everlasting righteousness. He obeyed every precept of the
law in his life and he bore the penalty of the law in his death
so that righteousness would be brought in. Such a beautiful
thing, righteousness. And our Lord, He brought in this
righteousness and Daniel said it's an everlasting righteousness.
I like what John Gill, you ever read John Gill? John Gill, he
called it the righteousness of the ages. The righteousness of
the ages because this was the righteousness by which the Lord's
people were justified right from the beginning. It's the righteousness
of the ages. When the very first sinner was
justified in God's sight, it was the righteousness of Jesus
Christ then. It's the righteousness of Jesus
Christ now. It'll be the righteousness of
Jesus Christ on out into eternity. It's always His righteousness.
It is, brother Gil, you're exactly right. The righteousness of the
ages. And all of those who are the
Lord's, we are the seed of this righteous one. We are His seed. We are His offspring. We are
His children. But then there's another group
of people. They're said to be the seed of the wicked one. Well, how long have they been
the seed of the wicked one? They always have been. They always
have been. You see, Satan is that old serpent. The old serpent. He's the wicked
one. We read that the serpent was
more subtle than any beast of the field. You remember the apostle
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 3? He said, but
I fear less by any means as the serpent beguiled he through his
subtlety So your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity
that is in Christ Jesus. Over in the book of Revelation,
chapter 20, we read that our Lord Jesus, when He came in His
first advent, by His death, He laid hold on the dragon, that
old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and He bound him a
thousand years. He bound him for a long, long
time. And as Satan is that old serpent,
so all of his seed, all of his offspring are just like him. They're just like him. Go to John chapter 8. John chapter
8. Our Lord spoke to these vile
Jewish religious leaders. Oh, how they hated Him. Or how
they hated God's way of salvation by grace alone, through blood
redemption alone in Christ alone. Or how they despised salvation
by free and sovereign grace. They believed in salvation by
works, salvation by keeping the law, salvation by doing, salvation
by not doing, salvation by laws and rules and regulations, all
kind of stuff like that. In fact, they were going about
to establish a righteousness of their own. They were ignorant
of the righteousness of God. They were ignorant of Jesus Christ,
who is the righteousness of His people. Here in John chapter
8, the Jewish religious leaders, they had confronted our Lord
after He had forgiven the woman that they had caught in adultery. First of all, they said Abraham
was their father. In fact, they said that a couple
of times. Their first claim of that was in verse 33. They said,
we be Abraham's seed. And again in verse 39, they said,
Abraham is our father. That's the first thing that they
said. Then drop down to verse 40. Well, let me read verse 39. They
answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. John 8, 40. Or 39. Jesus saith unto them,
if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.
But now you seek to kill me, a man which had told you the
truth, which I ever heard of God. This did not Abraham. You
do the deeds of your father. They said unto him, We be not
born of fornication. We have one Father, even God.
Here's their third claim. Here's their third claim. First
of all, Abraham's our father. Abraham's our father. And then
they said, God's our father. Look at verse 42. Jesus said
unto them, If God were your father, you would love me. You would
adore me. You would worship me. For, or
here's the reason, I proceeded forth and came forth from God. If you loved God, you'd love
me because God sent me. Neither came I of myself, but
He sent me. Verse 41. Why do you not understand
my speech? Even because you cannot hear
my word. You cannot. You cannot. Ye are of your father the devil."
In other words, you're the seed of the wicked one. That's why
you can't hear. You're of your father the devil.
You're the seed of the wicked one and the lust of your father
ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning
and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in Him. When
He speaketh a lie, He speaketh of His own, for He is a liar
and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth,
you believe not." Our Lord Jesus makes a real distinction here. No misunderstanding what he says.
You have your father the devil. Now understand this. The seed
of the righteous and the seed of the wicked. There's never
been any mixture between the two. And the seed of the righteous,
they've always been the seed of the righteous. There has never
been a time when these who are the seed of the righteous, that
they weren't the seed of the righteous. In other words, at
conversion, conversion, you don't cease to be the seed of the wicked
one and then become the seed of the righteous. That doesn't
happen. Except I thought everybody who's an unbeliever is of their
father the devil. No. No. At conversion, you don't
cease to be a child of the devil and become a child of God. Those
who are brought to believe have always been God's children. They've
always been the seed of the righteous one. And those who will never
believe the gospel, those who will never bow to Jesus Christ,
they have always been the seed of the wicked one. Always. There's just the righteous and
the wicked. That's all there are. That's it. And each of us, in
the very end, In the very end, when we stand before God, we'll
be in one of these two groups. I don't care who you are. Muslim,
Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Mormon, name any kind of religion
throughout the whole world. Boil it all down to, get it down
to what's called the lowest common denominator. There's just two
groups. You say, well, okay, so and so,
they may not believe the Gospel, but at least they're not wrapped
up in Jehovah's Witness. If they don't know the Gospel,
it doesn't matter what they are. Right? Denominational beliefs
and all of these sort of things. Listen, you're either right or
you're wrong. That's the way it is. You'll
say, well, they're not missing the truth very much in that church
over there. If they're missing it at all,
they missed it a million miles. What difference does it make
if you miss it this much or this much? You missed it. Does that
make sense? Well, sure it does. I had somebody
tell me recently, they said, so-and-so joined such-and-such
a church. They said, well, I'm just so
glad they're finally going to church. Really? Oh, that's just like, I don't
even want to hear that. Please don't. I could have gone
all day long without you telling me that. At least they're going
to church where they're not going to hear anything, where they're
going to learn a false gospel, where they're going to learn
about a Jesus who needs their help, where they're going to
learn about a God who wants to do things but men won't let Him
do it. That's where they go into church? They'd be better off
going out fishing. They'd be better off going out
boating. Go golfing or something. Rather than go and listen to
false gospel. I'm telling you, there's only
the truth and there's error. There's lots of error in the
world, but there's just one truth. And this one truth is a living,
breathing, real, reigning person. He is the embodiment of all of
God's truth. He said, I'm the way, I'm the
truth, I'm the life. And if He's the truth, everything
else is a lie. Is that right? Everything else
is a lie. You can call it Baptist, you
can call it whatever you want to call it, but if it's not Jesus
Christ and Him crucified, Christ and His blood and His righteousness
and salvation by His free and sovereign grace, it's a lie.
Just two groups. Just two groups. Now, you say,
well, was I a child of God? Was I a seed of the Righteous
One in my days of unbelief? Yes, you were. But you didn't
know it. Nobody could say to you that
you were. Well, how can I know that I'm
of the seed of the Righteous One? He brings you to believe
Him. He brings you to bow to Him.
He brings you to rejoice in Him. That's how you know. Go over
to Galatians. The book of Galatians chapter
4. Galatians chapter 4, I believe
it is. Yeah, Galatians chapter 4. Now speak to believers this morning,
speak to you who are the people of God. You've never been the
seed of the wicked one. You've never been. In your days
of unbelief, it may have been outward violence and rebellion,
or you may have been wrapped up in false religion, but whatever
you were in, you weren't the seed of the wicked one. You never
were. You've always been one of God's
children. You've always been a sheep. But watch it, he is
a lost sheep. He wasn't ever a goat. You see,
conversion doesn't, oh, I was a goat, now I'm a sheep. No!
You're confused. You're mixing things up here.
A sheep's always been a sheep and a goat's always been a goat.
A goat will never become a sheep and a sheep will never become
a goat. That's confounding things. We were a lost sheep. The shepherd
came and fetched us. It's like David said about Mephibosheth,
fetch him to me. That's what God does by his irresistible
quickening grace through the gospel of Christ Jesus the Lord. The gospel goes forth, the Spirit
of God accompanies that message and fetches the sinner to Jesus
Christ. But that sinner he fetches has
always been his seed. He was just a lost one. Look here
in Galatians chapter 4. Look at verse 4. But when the fullness of the
time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made
under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that
we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are
sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father. He says, because you are sons,
He didn't say to make you a son. He sends forth His Spirit, but
He sends forth His Spirit because you are one of His children. You've always been His. I tell
you, the Lord says to you like He said to Jeremiah, I have loved
you with an everlasting love. Therefore, in loving kindness
have I drawn you. I had a preacher one time, I
heard him say, He said, God used to hate you. But when you come
to believe the Gospel, then He loves you. No. That's not right. That's not
right. Now there are some folks that
God does hate. He hates the workers of iniquity.
And you know how long He's hated the workers of iniquity? Always. The Esau's of this world God's
always hated them. Nancy and I were over at Sam's
the other day, over at South Point, and I saw a woman, she
had a t-shirt on. It said, Jesus loves you. You waste your time, and I decided
I wouldn't say, but I started to go over and ask her, how do
you know Jesus loves me? There's no way you can know that.
because He doesn't love everybody. Maybe my name is Esau. Hi, my
name is Esau. You tell me you love me. See,
I can't say to all this congregation, to everybody who is watching
on the internet, everybody who will be listening to this on
CD or watching it on DVD or whatever, listen to it on sermon audio
sometime down the road, I cannot tell all of you, God loves you! Jesus died for you! God wants
to save you. I can't do that. If those words
ever came out of my mouth, it's time to put me in a padded cell
because I've lost my mind. That's three of Satan's favorite
lies is that God loves everybody, Jesus died for everybody, and
the Holy Spirit is trying to save everybody. Three of the
biggest lies that have ever been told. I tell you, there's a bunch of
lying politicians in Washington. Maybe so, but the biggest liars
in the country stand behind the pulpit and do the most damage. If God loves you, He loves you
in Jesus Christ. And He's always loved you. And if the Lord Jesus died for
you, He paid your debt in full. In the Spirit of God, He came
to you because you are a child. Because you are the seed of the
righteous one. Because way back yonder in old
eternity, actually, this never even had a beginning, How old
is salvation? It's as old as God, isn't it?
You say, oh, you believe that primitive doctrine over there.
You got that right. It is really primitive. It precedes
the beginning of time. It goes all the way back into
eternity to the mind and heart of God Almighty. That's how primitive
this is. As long as He's been God, that's
how long He's loved you. You figure out how long God's
been around, you'll figure out how long He's loved, He's elect. You figure out how old Christ
the Son is, how long He's been in existence, and then you'll
figure out how long He's purposed to be our surety, and our Savior,
and our substitute, and the sacrifice. You come to some realization
of how old the Spirit of God is, Then you'll come to the realization
of how long ago God purposed that the Holy Spirit would come
to you in convicting and convincing and regenerating power and quicken
you, give you a heart of faith to believe the gospel of His
grace. It's an everlasting gospel. We're the seed of the righteous.
To all of you who believe, we're the seed of the righteous. And there's the seed of the wicked. That old serpent. And you know
what John the Baptist said? He was preaching one day. He said, you're a generation
of vipers. Whoa! What does that mean? You're
the seed of the wicked one. You say, well, the Lord Jesus
never talked like that. Oh yes, He did. He said the same
thing. He said the same thing. Well, which side are you on? I know you can't choose sides
in this, but you can know which side you're
on, and you know if you're on the right side, because God reveals
Christ to you, and He's your all. We're the seed of the righteous.
Isn't that wonderful? We're the generation of those
that seek the Lord by His grace. By His grace. And we stand on
the solid rock, don't we? 272. Number 272. The solid rock. 272. I'm going to kind of keep
this theme going this evening. So I hope you'll be back, and
tonight we'll start off, the very first thing will be baptism. It'll be the very first thing,
and then we'll have a regular schedule of our evening service. All right, 272.