Alright, now let's open our Bibles
back to 1 Samuel chapter 18. As you know, tonight we're going
to recognize four young people, our high school graduates. It's
in the bulletin, but I'm going to name them anyway. Blake McLeod,
Amanda Marks, Leslie DeLauder, and Colby Raffert, and we do
congratulate all of you. And our prayers go with you in
whatever you decide, whatever direction you decide to go in
your continuing education or in the work world, we are behind
you. And whenever we do this, I always
look for a message, pray that the Lord will give me a message
that is especially appropriate for people that age who are going
through this rite of passage. And as I was going through, we've
been studying the life of David as a type of Christ. And I've
enjoyed the study. I hope you have too. But I couldn't
think of any better passage to go through than the one that's
coming right up next. And that's the way the providence
of God works. I've entitled this message, Grace,
Wisdom, and Life in Christ. grace, wisdom, and life in Christ. Now, there's four times in chapter
18 that something is said of David. David, the one, the shepherd. David, who is the future king
of Israel here. And the first verse, if you look
at verse 5, it says, And David went out whithersoever Saul sent
him, and he behaved himself wisely. Now, that's what's said of David
four times. Over here in verse 14, it says,
And David behaved himself wisely in all his ways, and the Lord
was with him. And then it says there that even
Saul recognized that. Verse 15, Wherefore, when Saul
saw that he behaved himself wisely, David behaved himself wisely,
he was afraid of him. That is significant. And then
the very last verse of chapter 18, I won't go this far tonight,
but just to show you, it says, "...the princes of the Philistines
went forth, and it came to pass after they went forth that David
behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul, so
that his name was much set by, or much precious." David behaved
himself wisely. Now, the natural man may sometimes
be wise in many areas of life. For example, maybe in financial
matters, in educational matters, whatever matters that the natural
man is dealing with at the time. But there's one area that we
know that the natural man, the unregenerate man, the unbelieving
man, is not wise at all. In fact, he's a fool. and that
is in the spiritual and eternal matters of salvation by God's
grace in Christ. In fact, this is seen in its
reality in the natural man's ways of salvation that he himself
devises, because it is always some system of works salvation. So when it comes to wise behavior
in this context, We know this, this wisdom, this kind of wisdom,
spiritual wisdom, godly wisdom, is the product of God's grace
in Christ and leads unto eternal life. Grace, wisdom, and life. But now this wisdom not only
gives us the equipment to live eternally in glory, it also really
gives us the equipment to live our lives in this world. And
young people, this is our prayer, not only for you, but for all
of us. For sometimes older people will
act foolishly. Does that surprise you? It shouldn't. And you'll learn. You'll learn
by experience that that happens. But here's what we have to do.
In this world, while in this world, we have to deal with the
world. We have to deal with ourselves,
the flesh, and we have to deal with the devil and all that they
bring against us. And this is what David did. This is what we're to do. And
most of all, we're going to see this is what our Savior did.
He behaved himself wisely in all that he did. And this is
our prayer for you when you go out to college or into the work
world or wherever you go. It's our prayer that God will
grace you with the wisdom that you need. And over here in the
book of Proverbs, it says a lot about that. What kind of wisdom
we're talking about. Proverbs chapter 4. But you know,
before you get to Proverbs chapter 4, it speaks of the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. That fear there is
faith and worship and trust in the living God through Christ.
But look at Proverbs chapter 4, verse 1. It says, hear you
children the instruction of a father. Now maybe tonight you don't think
of yourself as children, but mom and dad will always think
of you as children. And we can't get away with that.
My mother still calls me Billy. And I'll always be Billy to her.
But that's OK. But we know that you're young
men and women. And you're responsible young men and women. And I thought
about this. I said, what's the best thing
that any of us can do for you? We can preach the gospel to you,
lead you to Christ, and pray for you. That's what we can do
for you. That's the best thing. But it
says, here you children, the instruction of a father, and
attend to no understanding, for I give you good doctrine. Doctrine
is teaching. That's what doctrine is. Doctrine
is not a dirty word in Scripture. It's not just for high intellectual
muckety-mucks. It's teaching. God teaches His
children. You parents, you've taught your
children. You've taught them things that they need to know.
The teachers in your schools, they've taught you things, the
basics, how to get along in this world. And that's what that means. I give you good teaching. Forsake
you not my law, the law of God which convicts us of sin. and
drives us to Christ for salvation, for forgiveness through His blood,
for justification before God through His righteousness. And
all of these things. And he says, For I was my father's
son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. He
taught me also and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my
words. Don't forget what you've been
taught. Keep my commandments and live. Now understand that
when the Bible says keep God's commandments and live, it's not
talking about salvation by works. Because the commandment of God
is to come to Him as a sinner begging for mercy in Christ. That's where it all begins. Run
to Christ. Rest in Him. Don't depend on
your works or your power, your goodness. You don't have any.
You see? And so he says in verse 5, get
wisdom. Now where am I going to get wisdom?
Well, wisdom is in Christ. He is the embodiment of the wisdom
of God. In fact, Proverbs 8 is a picture
of Christ, our wisdom, who was set up from everlasting. It's
in the Word of God, the Word of His grace, the Word of the
Gospel that leads a sinner to Christ for salvation, and the
Word that guides our lives in the grace of God. to behave ourselves
wisely, as David did. And so he says, get wisdom. Get
it. Get understanding. Forget it
not. Neither decline from the words
of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall
preserve thee. In the wisdom of God, in Christ,
there is preservation. Love her, and she shall keep
thee. Wisdom is the principal thing. You see, for David, who
acted and behaved himself wisely, That's the principle thing. Therefore,
get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding. You
see what the Scripture teaches us here. Now go back to 1 Samuel
18. Now when it says David behaved
himself wisely, if you have a concordance in your Bible, you may see the
word prospered there. And what that means is this, in the translation, what it's
saying is that in this wise behavior there is prosperity. So it's
not changing the translation, it's just simply giving the whole
thought here. In this wise behavior, there
is prosperity. The fool meets his own end, and
it's disaster. But in wisdom, there is prosperity. Well, first of all, we see that
if our wisdom is Christ, you know, 1 Corinthians 1.30 says,
but of God are you in Him who is made unto us wisdom and righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. If Christ is my wisdom, and He
is, in fact, He's all the wisdom that God requires of me, I find
in Him. I find it in the person and the
finished work of Christ. If He's my wisdom, then I'm certain
to prosper eternally and spiritually. Now, if I go on my own wisdom,
I'm certain to fail. But in Him there is prosperity,
for in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you're
complete in Him. And we're blessed with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And so this is prosperity. But this really, what it speaks
of is this. It's somebody who walks properly.
A person who knows how to carry themselves. What this is saying
is in this section, David walked properly and he knew how to carry
himself. He knew how to conduct himself
in every situation. And it's more than mere manners.
It's a person who watches what they say. David watched what
he said. Sometimes I don't do that. Sometimes
you don't do that. Sometimes I say things I wish
I could just grab the words and take them back and eat them again,
but you can't do that. Sometimes I'm glad that some
people can't hear very well. But you see, that's what happens,
you know. Just remember, words do matter. They do matter. You
know, when you were a kid on the playground, sticks and stones
may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. That was a
lie. I found out, haven't you? That
was a lie. Words can hurt. But it's a person
who watches what they say. It's a person who watches what
they do and how they act. That doesn't mean that we have
to walk around like some monk who's trying to get away from
the world and all that. That doesn't mean we have to
feed the fires of Phariseeism either by avoiding this and not
doing that just because some religious high up is going to
look down on us. That's not what it's talking
about. We're to act wisely. Christ told His disciples this.
He said, when you go out preaching the gospel, He said, be wise
as serpents and harmless as doves. And sometimes that takes maturity. A lot of times it does. But it's
a person who watches how he acts because he knows he's being watched.
That's so. Down here you're going to see
where Saul eyed David. Now what does that mean? That
means Saul set his sights on David and he meant harm. Have you ever been put under
a microscope by people? I have. I've got folks right
now who are just waiting for me to make the first slip up,
you know. They're eyeing me. And they'll eye you. And you
know what they want. They want to criticize. They
want to find any fault that they can find. And if they eye me
hard enough, they're going to find it. I got news for you.
They're going to find it. It's there. And so this is what's
happening. The idea here is walking accurately
and carefully as if one were navigating through a minefield.
You've seen that in the wars. Some of you men who experience
that maybe. Navigating through a minefield.
You step on the mine, that's it. It's sort of like what the
Lord said in the Sermon on the Mount when He said, let your
light so shine before men that they may see your good works
and glorify your Father in heaven. You remember what we always see
about that verse? You see, the light is not our
good works. The light is the gospel of God's
grace in Christ which shines on those works and reveals them
to be fruit unto God, the grace of God. Walk accurately, circumspectly,
he said in the book of Ephesians. That means carefully. Now, we
see this exemplified in David here in this part of this chapter. David acted wisely. Now, you know as well as I do,
if you know anything about the Bible and the history of David,
that David did not always behave himself wisely. He was a sinful
man. But here he does. And here he's
a type of Christ and an example for us. And so we want to see
both. There are two things here. How
is David a type of Christ? And how is this an example for
us to follow? There's two things I want you
to remember tonight. Now, in your lives, you're going
to have times of great triumph, of great prosperity, of great
victories. Everything's going to be positive.
Everything's going to be looking good. You're going to have those
times. I hope you have a lot of those times. I pray that you
do. But secondly, you're going to
have times of trial, times of trouble, times of despair. And the point that we see in
David here is that he behaved himself wisely in both. In both. And I want you to look
at that. First of all, let's talk about
the time of prosperity. Here's David. He'd just come
off the field of battle and he defeated Goliath. Now, we know
it wasn't David himself. David wasn't capable of defeating
anybody. It was of the Lord. David himself
said that. That's the number one thing about
when your triumphs and in your victories, when you overcome
what people call the odds. When you are successful, you
need to remember that it's the Lord who gave you that equipment
and guided you through, no matter what. If you make an A on a test,
he's the one that gave you that brain. He's the one that gave
you that intellect. He's the one who gave you the
time to study, and he's the one who gave you the opportunity
to go to school. And we see that in David. David
the shepherd, born of the of the nation of Judah, born of
the tribe of Judah, but he's out there on the backside tending
the sheep, and nobody knows about him, and his daddy doesn't even
recognize him when Samuel comes to pick the king. And so when
Samuel didn't recognize, by the wisdom of God, any of those first
seven to be king, he said, don't you have any more sons? And he
said, well, I've got one, my youngest out there. Surely it's
not him. But he went and got him, and that's who he was, and
God equipped him. God equipped him with the power and the wisdom
to do the task. And look what it says, verse
5, David went out, whithersoever Saul sent him. Now Saul was the
deposed king. Saul was the one whom the spear
of the Lord had withdrawn from. Saul was the one who wouldn't
give up the throne, but God told him he's not going to have the
throne. And yet what did David do? Did he walk in and say, now
Saul, get off the throne, that's mine. No, David behaved himself
wisely. He knew that he was going to
have the throne, but it was going to be in God's time, in God's
way, not his own. And so he didn't jump ahead and
jump up and take the throne by force. He probably could have
done that because he became very popular with the people. So here,
by the will of God, David had been anointed the king of Israel,
but he knew that it was all in God's time and God's way. And
recognizing that, he behaved himself wisely. And by the power
of God, all that David did was wise in the sight of God and
in the sight of men. Think about this victory. Now
think about this. If you're anointed king, and
the fellow who's on the throne has been deposed, you know the
first ones that you would fear would be his family, especially
the heir. But here, David, in the first four verses of chapter
18, he had a triumph. It was a triumph of God's grace
through God working through Jonathan, the king's son. And Jonathan's
soul was knit to David, and David was brought into Saul's court
permanently. Remember what I said when I preached
on that? Who was doing the knitting there? God. Not Jonathan. Jonathan didn't knit his soul
to David. Jonathan's soul was knit to David.
So I want you to realize that in order to behave yourself wisely
in this world, you've got to recognize that God is the prime
mover and cause of all things. He is in control. Somebody said
that Saul feared David because he saw things out of his control. And you know what? The safest
place you can be is to recognize that all things are out of our
control. but that all things are under
the control of God." Here we see the women praising David.
Let's read on verse 5 here. It says, "...he behaved himself
wisely, and Saul set him over the men of war. He was accepted
in the sight of the people, and also in the sight of Saul's servants."
He became very popular, popularity now. "...and it came to pass,
as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of
the Philistine, And Stan told you right, that is plural there.
But the reason the King James translators translated it as
singular is because he killed one man, Goliath. But in killing
Goliath, he defeated them all. Goliath was the representative.
And he says that the women came out of all cities in Israel singing
and dancing to meet King Saul with tabrets, with joy, with
instruments of music. And the women answered one another
as they played and said, Saul has slain his thousands and David
his ten thousands. Think about that. So here we
see the women praising David, and he became popular with the
people. Their cry here suggests that
their praise is misplaced. For you see, it wasn't David
at all who slew Goliath. It was God. And instead of praising
David, they should have been praising God. Oh, we do thank
God for David. But the praise and the glory
and the honor and the worship and the accolades go to God Almighty
and not to the man. Accolades given to man, not God. Occupied with human victories. You know what that's called?
It's hero worship. This world is rampant today with
hero worship. Men and women want a hero. Men
by nature want to follow men. That's just in us by nature.
And even believers have to fight that. Remember Paul writing to
the Corinthian church? Some of them say, we follow Paul.
Some say, we follow Apollos. Some say, we follow Peter. Some
say, we don't follow anybody. I guess they're the independents. My friend, you know what Paul
said to them? Look over in 1 Corinthians 1.
This is essential now for wise behavior. You're not to follow
men. Now, we appreciate and we thank God for godly men who lead
us in the truth. We do. But you see, if those
men are worth anything, they'll behave themselves wisely and
lead you to follow no one but Christ. Look here in 1 Corinthians
1. He says in verse 13, listen to
these questions. He said, is Christ divided? Now,
if Christ is divided, then you can divide. But you see, believers,
the church is the body of Christ, chosen by God before the foundation
of the world, justified by His righteousness. You see, we all
have one righteousness. Did you know that? I don't have
one, and you have another. We all have one. It's the righteousness
of God in Christ that is freely imputed to our counts, and we
receive it by God-given faith. We entered the kingdom by one
spirit, not different ones, by one truth, by one God. So we're the body of Christ.
Now, if Christ is divided, then the body can divide. But is Christ
divided? Absolutely not. He's not divided. And then he says in the second
question, was Paul crucified for you? Now, if you're going
to follow Paul, you better make sure Paul's your Savior. That's
what he's saying. You better make sure Paul's the
one who died for your sins. Now, if Paul died for your sins,
where does that leave you? It leaves you in your sins. You
see, we need a Savior who is both God and man in one person. We need the God and man. We need
the one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
So if Paul died for you and put away your sins, then you can
follow Paul. If Peter did it, you can follow him. But you see,
Paul wasn't crucified for you. the Lord Jesus Christ was. And
then he says, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? When you
were baptized, when you confessed Christ in believer's baptism,
you were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. Not in the name of Paul, not
in the name of Apollos, not in the name of Peter. So behave
yourselves wisely. That's what he's saying here.
Don't act like the world. But you see, men by nature want
to follow men, but those who are wise in the ways of the Lord
by grace do not want to follow men. John the Baptist recognized
that. He behaved himself wisely. You
remember when his disciples came to him and said, look how many
folks are following Jesus of Nazareth and being baptized. What are you going to do about
that, John? And John says, praise the Lord, that's the way it should
be. He said, I've got the decrease, and he's got the increase. Somebody
said that the best preaching that a preacher will ever do
is lead sinners, point sinners to Christ, and then get out of
the way. That's wise behavior. Look back at 1 Samuel 18. Now,
men rejoice in the works and possessions of men, but it's
God who gives, God who withholds. The words of praise for David
became a source of division, because immediately, immediately,
look at verse 8, Saul was very angry. Now, we know Saul was
responsible here. We know he had a bad spirit,
an evil spirit sent from God as punishment for his disobedience.
But you see, when that praise of men comes along, it divides
people. We've seen it happen. It happens
everywhere. It says in verse 8, it displeased
him, and he said, they have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and
to me they have ascribed but thousands. Oh, pouting Saul. What difference does it make?
Huh? Now he says, well, what can he
have more but the kingdom? What's left now? Now he'll have
the kingdom. Well, hadn't Saul been told by the prophet Samuel
that the kingdom is taken away from you? You see, the Word of
God there comes into play. Saul didn't behave himself wisely.
Somebody said, well, Saul didn't believe God. Or Saul didn't want
to do what God says. I've seen that happen. I have
to struggle with it. And it says in verse 9, Saul
eyed David from that day forward. Well, up until now it's been
prosperity, and I want to show you something about our Savior
in this area. I want you to see something that
I believe is real significant here. Our Savior came into this
world to suffer and to bleed and to die for the sins of His
people. Turn over to John chapter 6.
I want you to see how David is a titan of Christ here. Now Christ, when He appeared
on the scene and started His public ministry, He began to
preach and He began to perform miracles. He raised the dead,
He turned the water into wine, He healed the lame, the deaf,
the sick. He did all these things and here
He just finished feeding 5,000 people with a few loaves of fish.
People who were hungry, people who needed physical food were
getting food. And they loved Him. And look
at verse 15 of John chapter 6. It says here, it says in verse 15, "...when
Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take Him
by force to make Him a king, He departed again into a mountain
Himself alone." The multitudes that he just fed were going to
take him by force and put him on the throne in Jerusalem. But what did he do? He departed. Now, what do you think a mere
man, sinful, self-righteous man would have done? Where's my crown? Where's my robe? Let's go, fellas.
I've got that throne now. But no, our Lord, wisdom incarnate,
behaved himself wisely. He withdrew. First of all, he
knew that the kind of accolades that they were claiming for him
had nothing to do with his real task. They were expecting a Messiah,
but one who would come in the clouds, who would conquer their
enemies, and who would prosper them physically, and set them
as viceroys and advisors. Well done. He knew that they
weren't looking for a suffering servant. Isaiah 53. He knew they weren't looking
for a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. He knew they weren't
looking for one who would come and dial a cross. And so that's
not the kind of kingship that he was after. And secondly, he
was not after the kind of kingship that men could give him. Men
can set you on the throne. Men can put you in high places.
Men can praise you. But it really all means nothing
if you have not favor and grace from God. You may go through
life in school or in your job, and you may get promotions, and
you may get praise, and that's okay. But behave wisely. Don't let it go to your head. David could have taken the opportunity
with all these people, and he was becoming more and more popular.
But do you know what he did? It says he went, whithersoever
Saul sent him. The man who hated him, the man
who was eyeing him, the man who was jealous of him, the man he
knew had been deposed and taken off the throne by God, and the
man who looked upon him as a threat. And you know what David did?
He went, whithersoever Saul sent him. He submitted to Saul. And I want to show you a type
of our Savior in that. Our Savior came to this earth
and utterly became humiliated, even unto the death of the cross.
He suffered the derision of men. He went through the popularity
of men. He went through all of it. And yet He submitted Himself
to the will of His Father. He said, I came not to do mine
own will, but the will of Him that sent me. He was made under
the law, the Scripture says. He submitted Himself to the law
of which He is the author. And he did it because he had
one thing on his mind, and that was the wisdom of God in the
salvation of his people by going to the cross. If you want to
see the embodiment of the wisdom of God, look to Christ on the
cross dying for the sins of his sheep. Who else could have devised
a way of salvation like that? No man. There is no religion
on earth that man has ever devised. that can answer this question
with wisdom. How can God be just and justify
the ungodly? There's no religion, and I've
studied most of them, if not all of them. You say, how can
that happen? The wisdom of God in Christ. And then if you want to see the
embodiment of one who behaved himself wisely in perfection,
look at Christ who shed his face like a flint to go to the cross,
humiliating himself. Why, he could have called 10,000
angels, the song says. He said, no man takes my life
from me, I lay it down willingly of myself. He did that. Why? For the glory of his Father and
the salvation of his sheep. Isn't that something? That's
wise behavior. And you better thank God for
that wisdom every day. Because that's our salvation.
They wanted to make Him a king because they thought He was the
Messiah they wanted. You know, our Lord, when He rode
into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, the crowd was crying,
Hosanna! Lord, save us! Lord, save us! But it wasn't too long after
that that the cries of Hosanna turned into crucifying. Crucifying. And you know what he did in both
situations? When men were praising him, he behaved himself wisely.
And when men hated him, he behaved himself wisely. He showed himself
to be God when they came to arrest him in the garden. And they said,
who are you looking for? He said, we're looking for Jesus
of Nazareth. He said, I am. And they fell
backwards. He could have killed them all right there and walked
on. But he didn't. You know why? He behaved himself
wisely. He knew where he had to go. David's
triumphs were great. Look back at 1 Samuel 18. Listen to this. Saul eyed him.
Look at verse 10. Listen to this. It says, And
it came to pass on the morrow that the evil spirit from God
came upon Saul. That's that evil spirit of depression,
jealousy, envy. And he prophesied. Now, what?
Prophesy means to speak words. And apparently in the context
here, what it is, is Saul began to rant and rave in that spirit,
the evil spirit. And he prophesied, and it says
here, in the midst of the house, and David played with his hand
as at other times. He played the harp. Do you remember
how David was set to play the harp? You think about it. There's
that king. He's got his eye on you, ranting
and raving, and you pick up the harp and play it. And it says,
and there was a javelin in Saul's hand. And Saul cast the javelin,
for he said, I will smite David to the wall with it. What he
says, I'm going to pin him to the wall. And it says, David
avoided out of his presence twice. That means he threw the javelin
twice, and David avoided it twice. Now you may say, well, you may
throw a javelin at me once, but not twice. But you see, David
still behaved himself wisely. And even old Saul recognized
something. Look at verse 12. And Saul was
afraid of David. Do you know when your enemies
attack you, how do you behave yourself wisely? Well, you respond
with a fist and grit teeth, and you go after them. We tell you
if you do, they won't fear you. They'll say, gotcha. Isn't that
right? They won. You played right into
their hands. When you respond in anger, when
you respond in derision, depression, oh, oh, oh, oh is me. When you
respond in vengeance, they're not afraid of you then. Do you
know that's what they want? Because that lowers you. What
does wisdom say? Do what God's Word says to do.
Go where whithersoever Saul sends you. He's the king. He's going
to be the throne, but God's going to be the one who does it. That's
the issue, see. You say, but he threw a javelin.
No, he threw two javelins. And old Saul was a warrior. He
knew how to throw a javelin. But it says here, Saul was afraid
of David because the Lord was with him. And I'll tell you,
for us to respond in wisdom, it takes the power and grace
of God. Now doesn't it? We respond in the flesh. And
even Saul recognized. I'm sure he's sitting there saying,
how in the world could I have missed him twice? The Lord must
be with him. And that's how he missed him
twice. It wasn't that he was a bad aim. It's the Lord was
with him. The Lord protected David. And
the Lord will protect his children. He will. And he said Saul was
afraid of David because the Lord was with him and was departed
from Saul. Therefore, verse 13, Saul removed him from him and
made him his captain over a thousand. And the reason Saul made him
a captain is because he was hoping to get David in the front of
the battle so he'd get killed. Somebody, one old commentator
said he pulled a Uriah on him. If you know your Bible, you know
what that refers to. David did the same thing later
on, didn't he? Hoping that a man would be killed.
He didn't behave wisely that day. That's what he was doing. And it says, he went out and
he came in before the people, and David behaved himself wisely
in all his ways, and the Lord was with him. My friend, if the
Lord hadn't been with him, he wouldn't have behaved himself
wisely. And you young people, it's the same with you. Same
with me. We'll mess it all up. without
the Lord. And it says where, verse 15,
Wherefore, when Saul saw that he behaved himself very wisely,
he was afraid of him. That's what happens to our enemies
when we behave wisely. They become afraid then. They
really do. They may not admit it, but they do. Something's
going on there they can't figure out. But he said in verse 16,
But all Israel knew to love David, because he went out and came
in before him. Let me just say a few more words and I'll quit.
Our Lord, in the time of despair, in the time of the greatest attacks
upon Him by His enemies, He always behaved Himself wisely. When
they tried to trap Him with words, He always answered. He didn't
get angry. The only time you ever see the Lord angry is with
righteous angers when He went into the temple to drive the
money changers out. But when they attacked him and
when they accused him, he didn't answer with vengeance. He didn't
snap his finger and just put him out of existence. He always
spoke the Word of God. When Satan tempted him, he spoke
the Word of God. Now let me tell you something.
The greatest act of wisdom was when he was on the cross. If
you want proof that our Lord was never made a sinner, listen
to the seven sayings on the cross. Listen to this. This is behaving
yourself wisely. on the cross, when we hanged
Him on that cross, and He was there because of our evil, but
ultimately because of the power and grace of God. You remember
what Peter said? He said, you meant it for evil,
but God meant it for good. That's what he said. He spoke
a word of forgiveness. He said, Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they do. Does that sound like a man to
you who is foolish? whose mind is being corrupted
with self-love. He said, Father, forgive them.
They know not what they do. Then he spoke a word of salvation.
He looked at the thief on his right and he said, Today you'll
be with me in paradise. That's a word of salvation to
a man who just before had been criticizing him. For he is our salvation. And
then he spoke a word of affection. He looked down and there was
Mary, his mother, and John. He said, Behold your son, son,
behold your mother. He thought of others. And then
he spoke a word of justice. He said, My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me? You know what most commentators
say, that's a word of anguish. But I don't believe that. He
wasn't asking a question, he was making a point, and the point
is that he was hanging on that cross to suffer the punishment
due unto his people in order that God might be just and justifier
of the ungodly. He was making an end of sin and
establishing everlasting righteousness whereby God could be both a righteous
judge and a loving Father. It was a word of justice. Then
he spoke a word of suffering. He said, I thirst. He suffered. It wasn't play-like. He was on
that cross and He hurt and He pained and we can't even describe
it. What He felt in His mind and
His very soul, I wouldn't even begin to attempt to describe
that to you. It's beyond our conception. But
He said it. He said, I thirst. Then He spoke
a word of victory. This sin chills up my back. It
is finished. What did He finish? He finished
my redemption. What wisdom! That's what David
did when he went out and fought Goliath, you see. He saved Israel. God did through him. And he was
a type of our Savior. And he finished redemption. He
made an end of sin. He finished the transgression.
He brought in everlasting righteousness so that we could live forever
in the presence of Almighty God. And then he spoke a word of contentment.
He said, Father, into your hands I commend, commit my spirit. And I'll tell you, there's nothing
wiser than that. Commit your spirit. Young people,
commit your spirit unto the Lord in whatever you do. Worship Him. Seek the Lord. And He may be
found. And I pray for you that you will.