and turn with me this evening
to the book of 2 Peter chapter 3. This second epistle, beloved,
I now write unto you in both which I stir up your pure minds
by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the words which
were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandment
of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first,
that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after
their own lust and saying, where is the promise of his coming?
For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were
from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant
of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old. and the
earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the
world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. But the
heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are
kept in store, reserved unto fire, against the day of judgment
and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant
of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack
concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but as longsuffering
to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should
come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall
pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein
shall be burned up, seeing then that all these things shall be
dissolved. What manner of persons ought
ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and
hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens
being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat? Nevertheless, We, according to
his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth
righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that
ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in
peace, without spot and blameless. an account that the long-suffering
of our Lord is salvation, even as our beloved brother Paul,
also according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written
unto you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of
these things, in which are some things hard to be understood,
which they that are unlearned and unstable rest, as they do
also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. Ye therefore,
beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware, lest ye
also, being led away with the air of the wicked, fall from
your own steadfastness, but grow in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be glory both
now and forever. Amen. Thank you for those kind
words. I also want to thank the three
sisters My wife's happy. She got to hear him sing. No
trip's complete down here without that. And it is always a blessing. You ladies present the gospel
in song. Turn tonight to Psalm 32. Psalm 32. I want us to focus
just for a second on something a little unusual. My Bible has
Psalm 32, and then right under it, it says a Psalm of David. And then this is a word, I guess
it's in Hebrew, I don't know, but it, you see that word mashiel? I don't even know if I'm pronouncing
it right. Mashiel, mashiel, I'm not sure. But I looked it up,
got my attention, and I looked it up. You know what it means?
This is a Psalm of David to give instruction. That little word
mashio means to give instruction. And I don't presume to have come
down here to instruct you. I'm not qualified. And I don't
think David wrote this down because he thought he was qualified to
instruct Israel or God's people. But we have to realize, under
the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit, he caused David to write
this psalm and to put that little word up there. What this says
is, I will instruct my people. And the greatest disservice that
my generation, or one of the greatest disservices of my generation,
is in promoting this whole do your own thing attitude, that
philosophy. Our complete disdain for the
being given, much less receiving instruction. We've lost that
somewhere along the way here, my generation has. And it's a
curse. And we're gonna pay for it continually
and the consequences of it. Because great sorrow awaits all
who will not be instructed. We know that, don't we? Why do
we send them to school? Why do we have our children,
when they turn a certain age, say, well, you've got to take
a driving class? Or we get them behind a wheel,
and why? We know the consequences of not
instructing them in that way, do we not? Great sorrow awaits
who will not be instructed, and listen to this, and who will
not instruct their children. Boy, we're in a generation where
we're seeing the consequences of that. Young people who will
not be instructed. So let's pray that the Lord will
instruct us tonight. Look at verse one here of Psalm
32. David writes, blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven. He says, blessed is he whose
sin is covered. And blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity. And in whose spirit there is
no guile. That word blessed is there three
times. And there's reason for that. All God's people are thrice
blessed. We're blessed three times. And
we're blessed Because God says right here, by nature, we got
three troubles. We have a trinity of troubles,
and he says, I'm going to give you three blessings to take care
of them. Our trouble, the trinity, is
transgression, sin, and iniquity. You say, well, what's the difference
in those three? We sort of think about them the
same way, don't we? Sin, transgression, and iniquity. But there is a difference if
you look them up. Here's what it is. Sin is what I am. That's all I am, is sin. If you
could cut this head open, cut this heart open, and we had God's
eyes, what we'd see is nothing but sin. Iniquity, iniquity is
when God reveals to his people, we're guilty. There's no way
I can be found innocent. We're guilty. Sin is not just
what we are, but we're guilty. We've got no defense. There's
no lawyer you can call in that day and say, I didn't do this,
or this is why, and none of that's going to matter. And transgression,
if sin is what I am and iniquity is the evidence that I'm guilty,
the transgression is what I actually do what I've done, whether we
did it outwardly or we did it just in our mind and heart. So
we got three problems, but I read here, it says, blessed are some
folks who have the three problems because the Holy Trinity of God
deals with all three of those. Here's how God, the father determined
that salvation would come to his people from all three problems. And that salvation eliminates
the transgression. It eliminates what we actually
did. Do we realize that God in eternity,
it won't be a matter of us saying, I didn't do it because we know
we did, don't we? But in God's sight, we're blessed
because in his eyes, we didn't do it. We actually didn't do
it. But then the son, executes that salvation so that our sin,
what we are, is all covered over. We're no longer sin in God's
sight. Do we realize that? What a blessing that is. We're
not sin anymore. The blood of Christ covers it.
The only thing I read in all the scriptures that God cannot
see through, he sees all. The only thing he can't see through
is the blood of Christ. If we're under the blood of Christ,
he looks and goes, no sin there. Isn't that amazing? Blessed are we. And then the
Holy Spirit reveals salvation. He takes away the guilt. Can
we imagine one day coming before God, living in eternity without
one guilty feeling? Can we imagine such a thing?
I'm not guilty. I really never did it. Boy, what
a blessing that is. So we're thrice blessed. Do we
see that there? Look then at verse three. It says, David says, when I kept
silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day. For day
and night, thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned
into the drought of summer. These two verses right here are
written about two people. The first one is David. David,
it is recorded, wrote this Psalm. You know when he wrote it? Right
after he wrote Psalm 51. And you know what that's about?
When David got caught with Bathsheba and it came to light that he
had killed her husband Uriah, David, I'll tell you, he didn't
feel very blessed at that moment in time. He knew God knew he
was guilty. He knew he'd sinned and he knew
what he was. And God came to him and said,
David, it's gone. I'm gonna take care of that.
Blessed, David said, I'm a blessed man. I'm a blessed man. The other thing this is about
is the Lord Jesus Christ, the other man. Our Lord said, I kept
silence. My bones waxed old through my
roaring all the day. When did that happen? When they
nailed him to that tree and hung him there and his bones came
out of joint. He said, what was he doing that
for? He was taking care of David's
transgressions, his sin, and his iniquity. And if we're one
of his, he's taking care of it. Do we see that? It's gone. Our
Lord, it says, day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me. When
God took the sin of his people and went at Calvary and put it
on his son, the hand of God was heavy on him, heavy on him. He
said, my moisture, it turned into the drought of summer. He
said, I thirst, I thirst. I've got to drink all this iniquity
and I'm thirsty. It'll kill us. God's taken it
away. That's the good news. That's
the good news. I want us to see in verse five
here, it says, David says, I acknowledge my sin unto thee. I acknowledge
mine iniquity. I didn't hide it. I said, I will
confess my transgressions unto the Lord. You see all three of
those things again, the trinity of our trouble. And then David
said, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. The main
thing here is do you see the word before sin, iniquity, and
transgression? It's mine. David is saying it's
mine. You want to know the key to understanding
the gospel? That when the window first swings
open, you know what the difference is? We can talk about sin in
general terms, but when we really see it, it's not your sin. It's not sin in general. You
know whose sin it is? It's mine. It's mine. It's one thing to talk about
iniquity, guilt, but it's another thing when it's, I'm guilty,
I'm guilty. I'll tell you when the turning
point comes, when God teaches us, when he instructs us, that
it's not, we don't meet to talk about sin and iniquity and transgression. What we meet to talk about is
what God's done about it in terms of us, what he's done about it. When I can say it's not iniquity
and sin and transgression in general, it's mine. It's mine. It's one thing to talk about
those things in general. It's another to say they're mine.
You know the difference? When the prophet Nathan came
to David. And he said, you know, there's
a fellow who had all kinds of sheep. He had more sheep than
he knew what to do with. And he had a guest come, and
you know what he did? He went next door, and this fellow had one
little sheep. And he took that sheep, and he slaughtered it
and fed it to his guest. David said, you tell me who that
is. He said, I'll kill him. What
did Nathan say to him? Thou art the man. When sin, iniquity,
and transgression becomes real, it's when we're not talking about
yours. We're talking about mine, my sin. my iniquity and my transgression. That's when guile goes out the
window and salvation comes in. Everyone who finds out that we're
a bona fide double-died sinner, we'll pray it's not too late
to find the one and only Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at
verse six here. For this shall everyone that
is godly pray. when thou mayest be found, I'm
sorry, for this shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee
in a time when thou mayest be found. Surely in the floods of
great waters, they shall not come nigh unto thee. Thou art
my hiding place. Thou art, thou shalt preserve
me from trouble. Thou shalt compass me about with
songs of deliverance. We got a threefold problem. Do
you hear the three thous? Thou art my hiding place. From
what? Sin. Thou shalt preserve me, deliver
me from my transgression. Thou shalt compass me about.
You see the solution? It's in Christ. It's in Christ. There's a time when the Savior
may be found. It says that right there. Thank
God for that. And it won't always be so. You know the flood didn't come.
How long did Noah preach? 300 years, was it? He preached,
he was building that ark. He didn't just go out every day
and cut timber and do it. You know what he was doing? He
was preaching. He was saying, there's rain coming. Judgment's
coming. Because we're a people of sin,
transgression, and iniquity. The rain's coming. The flood's
coming. He's saying, come in the ark. Come in the ark. Nobody
listened to him. But what happened after 300 years
and seven days? He said, anybody else coming
in? They raised up the door and sealed it with tar, and the rain
came. You say, who came in? Everybody
who believed that they had sin, transgression, and iniquity to
be dealt with, they came in. When it comes, we need a hiding
place. That's what Noah's Ark pictures.
When we one day need a hiding place, it's in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he'll deliver us. And you
notice it says there that everybody who sees that in the last phrase
of verse seven says, has songs of deliverance. They'll sing.
Y'all ever, probably don't have this here, but every once in
a while, I've been someplace and I'll notice that we'll all,
everybody stands up to sing. And now the corner of my eye,
I'll see somebody who just, and not singing. I said it used to
bother me. It still does, actually. But
the truth is, what breaks my heart about it is that anybody
who will not sing praises to our God, they don't know who
we're singing to. They don't know the one who's
given us a reason to sing. Say, what reason at that? I don't
have any more sin, iniquity, and transgression. It's gone.
He's delivered us from that. I'll sing to him. Say, well,
you don't have a very good voice, Bob. I'll say amen to that. but
we'll sing anyway, won't we? Because he's delivered us. Look
at verse eight. He says, I will instruct thee
and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I'll guide thee
with mine eyes. A wise man submits himself to
be instructed. And I'll tell you what that means
in our day. If you look all this up here,
when it says, I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way,
hear me on this, this is saying, God's not saying, he is not saying,
well, if they want to be instructed, I'll teach them. He's not saying,
well, I might teach my children something. He's not saying, I'm
going to try to teach them something. What this says right here is
God says to his children, he says, I will teach you. I will
teach you. Do we realize that as a people?
God, our father, he is going to teach his children. He says,
I will instruct. So how does God instruct his
people? And I thought a long time about this and I hope that
I can make it clear. God teaches his people two ways,
two ways. The first way I call the easy
way. You know what the easy way is?
Easy way is that when we come like this together, he opens
his word and has a man stand up here and instruct us. teach us. Boy, that's easy, isn't
it? How much ever does it take to
get in your car and drive over here and somebody is back there
doing all the work and he comes out here and instructs, right?
It's by the preaching and teaching of the word. We can and should
pray for revelation and instruction through God's work because it's
the easy way. But then there is the hard way. And I confess to you, I know
a lot more about the hard way probably than most of you. If
we're determined to resist the easy way and we're his children,
if we resist that smooth path, God by his spirit will employ
the hard way. It's the best way I know how
to illustrate this. My son Luke was about 12, 11 or 12. I came home from work one night.
And here his mother is sitting on the steps, and she's just
crying her heart out. And I said, well, what in the
world's wrong? And she said, it's Luke. It's Luke. And I said,
well, is he dead? Did he hurt himself? She said,
no. She said, I told him to do something,
and he wouldn't do it. And she said, I spanked him,
and he still wouldn't do it. I spanked him again, and he still
wouldn't do it. And I sent him to his room. I thought, hmm. I said, OK. So I went up the
stairs and I came into his room and here he is sitting on the
side of his bed just as pleased with himself as he could be.
And I said, son. He said, yep. And I said, I understand
that your mother told you to do something. He said, yep. And
I said, I understand you wouldn't do it. He said, yep. I'm here to fix that. And his
countenance changed. And then I went like this and
said, lay down on the bed and started unbuckling my belt. You
know what he did? He went, I'm sorry, Dad. I'll
do it. I'll do it. Just don't do that.
I'll do it. You know what that's called?
The hard way. The hard way. You say, boy, you
punished him hard. No, I did not punish him. Punishing
him would have been banishing him. It would have been, you
disobeyed me, you're worthy of death. I chastened him. I taught him. I taught him, you
do this, I'll do that. You see, that's the hard way
though, isn't it? That's the hard way. And you see why I know
so much about it. But listen to me, we do not,
as God's people, we do not have to be as stubborn as a mule or
as dumb as a wild horse in order to be instructed. We can come
here and be taught of God from his word by a man who's been
instructed and we can be instructed. That's easy way. Look what it
says in verse nine. It says, be ye, this is God talking
to his people, be ye not as the horse or as the mule, which have
no understanding. whose mouth must be held in with
bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee. I've never had
a bit in my mouth that I don't think I'd like it. But you put
one in a mule's mouth or a horse's mouth because he won't listen
to anything else. I tell you what, we can dig our
heels in if we want. We can be determined not to be
instructed if we want. All that shows is one of two
things. Now listen to this. That proves one of two things.
The first thing it can prove is we won't be instructed by
God because we're not one of his children. But the other thing
is, it'll prove we will be instructed, but we're just determined it's
gonna be the hard way. The hard way. This illustrates
this, I think. I was a teenager in the Boy Scouts,
and we had a work day where we were gonna go help this farmer,
this Creek, when it would rain, would fill up and erode into
his good farmland. So we went out there and they
brought a whole truckload of railroad ties and dumped them
off next to the road. And we were going to, you know,
put them on that bend in that stream so it wouldn't erode his
property anymore. Well, the problem was we were
probably 60 yards from the creek and we couldn't pick up those
railroad ties and move them. So the farmer said, I'll be right
back. And he left. And he came back with a truck.
And in the truck, he had a mule and a bunch of chains. He backed
that mule out of that truck. And he wrapped that chain around
two or three railroad ties at a time. Boy, that mule drug him
right on out there. It didn't take any time at all.
And then he said, OK, some of you fellas come with me. He said,
I got to get the mule back in the truck. So we went up there. And he put a rope through the
front of that harness on that mule. He ran one, he had a ramp
up in that truck, and he ran one rope up here and one through
there, through the slats in that truck. He had two or three of
us boys on each side, and he said, now when I tell you, y'all
pull. And he said, get up, mule. I'm telling you, that mule dug
his heels in. He wasn't going in that truck.
And the farmer said, well, OK. And he went around the front,
opened his door, and behind the seat he had a two by four about
that long. And he came around behind that
mule and he said, you boys get ready. And we're pulling on that
rope. He took that two by four, ran
around behind that mule, and he went wham and hit that mule
in the rump. Let me tell you, that mule nearly
ran over the truck. But here's the lesson. That farmer
knew how to instruct that mule without doing him any permanent
harm. God knows how to instruct his
people. It can be the easy way. It can be the hard way. But even
if it's the hard way, there's no permanent damage. I wouldn't
have done anything to harm my son eternally for his whole life. And God's not going to harm his
people that way. But what this means in that verse, God says,
I will instruct my people. He's going to do it. Now, which
way is it going to be? The easy way or the hard way?
The thing about this is that resisting does lead to the hard
way. But every difficulty or problem
that we have, we need to ask ourselves a question. Am I having
this difficulty? What's the reason for this? Is
this because I won't do it the easy way and I'm being taught
the hard way? Is that what it's about? Now,
I understand. I understand. There was a man,
there was a man who was prosperous, didn't have a problem in the
world. He didn't do anything. And Satan came before God. God allowed him to come into
his presence. And the Lord said, have you considered
my servant Job? He said, ah, he just loves you
because you're good to him. He said, well, you do what you
want to him, just don't touch his body. And boy, Satan got
after Job, didn't he? He got after him. killed his
children, took everything he had, and he still did not, he
did not blame his God. And Satan came back and said,
well, you let me touch him and he'll deny you. And he came back
and the Lord said, touch him, just don't kill him. And he did
everything but kill him. You say, well, now, was he learning
the hard way? I don't think it had anything
to do with that at all. He was blessed to suffer so that
we can learn. So it doesn't always mean that
things are happening to us and we need to go, well, I'm just
being hard-headed. That's not necessarily the case.
But listen, flip that over. If I'm having a hard time, maybe
I need to ask myself. Is this because I won't be instructed? Is this my fault? We need to seek and search and
find what our God is about if it's possible. In due time, Job
found out, didn't he? He found out it was so that you
and I can read this book and see God's merciful. In the end,
he gave Job twice what he had. The problem in all of this is
really not When folks have problems, and this is one of the real important
things I'd like us to understand about this, and you maybe, of
all people, need to hear this less than any group of people
I know. Y'all are one of the kindest,
sweetest, finest, most compassionate, tenderhearted, and generous people
I have ever known in my life. And I mean that. And yet, for
some reason, I felt led to bring this message. The problem usually
is not that I'm looking in the mirror and going, why is this
happening? What am I doing? The problem is usually I'm looking
at you and thinking, I wonder what they've done. You ever had
that thought? I wonder why they're out of sorts.
I wonder what the problem is. Boy, if the Lord could deliver
us from that and that we might have compassion and a love for
one another such that You know, even if one of us is out of sorts,
we don't need correction from each other. We need love and
compassion and a sweetness about it. And y'all exemplify that
as fine as any people I know. The important thing is to understand
God always has a purpose in what he's doing and he's going to
accomplish that purpose. You know, look at verse 10 here,
it says, many sorrows shall be to the wicked, but he that trusts
us in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about. Be glad in the Lord
and rejoice, ye righteous, and shout for joy, all ye that are
upright in heart. Our Lord's good to his people.
In the hardest time, our Lord is good to us. He doesn't give
us what we deserve. No, he doesn't give us the punishment
for our sin and the guilt of our transgression and the iniquity
that we ought to have. He's taken care of all that,
hadn't he? He's already taken care of that. But what I want
us to see here is one more thing in verse, look up at verse eight. He said, I will instruct thee
and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee
with mine eye. Our eyes tell us a lot, don't
they? Someone told me one time that I'm not too good at disguising
my displeasure, and that was not a compliment. We do that,
don't we? We do these things with our eyes,
don't we? My grandkids, they all know when I do this, it means
the tickle monster is on the loose, and boy, they scatter.
They run. You fellas ever been sitting
at the dinner table and start to tell some story and your wife
is nudging you under the table and going, don't tell that, don't
do that. We better be quiet, hadn't we?
Yeah. The eyes communicate. I tell
you, fellas, if you want to see your wife smile, go home with
her and take her face in your hands and look her in the eye
and go, darling, I love you. I love you. I can't tell you
how I love you. These eyes communicate, don't
you? You want to know what that eyes means right there? He says,
I'll guide you. You know what that means? I'll
instruct you with my eye. You know what the eye of God
is right here? It's the word. If we want to really be instructed,
all we got to do is get in this word and come where a man is
opening it and instructing us and teaching us. And the essence
of this is this, and this is comforting to us. You see verse
eight says, I will instruct you. I will. He said, I will guide
you. I will instruct you. The closer
we get to someone, the easier it is to read their eyes. If
we neglect and give in attention, we'll be missing a lot of the
guidance. That leads to the hard way. instruction. God will always
use the eye, listen to me, God will always use the eye before
he uses the rod. Do we understand that? God's
saying right here, I'll always use my eyes and only use the
rod if I have to. And of this we can be sure, the
spirit of God will not abandon us. He will instruct us. Literally what this is saying,
he says, I'll make you understand what I'm doing. I'll make you
understand. Understand what? We might not
understand very much. We might not. We certainly don't
understand at all, do we? Not at all. But he will do this.
This is what he wants us. He wills that we understand who
and what we are. We're nothing but sin and transgression
and iniquity. But then he's going to teach
us who Christ is and what he did, what Christ do. He took
care of those three things. He took care of them. And then
he'll cause us to understand why he did it and where Christ
is now. Where is he? He's waiting on
us. He's waiting on us. He's gone where he intends to
bring us all. And do you know what? That's
enough. That's enough. Growth and grace and the knowledge
of Christ comes by divine instruction. through the preaching of the
word. That's my message. Want to hear that again? Growth
in grace and the knowledge of Christ comes by divine instruction
through the preaching of the word. I know why you folks are
so kind and so loving, why you're so sweet and generous, why you're
so forgiving and faithful. You know why that is? You've
been instructed. You got a man who's instructed
you. I'd love to be taught by Donnie Bell. He does it in a
way that's, there's no offense. There's no, I can't imagine having
to get it the hard way when I can get it from Donnie Bell. What
a blessing. Well, again, y'all forgive me
if it seemed like I presumed to instruct you. I didn't, didn't
intend to, but may the Lord teach us. Boy, I need it every day,
don't I? All right, may the Lord bless
his word. So grateful for y'all being so good to Rebecca and
I. Thank you.