You find my subject there in
verse 7. How excellent is thy lovingkindness,
O God! Therefore the children of men
put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. Under the shadow
of thy wings. What's the matter? Is it? Well, I'm sorry. I don't know what to do. Let
me read you a couple of these things that James gave me. Hey,
God loves you, and that's a fact, Jack. To master your temptations, you
must first let Jesus master you. That don't hardly sound like
being under the shadow of his wings, does it? Oh my. Do you know God's words
describes the wicked and the righteous? And there's judgments for both.
The righteous has faced their judgment in Christ, and the wicked
will face judgment in the life to come. And David here, he starts
out with the description of the wicked. And he not only with
the description of the wicked, but he exposes the wicked man's
thoughts. The wicked man's intents. And
that's what the scripture says, you know, that God deserves the
thoughts and intents of a man's heart. And then he comes and
he describes God's glory, his righteousness, and where God's
people put their trust under the shadow of his wings. Look
here at the wicked and his transgression. Look what it says, the transgression
of the wicked. Here's what he says in his heart.
Here's the transgression that he does. He talks to himself
and he says within his own heart, no fear of God before my eyes.
No fear of God before his eyes. And I tell you that's what he
says in his heart. There's no fear of God. And that's
what Paul talked about in Romans chapter 3. Can you imagine what
it's like to be without any fear of God at all? There are men who are unconverted
that have some sense of the fear of God. But this man, this wicked
man, says that there's no fear of God before my eyes. I don't
see God before my eyes. I don't see any reason before
my eyes to have to fear God. As I heard one man say the other
day, they've made this movie about Noah and the Ark. And everybody
who despises and hates God, they say, how could God destroy so
many people? Call Him a mass murderer. Call
Him a psychotic. And that's what they mean, that
there is no fear of God before their eyes. God's not before
their eyes. Righteousness is not before their
eyes. Nothing's before their eyes, and we'll show in a minute,
nothing but themselves. But I cannot conceive being without
the fear of God in this world. I can't. Even when I was at my
very worst, I had another fear of God in me to keep from doing
some things that I would have done. But to be without the fear
of God is to be without the fear of any sin that you commit. Without
any fear of the judgment that's to come. For somebody to be so
brave and just to stand up and say, I have no fear of God, no
fear of sin, no fear of judgment. And to sin openly and to sin
continually, not even with the thought of judgment being in
my mind or before my eyes. And I'll tell you why he's that
way. Look what else he says about him. Here's why there's no fear
of God before his eyes. For he flatters himself in his
own eyes. Nobody else has to flatter him.
He flatters himself. He has the highest opinion of
himself. Has the highest opinion of his
own opinion. Has the highest thoughts of himself. When he wants to flatter somebody,
look, he flatters himself. He ain't gonna flatter you, he's
gonna talk about how good he is, how wise he is, what philosophy
he follows, what his ideas are, what his opinions are, what his
feelings are. Everything that he does is he's
the right one about it. He flatters himself with his
own eyes. So he don't fear God before his
eyes, so he turns around and flatters himself. Is there anybody
as good as me? And even though they say, well,
I'm as good as anyone else and better than most. And now you hear people one minute
they're cussing God with their breath, and the next minute they're
talking about how good they are. That's the way people are, they'll
curse God with one mouth and turn around and talk about, I'm
a pretty good person, I'm not that bad. And you know, and this
wicked man who says there's no fear of God, he flatters himself.
He's like the Pharisee who stood and prayed thus with himself,
I thank you that I'm not like them other people. And which would you rather be,
a drunk or a Pharisee? Would you rather go to hell off
a bar stool or go to hell out of a pulpit? I remember coming up on a fellow
one time, and he had been talking about me. And he was brazen enough
to tell me, he said, hey, there's a bunch of men standing around.
I come up on them, come in among them, know every one of them.
As far as I know, I got along good with all of them. But one
of them was talking about me, and he said, I was just talking
about you. And I said, well, you didn't tell the half of it
how bad it really is. That's all I said. I never asked
him what he said. Never asked him what he said
about me. I just said, well, you didn't tell the half of it.
You couldn't tell him near as bad as I really am. Boy, he just
hung his head. He thought, you know, he'd get
in an argument with me. But he wanted to let everybody
know, you know, that preacher don't impress me. That preacher
don't mean nothing to me. And I tell you what, I said,
you know, a man, they do this, and he says he flatters himself,
everybody should respect me. And he flatters himself to quieten
his own conscience. And I tell you what, self-flattery
is one of the awfulest things that anybody could ever do in
this world. And that's what Paul meant when he said, if anybody
could have any confidence in the flesh to flatter themselves
and something to brag about, I could do more than anybody
that I know of. But he says, you know what? I
can it all be done. Done. And look what else he does
here. He said he flatters himself in
his own eyes until his iniquity be found to be hateful. Until
he finds out that his iniquity is to be hated. Oh, he'll find
out one of these days that God hates his iniquity. And God hates
everything about him. And he will be found out. He'll
be found out at the judgment. He'll be found out. God's Word's
done found him out. God's people's done found him
out. I despise and detest people like these. And you do too, the
righteous do. And until his iniquity be found
out, he'll be hateful. And one of these days, he'll
find out that everything you saw, said, and done was hated
by God Himself. And I tell you what, he'll find
out just how hateful his sin is, how hateful he is. If he
thinks he hated God, then there's no fear of God before his eyes.
And you can find this in Revelation. I believe it's Revelations 20
and maybe 19 too. But it talks there about men.
When God brings them and casts them into hell and brings them
before Him, they do not repent. If this man has no fear of God
in his eyes and he finds out he sins hateful, when he goes
to hell, he'll still have no fear of God. Death does not change
his nature. People don't understand that,
but death does. If he hated God before he went to hell, he'll
hate God more than he's in hell. If he doesn't have no fear of
God before he goes there, he'll have no fear of God after he
gets there. He said, he that's filthy, let
him be filthy still. He that's a dog, let him be a
dog still. And I tell you, there's some
people that are, you know, that's just awful to think about people
like that. You know, and I can name people
in my own family, that's the way they are, they flatter themselves. Got more food on a banana peel
than in the grave. Ain't you afraid to know? What
have I got to be afraid of? What have I done? I've minded
my own business. I've worked, took care of my
family. I've done the best I can. I've put money in the church
every once in a while. And when I do it really makes
me feel good. And then look what's in his heart. You know, whatever is in the
mouth and in the heart is going to come out of his mouth. And
then look what the words of his mouth are. The words of his mouth
are iniquity and deceit. If his heart has no fear of God,
and he flatters himself, and his iniquity is hateful, and
he turns around here, and what in the world can possibly come
out of his mouth but sin, iniquity, and deceit? First of all, he's
deceiving himself by flattering himself. And he speaks deceit
with everybody he talks to, because every time he tells something
good about himself, he's lying to you. His mouth is full of
deceit, and his mouth is full of iniquity. If you've got iniquity,
deceit's got to come with it. Iniquity and deceit, they go
hand in hand. Oh, you can't have one without the other. Look what
it says. He hath left off to be wise. He said, I'll just be
a fool. He just left wisdom behind him.
He said, I forget about wisdom. I'm not interested in being wise.
It don't make any difference. And he's left off to do good.
He has ceased to restrain himself. And all he does is abhor evil.
He ought to hate it, but he'd own it for it. He loves it. And
then look what he does in verse 4. He devises mischief upon his
bed. When I go to bed, I won't sleep.
It's a good place to go to rest. When this fellow goes to bed
and wants to go to rest, he lays there at night and plots what
he can get into tomorrow. Who he can deceive tomorrow,
who can lie on tomorrow, what means he can commit tomorrow. Instead of sleeping and resting,
he's plotting. His mind's working. Some kind
of mischief. And then when he gets up, he
sets himself in a way that's not good. He starts out and the
way he goes, there's nothing good about the way he's going
to go. The direction he's going to go in, the things he's going
to do, the way he's going to act, nothing good. And then whatever
evil he gets into, he does it abhorrent. He does it abhorrent.
And oh my, nothing good about what he says or does or anything
about him. But now let's look at the other side. Let's look
at this, look at us. Let's look at believers. He describes the
wicked. That's a pretty good description
too, ain't it? Pretty good description. And then look what he goes on
here to say now about believers. Look at the righteousness, the
righteous, the believer, the Christian. Look at his different
attitude toward... This man has no fear of God.
None whatsoever. But now look to us. Down in verse
7. We're under the shadow of His
wings. What's our attitude? He has no
fear of God. We want to get under the shadow
of His wings. He wants to do evil. We want a place to be.
We want to be under the wings of God. Under the shadow of His
wings. Why are they there? Because it
says, therefore the children of men put their trust They put
their trust in the Lord. They put their trust under the
shadow of His wings. He has no fear of God. What do
we do? But we put our trust in the Lord and get under the shadow
of His wings. Oh my, let me show you a couple
of things. Ruth is right after the Joshua, Judges, and then
Ruth. Look in the book of Ruth with
me just a minute. Joshua, Judges, and Ruth. I want you to see something
about Ruth here, what was said about her. Ruth chapter 2 and
verse 12. They put their trust in the Lord,
that's why they're under the shadow of His wings. And you know the feathers of
God's wings are the words of His gospel. Oh, He covers us
with the words of His gospel. A place for us to hide, a good
place for us to shelter. And look what He said here about
Ruth in Romans, Ruth chapter 2 and verse 12. The Lord will
recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord
God of Israel." Listen to this, "...under whose wings thou art
come to trust." You know, he uses, that's what
our Lord said about Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how
odd! Would I have gathered thee as
a chicken, as a chicken with her, a hen under her wings, I
would have gathered you. but you would not look over Psalm
91 for just a minute this is what they there's no fear of
God what we do we ride under his wings look here at Psalm
91 verse 4 he shall cover thee with his
feathers Psalm 91 verse 4 he shall cover thee with his feathers
and under his wings shalt thou trust And His truth shall be
your shield and your buckler. You know, over in Deuteronomy
it says God would bear us up on the wings of an eagle. Wings
of an eagle. So that's where we're at. Let
me give you five reasons out of these verses. Five reasons
we're under the shadow of His wings. Look what He says there
in verse 7. He says, How excels thy lovingkindness.
Now watch this. Therefore, therefore the children
of men put their trust under the shadow of wings. Therefore
means that there's other reasons that therefore. And first of
all, I'll tell you why we put ourselves under the shadow of
His wings. Where we find ourselves there
and put the trust there. First of all, in verse 5 it says,
Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens. Thy mercy is in the
heavens. No matter how high sin goes,
no matter how high sin goes, God's mercy is higher than that.
The heavens are full of the mercies of God. God is in His heavens
and there is His mercy is in there with Him. And since He
has these mercies in there with Him, there's a mercy that He
gives to us. And look what He says in Psalm,
you keep 36, and look at Psalm 103 and verse 11. This is exactly
what it says. Psalm 103 and verse 11. Oh Lord, that's why we put our
trust, our mercy's in the heavens. You're there. That's where You'd
like to be. And that's why we're unto you,
because you're higher than the heavens, and your mercy's at
that high. And look what he said in verse 4, As the heaven is
high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that
fear him. How high is the heavens above
the earth? He said, well that's how great his
mercy is toward them that fear him. Next time you look up into the
heavens, and you see as far as you can see, God's mercy is higher than that, but
it comes down toward them that fear Him. Reaches that far. Reaches that far. Back over again. There's another reason why we're
under the shadow of His wings, and why we put our trust in Him,
and dwell under the shadow of His wings. He says again there
in verse 5, and thy faithfulness reaches under the clouds. He uses these terms, these metaphors,
these images, this imagery to show us how great and how glorious
the mercy and faithfulness of God is. It reaches under the
clouds. And I tell you, the clouds, you
know, way, way up there. You see them. But let me tell
you something about clouds. Clouds come and clouds go. There's
days that it's really cloudy, and days where it's not so cloudy,
days where it's partly cloudy, but one thing about it, whatever
the clouds are, wherever they are, on the face of this earth,
at any given time, God's faithfulness is in those clouds, and above
those clouds, and with those clouds. We talked about that
Sunday night. We went home, it was a full moon
last week or this weekend, but you could not tell it. Did anybody
see the full moon Sunday night? Dark, dark, dark. But just because
it's dark, that don't mean the moon wasn't there. The moon was
there just as full. And that's the way it is with
God's faithfulness. There better be clouds there.
And hide the Son, hide the moon. But God's faithfulness is there.
Oh, bless His name. That's what Paul said to the
Corinthians. He says, God is faithful who
has called us under the fellowship of His Son. And oh my, bless
His name. Of all the attributes there is
of God other than His grace. And His love. Faithfulness. Faithfulness. Faithfulness. That's what our
Lord Jesus Christ said. He said, of all that you've given
me, I've lost another. And he said, I shall not lose
one. And he said, Him that cometh to me, I'll not only lose Him,
but I'll raise Him up again in the last day. He said, I'm going
to be faithful to you from the day God my Father gives you to
me. And I'm going to be faithful
to keep you. And then after you go to the
dust, He said, I'm going to be faithful to cometh out and raise
you back up and bring you to myself. Now you can't get no
more faithful than that. Can you? That's why when we go
to the grave, when we can say, listen, the Lord's coming down,
but he's going to come back and get that body. All that the Father's given me,
I'm not going to, I've not lost one of them. He said, not only
that, but I'm going to keep them. Never lose them. And I'm going
to raise them up again. Now that's faithfulness. What kind of shape would we be
in if His faithfulness depended on our faithfulness? I've heard so many people say
lately, you know, and the first thing they think, I've got a
nephew. Oh, he's got religion coming
out of his ears. Oh, he's got it popping out of his eyes, wading
back deep in it. And he talks about, you know,
things have been really bad for him here lately. He's wondering
what he's done wrong, what sin he's committed, what he's done
to God's predictable life. He's wondering how bad it's been
that God treated him in such a way. He said, I wish I could
find out what I've done. Now listen. It's His faithfulness, not ours. Oh, we want to be faithful. But
He is faithful. And oh, let me show you something
else about why we are under the shadow of His wings. Look what
He says there in verse 6. Thy righteousness is like the
mountains, the great mountains. And you look in the margin, it
says, Thy righteousness is the mountains of God. The righteousness, he says, thy
righteousness is the mountains of God. He's great mountains
of God. Mountains of God. And he says,
thy righteousness is like great mountains of God himself. And what he's saying is, God's
righteousness is mountains. Strong, firm. Unreachable by anything that
you and I can do. Who can search and find out God? And not only that, beloved, but
He only deals in righteousness and only rewards righteousness.
So how in the world can He reward us for righteousness? By giving
us His own. And treats it like it belongs
to us. He makes Christ righteous, the
righteousness of God in Christ, made Christ unto us righteousness,
and then He treats us like it's our own. And blesses us like
we made it ourselves. He gives us everything we have,
and Christ, He says it's your righteousness, I gave it to you
but it's yours. It's the righteousness of Christ.
And He blesses us on the basis of that righteousness and only
by the righteousness of Christ. And then look what He says again
there in verse 6, Thy judgments are great deep. Oh, you think about the judgments
of God. Oh, you think about the judgments of God from the day
that He created this world. What about the judgments of God
and how He dealt with Adam? Judgments of God how He dealt
with Noah the flood. Judgments of God of Solomon and
Gomorrah. Judgments of God with His own Son on the cross. The
judgments of God in dealing with us. The judgments of God in raising
up nations, setting down nations. When you start trying to figure
out why God does what He does, and who He does it for, and who
He does it for. His judgments. Why does that
happen? It's the judgment of God. And
also, you know, His judgments not only against the wicked,
but it's also for the righteous. And His judgments means it just
means He's counseled. It's just a decision. It's a
wheel that's carried out. It's a counsel that's carried
out. And all of His judgments were all, every single one of
them made before we ever started the world and all of them was
made for the world up to the end. Now ain't that right? He made the judgment that He's
going to save me and you. He made the judgment that He's
going to nail His Son to a cross and nail our sin there with Him.
He made the judgment that He was going to make us the righteous
of God in Christ. He made the judgment that we'd
be here tonight, hearing the Gospel. Preaching, I've been
dealing with Psalm 36. He made that judgment before
the world ever began. That's the judgment of God. He
has his way in the world, man. And the judgment, that's why
Paul said, Oh, how unsearchable are the riches of the wisdom
and knowledge of God, their past, find it out. Well, listen, and let me show
you another one here. Let's show you the fifth one.
And he said down here in verse 10. Oh, look at this. Oh, continue thy loving kindness. No, verse 7, excuse me, I'm in
the wrong place. How excellent is thy loving kindness. And that word excellent in the
margin means precious. How excellent is thy lovingkindness.
How precious is thy lovingkindness. Thy lovingkindness is precious.
And indeed His lovingkindness is precious. He never takes it
from us. It's always there. It was lovingkindness
that caused Him to give His Son. It was His lovingkindness that
saved us by His blessed grace. It was His loving kindness that
elected us. It's His loving kindness who
made Christ us to us who believe precious. It's His loving kindness
who made His blood precious to us. It's His loving kindness
that made faith precious to us because He gave us all of it.
And then let me show you just a couple of things This thing
here, why we dwell under the shadow of his wings. And the
blessings, oh look at the blessings of being under his wings. Look
down at verse 8. Oh therefore the children of
men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings, they shall
be abundantly satisfied. You satisfied being there? And
it says abundantly satisfied. You know what that abundant in
the margin is? It says watered. Abundantly satisfied. How do
you know you're watered? And thou shalt make them drink
of the river of thy pleasures. Oh, I've got a river, and it's
the river that pleases me. It's the river that, when you
drink a bit, it's the river that pleases me. And that's why the
Lord Jesus stood and said, if any man's thirsty, let him come
to me. Well, I'm coming, Lord, and that's the one we drink.
He's the fountain of life. Ain't that what He said in verse
9, with thee is the fountain of life? Oh, watered, watered, thou shalt
make them drink. Oh, how satisfying is God. How
satisfying is it to dwell under the shadow of His wings? How
satisfying is it to see God and know God? How satisfying is it
to know our Savior? How satisfied is our conscience? Abundantly satisfied. Is your
conscience satisfied? Look with me in Psalm 46 in verse
4, just a minute. Psalm 46 in verse 4, talking
about a river. He said, Ah, thou shalt make
them drink of the river of thy pleasures. Oh, His word's a river. His gospel's a river. Christ
is a river. But look what He said in Psalm
46 and verse 4. There is a river, the streams,
whereof shall make glad the city of God whose head that's me and
you the holy place of the tabernacle of the most high and this is
this where that river is God's in the midst of her she shall
not be moved oh listen abundantly satisfied let me give you the
last one here and then he gives us a good clear vision look what
he said in verse 9 for with thee is the fountain of life and thy
light Shall we see light? He said in my light only in God's
light God turns on the light and when he turns on the light
then you see you have light that's what he's saying and that's why
he said he had translated us from darkness to light you know
let me show you something here in Mark chapter 8 just a minute
This is, I think this expresses a little what I'd like to say.
Mark chapter 8 and verse 22. You know, it's only in His light
that we have light. Look what He said here in verse
22. Now, I'm in Luke, I'm not in
Mark, I don't know around the world. I was looking for it,
I'm in the wrong book. And he cometh to Bethsaida, and
they bring a blind man unto him, and he besought him to touch
him. And he took the blind man by the hand, led him out of the
town. And when he had spit on his eyes,
and put his hands upon him, they asked him if he saw all. Do you
see anything? And he looked up and said, I
see men as trees. And they're walking. After that,
he put his hands again upon his eyes and made him look up, and
he was restored, and listen to this, and saw every man clearly. That's what our Lord sent you. In His light we see clearly.
Let me tell you some things we see clearly. We see sin clearly. In His light we see sin. Not
as what we do, as what we are. If a man say he has no sin, he
deceives himself. A man who has no sin, he don't
need a savior, he don't need incarnation, he don't need a
death, he don't need blood. And we see in his life, we see
ourselves clearly. We see ourselves clearly. Who
do you trust less than anybody you know? You don't trust yourself
for your own salvation at all. No, no. And you see clearly that salvation
is by grace! Grace! Grace! Free grace! Omnipotent grace! Sovereign grace! Powerful grace! If you want to
call Lazarus out of the tomb, you get free will the way you
want to do it. Telling a fellow to make a decision for Jesus
ain't going to do it. If you want to see somebody come
to Christ, the only way it's going to happen is for a powerful
grace of God to come to that man. Stretch forth your hand. He's got a withered hand. Oh,
come on, you got the power, you got the will, you got the ability.
Oh, it takes a gospel that's got the power of God in it. And
I tell you, we see in His light, we see Christ clearly as our
only hope and plea before God in our righteousness. We see
death and we see eternal life. And over in John 8, and then
I'm done, John 8, 12. Oh, in His light. In His light. And that's why we pray, God,
turn on the light. If a man, God turns on the light,
he'll be okay. He'll be okay. John 8, 12. Then spake Jesus again unto them,
saying, I am the light of the world. He that follows me shall
not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. The light of life. You know what? The scripture says that we're
children of the light, children of the day. Oh, they that put the children
of men, they put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. Oh, Savior, Savior, Savior, our
Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, blessed, blessed Redeemer.
very lovers of our soul. Love us, care for us, protect
us, provide for us. Here's when we cry. Lord, thank you for allowing
us to meet tonight for just a little while. Thank you for your precious,
blessed Word. And I especially bless you that
you have a shadow under the shadow of your wings as we redome and
dwell. Put our trust there in our Lord
Jesus Christ. Amen and Amen.