Lord, who shall abide in thy
tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and
worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. He that
backbites not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor,
nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor, in whose eyes a
vile person is contemned, But he that honoureth them that fear
the Lord, he that swareth to his own hurt, and changeth not,
he that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against
the innocent, he that doeth these things shall never be moved."
Let's sing a song with me because it will show us who this is really
talking about, and I don't know how else to deal with it, but
that's Christ and us in Christ. But here's almost the same psalm, David's. He said, The earth is the Lord's,
and the fullness thereof the world, and they that dwell therein.
For he hath founded upon the seas, and established it upon
the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill
of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart. who hath not lifted up his fat
soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing
from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them
that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Lift up your heads,
O ye gates, and be lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King
of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The
Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up
your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting
doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King
of Glory? The Lord of Hosts. He is the
King of Glory. So, in Psalm 24 we know he's
talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. It's obvious. But here
in Psalm 15 is what we want to look at. And what we have here
is a description of the man who dwells in the house of the Lord
forever, and yet he starts dwelling in the tabernacle of God in the
house of the Lord while he's on this earth. And he's at home. He's at home in the church of
God. He's at home where the Lord Jesus
Christ is. He feels at home. He feels at
comfort. He feels assurance. He knows that he's going to dwell
in the house of the Lord forever. But it's primarily, this is about
our Lord Jesus Christ. Because when you read that, you
read that, I don't know how you could say you'll find yourself
there. But yet, at the same time, we're
in Christ. And we're going to deal with
it in the sense that the way we are in Christ. But it's talking
about the perfect man. And he's the one who transformed
us by his grace where we are the way we are now. And we're
not finished with what we're going to be. But this first verse
asked a question, and the rest of the verses, the next four
verses, answer the question. And David asked this question,
Lord, and that's, look who he's asking, Lord. He's asking the
only person who could tell us. The only one that tells us what
it takes, the character it is, that must be to dwell in the
household. Who shall abide in thy tabernacle?
Who shall soulter in thy tabernacle? Who shall abide in your tabernacle?
Lord, I want to know who can do this, what kind of person
can do this, that abide in your tabernacle. And then he asked
this question, who shall dwell, live in your holy hill? Who can do that? Who can do that? And I tell you, beloved, he's
the high and the lofty one that inhabits eternity, measures the
waters and the hollows of his hands. The scripture says that
the heavens are not pure in his sight, and he charges his angels
with folly. How much less man that is a worm.
So how in the world, he's a consuming fire, so when we have a sense
of the glory and holiness and majesty and power and glory of
God Himself, you can't help but ask this question. There's a
multitude of people who think they can just walk into the presence
of God and just say anything they want to say about Him. But
I'll tell you, when we come into the presence of God, to come
and live that, to abide there, to dwell there. And the only
way we can find out what's required and the character it takes and
the person it takes and what it takes is for God Himself to
delineate the character for us. That's why David said, Lord,
who? Who? Who shall abide in your
tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hills? The angels. When Isaiah saw Him,
the angels had their faces veiled in His presence. And when he
saw Him, he started crying out, I'm an undone man. But oh, beloved,
when you understand something about the holiness of God and
the throne of God, you have to ask yourself, and if you've been
made humble by the grace of God, you have to understand and ask
yourself and see, God, how in the world can I, me who is so
unworthy, I can sense my unworthiness. I know my unworthiness. How in
the world am I going to come and abide in your tabernacle
and dwell in your holy hill? How can I do it? Me! Oh, listen, I'm going to tell
you something. Very, very, very, very, very
few people have the privilege to even know to ask the question. To feel the sense to ask the
question. To feel the awe of God to ask the question. To feel
the need to ask the question. That feels around the world,
and this is why they ask the question. There's so many that's
aliens from the commonwealth of the Israel of God. And I tell you, he asked the
Lord because there's none but God Himself that can answer this
question. To satisfy the conscience. And
so we've got to ask from the Lord, what's the qualifications
for us to be in His presence, to come into His presence? And
I know this, beloved, that if it wasn't for the Lord Jesus
Christ, who dwells right now and sits on His throne in the
presence of God, not one person on the face of this earth could
even begin to approach God. And the only way you and I can
come right now is because of Him. because of him. And I tell you, beloved, who
shall dwell in my holy hill? And I tell you, when it comes
to God coming there in that holy hill, this hill of worship, and
it's a hill of eminence and preeminence. And you know, I remember over
in Matthew, when they come into the wedding garden, into bidding
to the wedding, keep Luke 15, look at Matthew 22. You've got
to be made fit to come into God's presence. You've got to be made
fit to come to this place. You've got to be made fit. Look
at Matthew 22 and 11. Without the dress of Christ's
righteousness, without us being in the Lord Jesus Christ, we
have no right to talk. And He's the one that's made
us fit. We're an imperfect church on
the earth. And if Christ don't make us righteous and Christ
don't make us perfect, we can't even approach God, much less
dwell in His hill and live in His tabernacle. Can't do it.
Look what he said here in Matthew 22 and later. This is the wedding
marriage piece for the son. And when the king came in to
see the guest, he saw there a man was sat out not on a wedding
garment. And he says, Prince, how can
you stay in here not having a wedding garment? He's faceless. You mean to tell me you're going
to come to this wedding, you're going to come to this prominent
place, you're going to come into the presence of the king where
he's doing for his blessed son, and you're not ready and not
dressed and not fit to come into this place? Get him out of here.
Take him away from here. Everybody I looked at deals with
this like it's our character. It's us and us alone and what
kind of person we got to be. And I tell you, if you don't
see this thing and us being in Christ, then you're right back
to legalism and right back to works. And I'm not going to go
that route. I'm not going to go that route. Look what it says
now. He gives the answer here. Lord, who shall abide in thy
tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
Well, here comes the answer. He that walketh uprightly, worketh
righteousness, speaketh the truth in his heart. He that backbiteth
not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh
up reproach against his neighbor. In whose eyes a vile person is
contemned, that he honoreth him that fear the Lord, he sweareth
not to his hurt, He'll swear to his own hurt and change not
he that put not his money out to usury, and to take its reward
against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall
never be moved. He that walks upright. Walks upright. I think that the
only perfection that you're going to find in somebody like this
is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And I want you to notice something.
He never says anything about faith. He doesn't say anything
about repentance. He doesn't say anything about
love. He doesn't mention the graces of the Spirit. He's mentioning
the outward character, the outward person, the outward character,
and how they conduct themselves outward. Don't say nothing about
faith. Don't say nothing about love.
Don't say nothing about grace. It all has to do with an outward
walk, an outward character, and outward conduct. And if there's
any of this in us, it's because Christ worked it in us. It's
because Christ enabled us to do it. And He writes these, works
these things in us by the Holy Ghost. But now, I want you to
know three things about this person. First of all, you've
got the man walking. You've got him walking upright.
Then you've got his work. He works of righteousness. And
then you've got his word. He says he speaks the truth in
his own heart. And look what it says, he walks
upright. And what I think this means, that he walks erect. He's not bowing to anybody on
this earth. He's not scraping and bowing
and flattering and not being flattered and losing. I mean,
he's like a man walking a tightrope. He's upright. I mean, you can
look at him and say, that fellow right there, he's got some principle
to him. He's got some character to him,
and he's not afraid of man. He's not going to bow to men.
He's not going to scrape to men. He's going to walk as upright. He's got principles. He's got
grace within him. And he's not going to be bent
over and doubled over when folks come around that he thinks that
he ought to try to flatter and get in good with. And I'll tell
you, Mr. Spurgeon says walking. is more
important than talking, because you can say lots of things, but
that doesn't mean anything. And I'll tell you something,
not long, look what it says. He's upright in his walk, and
then he's honest. Look what it says here in verse
2 again. He worketh righteousness. He
worketh righteousness. Now, this is a His face shows itself by good
works, and I tell you, let me tell you something, there's no
such thing as dead works in the tabernacle of God. There's not
a believer, there's not a child of God who has dead works, or
dead faith, I should say. Wherever there's living faith,
there'll be works. And I tell you, let me tell you
the reason why. When you understand that everything that's done for
you, somebody did everything that was done for you that God
required to do, Best people are the people that do the most to
honor and glorify God. We don't do what we do out of
a legal spirit. What I mean is when we understand
that everything, God Christ did everything for us. So how in
the world do we do? Then our faith begins to work
by love. And righteousness is something that's just real to
us, true to us. We love righteousness. We delight
in righteousness. We want righteousness. We talk
of righteousness. And we love righteousness. Keep
this and look over in 1 John with me, chapter 2. You know, when we do what we
do, we do based upon gospel, upon the gospel principles. We don't do what we do because
we're afraid of going to hell. We don't do what we do because
we're afraid God's going to beat us. We don't do what we do because
we're afraid the preacher's going to get upset with us. We don't
do what we do because we're afraid we're not going to get enough
reward when we get to eternity. We don't do what we do because
we're afraid our conscience will bother us if we don't. We do
what we do because of Christ in us. We're generous because
Christ is in us. You have gracious toward people
because Christ is in you. You do a labor in the church
because Christ is in you. You love the saints of God because
Christ is in you. What you do, you take kind words
and help people because Christ is in you. Christ is in you. And look what he said here in
1 John chapter 2 and verse 29. If you know that he is righteous,
talking about Christ, You know that everyone that doeth righteousness
is born of Him. Now, when we talk about doing
righteousness, that means we're just doing what's right in any
situation by God's blessed grace. That's what it means. And that's
why, you know, trees are known by its fruit. And if it's got
sorry fruit, it's going to have... But if it's got good fruit, and
fruits down in the root. And that's why our Lord said,
without Me, you can do nothing. And then look what else it says
about Him in verse 2. He walks upright in His speech,
and look at His word. He speaks the truth in His heart.
I love this. He speaks the truth in His heart. Look what the fool does in his
heart over there in verse 14, chapter, in Psalm 14. The fool
has said in his heart, there is no God. But what does the
Child of God, do you hear what does this person here do? He
speaks the truth in his heart. Huh? Whoa, my, listen, not only
do we desire the truth, we desire the truth, we speak the truth,
and not only that, but we want the truth within us. I want the
truth in me. David said, I'll hid thy word
in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. Lord, make
thy truth known unto me. And I'll tell you something,
beloved, we wouldn't lie. God helpin' us even when we're
alone with nobody but us. There's no such thing as a white
lie. We want truth in the heart, and we speak the truth in our
heart. One thing I was telling Bruce talking here the other
night about it, one way you can know you're a child of God and
God has changed you dramatically is that you become an honest
person. You become honest before God.
Before, you wasn't honest before God. You have deceived with yourself. You have deceived in your relationship
with God, deceived in your own righteousness. Deceived in your
church membership. Deceived in your saying everything
about you. You was deceived in it. You was
wrong about it. And when God saves you by His
grace and brings you to the end of yourself, you get honest with
yourself. You admit that you ain't nothing. Have nothing. Know nothing. Can
do nothing. That everything that you ever
thought, said, and done before until Christ saved you by His
grace was dumb and garbage. And then not only do you come
on, you come on us before God. Lord, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry
that I ever had such thoughts of you. I'm so sorry that I ever
had such high thoughts of myself. I'm so sorry, oh God forgive
me, that I would ever, ever think that I had anything that I could
commend myself to you. That I could ever thought that
I could do anything to make you bless me. And now you've become honest
and you've become a sinner from the top of your head to the sole
of your foot. from the inside of your skin, from the inside
of your belly, to the outside of your skin. And you become honest, and that's
why he says he speaks the truth in his heart. Now boy, whatever
nobody else says about you, you know the truth about yourself,
and you know the truth about God, and you know the truth about
the Scriptures, and you know the truth about everybody on
this earth. You know you know the truth about every human being
on this earth. You can't turn your hand to the difference for
any human being on the face of the earth. If it wasn't for the
grace of God, you know every man knows it. You know, heart
answers to heart, and that's why you know man answers to man. I just remember one time there
was an old fellow, way, way, I think he was 96, one time I
was talking to him. And I asked him, I said, and
he'd been a, he'd had this preacher for years and years and years.
And I asked him, and I said, old Frank Sapp, and I asked him,
I was sitting out in front of his house one day about blind,
I said, Frank, I said, does it get any easier as you get older?
He said, oh, no, no. I said, you still got the same
old mind to deal with, still got the same old nature, still
got the same old thoughts. He said, no, age don't have nothing
to do with it. So it's that age will affect you some ways, but
it won't affect you in a lot of ways either. You still have
that pride, you still have that self. He said, oh, no. I said,
it don't. And I tell you, beloved, that's why I say he speaks the
truth within. And I tell you, may God make our heart a place
where the truth dwells in all the time. And then that's the
positive things about him. Look at the negative things about
him. It said here in verse 3, He that backbites not with his
tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach
against his neighbor. Now backbiting, why do you know
why they call it backbiting? Because you don't do it to the
face. You don't do it to their face. And backbiting is an evil
thing. It's a difference in saying the
truth and a difference in doing something evil. And a backbiter
is somebody that says something evil, does something evil, and
they do it to a person's back. That's why they call them coming
up and backbiting. Backbiting. They don't do it
to your face. They do it behind your back.
They come up behind you. And, oh, beloved, and I think
I'll tell you something. The tongue is the, oh, but the
ultimate, Their tongues bite faster and deeper than their
teeth ever did, and their tongue may not be still, but boy, it'll
cut just like a knife. And I tell you, that's what he's
talking about. And when you use the tongue, the wounds are very,
very hard to heal. And it's bad enough to cut somebody
with your tongue to their face, but to give in the back, to backbite
them and say things about them, And the reason there's backbiting
is because most of the time it's not true. And you want to see
how far you can go. And let me tell you something,
he that'll listen to a backbiter is as bad as the person who does
the backbiting. Especially if he takes it and
carries it on. And that's what he said there.
Next thing he says, nor doeth evil. He said, don't even backbite
with his tongue. Don't go after him in the back.
If you've got something to say to your neighbor or something,
talk to him in front. Talk to them right up front.
Tell them. Don't do that. Anything that you can't take
somebody's face, don't say behind their back. Would you all agree with that?
And here's something else. If you don't speak, don't even
do evil to your neighbor. You know, that's what Paul said
over in Romans. He says, you know, love worketh
no ill to his neighbor. And I tell you, neither do I
think, don't go out and do something evil to his neighbor. He's the
person that's around him and knows that he loves him. He's
not going to do any evil to him. He's not going to go and get
into meanness about him doing some wicked thing to him. And
listen to this, take nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor.
What does that mean is, is that somebody comes and tells you
something bad about your neighbor, tells you something bad about
somebody, and you take that. You receive that. And you carried
on somebody else. And I'll tell you what, this
kind of... Christ didn't do that. Christ didn't do that. They did
Him that way. They said He had the devil. He's
a drunkard and a wine-viver. He said, I'm with some publicans
and sinners. Said, that man's a gluttonous man and a drunkard.
He's a wine-viver. Anything that they could to accuse
Him of. And they take it from one to
another, and look what else it says about him. It said, In whose eyes a vile
person is content, that he honored them that fear the Lord. Two
different people here. A vile person. And this is talking
about, in this particular place, when he's talking about the tabernacle
and who dwell in that holy hill, the people who serve, the Lord
in the tabernacle, in the hill, in His holy hill. He's talking
about people in the service, people in the offices. And he said, who in whose eyes
a vile person is contempt. It's like when Paul was before
Agrippa, and he started talking about what he was and what he'd
done, how God had done for him, and then the high priest walked
up and slapped him. And Paul said, God will get you,
you white wall. He said, this is the high priest.
I would not have said that to the high priest, because he respected
all, but he is a vile person, contemned in Paul's eyes. And
you see, it's the people that's in the offices. And he said,
in whose eyes a vile person is contemned. You've got to respect
the office, but if the person is vile, you contemn them. You don't have no respect for
them. You have no regard for them. And look what else it says
here, but he that honors the Lord. Honor them. Give honor to whom
honor do. Honor them that fear the Lord.
Oh, my. When you come across somebody
that fears the Lord, oh, that's a wonderful place. Honor them.
Bless them. Uphold them. Bring them before
the Lord. Give honor to them. Give respect
to them. I mean, that's anybody that honors
and fears the Lord. Honor them. And I'll tell you
what, from the least in this place to... It don't make any
difference. If you honor the Lord... I mean,
if you fear the Lord, we're to honor one another. Just for that
very reason, because we fear the Lord. And look what else
this person does. He swears to his own courage.
And he won't change. If he gets himself in a situation,
And he can't get out to it, you know, and he gets in a situation,
and he takes, you know, and it's going to come out bad to his
part, he won't back up and say, well, listen, I made a mistake
here, I'd like to get out of this, I'd like to... Nope, nope,
he swears to his own hurt. If he doubted himself in the
situation, and he's the one that doubted him there, he'll swear
to it, he'll say, nope, nope, I just burnt the blister on my
asset on it. And I got myself in this situation,
I'm going to have to go to it. And I stay with it. He swears
to his own hurt. And I tell you, and if they turn
out unprofitable, you just got the way it's got to do. The saints,
God's people are people of honor. People of honor. If you can't
take a man at his word, why can't you take a man? Huh? And I tell
you what, in our Lord Jesus Christ, He swore to His own hurt. Look
with me over in Proverbs 11. Our Lord Jesus swore to His hurt.
Look what He did for us, Proverbs 11, 15. Oh, He put His, He swore to His
own hurt. He that is surety for a stranger
shall smart for it. He that put himself out for a
stranger shall smart Our Lord, Proverbs 11, 15. And I'll tell
you something. Our Lord Jesus Christ, He swore
to His own hurt. He became our surety. Swore to
His own hurt. Swore to be a forsaken of God. Swore to bearing the wrath of
God. Put Himself in that situation,
not for good men, but for wicked men, sinners, ungodly people. And He that is surety for a stranger
shall smart for it. And he that hateth sure as this
ship is sure. Do you remember, over in Judges,
when Jephthah was in a battle, and he said, Lord, if you'll
let me win this battle, if you'll let this thing go my way, he
said, the first person that I see, the first thing I see, I'll offer
him to you. I'll give him to you. And you
know what the first thing he saw? He saw his daughter. And he moaned and groaned, and
he said, Oh, daughter, daughter. Told her what he had said to
the Lord. He said, You know, I have swore,
I have looked to the Lord, and I cannot go back. I cannot go
back. And he said, Father, that's all
right. I mean, He swore to His own hurt, and it cost Him His
virgin daughter. But He said, I can't go back.
Our Lord Jesus Christ said, Father, if there's any other way, let
this cup pass from me. But nevertheless, not mine will
but Thine be done. Ain't you grateful He did that?
Oh, I'm so grateful He did. And then look what else it says.
He put not out his money to usury. That means he don't put his money
out and loan it to people for a big interest rate. Usury is
interest. And I tell you that's a, well
I tell you, you know, usury is a hateful thing. It's a bad thing.
And I tell you that a man that's got money and loans it out and
charges exorbitant rates, exorbitant rates for it, That's a man that
the scripture says his riches will tanker. His silver and gold
will rust. And I tell you, if you go get
a loan from somebody, then if you have to get a loan, and if
a man charges you way too much, it's a grind on a person. It's
a grind on a person. But I tell you, the man, you
know who will rescind him to the hill of the Lord? It's the
man that won't take you through for his money. If you need it. I don't know that, I don't know if any child would
go out there and put out his money and say, now this is you, they're
going to charge you this and this much interest on it. Man, that'd be an awful thing
to do to somebody. The Lord's blessed you to have
something. But anyway, look what he goes on to say. No taketh
reward against the innocent. He won't take a bribe. He won't
take a bribe. And boy, you talk about a bribery.
To take a bribe is awful. To give it is awful to those
who receive it. And I tell you what, I wonder
how many people are in jail, how many people have suffered
because of some judge taking a bribe. Or somebody getting
out of jail because somebody took a bribe. And look what it
says here, and he that doeth these things shall never be moved. What does that mean? That means
that his foundation is sure. It's on Christ. Why can't it
be sure? Nothing's going to move him.
You know, there's storms that comes, Tears down the house,
the storms ain't going to tear this house down. Ain't going
to destroy this man. He's going to stay steadfast. He's in Zion. He's with the Lord.
And he's going to forever be with the Lord when it's all said
and done. Because when you look at this, there's only one way
we can meet these qualifications. To have this kind of a character.
And that's because of it being in Christ. And none of us, none
of us, I don't think anybody would look at that and say, what?
That's me. That's me. Oh, that's me. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's me. I'm that kind of person. That's
just, that's just me. You know, I've been that way
all through years and years. No, if we can't, if we can't
see, then it's, then if it wasn't for Christ. You know, He said,
He that hath pure hands open, son. If a man says he has no
sin, he's a liar in truth, ain't he? So you know it's blessed
God for the Lord Jesus Christ. And because of Him, yes, we can
dwell in the tabernacle of the Lord, and yes, we shall abide
in the hill of Zion in our Lord Jesus.