That song has been on my mind
this week. That particular verse, I don't
know, you know the Lord brings certain things to your mind.
Many hands were raised to wound him. None did interpose to save. But the awful stroke that felled
him was a stroke that justice gave. That's one of the things I think
that is missing today in the supposed preaching of the gospel is a firm and steadfast declaration that it
is the justice of God that brought about the death of our Savior. Now surely that which caused
him to go to that place and be made an offering for sin was
his great love wherewith he has loved us. But if a man does not
believe in the justice of God, then he has never looked at Calvary's
cross because it's there that God's justice is manifested for
the world to see. And if men think that God will
not judge sin, then they are blind to that which Christ undertook. Because he is the evidence that
God will judge sin. He has judged sin in Christ. And he has set his people free
because of that. Because God cannot twice demand
the payment of my debt first at my surety's hand and then
again at mine. That's our hope. That's the firm
foundation upon which we stand is that if Christ paid the price
for our sin, then our sin is forever taken away. Now that's
a glorious thing. Now a lot of people A lot of
well, I think many well-meaning men stand and tell people that
the Lord took away their sin, but it won't do you any good
unless you believe it. That puzzled me as a young man,
how that could be. I tell the Lord, Job, that it
couldn't be. because if Christ has paid the price for a man's
sin, then that man's sin is forever taken away. And our salvation
does not depend on what we do, but it depends on what Christ
did. Now by the grace of God, he is pleased to send forth his
spirit into the world and to give the gift of faith to those
for whose sins he paid and causes them to believe. I don't know
how that happens. As the songwriter said, I know
not how this saving faith to me he did impart or how believing
in his word wrought peace within my heart. I don't know how that
is. I don't know when that begins and I don't know who it is that
it begins in. But I know this, that the work
of the Spirit of God is that which takes the Word of the Living
God and applies it to the hearts of His people. And He causes
men to believe His Word. I don't know how it happens.
I can't explain it. But it is that which encourages
us to declare the unsearchable riches of Christ. I had a fella
that I get his emails every day. He's very prolific in his writing,
and I don't always agree with everything that he says, and
he surely doesn't agree with everything I say, but he was
lamenting the fact the other day that it seemed like very
few people paid attention to the things that he said. And I wrote back to him and said
that that was a pretty common thing. A man that does not lament
the fact that no one is listening to what he has to say. I mean,
if a man's convinced that everybody's just hanging on his every word,
then he probably is not saying very much. But it is a pretty
common thing. that those who would declare
the truth of God are pretty well a lonely lot. You know, they're
not, and well, it should be. It's not, you know, everybody
wants pats on the back, but that's of the flesh, not a thing that
is useful. And the Lord would cause those
that would declare his word to dwell in a certain amount of
obscurity, lest they be lifted up with pride. Paul said that
the Lord had sent him a messenger of Satan. that if we give him
a thorn in the flesh that he might not be lifted up with pride.
And well it is, it's a good thing. Because the glory of God is sufficient
for the people of God. We don't need pats on the back
or we don't need anything that men can give us. But to know that Christ is magnified is a
reward that cannot be I had a fellow come in the store
the other day, and it was an amazing thing, really. And just
out of the blue, he said, I've been listening to your CDs. And I'm thinking, how in the
world did he get any CDs of mine? And come to find out that there was
a fellow that had written to us from the radio broadcast, and had asked for some CDs, and
I had sent them to him and never heard another word from him,
as is usually the case. But in any event, this fellow
had started taking this guy to a diet. He had a weekly dialysis
or daily or something. I don't know how often he went,
but anyway, he was taking him to his dialysis treatments. And
the guy said, well here, here's some CDs that y'all can listen
to. And I, you know, it's humbling,
it's amazing when you pause and consider that the Lord knows
them that are His. And His word is not gonna return
to Him void. And even when it would appear
to us that these things are falling upon deaf ears, yet the Lord
has men who are listening. And so it's a glorious thing
that the Lord does call His people out and He does give them a love
for the Word of God. Let's look at Psalm 141. Psalm
141. This is a Psalm of David. Lord,
I cry unto Thee. Make haste unto me. Give ear
unto my voice when I cry unto Thee. Let my prayer be set forth
before Thee as incense and the lifting up of my hands as the
evening sacrifice. Set a watch, O Lord, before my
mouth. Keep the door of my lips. Incline
not my heart to any evil thing, to practice wicked works with
men that work iniquity, and let me not eat of their dainties.
Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness, and let
him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not
break my head. For yet my prayer also shall
be in their calamities, When their judges are overthrown in
stony places, they shall hear my words, for they are sweet. Our bones are scattered at the
grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth. But mine eyes are unto thee,
O God, the Lord. In thee is my trust, leave not
my soul destitute. Keep me from the snares which
they have laid for me. and the djinns are traps of the
workers of iniquity. Let the wicked fall into their
own nets, whilst that I withal escape." Now, of course, David
is setting forth a prayer that would be common unto the children
of God, those who've been made aware of their own weaknesses
and their own inabilities and their own penchant or likelihood
or bent towards going away from the Lord. And he said here, Lord,
I cry unto thee, make haste unto me, give ear to my voice when
I cry unto thee. Now, who is it that cries unto
the Lord? I believe there's a lot of people
that cry unto the Lord for to consume the things that they
would have the Lord give them upon their own flesh. See, everybody
believes in prayer to some extent. I mean, the Pharisee, he certainly
believed in prayer, but Scripture says he prayed thus with himself
when he prayed. And surely it is that you don't
have to go very far before people will say, well, I'm praying for
you, and this, that, and the other, and I don't discount the
prayers of anybody. I wouldn't disregard the prayers
of anybody or anybody that says they pray. But I do know this,
that apart from the Spirit of God moving a man to pray, the
words that men say are really sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.
They don't amount to anything. And so people are all the time
praying. People pray to get them a new
car. Lord, let me get me a car, or
let me do this, or let me do that. So the idea of praying
to ask for something that the Lord might give you is no different
in that respect than the man that finds a lamp on the beach
and he picks the lamp up and he rubs on it and the genie comes
out and he grants him three wishes. It's the same kind of a thing.
It's just kind of like having a rabbit's foot or a four-leaf
clover or something like that. I mean, that's how people approach
prayer. Well, you ought to pray because,
I mean, you know, a prayer, I mean, how do you know? You might get
it. So, you know, you can't do any harm by doing it. That's
why they would look at it. That's not what David's talking
about here. He's crying out because he has a desperate need, and
it's a desperate need not born out of some lack that he has
of the things of this world, but it has to do with a lack
of the presence of God in his life. See, only the children
of God who have the presence of God in their life desire to
have the presence of God in their life. Most people are content
just to go along, and they don't want the Lord to bother them.
Just leave me alone, let me do what I want to do. But see, the
children of God, in whom the Spirit of God dwells, they desire
to have His presence daily with them. Not just to have His presence
with them, but they desire to feel His presence with them.
Now, you know, some have said that salvation and following
the Lord is not about feelings. Well, it may not be about feelings,
but it certainly involves feelings, does it not? I mean, how can
a man rejoice in the Lord apart from having the feelings of joy
within his heart? That is the part of rejoicing
that comes forward. So he says, I cry unto thee,
make haste, I need you now. You know, the children of God
have a desperate need. It's not just an offhanded need.
Oh, and by the way, would you help me? No, it's Lord, I'm perishing. It's like Peter, when he was
out of the, started out to walk to the Lord on the water. Didn't
take him long before he realized his situation and he was in a
desperate situation. The Lord saved me or I perish.
He knew that he couldn't walk on water. He knew that he couldn't
go one step further if the Lord didn't deliver him. So that is the attitude in the
mind of the children of God is to cry out to the Lord. Let my
prayer be set forth before thee as incense. Now that prayer is
about worship. And the incense that was offered
in the temple That was the purpose of it. It was a sweet smelling
savor. Now it was a carnal thing. As
they put that in there, just like all of the trappings of
the tabernacle and all of the pieces of furniture and stuff
in the tabernacle, they were all carnal. There wasn't anything
spiritual about that. But the Lord would teach us spiritual
lessons from it. You see, when they made the Ark
of the Covenant and they put those things within, the Ark
of the Covenant was not spiritual in the sense in which I'm talking
about. Now, you know, you've all probably
seen the movie about where they go and they find the Ark and,
you know, when they open it up, it's like the lightning and everything
comes out of it. That's not Listen, the lightning
of God is found in Christ. It's not in some relic. I mean,
what would you have if you found it? You'd have a box, you know? I mean, God doesn't dwell in
temples made with hands. He's surely not in a box somewhere. But in order to teach the children
of Israel and us in a greater measure, of his power and glory
and the singularity of his people, he chose to manifest himself
in that fashion and so that the Ark of the Covenant was to them
a sacred thing. Nobody else had one. The Philistines was glad to get
rid of it. Because what it meant for them
See, they couldn't be blessed. They were judged by it. The Lord
brought a plague upon them because they had it. They said, man,
get that thing out of here. We don't want it. It's kind of
like in the book of Acts when the Lord smote Ananias and Sapphira. Scripture said, man, that brought
fear into people's hearts and no man dares to join himself
to them. They said, man, look, we're not going to get involved
in this because, I mean, we're talking about something that's
real here. We're not talking about something that's play.
And so it is that whenever the prayers of God's people come
up before them, they come up as incense. And in fact, that's
how the Lord taught us to pray. He said, our Father, which art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Now we hallow him, we worship
him. We don't just rush into his presence
and say, well, how you doing today? I mean, a lot of people
do. But I fear that they pray thus
with themselves. Because when the Spirit of God
prompts a man to pray, He prompts him to pray with a recognition
of the glory of the one it is to whom he prays. And so He says
here, let my prayer be set forth with incense. Let it be that
which is true worship. Let it be an odor, a sweet smell
that comes up unto thee. And how can we pray a sweet smell
unto the Lord if we do not come in the name of Christ? See, we don't have any standing. The Lord's not pleased with you.
Some people think they please the Lord. The Lord's not pleased
with you at all. I mean, He'd cast you from His
presence in a moment except for one thing. The Lord Jesus Christ
stands before Him and He ever lives to make intercession for
those that come unto God by Him. And so our standing with the
Lord is not because of us. The Lord doesn't have respect
of persons. He has respect unto His Son.
And those whom He has given to His Son, they are precious in
His sight because they belong to His Son. Oh, what a glorious
thing. He set forth before thee his
incense and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. When I lift up my hands unto
thee, let it be as the evening sacrifice, let it be a true thing. You know, John, not just some
motion that we make. Now, you know, a lot of times
people get in a religious habit of raising their hands. I'm not
against people raising their hands, literally, I mean, just
like that. But if that is the thing that
you do, I mean, do it as unto the Lord, as a thing which is
the expression of your desire to exalt and honor Him, not so
that you'll fit in with everybody else. I mean, you go in some
of these places and you're liable to get your head knocked off
with people every time something goes on. They're raising their
hands about everything that's happening. Well, dear brothers,
I mean, there's no religious activity that the Lord takes
notice of. But he may move. David said,
let me lift up my hands unto the Lord. Now, it's good to lift
up your hands in a physical way, I think, but it's better to lift
up the hands of your heart unto the Lord. O Lord, let my worship
come unto thee. Set a watch, O Lord, before my
mouth. Keep the door of my lips. Now, why do we need to have a
watch set upon our mouth? Because if we don't, see, you
can't watch it. You won't watch it. Now you might
watch it for a while, but you'll come along and there'll be a
time when something will come out that didn't need to come
out. And you'll later say, oh, I wish
I hadn't said that. Or maybe even while you're saying
it, you say, now why am I saying this? Lord said to watch upon
my lips. Don't let me speak ill advisedly,
as the scripture says, with my lips. Because the tongue is a
A member that set on the fires of hell is what James said. You know, that is what we are. See, what we are, it comes out. And Lord, keep our lips, keep
the door of my lips, don't let things come out that are not
glorifying to you. Incline not my heart to any evil
thing, to practice wicked works with men that work iniquity,
and let me not eat of their dainties. You know, when the Lord said,
leave me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil. Now, does the Lord, I mean, when
the scripture said that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, was
Pharaoh sitting around saying, Lord, I love you, and I want
to follow you, and I want to do exactly what you said me to
do? And the Lord said, nope, Pharaoh,
I'm gonna harden your heart. Was that the way it was? No.
Pharaoh's heart was hard before the Lord. He didn't want to do
what the Lord said. He wouldn't do what the Lord
said. He was acting according to his natural bent. And the
Lord hardened him in that place. When the Lord hardens a man's
heart, it's a terrible thing. Because you see, a man's heart
is hard to start with. And when the Lord hardens his
heart and turns him over to a reprobate mind, that's even worse. There's more hope of a fool than
that. Oh, the Lord inclined not my heart to any evil thing. See,
we're already on the incline. We're already inclined toward
evil. The Lord doesn't have to do anything. to cause us to sin. We sin by
nature. It's the way we are. I mean,
we're going to do that. And so when the psalmist says,
incline not my heart to any evil thing, it's the same as what
the Lord taught His disciples to pray. Deliver us from evil.
Lord, we are evil. We're going to perform acts of
evil. We're going to hurt people around
us. We're going to spew forth things
that aren't glorifying to You. Lord, keep us back from it. Deliver
us. Let me not eat of their deities.
Let me not practice wicked works with men that work iniquity. You know, the scripture says
that when you have thought, had an evil thought in your mind,
you have already committed sin in that evil thought. And that
is a true thing. You cannot escape sin. See, the
man that the Lord teaches what he is by nature, he knows that
his thoughts are evil. That he has thoughts of evil.
But we pray the Lord delivers from these thoughts of evil,
but especially delivers from acts of evil. See, it's one thing
to think about murdering somebody. It's quite another thing to go
on and do it, is it not? Now, some people say, well, if
you think it's as bad as doing it. No, that's not, the Bible
doesn't ever say that. It does say that both are sins.
One is no less sin than the other, but one certainly worse than
the other, is it not? To commit an act. And so he prays
not just to be delivered from the thought of it, but to be
delivered from the activity of it as well. Now, you see, it's
not one or the other. You see, it's not, I'm going
to go do it, but I'm not going to think about it. It's bad. See, some people like that. Well,
I wasn't really meaning to do it. I didn't really want to do
it, but I went ahead and did it anyway, and I really had a
nice time doing it. But no, it's the Lord delivering
me from the thought of it and delivering me from the action
of it. Now, you know, sometimes, and we hear this a lot in our
day and time, men say, oh, well, I'm inclined towards that. I have this certain preference,
you know, in my life. Well, the Lord said that this
preference was a wicked thing. Don't act upon it. You know,
all men are inclined to evil of one type or another. Don't
act upon it. By the grace of God, may He keep
us from it. Let the righteous smite me, and
it shall be a kindness. Let him reprove me, it shall
be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head, for yet my
prayer also shall be in their calamities. He said, let the
rebukes of the Lord come upon me. Let my brethren rebuke me.
Now a lot of times we don't like it when people point out our
failures, our faults. We don't want that. No man wants
to be told he's wrong or he's doing something wrong, does he? But you know when the Lord send somebody to convince us
or to point out to us, just like Brother Al pointed out there
a moment ago about the fellow that the Lord sent and told him,
you know, about what the example he was setting for this other
person. Did he get mad about that? I
don't think he did, but no, he said, but he got over it. And later on he said, you know,
thank God, that he sent somebody to tell me that. See, a rebuke
is not always something we receive real quickly, is it? But as the
Lord is pleased to apply it to our heart and cause us to ruminate
upon it, we meditate upon it and we say, you know, that was
right, I was wrong, oh Lord. Let the righteous smite me, it'll
be a kindness. Let him reprove me, it'll be
an excellent oil, which shall not break my head. When their judges, and he's speaking
about the wicked, when their judges are overthrown in stony
places, they shall hear my words, for they are sweet. Now he says,
my prayer also shall be in their calamities, speaking about those
who are overthrown in stony places. And again, as we speak about
these Psalms and we see the words of Christ, And we see the judgments
that the Lord Jesus Christ brought in the earth to those that were
set against the ways of God. And this, I believe, is such
a thing as that, when their judges are overthrown. It says when
the wicked, when their judgments which they have set forth against
the righteous, when they're overthrown, it is a glorious thing. They
are sweet. That is, they shall hear my words,
for they are sweet. In other words, the word of the
Lord will convict and convince men of sin. And even, see, when
we're sent forth into the world with a message, we don't know
who's gonna hear it or who isn't. You know, how often it is that
people just assume, well, oh, so-and-so, he ain't gonna listen
to this. I mean, they're not interested
in the gospel. But the words of the Lord are
sweet in those whose ears He gives ears to hear it. They grasp
them. It's a glorious thing. He says,
our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth as one cuteth and
cleaveth wood. Now I thought a little about
that. In fact, I wrote a Grace Gazette on that very verse a
while back, been a good while back. He said, our bones are
scattered at the grave's mouth. Now you stop and think about
that. Now you know when Lazarus died and he'd only been dead
for just a day, say a day, then Mary could have had, and Martha,
they could have had some consideration that the Lord could do something.
I mean, while he's still warm, you know, if somebody dies and
somebody comes along and says, I'm going to raise him from the
dead, if he's still warm, you could kind of think they might
do that. He might, you know, give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
or he might give him heart massage or something. I mean, he might
bring him back. But what happened with Lazarus? The Lord waited
until he had been dead for four days and he showed up. He said,
Lord, I ain't no need for you to even come. Now, if you'd have
been here before he died, something might have been all right. But
since he'd been in the grave for four days, he's already stinking. The Lord prayed and he said,
I thank you, Father. He said, I'm glad. He told her,
he says, I'm glad I wasn't here. I'm sure that took her back.
Did it not? Because the Lord had a greater
thing in mind. But you see, it was impossible
for her to conceive of a body laying in the ground, now still
clothed with flesh and blood, or flesh, he was still intact
in there. She knew it. He wasn't completely
rotted away. He wasn't dust. But she couldn't
conceive of how he could be raised even then, nor could we. Well,
just think about this scenario. He said, our bones are scattered
at the grave's mouth. We're not just laying in there
in a body that's intact. He said, we've been dead so long
that there's nothing left but our bones and some wild animal
or something has come in and dug in there and scattered the
bones outside the grave. I like old Ezekiel in the Valley
of Dry Bones. Said, Ezekiel, can these bones
live? What did Ezekiel say? Lord, thou knowest. Now what he really was saying
was, Lord, ain't no way but you. You know, you know if they can
or not. He wasn't discounting the fact
that perhaps the Lord could do something, but he's looking out
there at this valley of dry bones. He's a man of, this is just the
best. Because in the first place, you
got all these bones mixed up. Whose bones are what? You know,
a lot of times people, they'd scoff at the consideration of
the resurrection. And they say, well, how could
that be? I mean, you know, what if a fellow dies and some wild
animal comes and eats his body up and then he's scattered all
over? How can all that be brought back together? I don't know.
I'm thankful the Lord didn't ask me to figure it out or anything
else, but I do believe that the Lord knows wherever molecule
that he intends to put back together as he sees fit to do it, however
it will be, he can do it. Doesn't make any difference what
happens. But we are, as bones, our bones are scattered at the
grave's mouth as one cutteth and cleaveth wood. It's just,
there's no hope for us. But, he said, mine eyes are unto
thee, O God, the Lord, and thee is my trust, leave not my soul
destitute. Is that not the same thing that
Jonah in the belly of the great fish said? I mean, Did he not
feel himself to be as one whose bones were scattered at the grave's
mouth? I mean, was he thinking, well, you know, this is probably
going to turn out good. I mean, you think that thought
ever came into his mind? So I said, yeah, I'll be in this
fish's belly for three or four days, and, you know, I'm coming
out. No, he figured that was it. His
bones were scattered at the grave's mouth. There was no hope. What
did he say? He said salvation is of the Lord. And the scripture says that immediately
the fish was at dry land and they vomited him out. See, because
the Lord is able to cause His people to cry out unto Thee,
but mine eyes are unto Thee. What else can we do? I mean,
we find ourselves in a lost and undone condition. What can we
do? O God, the Lord, in thee is my trust, leave not my soul
destitute. Keep me from the snares which
they have laid for me, and the jins, the traps of the workers
of iniquity. Let the wicked fall into their
own nets while I escape." Oh, this world is full of snares
and traps, and surely we'll fall into them. You know, animals
after they have been, especially if they've seen traps and stuff
like that, they look at them and it's hard to catch an old
fox or something like that because he's foxy. He's not easily fooled. But A lot of times, though, he
gets so interested in what it is that's caught his attention,
and he gets caught in that trap. And so it is with the children
of God. Now see, we often know the traps,
do we not? We know where they are, because
we've been caught in them before. And we say to ourselves, well,
I won't do that again. But we find ourselves walking
down that same old pathway where that trap was set to start with
that caught us. And we're caught again. Let the
wicked fall into those traps, but Lord, deliver us. Help us.
Because, you know, we'll fall into them. Our only hope to avoid
the traps is gonna be the Lord. If the Lord doesn't keep us,
we won't be kept. You can't get faithful enough.
You can't get wise enough. You can't get smart enough. You
can't get spiritual enough that you are not susceptible to the
traps which are laid in the earth for men to fall into. And we're
inclined to them to start with. We like the looks of the trap,
do we not? You know, I believe if I got up here and I brought
this thing from this side, that I could probably get that piece
of cheese. Now, you know, rats are smart
creatures. And we have them every now and
then down at the store. And you can bait a trap, but
we've baited a trap before. And night after night, come back,
and the stuff's gone off of that trap. And you wonder, well, how
did he do that? But if you'll go long enough,
he'll get a little more bold. And he'll say, well, you know
I got that stuff the other night. It got him. So is the way of
sin. Now, we think that we could get,
we are smarter than that. See, we are smart enough, we
can figure out how to, you know, have our cake and eat it too.
That's the way of the natural man. Lord incline not our heart
that way. See, deliver us from it before we ever even begin
to consider looking at the trap. Because see, once you start considering
the trap, Once you get up there and you start analyzing the trap,
and you start thinking of ways you can circumvent the trap,
it's just about too late. Lord, deliver us from it. Help
us. Because our heart is inclined
towards those things. Let the wicked fall into their
own traps, but Lord, deliver us from it.