What a blessing it is when brethren
dwell together in unity and the Spirit of God is pleased to move
upon the hearts of His people to give us a desire to bear one another's
burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. And what a privilege
we have to be put in such a position as that. We're looking at this morning
in Psalm 140. Psalm 140. And I was reflecting upon that
song that we sang, Dark and Thorny is the Desert. And of course, the part of that
song that's always a blessing to me is the latter verses when it speaks about a song that
the angels cannot sing. You know, the heavenly creatures,
the angels, we don't know a whole lot about them except those few
things that scripture indicates to us. And certainly the Lord
has not seen fit to give us any great understanding, yet to know
that there are those creatures that He has made simply for the
purpose of magnifying His name throughout eternity. And those
covering angels, those angels who surround His throne, Cease
not day and night to cry out, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come. And yet with all of the blessing
that the Lord has brought upon the angels, he has crowned men
with an even greater blessing than they could ever know. And
that is that we might sing the song of redemption. uh... forties uh... that the lord has
appointed us to be the heirs of salvation and uh... and that is a glorious fine uh... privilege that i fear is often
taken for too likely even those that no uh... the grace of god
and the mercy of god but what a privilege it is what brought
us here and uh... what is it that makes us to differ
from another what we have that we have not received uh... you know there's no place of
boasting among the sons of god uh... no place of finger pointing
or you know looking upon ourselves as something that uh... uh... would uh... make us to be uh... cut above the rank and file of
the world we're just beggars who've been given bread at the
table of the Lord. What a glorious thing it is when
we're not looking for it, but we're actually despising that
mercy and kindness that the Lord shows to men. And yet, as Brother
Al pointed out, the chosen of the Lord, that one whom the Lord
loved from the beginning, he waxed fat and he kicked against
the pricks, even as Paul, whom the Lord said, Paul, it's hard
for you. And yet, he was an object of God's mercy. And when the
Lord sets his love upon a man, that man cannot escape. And what
a glorious thing that is. You know, we can't appreciate
that until later times when we can reflect upon that. And we
look at the many ways in our lives that could have led us
to a path of total destruction, and yet the Lord kept us back. He preserved us according to
his mercy and to his kindness. And so this Psalm begins, with
someone who has an understanding of the fact that left to ourselves,
we would be destroyed. You know, children are, the Lord
gives us children so we might know and understand how we are
by nature. You know, we like to think our
children are, you know, each one, well, they're just a little
bit special, you know, they're a little different. But I've
observed in my own children and the children of all others that
I've ever seen, children are all alike. by nature. I mean, they all think the same
and seek out the things, and we find out that that's really
the way that we are. Now, children, whenever they're
unable to do anything for their self, they're constantly seeking
help from their parents, but they get to a place where they
think, well, you know, I can handle this on my own. I don't
really need your your help, I don't need your advice. I've got this
all figured out, you just don't know. And yet in time, the Lord
in his mercy, he teaches us even by that how we are by nature. And he brings us by his grace
to full circle. Really, I mean the guy, a man
who has been an object of God's mercy and taught what he is by
nature is brought right back to that same place of dependence
as an infant who realizes, Lord, except you help me, I'm gonna
perish. I mean, and constantly understanding
that there's nothing within us that keeps us from falling. We
were talking about this this morning when we first got here.
how that it is a blessing to come together with God's people
and be reminded that everyone hasn't forsaken the Lord. You
know, because we find ourselves, if we be honest with ourselves,
we go through our lives and we often find ourselves thinking
that we will forsake the Lord. I mean, we see ourselves in unbelief
from time to time and situations where we are in doubt about our
own self. But it is a comfort. to know
that all of God's people go through those same things, doubts and
fears and failings, It's not us. We don't bring about
victory. Now you hear a bunch of preachers
today talking about how people get the victory and they can
go on and do all these great mighty things. But those who
are taught by the grace of God know that they have no strength
of their own and tomorrow we will fail. Tomorrow we will forsake
the Lord. We'll turn away and walk no more
with him if he doesn't preserve us. You know, I don't have any
power to keep myself in the faith and neither do you, but the grace
of God alone is that which keeps His people. Now that's a comforting
thought when we understand that He will not forsake those whom
He loves. He will keep those whom He loves
and will present them faultless before His Father. That does
not, at the same time, you know, you hear the opponents of grace,
and of course very few people are, they would ever confess
to being opponents of grace. Because you'd have to be, you'd
have to never read the scripture to not understand something of
the grace of God. But what men do is that they
despise sovereign grace. That is, that it is grace and
grace alone dispensed by the hand of Almighty God upon men
that causes men to follow Him. And that is the very place wherein
we glory, that it is sovereign grace. And if it is sovereign,
and He is determined to save those whom He loves, and He is
not a God who will play games with people, He doesn't set out
to cause people to love him and then turn aside from them. It
doesn't happen that way. When the Lord sets his love upon
a man and he causes man to love him in spirit and truth, he will
preserve that man unto the end. And we are comforted in the knowledge
that our salvation depends on Christ. It doesn't have anything
to do with us. Because if it did, brethren,
we'd be in a mess. I mean, if it was up to us to
be strong enough to stand against the wiles of the devil, we would
perish tomorrow. But it is Christ who preserves
us. Even Peter, in the midst of his
denial, was no less approved of God than he was when he said,
when he confessed that the Lord was the one that had the words
of eternal life. And he said, Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. When he was denying the Lord,
he was no less approved of God in that moment. The Lord told
him ahead of time, he said, Satan has desired to have you and sift
you as wheat. But he said, I have prayed for
thee that thy faith fail not. And it did not. Because in the
Lord's time when he taught Peter the lessons that he'd have him
to know, he brought him to that place where he was willing to
stand in the midst of all of those who were opposers. And
so the Lord will preserve his own until the end. And that's
a glorious thought. Now having said that, We know
that, and those that, I started off and got off my track there,
but those that despise sovereign grace, they say to us, well,
if all you do is preach grace, then you'll get people where
they don't, they'll just go off and, you know, do all kinds of
stuff, cause they just, well, you know, if it's all up to the
Lord, well, we can't do anything. The truth of the matter is when
the grace of God works in a man's heart, the thing he fears the
most is that he'll go off and do something like that. That's
the thing that causes him troubles day in and day out. He fears
his own evil heart. And that's the working of the
Spirit of God in us. And so it's that which causes
the psalmist to cry out, deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man. Now, who is the evilest man that
you know? He's not somebody over there.
He's not even up in the White House. You know, a lot of people
would say so. I mean, if you listen to them,
they'd think he was the most evil man to ever live. But the
most evil man you'll ever meet looks at you every morning in
the mirror. Because that's the man who will, if he could, he
would destroy you. in a moment. And so we do cry
out, O Lord, deliver us from the evil man. Now, so let's read
this. Deliver me, O Lord, from the
evil man. Preserve me from the violent
man, which imagine mischiefs in their heart continually. Are
they gathered together for war? They have sharpened their tongues
like a serpent. Adder's poison is under their
lips. Selah. Keep me, O Lord, from the hands
of the wicked. Preserve me from the violent
man, who have purposed to overthrow my goings. The proud have hid
a snare for me in cords. They have spread a net by the
wayside. They have set gins for me, say,
Law. I said unto the Lord, Thou art
my God. Hear the voice of my supplications,
O Lord. O God, the Lord, the strength
of my salvation, Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle. Grant not, O Lord, the desires
of the wicked. Further not his wicked device,
lest they exalt themselves, sela. As for the head of those that
compass me about, let the mischief of their own lips cover them.
Let burning coals fall upon them. Let them be cast into the fire,
into deep pits, that they rise not up again. Let not an evil
speaker be established in the earth. Evil shall hunt the violent
man to overthrow him. I know that the Lord will maintain
the cause of the afflicted and the right of the poor. Surely
the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name. The upright shall
dwell in thy presence. Now there are several things
that we look at as we look into this psalm. First of all, I believe
as we have spoken in times past about these psalms for the most
part are the prayers of Christ. And surely it is, as we can see
in the life of Christ, that he would necessarily pray that he
might be delivered from the evil man. Now we speak about, as I
said a moment ago, the evil man being ourselves. Well, Christ
was a man who did not have an evil man that dwelt within him. He was a man who was without
sin. He had not the nature of sin within him as we do. But
yet he was beset on every side by the evil men from without.
And surely even as David speaks, having written this psalm, the
Lord gave it to him, David was a man in his life who was beset
about by many evil men from without. Now again, David's biggest problem
was not those evil men that was from without. David's biggest
problem was his own wicked heart. And he would confess that. He
knew that as you read Psalm 51. He understood what he was by
nature. And he understood that except
the Lord keep him, he'd be destroyed. Remove not thy Holy Spirit from
me. Because if the Lord does, then we have no recourse. If the Lord should remove Himself
from us, where shall we go then? I mean, there is no place for
the children of God apart from that. And so as we look at This,
the dichotomy, if you want to say, there's two things going
on here. And we think of this from the
perspective of David. He was beset about by all these
evil men, but yet the very things that he desires to be set free
from, from those evil men, from without, he would actually confess
that all of those things were in him because he had those same
traits that he speaks of here concerning those that would come
against him but the Lord Jesus Christ he was a man without any
fault and the men of this world as typical of the old nature
that men have that flesh which is rooted within us they are
set against that which is righteous and so when the Lord Jesus walked
upon the earth doing good You'd have thought that everybody would
have said, what a great thing this is. And you would think
that even today, men would look at that and say, what a great
man he is. And they do in an external fashion,
but then they despise what he actually said. You know, the
Lord said, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Him
that cometh to me, all I know why is cast out. Now men like
part of that verse, but they don't like the other part. You often hear men say, I only
know he won't cast any out. But they leave off the first
part. And if you don't have the first part, you can't have the
last part. Said, all that the Father giveth me. When he prayed
in the garden, he prayed not for the world, he said, but for
those whom thou hast given me out of the world. He said, thine
they were, and thou hast given them to me. And so the Lord,
his message, while on the one hand, you would think it would
be roundly received, is roundly rejected. Now, you know, doing
good to your neighbor and all that kind of stuff, men like
that because they want people to treat them right, don't they?
They don't do much necessarily want to treat other people right,
but they like for other people to treat them right. And you
won't find anybody that goes through life thinking that they
are treated better than they deserve by other people. Do you? You don't think that. I mean,
you're always thinking somebody's doing something to you that they
shouldn't be doing. I mean, that's just nature. We're
all like that. We all seek our own. But the
Lord Jesus Christ, being a perfect man, he didn't seek his own.
He sought the glory of his father, and he sought the help of other
men. He sought to do good to those
who were in his hearing and place that he could bring them comfort.
And so he says, deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man. Preserve me
from the violent man, which imagined mischiefs in their heart. continually
are they gathered together for war. And men were gathered together
for war against him. They hated him. Even as from
the very beginning, men have set out to be at war against
God. Now, as you look on the plains
of Shinar, when the inhabitants there decided they would get
together and they would build an edifice, they said that we're
gonna build this tower that just reaches up into heaven. We're
gonna, by our own effort, Find God. We're gonna worship God
on our own terms. But we know what happened there.
The Lord confounded them. They were set for war. See, what
men think is a good thing, men look at religion and they say,
well, that's a good thing. Everybody needs to have their
religion, you know, and we'll all come together and we'll serve
God. That's men's idea, is it not?
They're going to bring something to God. That's man's quest, is
it not? To bring something to God. All
men want to bring something there. But what the Lord teaches us
is that we don't have anything He wants. You know, men say,
well, give the Lord your heart. What's He going to do with your
heart? I mean, you know, you can't bring the Lord your heart.
He doesn't want your heart. But the God with whom we have
to do is a God of mercy and kindness that comes to men who have wicked
hearts and changes their heart and causes them to be acceptable
in His sight. Not because of who they are,
but because of who He is. Now that's a glorious thing,
dear brethren. He ends this, says, Surely the righteous shall
give thanks unto thy name, the upright shall dwell in thy presence.
Now who is it that shall dwell in the presence of the Lord?
He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted
up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. Now who do
you know that would fall into that category? It surely cannot
be speaking about mortal men, men in their nature, can it?
No, it's speaking about one, the one man who can dwell in
the presence of Almighty God because he has clean hands and
a pure heart and has not lifted up his soul into vanity. And
it is in his presence that we must stand if we're going to
stand in the presence of Almighty God forever. because he alone
is that one. Surely the righteous shall give
thanks unto thy name. And he has indeed given thanks.
He said, I thank thee, O Father, that thou hast hid these things
from the wise and the prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
The Lord is pleased to teach his children his truth. And what
a privilege it is if the Lord teaches us his truth. There's
not a greater privilege that can be given to men than that,
to know the truth of God. For he is the way, the truth,
and the life. They imagine mischief in their
heart. Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked. Preserve
me from the violent man. Now having said that concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fact that he was surrounded by
wicked men externally, we can look at this psalm and our prayer
to the Lord, knowing that while it may be true that we are compassed
about by wicked men around us, even as David was, yet the greatest
struggles that we have is defined here in this scripture, and it
has not had to do with those who are on the outside, but has
to do with him that's on the inside. And so it is that the
violent man, they've sharpened their tongues like a serpent.
James said the man that bridleth his tongue has a strong army. I mean, that's a great power
to be able to bridle the tongue. The tongue is a member that's
set upon the fires of hell. Which of us have not spoken words
that have slain other people, hurt other people, and been that
which was as a knife in their heart? And oh, that the Lord
might give us grace. Which imagine mischiefs in their
heart? You don't probably ever do that, do you? I mean, you
ever? I mean, much of our time spent
in trying to figure out things that, you know, how can we get
by with this, or how can we do this, or what can we do to get
an advantage over this person in this, that, or the other?
That's just the way our nature is. The Lord delivers from it.
They've sharpened their tongues like a serpent, adders poisons
under their lips. You realize that you're just
like a rattlesnake, according to what the scriptures say. You've
got that poison, the poison is under your lips, it's in there.
They're just waiting to get out. We need to understand that. Now,
a lot of people think, well, you know, people are basically
good. No, people are not basically good. And if you think that,
you don't know, you're not been acquainted with yourself. Or
you're not acquainted with what good is, because good is not
being good compared to somebody else, but it is compared to Christ. Now, when you look at Christ,
What man among us could say we're good if we know that Christ is
good? We look at him, I mean, how can we say we're good? We
couldn't say that. Impossible. He alone is good. The proud have hid a snare for
me in cords. They have spread a net by the
wayside. They have set gems for me. There is a trap set for us
by our own hand. And sometimes, unfortunately,
we walk right into it, even though we're the ones set the trap.
We're the ones that put it. We knew where it is. We marked
it out. And yet we just blindly walk
right on into it and find ourselves caught up in it. I said unto
the Lord, Thou art my God. Hear the voice of my supplications.
Because you see, the Lord designs these trials and troubles that
we put ourselves through. Now we are guilty. We are the
ones that cause our problems. But yet the Lord ordains those
things unto our good. I bring, come back to Peter.
Now everything that Peter did, he did because he decided to
do it and wanted to do it. When he denied the Lord at that
point in time, he meant what he said. Peter wasn't a man that
played games, was he? He said what he meant, meant
what he said. And so he meant that. The Lord meant that he should
do that. Now people have a lot of, you
know, they get to struggling with that. Well how can that
be that the Lord ordains? Listen, the Lord ordains all
things according to the good pleasure of His will. Now it's
up to you. If you have a problem with that,
you'll have to deal with that. Now that doesn't change the fact
that men are what they are by nature, and they walk in their
own wickedness, and they can't blame God. Let no man say when
he is tempted that he's tempted of God. That's what Scripture
says. Because you don't need God to tempt you, because you've
got enough of that in your own self. See, that's what men are
by nature. But yet the Lord ordains and
directs all these things to occur exactly as He would have them
to do. And so Peter was brought to that place where the Lord
would Show him what he was. Oh God, the strength of my salvation,
thou hast covered my head in the day of battle. Now, you know,
the picture is that we got all this armor and everything, you
know, I was taught this when I was a kid growing up, you know,
we put on this thing and we put on this part of the armor and
we got it, brother, we're clanking around, you know, we got it and
we're gonna go out and we're gonna fight all these battles and we're
gonna win them. But when the Lord teaches a man
what he is by nature, he realizes that he ain't won any battle
yet. Every battle he's ever been in, he's been overcome. But yet there is one thing that
the Lord has given him, the helmet of salvation. You see, and that's
what he says here. Give me, O Lord, the strength
of my salvation. Thou hast covered my head in
the day of battle. You know, men get in race cars
and they drive them at crazy speeds and do dumb stuff. What
they do have on though, they're willing to have an arm broke
or a leg broke or whatever, but they don't want their head broke.
So they put on a crash helmet. And a guy goes on a motorcycle
flying down the road and he's got on a helmet because he wants
to protect his head because he can stand a broken leg, but he
can't stand a broken head. And so it is that the Lord, is
the strength of our salvation, and he covers our head in the
day of battle. And even Peter, when he denied
the Lord, his head was covered. Why? Because his head was Christ,
and Christ said, I will pray for thee. that thy faith fail
not. Now men looking at Peter said,
poor old Peter, his faith failed him. No, it did not, because
his faith was Jesus Christ. His faith was not what Peter
did. His faith was what Christ did.
And so you see, there's a big difference in trusting what you
do. A lot of people have faith in
their faith. You know, you ask somebody, well,
are you a believer? And they say, oh yeah. Says back
when I was 11 years old, I joined the church and I'm a believer,
that's my faith. And when I get to doubting, I'll
look back and I'll say, well, you know what, back then I started
believing, so that's my faith. No, the faith of God's people
is a very present help in a time of trouble. Why is that? It's
not because we look in ourselves and say, well, we got plenty
of faith. No, it's that we look to Christ
and we know that He is our faith. We don't have any faith. We don't
have any strength. We'll fail tomorrow, but Christ
will never fail. He is that one that stands in
the gap for us. He is our helmet of salvation. He's that one that covers our
head. He protects us. Grant not, O Lord, the desires
of the wicked. Further not is wicked devised,
lest they exalt themselves. Isn't that the ultimate end of
what men, when they sin against the Lord, Isn't that the ultimate
thing, is that they want glory? They want glory to themselves?
They want to rob God of glory. They exalt themselves. And wherever
you find men strutting about exalting themselves, even if
it be in the name of the Lord, and somebody is bragging on what
he is, or what he's done, then he's seeking to rob God
of glory. It doesn't make a difference what he says. See, when people
strut around and, you know, sing songs and things that they say
and the words are giving glory to God, but yet they're wanting
men to see them do that. Who are they giving glory to? I mean, why do we sing? Do we
sing to perform? No, we sing because we desire
to give glory to the Lord. And thank God, He gives us the
ability to praise Him. I mean, that's a privilege. from his hand, oh, that we might
not exalt ourselves. As for the head of those that
come past me about, let the mischief of their own lips cover them.
Let burning coals fall upon them. Let them be cast into the fire
into deep pits, that they rise not again." Now, is that not
how we, by the grace of God, consider I said, Lord, cast this
evil man from me. Lord, let me serve you with a
pure heart. Job said, though he slay me,
yet will I trust in him. See, Job had to understand that
there was no good that dwelt within him. Though he slay me,
we desire this old wicked flesh to be slain, do we not? Some
people want to, they think about dwelling in glory in a carnal
fashion. And they think about coming into
the presence of the Lord and having all the things that the
flesh desired is the things it's going to have in heaven. You
hear this all the time. Oh, he's up there. You know,
he really likes fishing, so he's just fishing by a stream up there,
and he's catching the big ones every day and all of this stuff. But see, that's just the way
that... Lord, take all that from me.
You don't make me to desire the glory of Christ alone. I mean,
I can't do that. I confess to you, I can't do
that. I suspect you can't either. You
know, but by the grace of God, He works in us, both the will
and the do of His good pleasure, and He does give us a desire
to be like Him. Let Paul's desire, oh, that I
might be like him. Oh, that I might know him and
the power of his resurrection. Not being conformed unto this
flesh, but being conformed to the likeness of Christ. Isn't
that the place we desire to be? It is by the grace of God. Let
burning coal fall upon him. I cast it away, oh Lord. Let
not an evil speaker be established in the earth. The evil shall
hunt the violent man to overthrow him. Oh, let the mouths of the
wicked be stopped. And any mouth, any word that
would come forth from my mouth that would not be unto the honor
and glory of Christ, oh Lord, let it be put aside. Don't let
me be caught up in saying or teaching or preaching or doing
anything that doesn't give glory to Christ. See, we don't have
but one message. I mean, it's a simple message.
It's Christ. Christ is all. I mean, it's not
Christ is most everything. Christ is all. I mean, when we
speak about salvation, Christ is all. When we speak about faith,
Christ is all. When we speak about prophetic
scriptures, Christ is all. Some people look at prophetic
scriptures and they see all kinds of stuff. I mean, they see the
number of hairs on a horse's tail and they see, you know,
this color of horse and that color of horse and all that stuff.
Brethren, when we see Anything in the scripture, may the Lord
give us eyes to see Christ. Because He is the subject of
this book. The testimony of Jesus is the
spirit of prophecy. He's the fulfillment of all prophecy. There's not a prophecy in the
scripture that is not fulfilled in Christ. The vision of John
in the book of the Revelation. What did he see? He saw Christ. Some men see tanks, and they
see rockets, and they see helicopters. I mean, all kinds of stuff, you
know? They see all kinds of things in there. Brethren, may the Lord
give us eyes to see Christ, because He is the fulfillment of all
prophecy. Oh, that the Lord might give
us such a mind. I know that the Lord will maintain the cause
of the afflicted and the right of the poor. That is our hope. And when we say it's our hope,
we don't mean we hope that it's true. We mean that's the thing
upon which all of our hopes are built. I mean, we're resting
there. That the Lord will do exactly
what he said he would do. We don't have any doubt about
that. He will do what he said he would do. The doubts that
I have is that I'll be found among those who are numbered
within because I find within myself an evil heart of unbelief,
but I find in Christ a Savior who will not abandon even the
weakest of vessels who come seeking mercy at His hand. The bruised
reed will he not break, and the smoking flax will he not quench,
until he brings forth judgment unto victory. Because he shall
see of the travail of his soul, and he shall be satisfied. And
by his might he will justify his people through his blood. through that which he did in
their behalf. Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name.
Is it not true that those who are made righteous in Christ
give thanks unto it? Who else we gonna thank? Ain't
nobody else. I mean, we're gonna have a memorial
service for somebody. What are we gonna memorialize?
I mean, let's memorialize Christ. He's the only one worthy to be
praised, is he not? The upright shall dwell in thy
presence. That's our hope, dear brethren.
Christ is in the presence of Almighty God because he is God. He's at the right hand of God
because he is God. And he shall dwell there forever. And he shall dwell there with
those whom he has loved from the beginning. Who are they? They're those that call upon
his name. There are those that know themselves to be sinners.
There are those that know they have no hope but Christ. May
the Lord give us such a place of desire.