The story is told of a young
man, fresh out of seminary, stood and preached a very eloquent
message. He was quite pleased with it,
as were many who heard him. And after the meeting was over,
An old gentleman came up to him and said that he didn't mention
Christ. And he said, well, he said he
wasn't in the text. And the old man said, Christ
is in every text. He said, it's your job to find
Him. May we ever be mindful of that
as we read the Scriptures, because they are the record that
God has given to us of the Redeemer and the work of redemption that
He has provided for His people, even as Paul said he wouldn't
preach anything else. Paul knew a lot of stuff. You know, it's not about what
you know. He said he would preach the day determined. He said he
determined. Not just he thought about it,
but he determined to preach nothing among them but Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. And dear brethren, we have no
other message. There's no other message in the
Bible. And when men go to the Bible to find other things, they
will come up short. And though they might find things
that are beneficial, they will not find the truth. The Lord
Jesus Christ said He was the way, the truth, and the life,
and that no man came to the Father but by Him. May we be ever mindful
of that. Psalm 112. Begins as many of these Psalms
do, praise ye the Lord. And may we never speak those
words except that we mean them. We said we've talked about this,
Brother Al mentioned it this morning, the little catch phrase,
well, praise the Lord. Don't ever say that unless you
mean it. You know, don't say it just because it's a little,
catchy thing to say, because things worked out like you wanted
them to. That's when people say that, don't they? When everything's
going great, man, praise the Lord, they say. Well, what about
when things don't go like you wanted it to? I mean, is he not
worthy of praise as much then as any? Because are not all of
those things which transpire in the earth, those things which
he's ordained, come to pass? He's worthy of praise. And the
psalmist begins, praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that
feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.
His seed shall be mighty upon earth, and the generation of
the upright shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in
his house, and his righteousness endureth forever. Unto the upright
there ariseth light in the darkness, He is gracious and full of compassion
and righteous. A good man showeth favor and
lendeth. He will guide his affairs with
discretion. Surely he shall not be moved
forever. The righteous shall be in everlasting
remembrance. He shall not be afraid of evil
tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting
in the Lord. His heart is established. He
shall not be afraid until he see his desire upon his enemies.
He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor. His righteousness
shall endureth forever, his horn shall be exalted with honor.
The wicked shall see it and be grieved. He shall gnash with
his teeth and melt away. The desire of the wicked shall
perish." Now, no greater contrast can be had than what we see in
the first few words of this psalm and the last few words of the
psalm. Praise ye the Lord, and the wicked
shall perish. Those two things must come to
pass. And the Lord will be praised
in them all. Now some people look at the perishing
of the wicked, if they even believe in it at all, as though it's
a thing that the Lord would have prevented if he just could have. But we need to understand, and
this is the truth as it's found in the scripture, whether it
is a palatable thing or a thing that men like or men want to
even contemplate, but the destruction of the wicked is as much ordained
by God and according to His purpose as is the redemption of those
whom He calls righteous. Now that's simply what the scripture
teaches. And that's not a message that
a lot of people want to hear, but nonetheless it's true. And
it is, if we're going to praise the Lord, then we must praise
Him for all things. Those things that we enjoy and
those things that we don't. because he's worthy of praise
in all things. He has a purpose in all things.
And in all things we know that he is good to those that call
upon his name. What a glorious thing. What a
glorious promise to the sons of God who were called to call
upon his name. Who will call upon the name of
the Lord? The scripture says that he that calleth upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. Who shall call upon the name
of the Lord? Those whom the Lord works in and causes to call.
See, there's not going to be a man that's going to stand before
God one day and say, well, Lord, I called on you and I sought
your mercy, but you turned me away. It's not going to happen.
Those that seek the Lord, they shall find Him. And so what a
glorious thing it is as we read the graciousness of God towards
the sons of men, for what is man that thou art mindful of
him, or the son of man that thou hast visited? Why should the
Lord have any concern whatsoever? I mean, when you see a mass of earthworms, Maybe you're
going fishing or something and you see you've got a bucket here
and you've got a bunch of worms in there. I mean, do you look
in that bucket and you say, oh man, there's a worm in there
that I really could put my love upon? He's really an object of
my favor. Now dear brethren, I would venture
to say that you as a creature have more of an obligation to
have concern for that earthworm than the God of heaven and earth
who created all things with his word has to be concerned about
that which he created. What is man that thou art mindful
of him? Oh, what a come down that is to man in his thought
of himself, is it not? I mean, isn't that just contrary
to everything that a man thinks about himself? Well, that just
wouldn't be right. Well, why not? Praise ye the
Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth
the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments. Now as we
said that the Lord Jesus Christ is in every text, He is in this
Psalm. And this is a description of
Jesus Christ. This is Him. Blessed is the man
that feareth the Lord. Now you and I, we fear the Lord
by the grace of God to some extent, do we not? I mean, but our fear
of the Lord kind of waxes and wanes because sometimes we'll
find ourselves walking in a fashion that does not indicate that we
fear the Lord. But it's never true of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He feared the Lord. And he walked
before the Lord in fear. He learned obedience by the things
which he suffered. That's one verse in the scripture
that every time I read it, it just causes, great consternation
and caused me to fall down and worship at his feet to think
that here he is walking among men and he learned obedience
by the things which he suffered and he was heard the scripture
says in his prayer in that he feared the Lord. Blessed is the
man that feareth the Lord. Now in all things the Lord Jesus
Christ is our example. And so when we see the perfections
of Christ delineated in these Psalms, as it speaks of Christ,
then we as men, constrained by the grace of God, we see Him,
but yet in seeing Him, we are caused by the Spirit of God to
desire to be like Him. to walk in his steps. That's
what Peter said. I mean, walk in his steps as
he have Christ for an example. Because he is our example. Blessed
is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his
commandments. Now it doesn't just say that
he kept the commandments of God, does it? Said he delighted in
them. You see, that's the difference
between the man who is a religious man and the man who is a child
of grace. The religious man, he can tell
you the Ten Commandments right and left. He might even put a
sign up in his yard and have them pasted up there where everybody
can see. And I'm not opposed to anybody
who wants to do that. If you want to do that, I'm not
going to come by and tear it down. But I'm not going to put
up one in my yard because it would be kind of a hypocritical
thing for me to spout off about how much I love the Ten Commandments
when I know in my heart how often I have disregarded those things. And so it is that the Lord Jesus
Christ delighted greatly in those commandments. He didn't just
know what the commandments are. He didn't just get up like the
politicians do and tell us how we need to get back to God and
we need to do all these different things. But he delighted in it. It was the heart desire as he
walked in this world to do the will of his Father. And so it
is. As David confessed, in a desire
to be like Christ, David said, Thy word have I hid in my heart,
that I might not sin against thee. See, the desire, the reason
we want to know the Word of God is not so that we can know it.
You know, there's been a few men that I've read about and
whatnot. In fact, I knew a guy one time,
if he didn't memorize the whole thing, he had memorized most
of it, memorized the Bible. And they can just, you know,
tell it to you. They don't have to have, they
don't have to read it. They can just spout it off to
you. And that's great. I mean, I wish
I could do that. And maybe if I put some effort
into it, I could. But brethren, the thing that
I desire more than being able to quote the scripture, by the
grace of God, the thing I desire is to be obedient to those scriptures,
to see those things and take delight in them, even as Christ
did. See, our desire is to be like
Him. His seed. shall be mighty upon
earth. The generation of the upright
shall be blessed. Whose seed? Christ's seed shall
be mighty in the earth. You see, we read in the scriptures
that train up a child in the way he shall go, and when he
is old, he'll not depart from it. And we look at that, we say,
well, I don't know if that's so true or not. Well, it is true. It's true in
what the Lord would teach us by that. One thing he would teach
us is that it is a good thing and a necessary thing for parents
to raise up their children in the Word of God, to teach them
those things and teach them the fear of God. How does a father
teach his child the fear of God? He does it with the rod of correction.
You see, I mean, you know, the Lord ordained these things to
be so. And when a man withholds those
things, the only way that a child, as a child, I mean, now we know
that the Lord alone can teach anybody who he is, but the way
that a child learns who God is is through his parents and how
his parents deal with him. If they deal with Him without
love, then He grows up without any concept of God as a God of
love. But if they love Him, they know
that He is. If they grow up without any correction, He has a concept
that, well, you know, God's just going to let things go. But God
will not acquit the wicked. He'll not clear the guilty. And
so it is a needful thing for parents to teach their children
the fear of God in that manner. insofar as they can. But what I was getting at is that
while we look at that commandment and a man might look at it and
say, well, that's not true because my son turned, I raised him up
right and my son turned out to be a bank robber or this, that,
the other. Well, the truth of that is taught
as the children of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the children
of the Lord Jesus Christ, they will not depart from him. His seed, the scripture says,
shall be mighty upon the earth. Now we might not look to be mighty.
Paul said the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they
are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds. See, we've not
been called to go pull down the capital. or, you know, go and
overthrow the government or something like that. We've not been called
to do that, but we have been called to wage war with the weapons
of the warfare that God has given us, which are what? Mighty, to
the pulling down of strongholds. How is that? Through prayer, through that which God has given
us and taught us and led us and showed us, given us that desire
to walk with Him, His seed shall be mighty, the seed of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now we know that he had no earthly
children in the sense of natural procreation, but he does have
a seed that belonged to him. The scripture speaks about the
seed of the upright throughout, in the Psalms numerous times,
speaks about the fact that the Lord's seed will prosper. And
so shall it be. His seed shall be mighty. The
generation of the upright shall be blessed. Now the generation,
not the generation which are upright, but the generation of
the upright. Who is the upright? The Lord
Jesus Christ. He is that one who is upright.
And his generation shall be blessed. They shall be those that praise
him forever. because it pleased him to raise
up the people. See, men don't like the term
predestination, but of course the scripture speaks of it without
any reservation. But he has predestined his children
to be conformed to the image of Christ. I mean, that's what
He has set out for them to be. He determined that. And if He
determined it, shall it not occur? Surely it shall. The generation
of the upright, the generation that is the seed of Christ, shall
be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in
His house. And His righteousness endureth
forever. See, the righteousness of men
doesn't endure forever because it's filthy rags. It can't. I
mean, filthy rags, they rot. And they go away and they're
nothing. But the righteousness of Christ endures forever. And so it speaks here, His righteousness. Who's? Christ. The upright. That one who feared God completely
and without reservation, delighted greatly in His commandments.
Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness. He is
gracious and full of compassion and righteous. Oh, we desire
these things, do we not? Because of the grace of God working
in us. But where can these things be
seen in their perfections? In Christ. Unto the upright there
arises light in the darkness. He is the light, is he not? And
he said, I am the light of the world. He is gracious, full of
compassion, and righteous. No, a man can't read about the
life of Christ and not see all of those things exhibited. I mean, as he walked through
the streets of Jerusalem, or the surrounding areas, Galilee,
and lepers and men with lame were brought before him, and
he had compassion on them. rich young ruler that came to
him. Scripture said he had compassion on him. Now a lot of people look
at the rich young ruler and they think that he went away. It says
he went away sorrowing because he had great riches and a lot
of people assume by that that what the Scripture means by that
is that he went away sorrowing and that was the end of it. But
I don't think that's necessarily true because the Scripture makes
a point of saying that the Lord loved him. And he had compassion
on him when he came to him. And what did the Lord do? He
pointed out to him his sin, did he not? I mean, just like he
did with the woman at the well. I mean, they both thought they
were righteous, did they not? I mean, the woman at the well,
she said, well, you know, we're religious. I mean, our folks,
we say we worship down here, and you Jews say worship down
there. Where's the right place to worship? He said, you don't
know what you're talking about. He said, the father seeketh such
worship him in spirit and truth. No, by the way, bring your husband. She said, well, I don't have
a husband. He said, that's right. He said, you've had five husbands,
and the man you're living with now is not your husband. Well,
you think she was Taken aback by that? You think that the arrows
of conviction did not go into her soul? Even with this rich
young ruler. When the Lord showed him what
he was by nature, he went away sobbing. Because he had great
riches. Now that's where it kind of leaves
it with us. But it doesn't say that he did
not do what the Lord told him to do. But you see, that wasn't
even the point of why the Lord told him that. The reason why
the Lord told me, he said, well, if you'd be perfect, if you were
perfect, then this is what you'd do. And he said, he found out,
well, no, see, all his life, he'd been raised up to believe
that if he kept these commandments, everything would be all right.
And what did the Lord do? The Lord, in a moment's time,
stripped him of all those things. And he went away sorrowing, because
he saw himself to be what he was. And my personal belief is
that repentance came to his house. Now, we don't have any record
of that, and I can't stand here and tell you that's a fact. But
it would appear to me that that would be the case. But the Lord
was full of compassion and righteous. What about the woman taken in
adultery? He was full of compassion, but he was righteous. Cause you
see, she was worthy of death. The law said that she should
be stoned. Did the Lord circumvent the law? No, what did he do? He said something to her that
he does not say to all men. But he said, neither do I condemn
thee. Now, how could he say that to
her? If he was upholding the law? Because he would fulfill
the law in her behalf. And while he had the power as
God to condemn her, yet he had the power as the God-man going
to the cross to pay her sin debt to say, neither do I condemn
thee. Oh, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus. Oh, what a glorious thing that
is, dear brethren. Full of compassion and righteous. A good man showeth favor and
lendeth. He will guide his affairs with
discretion. A good man showeth favor. Did
he not show favor to his people? I mean, there were many lepers
in Jerusalem and around there. He didn't heal them all. He showed
favor. The Lord shows favor. That is,
he has compassion on those that belong to him. There was a man
laying at the pool of Siloam. Now why wasn't that man able
to be healed at the pool of Siloam by the troubling of the waters? Because the Lord would not allow
one of his sheep to be overtaken in the superstition of the day
and to be destroyed by religion. But here was a man that couldn't
be healed. He thought the reason was because he couldn't get into
the water, didn't have anybody to carry him in there. What'd
the Lord teach him? He taught him he didn't need the water.
He needed the one that stood before him, said, take up your
bed and walk. You see, because the Lord will
provide for his own. He always will. A good man showeth favor and
lendeth. He will guide his affairs with
discretion. You know, the Lord, he had no money from the standpoint
of the fact that he didn't work at a job and get paid to do things,
but of course he owned all things. And when they needed money, he
just told them, go down to the, get you a fish, and there's money
in the mouth of the fish. When I read that, I think about
the consternation that must have come on Peter's face when he
caught that fish. I mean, you know, the Lord told
him to go do it, and I'm sure he's thinking, you know, what
kind of a foolish thing is this? But then when he looked in that
fish's mouth and there was that money. I mean, what a glorious
thing. The Lord chose favor, he lended.
You see, he giveth to people such as they need. He will guide
his affairs with discretion. The Lord was discreet. No, he
didn't. You know, a lot of folks, a lot
of these religious hucksters, I call them, that go about the
countryside, they want to make a big fanfare. You know, they
want you to be drawn to them. They want to be the biggest show
on earth. You know, they want to have it.
I mean, because the bigger they are, the more money they can
collect, basically, is what it boils down to, unfortunately.
But that's the truth. But the Lord guided his affairs
with discretion. How often do we read in the scripts
where he told those whom he healed, he said, don't tell anybody.
Didn't he? I mean, if you healed somebody,
you'd tell them, go tell everybody, you know, that we did this. He
didn't do that. He said, don't tell anybody. Because He would give glory to
His Father. He didn't want to be the center
of attention except insofar as it brought glory to His Father. Surely He shall not be moved
forever. The righteous shall be in everlasting
remembrance. He is that One. He said, if I
be lifted up, I'll draw all men. Now we know He doesn't mean all
men. in the strictest sense of the word, but he would draw all
the men that he purposed to draw, is what he meant. I'll draw all. In other words, all my sheep
that are out there, if I be lifted up, I'm going to draw them to
myself. And so he did. His heart is established. He
shall not be afraid until he see his desire upon his enemies.
He shall not turn back. His heart's established, that
is, he put his hand to the plow and he didn't look back. Remember,
I think it's Luke 9, 62, last verse of the ninth chapter. It says, no man, having put his
hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom
of God. That means he went part of the way and said, well, it's
too great, I can't, I won't turn around. Well, no man has put
his hand to the plow and looks back, he's gonna plow a straight
road, can't he? But you see, the Lord, He came into the world
with one purpose in mind, which was to glorify His Father's name
by fulfilling His Father's will, which was to redeem that people
which the Father gave Him in the eternal covenant of redemption,
and He did not shrink back from doing that. his heart's established. He shall not be afraid till he
see his desire upon his enemies. How often should and could the
Lord have been afraid as a man? Think about when they took him
up on the hill. And they were going to cast him down. Now we
know that they couldn't do it. They didn't have the power. And
again, I'm often amazed I read this, it says, and Jesus passing
through their midst. Now how did that happen? Here
you got all these people, you know, they're all gathered up
here. We're going to throw this man off the cliff. And they get up
there and they're right fixing to throw him off the cliff. and
he goes through their midst. How'd he do that? I mean, did
he just turn invisible or did they just freeze or what happened?
I think it probably was much like what happened in the garden
when they said, we seek Jesus of Nazareth. And he said, I am. The Scripture says, or the King
James Version puts the word he in there, but the language says,
he didn't say I am he, he says I am. And then the Scripture
says they all fell backwards. Now the amazing thing to me when
I read that, and if I was a believer in free will, I would wonder
what in the world was wrong with these people. How could they
have got up from there after being knocked backwards by his
power and carry on with their dastardly deed? But you see,
it was ordained that they do that. I mean, the glory of God
seemed to have returned in the Scriptures, dear brethren. He hath given to the poor. His
righteousness endureth forever. His horn shall be exalted with
honor. Christ will be magnified. Every
knee shall bow. Every tongue shall confess. The
wicked shall see it and be grieved. Now you know, when the scripture
says every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess, it
doesn't mean every one who confesses is going to be worshiping Him.
I mean, they will worship Him in the sense that they will recognize
His station as the eternal God. but they will gnash with their
teeth because they hate the way of Christ. See, even the specter
of hell does not cause men to love the Lord. I remember reading
a marquee in front of a church one time said, there will be
no unbelievers in hell. And I thought to myself, I said,
well, that's absolutely not true. The idea was that when a man,
when he's cast into the fires of hell, that he would all of
a sudden become a believer. No, he will not be a believer.
He'll be gnashing at his teeth and hating the way of Christ
until the very end. Because the only thing that will
cause a man to love the Lord is the grace of God and the mercy
of God to awaken a sinner to that place. The wicked shall
see it and be grieved. He shall gnash with his teeth
and melt away. The scripture says that when
these Pharisees and these men, when they were bringing him to
trial, that they fell upon him. They plucked out his beard. They
hated him. It's the way of man. But the
desire of the wicked shall perish. It says they shall melt away. Now, I won't go into a lot of
that. But the scripture says that the
wicked shall perish and they shall melt away. Now if language
means anything, it means what it means. They shall be destroyed. There is an everlasting destruction
to those who are the enemies of God. And those who are the
enemies of God, oh man, man doesn't have to do a thing to become
the enemy of God. Because by nature we are the
enemies of God. But the glorious thing is that
even while We were enemies. See, not while we were, God didn't
look at us as enemies, because he loved us from the beginning.
But even while we were yet enemies, see, we were gnashing on with
our teeth against him. We were despising his way, but
even while we were enemies, confessed, he died for us. Gave himself
for sinners. That's a glorious thing. Oh,
that the Lord might give us a heart and mind today to follow in His
feet and worship Him as the Savior of sinners, as the Lord of glory,
as that one who's worthy of all praise, because He is. And thanks
be unto God that He gives us eyes to see it and a heart to
desire it more so than anything else.