Well, it's certainly when we
read the account of the law and the giving of all of these sacrifices
and instruction that the Lord gave to Aaron and the children
of Israel, and we are made to rejoice that, as Paul said, The law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and death.
Because in the law, there is the principle of sin
and death, because all that the law can do is remind us of sin. And when you look at the law,
if you look at the law of God, and you think you are doing pretty
good, You missed it. The Spirit of God has not wrought
in your heart what you need to know of yourself. Because when a man who is awakened
by the Spirit of God to know himself to be a sinner, when
he looks at the law, he trembles. He can find no comfort there.
There is no rest in it. We do delight in the law of God.
We delight in the law of God because we have a law keeper
who keeps that law has kept that law in our behalf, a law that
we could not keep. And he has satisfied it. And so the law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus is the rule of life for the children
of God. That is the principle upon which
we operate, is that Christ has died and there is redemption.
Now, the world, is not subdued by that. You see, a man who is
outside of Christ and outside of the teaching of the Spirit
of God, he needs a hard line to set down for him. He needs to tremble before that. He must, because there is no restriction placed
on him. You know, the Scripture says
the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the disobedient
and the lawless. And the disobedient and lawless
man needs the law to keep him in line. Just think what it would
be like if there was no law. If there was not the fear of
punishment by the law, I mean, wicked men would run them up.
But you see, the man who is operated upon by the Spirit of God, he
does not need the law to tell him, Thou shalt not steal. I
mean, do you have to read that every day to know that somebody
has to tell you that it is wrong to steal? No, you know in your
heart that you would steal something tomorrow if the Lord does not
restrain you. And the fear of that is true.
I mean, we do not want to be In that way, do we? We want to
walk in the way of Christ. Now, why would a man want to
walk in the way of Christ? I mean, really want to walk in
the way of Christ, except that the Spirit of God would bind
his heart to it, write the law of God in his heart and cause
him to desire that. I mean, the main thing that the
people of God hate is their sin. I mean, you know, when you look
at yourself and you're alone before God, you're not thinking
about what a good job you did today. You know, you think, well,
Lord, here I am again, and I fail miserably. Lord, constrain me
to walk like Christ would walk. And that's the spirit of life
in Christ. You see, that's the law. that have been written in
the hearts of God's people. So we're looking in Psalm 33. And of course, Psalm 33 begins with,
Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous. We looked at this last week.
And we do have a lot to rejoice in when you go back and you read
the law and all of those things that were required of the Israelites
to do. And it wasn't that they could
say, well, see what, I'm going to kind of get off my line of
thought there, but men think that if they just pretty much
do the law, God is going to behave. You say, well, I know that you
could not really keep it all, but you did pretty good. Now
that is how men think about the law, is it not? Well, we know
we did not do it all, but we did pretty good. I mean, you
know, we did not kill anybody, and we never robbed a bank, and
we are pretty good upstanding citizens, and everybody is pretty
well satisfied with that, aren't they? But God hates it. He hates
the very thought and intent of the heart that goes contrary
to the truth. You know, being almost good enough
is not good enough. To offend in one point is to
break the whole thing. And see, that's the dilemma that
man's in, but the natural man, he kind of thinks if he can kind
of do some of the law, he'll be alright. as long as he doesn't
do any major things. Now, if he hasn't ever been in
jail, I mean, how's the Lord going to look at him, a man that's
never been in jail, to a man that spent his whole life in
jail for doing wrong things? I mean, isn't the Lord going
to say, well, you know, he was better? No, He's going to look
at all of us the same. I mean, and if we read in this
psalm when we get on down here, the Lord looketh from heaven,
He beholdeth all The sons of men. Now what men think by nature
is that when it says that He beholdeth all the sons of men,
He says, yep, I like that one because he did this good, you
know, he's doing a pretty good job over here. No, He sees us
all. He knows the thoughts and intents
of everyone's heart. Now if that don't strike fear
into your heart to think that God knows all things, about what
you even think and do and say and whatever, if that doesn't
strike fear in your heart, there is no fear of God in your eyes.
Because you see, the Lord knows the heart. Now some people, they
say, oh man, I'm glad the Lord knows my heart. Like that's a good thing. No
brother, that's a bad thing. The Lord knows your heart. Now
what is it? You know what? I mean, the heart's
deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it? You don't even
know the depths of the wickedness of your heart. But God does.
He looks on men. He sees them how they are. Now
why aren't we just going around here every day just down in the
dumps as a result of that? Only one reason, and that is
the Lord has given us reason to hope. not in the law, not
in our ability to keep it, not in our ability to do most of
it, but that we have one who has stood in our room and place
as our Savior, as our Redeemer, as that one who has caused us
to be perfect in the sight of the Lord, not by anything that
we have done, but according to His mercy and according to His
grace. And that's why the psalmist says,
Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous. Now we wouldn't ever call ourselves
righteous as we look at ourselves. But you know what the Lord, when
He sees the children of God, those who are hidden in Christ,
you know what He sees them? He says, These are my righteous
people. He said, Lot is a righteous man. He said, Rahab the harlot
is a righteous woman. The woman taken in adultery,
she's righteous in my sight. Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous,
for praise is comely, it's fitting, it's a thing that is the right
thing for them to do. We ought to be praising God every
day. Dear brethren, think of what
we've been delivered from. Praise the Lord with harps. Sing
unto Him with the psaltery, an instrument of ten strings. Sing
unto Him with a new song. Play skillfully with a loud noise.
For the Word of the Lord is right, and all His works are done in
truth. He loveth righteousness and judgment. The earth is full of the goodness
of God, the goodness of the Lord. The earth is full of it. Men look at the world in
general and they think of all the things they wish they could.
You know, if it was left up to me, I would do it this way. I
mean, in that kind of way it is because when something happens
that they don't think is right the first thing they say, well,
I don't know why God would do that. I mean, how could a good
God do these things? Well, the Scripture says God
is good. He is good. Now, He might not do everything
that you think is good, but then thankfully, I'm thankful that
you're not the one that determines what's good, because what would
be good for you might not be good for me. But you see, the
Lord is good to all the earth. And He causes all things to work
together for good to them that love God, who are the called
according to His purpose. So the earth is full of the goodness
of the Lord. I mean, you know, where does
a lion give his food? He runs down a gazelle. and eats, and the goodness of
the Lord is there. Now, if you was the leader of
the gazelles, you'd be saying, well, that ain't very good. But what does the gazelle eat? It eats the grass that grows,
I guess. I don't know what the gazelle
eats. I'm assuming they just eat grass or something that's
growing up. And where did he get that grass?
The goodness of God. Dear brethren, the ways of the
Lord are past finding out. You can't micromanage and look
at things and say, well, this is good and that's bad. How could
this happen? How could that happen? The Lord
sees all things, does all things according to the good pleasure
of His will, and all that He does is good. Everything is good
because He will show goodness in the world. By the Word of
the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the
breath of His mouth." Now, this is just... When I read this,
I'm just amazed. He gathers the waters of the
sea together as a heap. Have you ever heaped up any water?
I mean, have you ever tried that? Huh? Just get you some water
and heap it up somewhere. But the Scripture says the Lord,
He gathered the water together as a heap. He just made the water
and He just sent it over there, just a big old pile of water. That is what it says. He gathered
the water together as a heap. I mean, wait a minute, water
has got to seek its own level. Why? Because God makes it seek
its own level. But you see, the water in the
hand of the Lord is no different than anything else. Now the scientists
will tell us, no, wait, wait, wait, there are certain laws
in nature and all these things that just can't be, you know,
it's foolish for you to think that this could happen. I mean
like when Joshua was at the battle of Ai, and the scripture says
that the sun stayed The sun stopped and it didn't go down for I forget
how many hours, but it was a good little long period of time there. And how did that work? Well,
wait, did the earth stop turning on its axis? Now, of course everybody
tells us that the earth is a globe and it's turning on its axis
and all that, and it probably is. I don't know. You know, I'm
not going to get into argument with somebody whether it's flat
or round or square or whatever it is. I mean, you can go to
Scripture and find evidence and reason to support any position
on that subject that you want to. Okay? So how did that happen? I don't know. I don't need to
know. I don't know if the Lord stopped
the earth from turning or He backed the sun up in the heavens
or if the earth is flat and He just stopped the sun or whatever.
I don't know. It's His Word. That's important. And the Scripture says that He
gathered the waters of the sea together as a heap. Now, the
Scripture actually says this three different times, if you
look it up, about gathering the water together as a heap. It
speaks about it over in the book of Exodus when the children of
Israel went through the Red Sea. It says that he gathered them
up as a heap, and it says that the waters were congealed. It
says that. You can go look and read it,
look that word up if you want to. It says they were congealed.
They turned to jello, I guess. I mean, that's what I think of
when I think of congealed. Are they froze or something?
The Lord changed the properties of water, did He not? Now if
He made the water, how hard would it be for Him to do that? Why
do people get so, well, how do we explain this? I can't explain
it. I don't know. It says that He
did it. When the priest, when they were going across the River
Jordan, and it says that the Lord caused the waters to stand
up as a heap. on one side. I mean, I don't
know how high they got. I don't have any idea how high
it was, but that's what it says. That indeed, the Lord has gathered
the waters of the sea together as He did. But this is talking
about creation here. It's not talking about that,
those incidents. It's talking about in the creation,
the Lord made by the Word of the Lord were the heavens made.
And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. Now, how
much time should we spend trying to prove to people that the Lord
made the world and it didn't evolve? How much time do we need
to spend doing that? None at all. Don't waste your
breath. Now, do you testify that the
Lord created the heavens and the earth? Absolutely. Because
you see, if you go over here to the book of Hebrews, if you're
a person of faith, you don't believe that the Lord created
the world just because of facts or whatever. It says, through faith, This
is Hebrews 11, verse 3, "...through faith we understand that the
worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which
are seen were made of things which do appear." Now, how does
any man believe that God created the heavens and the earth? Well
now, in Paul's writings to the Romans, he said that by creation,
that all men know that there is a God. Now, there is a natural
sense in which a man, unless he is an idiot, or he is in rebellion
against God, every man by nature, nature testifies to men when
they look out here, when they look at their own hand, when
they know the workings of their own body, when they see the big
things in the world and they see the small things in the world. There is no way that a man, apart
from a rebellion in his heart against Almighty God, will not
fall down on his face and worship the Creator. It's impossible. The only reason that men try
to figure everything out and try to move God out of the picture
is because they're in rebellion against Him. So it's my faith. That's ultimately the way it
is. Somebody says, well, why? Can you prove to me that the
Lord created the world? I can't. I can prove to you that
there is a world out there. And I can prove to you that stuff
don't just happen. You know, I mean, just how many
watches have you ever just found by the side of the road that
just, they were just there? I mean, can a watch just begin
on its own? I mean, they talk about all this
artificial intelligence, you know, and these computers are
going to take over because they're going to start thinking like
people and all of that. And that might occur. I'm not
saying that can't occur, but I know this, that the Lord can
unplug it. You know, I might not be able
to unplug it. They say, well, they might figure
out some source of energy besides that. Well, the Lord can unplug
it. And so these things, dear brethren, The world, the scientific
world, will always ridicule creation because it pads the intellect
of man, because it can pat itself on the back and say, we know
how it happened. See, we are going to send this
probe out into space so we can discover how it happened. how the big bang occurred. Well,
you don't need to spend all that money and do that. Just open
up the book and there it is. But see, men will keep on doing
that because they are in rebellion against God. By faith we understand. He gathers the waters of the
sea together as a heap. He layeth up the depth. in storehouses. You know, right now, we supposedly
know everything about everything, but they are discovering things in the
depths of the ocean that they do not even know, never knew
before, finding things out. And it will be that way, really,
right up until the time when the Lord comes back, because
the ways of God are past finding out. You're not going to discover
everything. When I was going to school, I remember they said
there's 103 elements. We had the periodic table. And
we studied it. And we learned it. There can't
be any more. This is it. I don't know how
many they've discovered now, but they've got some now beyond
that, I know that. What do we know? We don't know
anything, dear brethren, except that we do know by faith that
the Lord caused all these things to come to pass. And I'm satisfied. I mean, they can call me an idiot
or whatever they want to. It doesn't make a difference.
Because this is the truth, and herein will we stand. Let all
the earth fear the Lord. Because you see, when a man is
brought to the place where he recognizes what I've been talking
about, that God made these things by the breath of His mouth, He
spoke worlds into existence. And the Lord, by grace, has caused
that man to lay down his arms of rebellion. There's only one
thing left for that man to do, and that is fall on his face
in fear before Almighty God. What can we say, Lord? That has
done all things well. For He let all the earth fear
the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the
world stand in awe of Him. For His faith, and it was done,
He commanded, and it stood fast. The Lord bringeth the counsel
of the heathen to naught. He maketh the devices of the
people of none effect. The counsel of the Lord standeth
forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. The Lord brings the counsel of
the heathen to naught. The counsel of the heathen was,
we are going to destroy this man, Jesus. Now they thought everything was
working out good, did they not? Well, we've got it now. We'll
pay this guy off over here and he'll betray. We'll bring him
before Pilate, crucify him, be the end of it. No, that was the
beginning of it. I mean, the Lord brought the
counsel of the heathen to naught. And He does in the present day.
We don't need to fear all these different nations that rise up
and all this stuff. They might come in here and they
might kill every one of us. But dear brethren, One thing
is for certain, their counsels will be brought
to naught before the Lord. The nations are as a drop of
the bucket, as the dust of the balance. I mean, when you go
to weigh something, I mean, when you're in the grocery store and
they put the potatoes or whatever on that little thing where they
weigh them, I mean, do you say, wait, wait, let's blow that thing
off. We want to get the dust off of
it. Why not? Because they're insignificant. Well, the Lord said that's the
way men are. They're insignificant. Now men think, you see, that
men are of great significance. I mean, we're supposedly, as
they tell us, we're God's crowning achievement. Oh, dear brethren, the only reason
that man has any significance is that God has been mindful
of him. As David said, Lord, what is
man that art mindful of him? Why was he more mindful of us
than he was of the maggots or the fleas that crawl on a dog's
back? Because it pleased him. There
is nothing in man that causes God to say, Oh, you know, I've
really done it now. I've really created something.
No. He made man to be exactly like He wanted him to be. Everything
about His creation is good in His sight. Now, everything about
it might not be good in your sight, and you might not like
some of the things that He did, and you might not be able to
explain it. But, it's good because He did
it. He said it, and He brings the
counsel of the heathen to naught. He maketh the devices of the
people of none effect. The counsel of the Lord standeth
forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations. The Lord testified of the thoughts
of His heart to all generations. He has never been without a witness
in the earth, even in the darkest of times. The Spirit of God bore
witness in the earth. He still does. He still will.
You know, they say, oh, well, you know, if the communists take
over, they'll burn the Bibles. Well, sometimes I almost think
it would be a good thing if they did. Because people realize,
brethren, the Bible, I love the Bible. I'm thankful that the
Lord has given us the Bible. But the Word of God is not the
Bible. The Word of God is sharp and
powerful. It's alive. It's sharper than
any two-edged sword, and it cuts asunder the thoughts and intents
of the heart. But it's not the book. It's the
Spirit of God speaking forth the Word of God. And He can give
men those things that he needs to know, even when they don't
have this Bible. I mean, I've read, you've read, how the Lord and some of these
prisoners of war and whatnot, that they didn't have a Bible.
And the Lord would give one man, he could bring a remembrance
of some Scripture he'd heard, and they'd write that down, and
another one would have another one, you know. Why? Because the
Word of God is alive. It's not captured in the pages
of a book. It can't be. I mean, if you leave
that at home, did you leave the Word of God at home? No, of course
not. You know, the Word of God, the
counsel, the thoughts of God are to all generations. He gives
His Word. He speaks to men according to
the good pleasure of His will. Blessed is the nation whose God
is the Lord and the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance.
I am thankful to live in the country that we do. And we have
been blessed as a nation. perhaps more so than any other
nation on the earth in some ways. I mean, it's a peculiar work
that the Lord has done. But because He has done a work, it
does not mean that He will continue to do that work. And there are
signs and evidences of the fact that He may be done with the
work. Is that a bad thing? Well, it's
bad for us if we think about it, but I'll tell you one thing,
it's a good thing. The Lord turns the heart of kings
with His every will, and He raises up nations and He puts them down
according to the good pleasure of His will. And there's not
a thing in the world men are going to do about it. You're
not going to change that. It's going to occur. And every
work that man does is going to fulfill his will and purpose. Now, again, that's a good thing. for those who fled for refuge
to Him, because I don't want anybody else to be in charge
of it. You know, if He wants the Democrats in charge, I'm
going to say, great. I might not like it, but I know
this, that they won't let any one of them get elected apart
from the purpose of God being fulfilled, even as the man that's
in there now. You know, you can't say, well,
boy, the Lord put him in there just in the nick of time. And
then when another one gets like, oh, well, the Lord, he was out
sleeping somewhere. No. He turns the heart of kings
and says, well, it doesn't make a difference who's in there.
They're going to do exactly what the Lord purposes for them to
do. Now, if you don't believe that,
then we just have to part ways on that, but that's the absolute
fact. And you can be sure of this,
that He's going to put the sourest one He can find in there. How
do we know that? Because Nebuchadnezzar said,
Lord, we know that You set over these kingdoms the basis of men. Now, we think, well, we're going
to pick out the best one. And that's like when old Samuel
went down there to get one of the sons of Jesse. He already
had it in his mind, this one here is going to be good. Boy,
this guy here now, he just fits the bill. He is going to do it. He is going to be it. The Lord
said, no, that is not him. He said, well, do you have any
more sons? He said, yeah, we have one down
there taking care of the sheep, but he is just a little kid.
I mean, he is going to be it. He said, let me see. The Lord
said, that is him. The Lord's hand is not shortened,
say, by many or by few. He can do according to His will. And brethren, that's a good thing
for the people of God. What a time of rejoicing! Blessed is the nation whose God
is the Lord and the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance.
Now, what is the nation that the Lord has chosen for His own
inheritance? Peter talks about it. He said, You are a peculiar
people. A holy nation. The nation whose
God is the Lord is those whom He has loved from before the
foundation of the world. And He has that nation scattered
among all the nations of the earth, is what the Scripture
says. Out of every kindred, tribe, and tongue, the Lord has His
people. And He will bring them out in
the time which pleases Him and the circumstances that pleases
Him. We do not have to get the circumstances right for it to
occur. He will. according to the good
pleasure of his will. The Lord looketh from heaven,
he beholdeth all the sons of men. He sees every one. There
is not one that is not in his gaze from the place of his habitation. He looketh upon all the inhabitants
of the earth. Listen to this. He fashioneth
their hearts alike. He considereth all their works.
The Lord fashioned the heart of all men according to the good
pleasures of men. He considereth all their works.
He considered the works of Judas when he made him. Sure did. He said, this man here,
from his standpoint, he'd have been better off if he'd never
been born. But yet, He said, I've ordained this to occur because
He's the one that's going to betray the Savior who's going
to redeem that people that I love with an everlasting love. Now,
stuff like that will make men mad as fire. You want to get
somebody mad, you start talking to them about how the Lord ordained
Judas to destruction. I mean, he said the reason he
raised up Pharaoh, I mean, Pharaoh thought he was raised up to rule. He had a good time, didn't he,
ruling? I mean, old Pharaoh, he was doing pretty good. I mean,
he had things going on. The Lord said, for the same purpose,
if I raise thee up, that I might show my glory in the earth. And the Lord will show His glory.
And He will call His people unto Himself. He considereth all their
works. Now, some people say, well, Darcy,
you were wrong a while ago when you said He didn't take any notice
of the works of men. No, I didn't say He didn't take
notice of the works of men, but He considereth all their works.
What does He say? They have all gone astray. There is none that seeketh after
God. See, men think, well, oh man,
the Lord is going to consider our works so we can do good.
No, He knows your works. And that ought to cause you to
fear Him. It ought to cause you to fall
on your face, seek mercy, because He does know your works. He knows
exactly what you are. See? There is no king saved by
the multitude of a host, a mighty man not delivered by much strength.
Horses are a vain thing for safety. Neither shall He deliver any
by His great strength. But oh, we need a big defense
budget. Now, I believe this is a true
thing. The Lord raises up nations and
He causes them to become mighty, and power, and armies, and might,
and dominion, and all of those things occur by the hand of the
Lord. But dear brethren, don't go to bed tonight with
the thought in your mind, you know, we're safe because we've
got a strong army. And you know they've got those
satellites up there, they claim that now they can shoot some
kind of weapon out of it. And we need to get us some of
them. You know, Lord, we've got to
have these things. And if we don't have them, we're
going to be in trouble. Or if we had them, we could breathe
a sigh of relief. You know, if we've got enough
soldiers, and we've got enough tanks, and we've got enough submarines,
and we've got enough missiles and whatnot, we're all right.
Listen. Think of all the nations. that
are recorded in the earth, they had all those things. Maybe not
missiles and stuff, but in the time in which they were in, it
would be the same thing. They had plenty like Pharaoh.
I mean, he had a mighty army, did he not? I mean, the Romans,
the Babylonians, the Assyrians, all of these people, they were
tough, mighty men. But the Lord brought them all
down in a moment. No king is saved by the multitude
of the host of them. A king is not saved because he
has a big army. He might think so. And in the
outworking of men, it might appear that is the way it is. But, dear
brethren, any king that remains in position, he didn't do so
because he had a big army. He did so because God preserved
him. Now, he might have used the army
to do it, but it wasn't the army. It was the Lord. A horse is a
vain thing for safety. Neither shall he deliver any
by his great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is
where? It is upon those that fear him. Upon them that hope
in his mercy. See, you want to know to whom
the Lord has regard? It is unto a sinner that calls
upon him. It is unto those that know themselves
to be weak and without any help of their own. They know that
they will perish if left to themselves. One thing I fear more than anything
else is being left to myself, because I know if I'm left to
myself, I will destroy myself. But God, who is rich in mercy, hears the prayers of those that
call upon Him. He said, Come unto Me, all you
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. What a glorious Savior we have.
What a glorious God who has sent His Son into the world. to save
sinners. Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon
us according as we hope in Thee. Oh, what's your hope today? What's your expectation? What
is the thing that you desire more than anything else? Is it
to be found in Christ? I believe it is the true thing.
If that is your hope, that is your desire, He will in no wise
turn you away. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. What a merciful God we have. David said, There is forgiveness
with thee that thou mayest be feared. What causes us the greatest
consternation? I'm really not amazed if God
just killed everybody tomorrow. I mean, if He just wiped us all
out, it wouldn't amaze me at all. Not in the least. But dear brethren, that He would
show mercy to unthankful and disobedient creatures as we are.
That's an amazing thing. And only the Lord can cause a
man to fall at his feet and call upon Him.