We are going to be looking at
Psalm 28. It says, Unto thee will I cry,
O Lord, my rock. Be not silent to me, lest, if
thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the
pit. Hear the voice of my supplications
when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. Draw me not away with the wicked
and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbors,
but mischief is in their hearts. Give them according to their
deeds and according to the wickedness of their endeavors. Give them
after the work of their hands. Render to them their dessert.
Because they regard not the works of the Lord nor the operation
of His hands, He shall destroy them and not build them up. Blessed be the Lord, because
he hath heard the voice of my supplications. The Lord is my
strength and my shield, my heart trusted in him, and I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoices,
and with my song will I praise him. The Lord is their strength,
and he is the saving strength of his anointed. Save thy people
and bless thine inheritance. Feed them also and lift them
up forever. Now, of course, as we continue
in our study of these Psalms and looking at the fact that
David penned these words, and yet these words are indeed the
words of Christ. comprise the prayer of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And you know, as we think of
the Lord praying as He was indeed a man of prayer and spent much
time in the place of prayer and went apart, the Scripture says
often to pray. And really, it is necessary to go apart That's
why the Lord said, go into your closet when you pray. That is, you need to remove yourself
from other things. Now there is a place, and a glorious
place, wherein the sons of God come together and pray together. And that's a necessary part,
I believe, of the Christian life, is to pray together, to worship
together. And in praying together, especially
in prayers of supplication and petition to the Lord, we are
taught to bear one another's burdens. Well, when we pray together
and we hear one another pray and express burdens of their
heart, then we can bear their burdens with them as they pray. And so we are to bear one another's
burden. We are to uphold one another. But there is the matter
of prayer wherein it is necessary for a man to come apart from
all else, to put himself, to hide away so that it is just
him and the Lord and to pour out his soul unto the Lord. That is a needful thing and it
is a blessed thing and it is a privilege to be brought to
such a place as that. You can't learn to do that. You
know, you can have people tell you all day long how to pray.
The Lord told His disciples, they said, Lord, teach us to
pray. He said, when you pray, pray like this. But He did not
assume to them, nor was He teaching them wrote thing to say. In other words, He wasn't teaching
them that thing to say so that they would just say that. But
rather, that was the framework. That was He was showing them
how to pray. That this was the way to pray.
That this was the thing that comprises prayer. But when the
Lord Jesus Christ, when He went before the Lord, He didn't pray
what's become known as the Lord's Prayer, which wasn't really the
Lord's Prayer, that was the Lord's Model Prayer. The Lord's Prayer,
if you want to call something the Lord's Prayer, go to the
seventeenth chapter of John. And there you see the Lord's
Prayer. That was the Lord's Prayer before the Lord. And so he comes
here and he expresses, of course, the desires of a man who desires
to walk with God. And the Lord gives us that desire
in a very imperfect fashion. We don't perfectly desire to
follow the Lord. No man would claim that he does
perfectly follow the Lord if he has any understanding of what
that is comprised of. But the Lord expresses the expression
that He works in His people by the work of His Spirit, which
is to pray, to desire the presence of the Lord. And he says, unto
thee will I cry, O Lord, my wrath. Unto thee will I cry, not unto
someone else. He didn't go to his disciples
and say, can you all help me out? I'm in a jam. No, he went
to the Lord. He said, unto thee, O Lord, I
cry because there is no one else to whom I can come. O Lord, my
rock, my fortress, that one upon whom all of my hopes are built. O Lord, I will cry unto thee,
my rock. Be not silent to me. Now, some
people claim that the Lord speaks to them in audible voice. I couldn't tell you if you came
to me and you said the Lord told me something, I'd be the last
person on earth to tell you He didn't. Okay? Because I don't know if He spoke
to you or not. If you tell me He spoke to you,
I'm not going to dispute that He did. Now, I find it to be
unusual, however, in the Scriptures and otherwise, that the Lord
would speak to men in that fashion. But I wouldn't say that He does
not, because He did in from time to time do that in the Scriptures. But there is the understanding
that we have as the sons of God when we commune with God There
is a difference between when we commune with God, and as one
of the prophets said, the heavens were as brass, and we did not
get any communication coming back, and when the Lord does
flood our soul with blessing, and He does give us an answer
in our mind and heart of those things that we pray about. And so he says, be not silent
to me. That is, don't cast me away. Don't turn me from thy presence. Because if, he said, if you be
silent to me, that is, if when I pray and I have no confidence
that you hear me at all, and you are not listening to the
needs of my heart, I'll be as those that go down to the pit.
He said, that would be just like being in the grave. That would
be just like being separated from God. And you know, as an
aside note here, of course we know that in the book of the
Revelation there is a mention of the pit, and it's called the
bottomless pit. And the bottomless pit is that
place into which Satan shall ultimately be cast. Now, you
know, when you think of a bottomless pit, that conjures up all kinds
of notions in your mind, but that would be an awful thing. And what that means is that it
is a complete and total and absolute separation from God. And so he
says here, Lord, if you don't commune with me, you're as that
one who's my life and my health, and if I don't have that, I'll
be just like those who are cut off. I won't be any better off
than the man who is totally destroyed. And so we do believe that there
is a cutting off that does occur toward the wicked. They shall
be cut off. The Scripture says they shall
be destroyed. Now that's an awful thing if you pause and think
of it. Now men in their pride, men don't think they can be destroyed.
In fact, you talk to most people, they say, well, man's got an
eternal soul and he's going to live on somewhere. Well, show
that to me in the Scriptures. I mean, that's not in the Scriptures. Now, men have made it up. In
fact, I think it comes, basically, I think Plato was one of the
first ones that ever really opined that concept. And it has kind
of been woven into modern thought. And if you ask the average person,
they would tell you that that is the case. But the Scripture
indicates that the only way that a man has eternal life is that
it be granted to him by the hand of the Lord. Because we are dead
in trespasses and sins and one day these bodies shall perish. They shall be destroyed. And
our only hope is going to be that we have been given life
in Jesus Christ that we might live with Him. If we live, He
lives. Now the Scripture says that in
Him was life and life was the light of men. Now what he speaks
about here is that he would be like one that goes down in the
pit, that is, down in a place of darkness where there is no
light. He would be cut off because to
be cut off from God is to be in darkness. It's to be cast
into outer darkness. It's to be cast away from God.
It's to be destroyed. It's to be that which comes to
an end because where there is no light, There can be no life. And where there is no life, there
will be no light. And so he cries, he comes up
to the Lord, Lord don't cast me away. Because if you cast
me away, I'll be like those that go down in the pit from whence
there's no rescuing. I mean, if you fall into a well
or something, somebody might reach down a rope to you and
pull you out because you'd be down there a certain depth. But
see, if you're placed into a bottomless pit where there is no end, then
indeed, there's no rescue from that place. And the man who is
cut off from God, is in such a place as that. He is in a place
of total destruction. Hear the voice of my supplications
when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. Now, this word, oracle, is an
interesting word. I think that it literally means
the Word of God. It means the spoken Word of God. Now, it can have reference, and
I think probably here in what David is saying and what the
Lord is saying, as David reports his prayer, when I lift up my
hands toward thy holy oracle, that is, when I lift up my hands
toward thee, O Lord, as thou wouldst speak. Now, we read in
the Scriptures that it says, in the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And so the Word, that is the
truth of God, must come from Him. And so we lift up our hands
to the holy Word of God. Now we call this the Word of
God, but this isn't really the Word of God, is it? Now, don't go out here and say
I said the Bible wasn't the Word of God, but I mean, this book,
it's written down here on the pages, and every word in here
is absolutely true. But in the strictest sense of
the word, this is not the Word of God. This is merely the means
whereby the Lord has been pleased to give us a means to communicate
and see in a written form the Word of God. But the Word of
God cannot be contained in a book. You can burn every one of these
and the Word of God will not be affected at all. You know,
people worry all about that. Well, what if they burn up all
the Bibles? Well, what if they do? It might be good, actually.
I mean, I'm not saying it would. But you can't control the Word
of God. You can't contain the Word of
God because the Word of God is living, powerful. It's sharper than any two-edged
sword. And it can't be in any way hampered. And we're blessed, dear brethren,
to be given the Bible, that we might know the Word of God, because
it is in the pages of this book that we learn of many things
concerning the Word of God. But he says here, when I lift
up my hands toward the Holy Oracle, I lift up my hands to Thee, O
Lord, to hear from Thee. He is saying the same thing again.
I lift up my hands toward the Oracle. Now, the Scripture says,
You know, when Paul is speaking about the difference between
Jews and Gentiles, and he says there really is no difference,
but he said, what advantage then hath the Jew? This is in the
third chapter of Romans. He says, much in every way. You see, the Jews were a blessed
people in the earth because the Lord committed, he said, to them
were committed the oracles of God. That is, God delivered His
Word to the Jews. I mean, He didn't deliver it
to the Arabs, much as they might say that He did. He didn't. He delivered it to the Jews.
Now, they don't like that, and they would get mad at you and
probably try to cut your head off if you told them that. But
the truth is that it is to the Jews that the Lord gave His Word. It is to the Jews that the Lord
sent the prophets with the message of God. Now having said that,
isn't that an interesting thing that the two examples that the
Lord told to the Jews who thought of themselves as being because
of their race and their ethnicity that they had an inside track
with God, isn't it interesting that the Lord said that He sent
the prophet unto a Gentile, being Naaman the Syrian, and to the
widow of Zarephath, who was also a Gentile. I mean, these things
are amazing. Yet, chiefly, he said, unto the
Jews were committed the oracles of God. The Word of God was given
to them. And so he said, I will lift up
my hands toward thy holy oracle. Now, the oracles of God also
has to do with the prophets. Why? Because the prophets speak
the Word of God. I mean, if a man, the Lord said,
this is how you can tell if a man is a prophet, if what he says
comes to pass, then he is. But He says, if a man prophesies
something and it doesn't come to pass, guess what? You can
say that man is not a prophet of God. So when these guys come
around, and they do from time to time, and some of them make
repeated efforts at it, of predicting when the Lord is going to come,
and they set out a date, and then it doesn't take place, dear
brethren, according to the Word of God, they are a false prophet. They don't make a difference
what else they say or whatever. They are a false prophet. We
need to be careful with these businesses. There are people
that go around the countryside and the world, in fact, with
what they claim is the word of knowledge and they go and they
make these predictions and they are supposedly speaking like
the prophets of God and they are telling folks stuff. One
of them will stand up and he will say, somebody in here has
got an ingrown toenail. And you know, they're going to
have all these different things that they're going to say to
me. Now, somebody there probably
does have an ingrown toenail. Okay? And I'm just making a silly
thing. But my point is that because
someone comes saying something and they do signs and wonders
and things that you can't explain, that does not mean that they
are speaking from God, most especially if the prophecies that they set
forth do not come to pass. And when I am talking about the
prophecies, I am talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The
Lord sent His prophets into the world to do one thing. The Scripture
says, when the Spirit of God is come, He will not speak of
Himself, but He will glorify Me. Now wherever the Spirit of
God is, Jesus Christ is going to be exalted. He's not going
to be made to be kind of halfway exalted, but he's going to be
exalted. He's the only one that's going to be exalted. Otherwise,
it cannot be the truth of God, because that is the purpose of
God's prophets, is to point to Christ, to magnify Him. He said, I will lift up my hands
toward thy holy oracle. Draw me not away with the wicked
and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbors,
but mischief is in their heart." Now was the Lord Jesus Christ,
as a perfect man, was He in danger of being drawn away? No. But wouldn't it not be true to
say that He desired not to be drawn away? Now, he wasn't in
danger of that. Now, a lot of times people, they
say, well, you know, if you believe God's sovereign and He's in control
of all things, then why would you even ever pray? Because you
just think everything's going to happen the way the Lord says
it's going to happen. Well, I do believe whatever's going to happen,
but I also believe that the Spirit of God works in the people of
God to cause them to desire the same thing that He does. And
He'll keep His people from falling. And you know what His people
desire? To be kept from falling. Isn't that true? I mean, doesn't
every one of God's children say, Lord, don't let me fall, don't
let me turn aside, don't let me be found to be a false professor? I mean, isn't that what the people
of God desire? Well, of course it is, because
you see, the Lord brings the conformity of the mind to His
will. And we desire to walk in holiness. Now, we fail and fall short of
being what we should be, and that causes us grief. And we
being imperfect men, not as He was a perfect man, how much more
so is it proper that we should pray, O Lord, don't let us be
turned aside. I mean, if He prayed these prayers,
Draw me not away with the wicked. Don't let me listen to them.
Don't let me be found walking in their way which speak peace
to their neighbors. But mischief is in their hearts.
Oh, they come to you with a smile. But mischief is in their hearts.
Dear brethren, I was sitting there as we were thinking and
singing. You know, Paul, never made merchandise of the gospel.
He could have. He said, I don't want to take
one thing for, speaking to the Corinthians, he says, I never
took anything from you because I didn't want my ministry to
be hampered in any way by someone saying, yeah, he's just in it
for the money. Now, you know, there's a lot
of guys that are out there preaching that I don't know if they're
in it for the money or not. Now, they may not be. I'm not
saying that everybody that's ever mentioned you sending them
some money is in it for the money. But the question does arise,
does it not? I mean, if a man has to go around
asking for money, it does lead you to wonder, well, why is he
doing that? You know, what's the purpose
of that? So far be it for me to say that everybody that asks
for somebody to send them a donation is doing it for the money, but
the question does arise. Paul said, I don't want the question
to arise. I don't want anybody to even
wonder, you know, whether or not that be the case. But I can
tell you this, that there are a multitude of silver-tongued
preachers, calling themselves preachers of the gospel, who
will smile at you and deceive you with a smile on their face,
but mischief is in their heart, because what they desire is the
benefit that you are going to be to them, not the benefit they
are going to be to you. And that is just a fact. That
is not a blanket statement, because the Lord knoweth them that are
His. But it is a true thing that there are deceivers that are
going out into the land. And the Lord Jesus prayed, Lord,
deliver me from those who come with the appearance of doing
me good. When in reality, they're not
doing me any good at all. They're doing themselves good,
not me. He said, give them according
to their deeds. You know, the Lord, He always
spoke truth. And He said, those that are deceivers,
and Paul said the same thing. He said, if any man come preaching
any other gospel to you than that which ye have received,
that which I have preached unto you, what did He say? Let them
be accursed. Now that's strong words, is it
not? That is exactly what the Lord said. Give them according
to their deeds. Let the man who is of a mischievous
device, let them have what they want. Give it to them. Give them
the fruits of their labors according to the wickedness of their endeavors.
Give them after the work of their head. Render to them their dessert. Now people talk about wanting
justice. And now what is he praying for?
Justice. The Lord is a just God. He is going to give men what
they deserve. Now, He may show mercy, but you
can be sure of this, that He will give men what they deserve,
and He will give you what you deserve, except for one thing,
and that is that the Lord Jesus Christ is stood in your room
instead, and you stand in His righteousness. And you see, if
you stand in His righteousness, then you're still going to get
what you deserve. Because the man that stands in
the righteousness of Christ deserves everything that Christ purchased
for him, does he not? Not because of him, but because
of Christ. So that's a glorious thing. So
you know, the men of this world, they say, well, we want justice. Well, they're going to get it.
Everybody's going to get it. You are going to get according
to the wickedness of their endeavors. Give them after the work of their
hands. Render to them what they deserve. In other words, pay
a man what he has earned. Now what Paul said, the wages
of sin is death. And every man is going to get
exactly what he earned. The Lord, He does not send men
into the field to work and not pay them, does He? Remember?
He gave the parable of the one who paid the ones that came at
the last hour the same thing that he paid the ones that came
and worked all day. But he gave them all their wages. And he will pay for sure. Because they regard not the works
of the Lord, nor the operation of His hands. He shall destroy
them and not build them up. Now, that's not always readily
apparent in this world, is it? I know black preachers say one
time, and it wasn't because it was black, but sometimes some
of those older preachers, they just had a way of getting right
down to the brass tacks. Like I heard a guy saying one
time that when you study in the Scriptures and the Lord is showing
you things, then they say it's just like digging in and getting
sweet potatoes out of the ground. He says, you can dig in there
and you think you've got all the sweet potatoes out. He says,
but you can go back there tomorrow and you'll find some more. But where was I going with that? I was thinking, I got off the
track there. That wasn't my real point, but
it was, oh, I know what it was. The other fellow said, God don't
pay off on Saturday night. Now used to, that was when men
got paid, it was on Saturday night. Now they got paid on Friday,
pretty soon they'll probably be paying on Thursday or maybe
even Monday or whatever. But anyway, the Lord doesn't
pay off on Saturday night. What He meant was, it's not always
apparent what a man is going to get because sometimes the
Lord causes the wicked to prosper in this world. He often causes
wicked profits. to prosper in this world for
a season. But you can be sure of one thing,
that when the day comes that He is going to mete out His justice,
they will get what they deserve. Now, I'm not the one, thankfully,
you can be thankful for this, I'm not the one that determines
what that is. He is. And He will be just. I have no doubt whatsoever. that
in the day of judgment the Lord will be absolutely just. There will not be anybody that
will stand before Him and be able to say, Lord, I didn't get
what I deserved. Because all men will. That's
what He says. That's what He prays for. That's
what we should desire. Because they regard not the works
of the Lord, nor the operations of His hand, nor have they regard
to the things of God. He shall destroy them and not
build them up. Blessed be the Lord, because
He hath heard the voice of my supplications. Blessed be His
name. He heard us when we called. He
did hear us. He has heard us. And you know,
is that not why we preach the gospel? To remind one another
that He has heard the prayers of His people. He does show mercy
to them that call upon His name. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. He never turned away a
sinner who cried out to Him. He never said, I am not listening
to you. But He is full of mercy to all
who call upon His name. He has heard the voice of my
supplications, the Lord. is my strength and my shield. My heart trusted in Him and I
am helped." Now I believe that all of God's
people can say that. Now we might not always be helped
at the very moment that we wish we were helped. And we might
not be helped exactly like we were hoping to be helped. But
I believe this is a true thing. that if the Spirit of God works
in a man, that man will testify ultimately that he has been helped
by the Lord. Because you see, when the Lord
teaches a man what he is by nature, he knows he ought to be killed
tomorrow. If the Lord spares you over until tomorrow, He has
helped you. Has He not? I mean, if He hadn't
taken your life before the sun goes down, He's shown mercy to
you. Everybody doesn't believe that,
see. I mean, most people just think, well, he just ought to
be able to live and do whatever we want to do. But it's of the
Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. The Lord is my strength
and my shield, my heart trusted in Him. He's that One in whom
our confidence is placed. And He's that One that we expect
shall protect us even if He sees fit for our lives to come to
an end tomorrow, today. He will protect us. See, He's
our shield even unto death. I don't know when that time comes
for each one of us. We don't have any idea or way
of knowing. But it doesn't matter because of the fact that He's
our shield. And so it doesn't matter if we live ten years or
we live fifty years, He is our shield. And my heart trusted in Him and
I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth
and with my song will I praise Him. Do you know of any of those
who have been born again by the Spirit of God who do not desire
to praise the name of the Lord? I don't believe a person can
exist like that. When the Lord awakens a man to
see the glories of Christ, he desires to praise the Lord. He
is worthy of praise. In fact, the psalmist said, let
the redeemed of the Lord say so. Why? Because that is their
nature. And that is the way that God's
people will be. And I am greatly helped, my heart
greatly rejoices, and with my song will I praise Him. David
said, with my songs in the night. Paul said, making melody in our
hearts unto the Lord. Singing unto Him. The Lord is
their strength, and He is the saving strength of His anointed. Now who is His anointed? Well, it's really got a two-fold
meaning, but the anointed of the Lord is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the anointed one of God. He's that one upon whom the Spirit
of God came without measure. See, we've received the Spirit
of God by measure. Because it is impossible that
we should not receive it by measure. Now, every vessel is different,
and the Lord has given to every man the measure of faith that
pleases Him. He has poured out His Spirit
upon every man according to the measure that he sees fit to do
it. Now, I cannot sit back and say, well, because you are not
walking in this way, don't understand this or whatever, well, you're
not one of the Lord's people. I don't know. The Lord gives
to every man to measure according to as it pleases Him, and He
pours out His Spirit as it pleases Him. But one thing is sure, that
He gives to every man His Spirit, and He is the saving strength
of His anointed. Now, He is the saving strength
of Christ. Did He not save Christ from the
tomb? Christ triumphed over the tomb.
But He triumphed because His heavenly Father was that One
that delivered Him from the tomb. He saved Him from it. And if He saved Him, will He
not save those who are in Christ? Of course He will. And so He
saves His anointed as those who are the elect of God or called
the anointed of God. We've been anointed. That is,
the mercies of God have been poured on us. And we've received
it from Him. He is the saving strength of
His anointed. He is the power that we have.
Save thy people and bless thine inheritance. Feed them also and
lift them up forever. See, that's the Lord's prayer,
is it not? For His people. Save thy people. He said, I pray not for the world,
but for them which Thou hast given Me out of the world. Thine
they were, and Thou hast given them to Me." And so the Lord,
He prays for His people. He desires that the people of
God be saved. Now don't we desire that? I mean,
can we not pray, Lord save Your people? Would we not pray that? I mean, shall we not pray that?
Now, we don't know who they are. And there's people we hope are.
We don't know if they are or not. I don't know anybody, you
know, that is in control of that but the Lord. Nothing I can do
about it, but it doesn't keep me from desiring. I desire the
Lord. I don't want anybody that's not
one of the Lord's people, I don't want them to be saved. You know
why? Because if I did, I'd be going
against the will of God, because He said He would save everyone
that belonged to Him. And those are the ones I hope
that He saves. And those are the ones I believe
He will save. Oh, the glory of God! Save Thy people and bless
Thine inheritance. Do we want all men to be blessed?
Well, there's a measure in which we do. We especially want the sons of
God to be blessed. Bless thine inheritance. Bless
the people of God. Help them in the midst of their
troubles. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law
of Christ. Feed them also and lift them
up forever. Because He will. If you want
to pray according to the will of God, pray that He will feed
His people, save His people, and lift them up forever, because
He will. And He's a glorious and a matchless
Savior. And you know, we're blessed that
He prayed for us. He prayed for us. He didn't pray for the world,
but He prayed for us. Now, how do we know if we're
one of God's children? Well, we can't climb a ladder
and reach up into heaven and open the book. You couldn't open
the book if you wanted to because He already opened the book. It's an open book, you see. And
He knows every name on every page. The Lord knoweth them that
are His. So how can we know if we belong
to Him? Well, we can't from that standpoint.
But He has sent the Spirit of the Son into our hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. And a man can know that he is
one of God's children because he desires the Father. He desires the glory of the Son.
He desires to worship Him. He desires to sing praises unto
Him. In all things, he finds great
help and comfort. He can say, the Lord, is my help. I don't want help from anybody
else. I don't want to find myself trusting in the arm of anybody
but Christ. He alone is my help. And so,
the Lord has sent the Spirit of the Son into our hearts crying,
Abba, Father. Otherwise, we wouldn't. And men
don't. They do not know that.