Psalm 27. And we had looked at
part of this last week. I'm going to begin reading there
in verse 7. It says, Here, O Lord, when I
cry with my voice, have mercy also upon me and answer me. When Thou saidst, Seek ye my
face, my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not thy face far from me,
put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help, leave
me not, neither forsake me, O God, of my salvation. When my father
and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach me thy way, O Lord, and
lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies. Deliver me not
over unto the will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen
up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty. I had fainted unless
I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the
living. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and He shall
strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Now, of course, in this blessed
psalm we do have the prayer of David, but very much
so the prayer of Christ. And, you know, as Christ walked
among men in the earth, He was a perfect man, yet He was man who bore the sins
of his people. That causes a lot of people to
stumble. And you know, a lot of people
go shipwrecked either on the one side of that issue or on
the other. They either make him so much
a man that they diminish his deity, or just as bad is to exalt
his deity to the point that They minimize His humanity. And we
must not do either one. He came among men as a man. He is a man. Scripture says that
He took on flesh and blood. And He left this world in a human
body. How do we know that? Because
He met with His disciples after He rose from the dead. And we
don't have any evidence that Thomas actually did this, but
he said, Thomas, reach forth your hand and put your hand in
my side and you'll feel it. I mean, here's my hand. So we
know that he had a body and the Scripture says that when he ascended
into the heavens, the angels told the saints, they said, why
are you gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus shall so come
in like manner. The same one. The one that walked
with you on the shores of Galilee, the same one, in a glorified
body for sure, in a body not susceptible unto death. And keep
in mind that his body was susceptible unto death only because he took
upon himself the sin of his people. I mean, he could have walked
among men as a perfect man and never seen death because death
had no hold on him. He couldn't have died. There
would have been no ground upon which death could have had any
hold upon him. The law could have said nothing,
but he willingly became sin for us, took upon himself our sin
and bore it. And so, when he cries out for
mercy, he cries out as that man, who has sin upon him. Now he
didn't have any sin of his own, but he had sin of ours. Ours
was given to him, and he bore it. And he knew himself as that
one bearing our sin to be in need of mercy. And just as David,
no doubt, cried out for the mercy of God, so much more did Christ
cry out for the mercy of God. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with
my voice, have mercy also upon me, and answer me." But now keep
this in mind, and here's the glorious thing, is that everything
that the Lord Jesus Christ asked for Himself, He asked for us. I mean, when He cried out for
mercy, He brought mercy. Did he not? I mean, the Lord
hears the prayer of the righteous man, does he not? Did not the
Lord hear his prayer? Well, sure he did. And he asked
for mercy. And dear brethren, that's the
only basis and grounds upon which any man will receive mercy, is
because of that which Christ has performed and asked for him. You see, men in general, I mean,
it's just the way people are. They just think they go through
life and anytime they get ready they can ask the Lord something
or go to the Lord. I mean, everybody prays. I would say everybody does at
some point in time in their life. But most everybody thinks they
can talk to God, do they not? I mean a lot of people think
they can talk to dead folks, but most everybody has some form
of means whereby they think they are communing with God. But dear
brethren, a man cannot commune with God when he has sin upon
his hands. Who shall ascend unto the hill
of the Lord? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart, who
hath not lifted up his soul into vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
He is the one whose prayers the Lord hears. And dear brethren,
the reason that we receive mercy is not because we seek mercy,
but it is because He gained mercy for us. The Lord said, I will
show mercy to whom I will show mercy. And the one upon whom
He would show mercy is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our great
and merciful High Priest. So when He says, Here O Lord,
when I cry with my voice, have mercy also upon me and answer
me, He is praying as a man, but He is praying for us. His prayers
He prayed Oh Lord, I pray not for the world, but for those
whom Thou hast given me out of the world. Thine they were, and
Thou hast given them me. I pray not for the world. When
Thou said, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto Thee, Thy face,
Lord, will I seek. Now the Lord said, My sheep hear
my voice, I know them, and they follow me. Now, when we preach
the gospel in a broadcast sense, I mean, we're speaking forth
the Word. We're not out here picking and
choosing who it is that we're speaking to. But we know this,
that when we speak, the only people who will hear the Word
of God, receive it, and obey it, or those whom the Lord is
pleased to awaken, that they might hear it. I mean, that's
just the way that it is. And the sheep, those who belong
to the Lord, they can pray this very prayer. When the Lord said,
Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will
I seek. We will seek Him. Nobody can talk me out of it.
Now, I might do the best I can to talk myself out of it, but
by the grace of God, in His mercy, we cannot be caused not to seek
the Lord. I mean, a man in whom the Lord
is pleased to work, he's going to seek the Lord. It's just the
truth. You can't keep a man from seeking
the Lord. Nothing you can do that's going
to keep him from it. In his prayer, he said, the Lord,
you said unto me, seek me. What a glorious thing. Seek the
Lord. It's like I used to have an old
dog when the trains used to come through. And that old dog, he'd
lay out there on the porch and you wouldn't hear a thing. But
all of a sudden, he'd start going, ooooh. And he'd get a little louder,
and then he'd quit, and then he'd get a little louder, and
sure enough, pretty soon, there'd be a train coming. I don't know
what it was he was hearing. I don't know if it was the sound
of the wheels on the track, and there was a certain frequency
that he was picking up, or if it was the horn of the train. I don't know what it was, but
somehow or other, He could hear something that I couldn't hear.
And dear brethren, that's just the truth of the way the grace
of God works, is that some men are unable to hear. Now what
did that old dog do to gain that? Did he go off to dog school somewhere
and learn how to hear a train? No, he just heard it because
the Lord gave him that ear to hear it. What a glorious thing
when a man can hear the Gospel. When a man can hear the Lord
say, Seek Me, and he says, Yes, Lord, I'll seek Thee. Because, you know, he comes to
find as time goes on that the Lord sought him. I sought the Lord. One of the
hymn writers, I believe it was Joseph Hart, or it might have
been John Newton, he said, I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew. He moved my soul to seek Him
seeking me. Oh, what a glorious God we have,
full of grace and mercy. Thy face, Lord, will I seek.
Hide not thy face far from me. What would be the most awful
thing that those who desire to seek the Lord, what would be
the most awful thing that could happen to them would be for the
Lord not to hear. to seek the Lord, and he turned
a deaf ear. Now we have examples in the Scriptures
of the prophets who sometimes prayed, and one of them said,
the heavens were as brass. I couldn't even hear anything. The Lord turned His back on me.
Now we know that the Lord, He hears all things, and He always
hears the prayers of His people. But it does not please Him from
time to time to answer them quickly. And he does often in that sense
hide his face from them, though his eyes are always upon his
people. Yet as far as they can feel and
touch and taste and know his presence, sometimes he hides
himself from them. But he always does that for their
good. But it is not our desire. I mean, we don't go through life
because we know that the Lord hides His face from us sometimes,
and it is working for our good, it does cause us to sin. We don't
pray, well, Lord, we want You to hide Your face from us today.
I mean, do we ever want that? No, Lord, help us. Lord, show
us Thy way. Teach us Thy path. Help us to
go in it. Lord, hide not thy face from
me. Put not thy servant away in anger. Oh, what an awful thing to think
of hearing an angry word from the Lord. Thou hast been my help. Leave
me not, neither forsake me, O God, for my salvation." Because you
see, the man that's been stirred up to seek the Lord, he knows
he doesn't have any other hope. Now, a lot of people, they can
find hope in all kinds of things. I mean, you know, they get a
little down in the mouth and they just go get them a book
and they read that book and it stirs them up, and man, they're
all right, they're good to go for a little while longer. And
you know, that's just kind of the way that the natural man
is. But the man who is stirred by the Lord to seek the Lord,
he can't be helped but by one thing, and that is for the Lord
to help him, to guide him, not forsake him, not be angry with
him. Leave me not, neither forsake
me, O God of my salvation. See, the Lord is our Savior. When I was growing up, I kind
of understood when I would hear people say that, like, He was
our little personal God, and you just put Him in your pocket,
like a rabbit's foot or something. When you needed Him, you just
reached in there and fumbled around and found it, and you
rubbed it just right, and things would be alright. And that's
kind of how I thought of Him as being my Savior, my God. But by the grace of God, as He
taught me a little bit about His character and who He is,
the wonder of that has set in upon me. And I can't even imagine
how it could be that this One who rules in the army of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth could say unto His
people, I am your God. He would give us, not in the
sense in which men can own God, but giving us the privilege.
He has sent the Spirit of the Son into our hearts saying, Abba,
Father. Now, can you just call God Father
because you decide to? The only way you can call God
Father, I mean, and it really be that which the Scriptures
speak about when He's taught His disciples how to pray, Our
Father which art in heaven. It's not Our Father which art
in heaven that is kind of like a generic Father. See, that's
how most people think of God. He's just kind of like this generic.
I mean, you know, He's the God of the Hindus and the God of
the Muslims and the God of all these different outfits that's
running around out here. And He's just God, you know,
just out there. No, He's the God of His people. He's not a generic God. He is
not off over here doing something for this group and doing something
for that group and just kind of taking a day or two off here
and there, but He is the God of His people. He is always the
God of His people. He loves His people. He created
the world for His people's sake because He created the world
to manifest the glory of His grace in the redemption of His
people in Jesus Christ. that in the ages to come the
Scripture says that we might praise Him. What a wondrous thing. Dear brethren, O God of my salvation. That's what Jonah found out, wasn't
it? In the battle of the whale. Or the whale. I say the whale. The New Testament does say whale
in one of the Gospels. But that word, it translated
great fish. Now it might have been a whale,
but likely was not a whale. It was likely just a great big
fish. I know it was a fish that was
prepared, because the Scripture says it was prepared. Now if
it was a whale, okay, so be it. I had a fellow one time, I was
at a meeting, and they called on me to preach, and I had made
some reference to Jonah and the fact that the Lord had caused
some fish to lay an egg, you know, and this fish grew up at
a particular time to the right size, The Lord prepared this
fish to swallow Jonah. Well, after the meeting, He said,
you know, you were wrong there. And I said, well, that's probably
not unlikely, but what was the issue? He said, a whale is a
mammal. Now he was laboring under the
notion that it was a whale like he understood a whale to be.
And well, it could be, because whales are not hatched from eggs. They are born live. Men get caught
up in foolish things such as that. I don't know. I don't know if it was a whale
or if it was a regular fish that is hatched from an egg, but now
what difference does that make? What matters is that the Lord
put Jonah in the fish's belly for two reasons. The first reason
was that he would illustrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Jonah was three days and three
nights in the fish's belly, so shall the Son of Man be. That's
why He calls that whole thing to take place. In the course
of that, he taught Jonah a valuable lesson, did he not? And while
Jonah was in that fish's belly, he said this, Salvation is of
the Lord. And immediately, the fish vomited
Jonah out on dry land. Now, can you, I mean, just think
about that. I don't know if he just shot
him up in the air and he landed on the beach or if the fish had
run up on the beach and vomited him out or if he vomited. I don't
know how it happened. But I know one thing, that the
whole purpose of Jonah being in the fish's mouth, it wasn't
to punish him for being disobedient. Now, did Jonah learn that disobedience
is not a good thing? Well, sure he did. More ways
than one. But that wasn't the point of
the exercise. The point of the exercise was
to bring Jonah to the place where he knew that God was a God of
mercy. Because just like God sent Jonah
down there to Nineveh to preach, and Jonah didn't want to do it,
yet the Lord would show him how merciful he was. and to cause
him to cry out to the God of his salvation. When my father
and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." Now,
that's something that doesn't very seldom ever happen, does
it? In fact, it's said in such a way here that it's almost an
impossible thing. I know that it does happen sometimes
in the earth because of the corruption of men. But it is just, you know,
the last person on earth, the last two people on earth that's
going to disown you and just cast you out is your mom and
daddy. And even when your daddy does,
your mama's still going to be there. I mean, she's going to
be there, is she not? We see that illustrated with
the Lord Jesus Christ. Because it's mama. And she saw him pour out his
blood. And she loved him to the end.
And so that doesn't disillustrate this, but it illustrates it,
dear brethren. Because he said, even when such
a thing as that is, which is beyond our comprehension, should
occur, even if it should occur and we be cast out, I mean, the
Lord said in the book of Isaiah, He said, I saw thee when thou
wast in thy blood. Or in Jeremiah, I believe it
is. I saw thee when thou wast in thy blood. He said, thou wast
cast off. He said, your mother left you
there. She gave birth to you and she
left you there. But He said, I saw thee and I
cast my skirt over thee. And it was the time of love.
Because you see there, brethren, the love of God for His people
is never diminished. It's never compromised. It's
never hindered. It's never in any wise can a
man disrupt it. But it's constant. He is that
One. When my father and my mother
forsake me, then the Lord will take me. He will not forsake
His people. Teach me Thy way, O Lord." And
on that note, isn't that a poignant example of this very thing of
the Lord seeing His mother at the foot of the cross? He said
to the disciple, that was it. They'd take care of her. Who can you say He loved her?
It's an illustration of His undying love. And in the midst of His
greatest suffering, He had concern for that woman whom He did love. Teach me thy way, O Lord, and
lead me in a plain path because of mine enemies. That is, guide
me in the way because I do have enemies. Now, the Lord Jesus
Christ, we touched on this last week, The Lord had many enemies. I mean, in the house of His friends,
He said, they were raised up those to wound me. Jesus, He
knew him from the beginning, did He not? But He chose him
to walk with Him. That He might show, that He might
show that He would even be forsaken of those whom He loved for our
sake. And He had many enemies, those
who would do Him harm. But what was His desire? That
He might walk in the right way. Because He said, you know, Lord,
they are out to destroy Me. Help Me to walk in a plain path,
to walk in the right path, a smooth path, a path that is not hindered
Because they went about it, and I mentioned this before, but
they went about the killing from the time that he set foot in
the temple. It wouldn't be surprising to
me to know that some of those men who were out to get him were
there when he as a twelve-year-old child was reasoning with them
in the synagogue. And knowing men to be like they
are, especially religious men who like places of power, I'm
sure they say, you know, we better be watching out for this guy.
And then when he came on the scene, some of them probably
behind the scenes said, see, I told you. Now, if we don't
nip this thing in the bud, it's going to get out of hand. And
sure enough, You know, many of the time that they would have
destroyed him, most especially when he came telling them that
they were not the sons of God because of their birth as Abraham's
children. When he pointed out to them that
the Lord down through history, and he gave them the example
of the widow and the leper who were both Gentiles, he says,
the Lord disregarded the needs of Israel. And he sent the prophet
to these, and they said, we can't have this. He's speaking blasphemy. And they would have destroyed
him. His enemies, deliver me not over unto the will of mine
enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against me, and
such as breathe out cruelty. But they weren't. You see, here's
his prayer. Had he not been the sin bearer,
could anybody have raised up a false accusation against him? Would he not have been able to
have overturned them all had he not willingly submitted himself
unto this? But yet he prayed, Lord, deliver
me not over to the will of my enemies. Because you see, men
would daily go about to destroy him. Now that's the natural course
of men. Now, men often say, well, you
know, if God has predestined things to occur, then why, He
can't rightly hold anybody accountable for what they're going to do.
But brethren, keep this in mind. First of all, God can do anything
He wants to do because He is world. And He made men accountable
because He decreed that they would be accountable. But keep
this in mind. Those that crucified the Lord
Jesus Christ, it was ordained from before the foundation of
the world according to the determinate purpose and foreknowledge of
God. It was to be done. Just as Judas was marked out
to do exactly what he did. But don't forget that Judas did
what he did because he wanted to do it. And he would have done
it. Because that was in his heart.
Satan had filled thine heart. That was the way that he was
going. And the Pharisees, they would
destroy the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he used the animus that they
had and he ordained the animus that they had to fulfill the
purpose that he would carry out. But don't ever mistake. The fact
that men are accountable for every action that they take.
And they're wicked. There's none that do us good.
No, not one. I don't have to really tell you
that if the Lord's ever showed you a little bit about yourself.
You already know that to be true. That doesn't come as a revelation.
I mean, when it first came to my understanding that all of
sin had come short of the glory of God, I didn't say, well, imagine
that. No, I said, that's a fact. I know that's the truth. Deliver me not over unto the
will of mine enemies. Christ wanted to be delivered
over to the will of His Father, did He not? We don't want to
be delivered over to the will of our enemies. I'm praying,
Lord, keep me back from the will of my enemies. Now who's my greatest
enemy? It's this old flesh. I'm not
saying, Lord, let my enemies have control over me. No, I don't
want to go that way. And so the man who desires to
walk with the Lord, he wants to be delivered from his enemies
just as Jesus Christ did for our sake. For false witnesses
are risen up against me, and did they not? It's amazing how easy it is to
find false witnesses. I mean, they come out of the
woodwork, do they not? For fame, glory, money, whatever.
I mean, you know, different ones want different things, but it's
not hard to find somebody that will lie if the price is right. And the Lord knew what was in
the hearts of men, did He not? He knew ahead of time. that false
accusers were going to come. It didn't take him by surprise.
He already knew how they were. That's the reason he prayed.
He knew that there would be those that would accuse his brethren.
But you see, what did he do? One of the things the Scripture
says is that he had silenced what? The accuser of the brethren. Because you see, Satan's desire
would be to destroy the people of God. He goes about as a roaring
lion. I'm sure he's gathering information
on each one of God's people every day. He's saying, look, look,
here he is, look what he's doing. And he's whispering in their
ears and he's stirring up their flesh. But it's false accusations, brethren. Now, how do we say it's false? It's false because Jesus Christ
said that He has justified us by His own blood on Calvary's
cross. Now, if you are justified, it
means that you have no record of sin. Now, that's the hardest
thing for a man to ever come to grips with, is it not? I mean,
you can believe anything. You can believe Jesus died on
the cross. But you can't wrap your mind really around what
it is to be completely guilt-free. That's why Paul wrote 6th chapter
of Romans. He said, Wrecking yourselves
dead in deed unto sin. He didn't say make out like it's
so. I've heard men preach on it. It's like, well, make out
like you're dead to sin. No, you are dead to sin. Sin
has no more dominion over you. The law cannot condemn you. You
have been made free in Christ. Oh, be ye reconciled unto God,
dear brethren. Throw down your arms of rebellion
and your unbelief and that which keeps you back and see that Christ
has died. That is what we have got this
here for today. To remind us that He died. And dear brethren,
if Christ died for us, who can? If Christ be for us, who can
be against us? Can't be. If not, anybody left. He took care of it. I had fainted
unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living. Why did He go to the cross? He
went to the cross because He loved His people. But He went
to the cross because He wanted to fulfill His Father's will. And He had fainted. He couldn't
have done it had it not been that the Lord, as He is a man,
that the Lord gave Him faith that He believed to see the goodness
of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord. Be
of good courage, he shall strengthen thine heart. Dear brethren, we have no greater
example of that, the fulfillment of those very words right there,
than Jesus Christ who hung on Calvary's cross under the awful curse of sin,
the law, the sentence of death, and yet his expiring word. or
words that illustrate the very truth of this psalm right here. He said, Father, into Thy hands
I commend my spirit. He trusted the Lord with all
of his heart, and the Lord did not forsake him. Because on the
third day, according to the purpose and will of Almighty God, He
broke the bonds of death and he arose as a victor, as a savior
of his people.