Psalm 25, begin reading there
in verse 14, says, The secret of the Lord is with them that
fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. My eyes are ever
toward the Lord, for He shall pluck my feet out of the net.
Turn thee unto Me, and have mercy upon me, for I am desolate and
afflicted. The troubles of my heart are
enlarged. O bring thou me out of my distresses. Look upon mine affliction and
my pain and forgive all my sins. Consider mine enemies, for they
are many, and they hate me with cruel hatred. O keep my soul
and deliver me. Let me not be ashamed, for I
put my trust in thee. Let integrity and uprightness
preserve me, for I wait on thee. Redeem Israel O God, out of all
his troubles." Now never has a man ever felt sin in all of its heinous nature
and awful way greater than that which the Lord Jesus Christ did. And you know, sometimes it's
hard for us to consider that, because we know that the Lord
Jesus Christ, as a perfect man, walked perfectly in the earth
and had no sin. But yet He was a man acquainted
with sorrow, and the sorrows that He had was on account of
sin. If there was no sin, there'd
be no sorrow. And because there is sin, there
is sorrow. And the Lord Jesus Christ, He
came to bear our sin, not simply just look on it from afar and
say, well, those people out there, they have sinned and so I'm going
to do something about it. But rather He bore that sin.
He took it upon Himself. It became His. He owned it. He didn't just do some kind of
a general thing, well, I'll just wipe this sin away. Now that's
kind of the view that most people have of the atonement of Christ. That's what's been predominantly
preached in the last couple hundred years about the atonement of
Christ is that He just kind of did this thing out here where
He just kind of said, I'm just going to pay for sin. Sin's paid
for. Now it's all up to you to make
that good. You know, I did the best I could,
I'm going to make it good. But that's not the picture of
what the Lord Jesus Christ did. Because there is no substitutionary
work in that picture. Because Christ specifically took
upon Himself the sin of His people, given to Him for the foundation
of the world, and He bore it in His own body as He walked
in the earth, And as he went to Calvary, in the ultimate payment
for sin, giving of his own life, pouring out his blood, that we
might have life. Now he did that in a specific,
absolute, and particular fashion. Because if he did not, then there
is no particular and absolute payment for sin. I mean, he paid
the price for sin. You know, a payment God cannot
twice demand, first at my bleeding shirt, his hand, and then again
at mine. Now, Augustus' top lady understood
that, did he not? He knew that there had to be
a payment, a quid pro quo, to use a Latin phrase, so we sound
learned. everything, but it just simply
means a specific payment for a specific item. Now, you know,
when we think of redemption, and this psalm ends, redeem Israel
out of all of his troubles. When we think about redemption,
redeeming something is pay for it. That's what it literally
means. It means to make a purchase. to single it out, to get it,
redeem it. If you go into a store, and everybody
understands what redemption is in the proper sense, when you
go into a store, to Publix or wherever you might go, and you
get an item and you pay for the item, as soon as you make the
transaction and you've got the stuff in the bag, It's yours,
is it not? I mean, it's not somebody else's,
it belongs to you. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ did with His people. He bought them. He paid the price
for them. And they are His. Now they were
His when He went in. Now see, the grocers were not
yours until you paid for them. But the Lord Jesus Christ, He
owned His people before He came to pay for them, but He came
to pay for them because they had sold themselves into sin. Now He subjected them unto vanity.
There is no way around that. Now, you know, people get all
worried about about such issues, and you'll often hear people
get up in arms about it if you say, well, God's not the author
of sin. Now, I know that argument is
an argument about whether or not man is accountable for his
sin. And the answer to that question
is he is absolutely accountable for his sin. Now why is he accountable
for his sin? Is he accountable for his sin
because of some cosmic rule? No, he's accountable for his
sin because God said, the soul that sinneth shall die. And that's
why man is accountable for his sin, because God said man is
going to be accountable for his sin. Now that is a principle
that cannot be violated and will never be violated. Because God
decreed that it be so. And man is accountable for his
sin. Now you can be sure that nothing
existed in the earth until the Lord made it. Nothing we see
or experience or whatever ever existed until the Lord made it.
Now, you know, people, they get to worrying that if you get to
say, well, you just make men where they're just robots. Well, you know, I've thought
a lot about that question because it's been posed to me so many
times that I can almost see it in a guy's eyes when he's fixing
to bring it up. You want to see a robot, that is man in sin. Now, there's
no greater robotic effect than a man in his sin that exists
anywhere, is there? You ever known of a man that
sinneth not? Why does he sin? Because he is
a robot. I mean, he is under the control
of sin, is he not? Paul said, the good that I would,
I do not. It sounds like a robot. Here
he is, he does not want to do this, but he finds himself doing
it. Why is that? Because that is his nature. That
is the way we are bent. That is the way the Lord made
us. Now whether you like that or
whether you don't, it doesn't make any difference. The Lord
made men as He would have them to be. Otherwise, we're faced
with the dilemma that He made something that He couldn't control,
or He made something that wasn't what He wanted. Now all of that's
philosophical stuff on the one hand, but it's important that
we understand who God is. He's God. Now Him being an absolute
God, that doesn't change anything about man's accountability, does
it? I mean, God is absolutely God and man is absolutely accountable
because God said man would be accountable. And so it is that
man, in the purpose of God, the Lord subjected men unto vanity. He put us in this world. Now,
some folks, they look at it and they say, well, God didn't know
what was going to happen, and so He made man and He wanted...
Here's the main one I hear, is that God made man because He
wanted to have fellowship with him. And He put man, but He didn't
want to violate the man's free will, so He made him a completely
free creature to choose whatever he wanted to, and he was just
sat back hoping that things would turn out right, but it didn't. And so, you know, now he's in
a dilemma and he has to come up with another plan. Now look,
God doesn't have two plans. He doesn't have two purposes.
He has a purpose. And His purpose is to bring glory
to His name in the manifestation of His grace, in the glory of
Jesus Christ, in the redemption of His people that belong to
Him. which He gave to Christ from
the foundation of the world. Now, all of that is right there
in the Scriptures if we don't try to put human reason into
it. It's right there. I remember
listening to, I think it was old Oliver B. Green. This was years ago. And
he read Ephesians 1. And you know, he read through
Ephesians 1 there, speaking about the election of God's people. And he says, now, I don't know
why the Lord said that in His way. He says, I don't know why
the Lord said that. And he went on to explain that
it didn't really mean what it sounded like that it meant. Now
why was that? Those men don't like that. In
the flesh, men don't like a sovereign God. They like a God that's like
a puppy dog that will do whatever they want and whenever they need
him. A lot of times a dog is an aggravation. You want a dog to be there when
you want him and you want to pet him and what not, but then
some dogs, the most affectionate of dogs, they want to be around
you all the time. And they get aggravated and you
just want to get rid of them. And that's kind of the way that
people, by nature, are about the Lord. They like Him, okay? But they don't want Him to be
like they want Him to be, you know? If they get sick, then
they want Him to do something for them, and they want to call
on the preacher to come pray for them, and they want to get
on everybody's prayer list and all of that, and they want to
do all that. But then, whenever they get better, it's like the
old fellow, you know, that was sliding down the roof, falling
off the roof, and he's crying out, O Lord, help me! And he
gets to the edge of the roof, and the strap of his overalls
hangs on a nail right there at the edge. And so I said, It's
okay, Lord, I'm alright now. He needed the Lord as long as
he was having trouble, but then as soon as that was over, well,
you know, he could go on about his business then, do whatever
he wanted to do. But you see, God, He's not a
puppy dog. He's not like we want Him to
be. He's like He is. And that just doesn't fit in
with most people's line of thought. They don't want a God like that.
They want one that respects the free will of men. Because they
believe the free will of men deserves to be respected. And
it just wouldn't be right, would it, if God didn't respect the
free will of men? And so they'll get mad at you.
They'll rend you. They'll seek to tear you from
head to foot over that very question right there. We just simply fall on our faces
before Almighty God. I don't have all the answers
for these things. I can't explain everything to everybody. I can't
make everybody happy with my explanation. And I probably say
a bunch of stuff that I probably shouldn't say. But nonetheless,
one thing I do know, and that is that the Lord is the Lord,
that men are men. I remember reading one time that
John Newton reportedly said on his deathbed, as he was a mighty
servant of God and had been blessed by the Lord for many years, and
of course penned many hymns. The one that most people are
very familiar with is, Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound That
Saved a Wretch Like Me. And as he was nearing the end
of his life, one of his friends had asked him, Dr. Newton, with all your vast
knowledge, what is the truth that holds you up in this hour? What are those things that give
comfort to your soul? And this fellow was expecting
him probably to come up with some great thing. He says, I
only remember two things. He said, what a great sinner
I am, but what a great Savior He is. Now dear brethren, that's
all that I want to be preaching.
I mean, that's all I want you to know. I don't care if you
know the five points of Calvinism right and left, and you can argue
with a man until he is blue in the face, and you are too, and
you can convince everybody of all those various things. I am
not interested in that. But what a glorious thing to
be brought to the place to know what sinners we are and what
a Savior Christ is. Now, dear brethren, that, you
see, is the revelation of salvation. That is salvation which is in
Christ. It is not in ourselves. Now,
a lot of people, they want to be comforted by their experience. Oh, and I remember back when
I was fourteen years old and a revival meeting came to town
and I joined the church. And that's just such a blessed
thing in my mind. Well, I'm not saying that those
things aren't precious times, but dear brethren, if that's
the only thing you've got to hold on to, you don't have anything.
Because your experience might not have been as what you think
it is over time. I mean, it's not about your experience,
but it's about the Savior. Do you know Christ? I mean, is
He precious to you? And so, I don't know how I got
off on all that, but anyway, the Lord Jesus Christ identified
with the sin of His people. He said, the troubles of my heart
are enlarged. They have grown greater than
I can bear. You know, the Scripture says,
that the angels came and ministered to the Lord Jesus when He was
in the garden. Because the burden of sin was
so great upon Him that He sweat, as it were, great drops of blood.
And I don't know exactly all that means. Some have said, and
I think this is probably true, that that blood actually came
out of His pores. Others believe that it's just
me speaking about that the sweat poured off of him just as blood
would pour off of him. I don't know. We don't need to
get into all that. It doesn't make any difference.
But what does matter is that we see and understand the anguish
which gripped the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ so great, so
great, that He who has all power in heaven and earth was weak under him. Now that's an incredible thing.
And the angels, the Lord sent those ministering spirits to
minister unto him, lest he be overwhelmed. That's what he says
here. The troubles of my heart are enlarged, O bring me out
of my distresses. Now what were his distresses? His people. He was concerned for His people.
He was concerned for their sin, which He took as His own. See,
He wasn't blaming them or looking and saying, those sorry jokers,
they've put their sin on Me. No, He says, I gladly, for the
joy, the Scripture says, that was set before Him, endured the
cross. He gladly undertook those things,
but that did not lessen the fact that it was a tremendous crushing
burden which brought him down to the very depths and brink
of death. Oh, bring thou me out of my distresses. Look upon my affliction and my
pain and forgive all my sins. Now, he didn't have any sin. But he did. Did he not? Because he bore our sins. Now,
I don't discount the fact that David wrote this, and David is
speaking here also. He says, forgive me of my sin. Now, a man who doesn't believe
he's a sinner has never gotten to first base in the game. He
doesn't even understand. See, that's the first thing that
a man has to come to grips with, is that he is a sinner. And David,
of course, surely knew that he was. The Lord showed him that
he was, did He not? on more than one occasion. And
you know, the Lord chose us. I mean, why does sin exist in
the people of God to show us what we are? I mean, if you could
somehow be freed from sin, it wouldn't take you long, but you'd
be lifted up with pride in a minute, and then you'd be thinking that
you were something when you're nothing. So the Lord uses those things
according to the good pleasure of His will. Look upon my affliction.
and my pain, forgive all my sins. Consider mine enemies, for they
are many, and they hate me with cruel hatred." Cruel hatred. You know this business here that
everybody is all up in arms about, about supposedly killing this
guy over in Turkey or wherever it was. And you know, think about
all this, oh, they killed him and it is just the most terrible
thing. They are doing that to people every day in these places.
I mean, the dark places of the earth, the
Scripture says, are the habitations of cruelty. And this isn't politically
correct in the world stage and how we're supposed to be, but
dear brethren, those nations that are under the darkness of
these false religions, now unfortunately the United States is right there
with them, but perhaps not in the extent, in the same fashion,
but they're the habitations of cruelty. They don't think about
killing somebody. I mean, old Kim Jong-un, I mean,
he'll kill them, and he don't just kill them, but they kill
them like Mr. Purcell used to tell us. He said,
if you get in a wreck, this was in Driver's Ed, he said, if you
get in a wreck doing 40 miles an hour, it says it will kill
you. But he says, if you get in a wreck doing 70 miles an
hour, it will kill you dead. Now, what he meant was that that
was just about as bad as it could get. It's like they talk about
these hate crimes, you know. I mean, if a guy kills somebody,
that's all right, but if you kill a man that's a different
color than you, it might be a hate crime. And they're going to say,
well, now, you hated that man. You killed him. But he just is
dead. It doesn't matter if you shoot
him or if you chop him up in little pieces, he's dead, okay? And people are doing that kind
of stuff all the time. I don't know why people get all
concerned about this because it's just an opportunity to point
fingers and accuse people of doing this, that, and the other.
But the enemies of the people of God hate us with a cruel hatred. They would do away with us if
they could. You know, it's an inconvenient
thing for the Word of God to be set forth. It's inconvenient. I mean, men don't mind a little
preaching, but they don't want you to just kind of get right
down to brass tacks. I mean, it's alright to preach,
you know, every now and then, but I mean, you don't want to
preach to somebody that God's the one that's in control of
all things. You definitely don't want that. They hate you with
a cruel hatred. And the world hates the Gospel.
The world hated Christ. All you've got to do is read
the Gospels and see how the Pharisees over and over again... I read
here just recently, it was written in the book of John, and I recounted
how many different times that the Pharisees, it says, they
determined to kill Him. And that may be not in so many
words, but they determined they were going to kill him. And every
time he escaped out of their hands. I don't know how that
occurred. I'd like to see it. I'd like
to have seen exactly what happened. But nonetheless, they grew very
frustrated by the time that they were able to hire Judas to betray
them. They knew that they had finally
an inside track that they were going to get him. But they hated
him with a cruel hatred because he was against what they wanted. You see, they wanted religion. They wanted power. They wanted
the following. They wanted to be the ones that
set the rules. See, the Pharisees, they pretty much ruled the rules.
They had the law. And all the things they'd added
to the law, and not only did they have the law, but they went
around looking to see that somebody was keeping the law. See, religious
men don't just want to keep the law. Now, they tell you that
they love the law and they want the law, but what they want is
they want for you to keep the law. So they're not interested
per se. I mean, they are interested in
them keeping it as long as you're not watching them when they're
not out in the open, you know. They can do all they want to,
but they want you to keep the law. And most people that I've
ever come in contact with that are preachers of the law, and
it's especially true of those that... And I don't know why
this is. Well, I do know why it is. It
was true in the Lord's day. The chief issue with most people
about keeping the law, or one of the chief issues, is keeping
the Sabbath. Now there's whole denominations
that build around that. And everything else is kind of
an offshoot of it. But that's the thing. Now they're
not interested, well they are interested in keeping it, but
they want to be sure everybody keeps it. And they want you to
know that if you don't keep it, you've got the mark of the beast
or something on you. The people who hate the gospel
hate the people of God. They hate the truth, even as
they hated Christ. Oh, keep my soul, and deliver
me. Let me not be ashamed, for I
put my trust in thee. Let me not be embarrassed. That is, let me not be ashamed
when I come before thee that you should cast me out. What
would be the greatest heartache for a true son of God would be
to come before the Lord and for Him to cast them away, would
it not? Now, the Lord said that there
would be many in that day, who will be cast out from His presence,
who will say, Lord, have we not done all these things? Now, I
know that those are not the sons of God. How do I know that? Because the true children of
God will not come to the Lord saying, Lord, look at what I've
done. They can't. If you called in
the presence of the Lord today, are you going to go up there
and say, well, Lord, I went to church every Sunday. Lord, I gave my
money. Lord, I did this. Lord, I did
all these different things. I fed the poor and went around
trying to do good in the community. No, you see the sons of God just
fall on their face before Him and say, Lord, have mercy on
me. I'll perish rightly before you. If you cast me away, it is exactly
what I deserve. It won't make me happy, but it
is exactly what I deserve. What Job said, he said, though
He slay me, yet will I trust Him. And the Lord Jesus Christ,
when He was on Calvary's cross, enduring the greatest of suffering,
and having the epitome of the wrath
of God poured out upon his head, committed himself into the hands
of the Lord. Why? Because he couldn't do anything
else. I mean, the children of God can't
do anything but call upon the Lord, can they? I mean, can a
child of God turn away from the Lord and say, Lord, I don't want
anything to do with you? I mean, you know, a man can say
a lot of things in fits of anger and all kinds of stuff, but can
he really in the depths of his soul come before the Lord and
say, Lord, I'm turning from You? How could he? The Lord said,
My sheep hear My voice, I know them, and they follow Me. Brethren,
we're just shut up to His mercy. I mean, we can't get out. We
can't depart if we wanted to. We don't want to, but we couldn't
if we wanted to. He holds us in the palm of His
hand. Let me not be ashamed, for I
put my trust in Thee. Now every man who belongs to
the Lord does indeed put his trust in Him. It's not an activity. You can't
tell a man, oh, put your trust in the Lord, as if the man has
the ability to do it. You can't do it. See, we tell
men, trust the Lord, but we know they can't, apart from the grace
of God. But yet we exhort those that
hear us. We sang that song there a moment
ago, and it was addressed to sinners. Dear brethren, the sweetest
sound of the gospel and the invitations of the gospel, some people don't
like to use that term, but there are invitations in the gospel.
Now the invitations, see, you might get a letter in the mail
that's addressed to somebody else, an invitation to a wedding. And you might open that up and
it might say, we want you to come to the wedding. But if your
name isn't on the invitation, it doesn't matter the fact that
you've got it in the mail. Because see, an invitation to
a wedding is addressed to a person. And the invitation to this wedding
is addressed to sinners. And the invitation of the gospel
is to sinners. Come all you that labor and are
heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. The Lord invites Those
that labor and are heavy laden, now He also commands them to
come. There are commands in that as
well as an invitation. Come and dine. I mean, that's
a sweet sound. Now, couldn't the disciples have
said, No, we're not going to come and dine? No, He meant for
them to come and dine. But He said, Come and dine. I
mean, He called them, did He not? He wooed their hearts. He brought them. Because you
see, He called them. There wasn't any place on earth
that they would have rather been than on that seashore by that
fire with the Lord Jesus Christ eating that. I mean, what a sweet
place it was for them. Why? Because they were drawn
inexorably by the love of Almighty God. Oh, what a sweet. What a sweet
and precious invitation that it is. I put my trust in Thee. God's people do indeed do that.
Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait on Thee. Now whose integrity and uprightness
could preserve him? There is only one. While before
Jesus Christ bore our sin, yet at one and the same time, He
was an upright man. And the reason that his sacrifice
was acceptable unto the Father was because he was a lamb without
spot and without blemish. He was a man of integrity. 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 unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. You see,
such a man is that. can come to the Lord and say,
ìLord, remember my integrity.î Because he did have integrity.
ìRedeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.î And that
is indeed, dear brethren, the Lord Jesusí prayer. Now he said, ìRedeem Israel.î That's specific, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ in His
prayer, in the 17th chapter of John, He says, I pray not for
the world. Now, you'll get some people mad
at you if you go down that road very long, but that's what He
said. He said to the Pharisees, You
are not my sheep. You do not believe because you
are not my sheep. My sheep, hear my voice. Dear brethren, can you hear the
voice of the shepherd today? He is calling his sheep. He says,
Come unto me, all you that labor in the heavy land. I will give
you rest. And he will. And he does. What a glory! What a precious
promise! Redeem Israel, O God, out of
all his troubles. Now, the Lord was the Redeemer, but nonetheless
He prayed for the Lord to redeem Israel. Because you see, He came
to fulfill the Father's will. And the Father's will was to
redeem Israel. Now it is a specific prayer,
and He specifically would redeem a people. Now He's not talking
about a nation in the natural sense here. Now David, no doubt,
as he wrote this, I mean his concept of the Lord's people
was the nation of Israel. He didn't have any other concept
of it. I mean, that's a mystery that
the Lord kept hidden from the foundation of the world is what
he says over here in Galatians, Ephesians. It was a mystery that
the Lord would have people out of every kindred, tribe and tongue. The true circumcision was not
that of the flesh, but that of the heart. This wasn't something
that they understood and knew. I mean, it's like when the Lord
said, there has not arisen a greater prophet among men than John the
Baptist. But He said, I tell you, he that
is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John. Why? Because
John was laboring under the Old Testament consideration of these
things. Now, he saw the Messiah. He was
like the go-between. He was the one who was the harbinger
of Christ, but he was an Old Testament prophet. There were
many things he couldn't understand. See, he was still looking for
Christ to restore the natural kingdom to Israel, because he
sent word from Him From presently, he said, are you him that's to
come? I mean, was I wrong? Did I get this wrong somehow?
He said, they're fixing to cut my head off. I mean, you know,
we thought you were the one that was going to come do this. They
didn't know. But dear brethren, you see, we've
been given greater light than they had. Now, that's not a pat
on our back. It's just the mercy of God. That's
caused us to live in a time when the light of God has shined more
brightly. For He has given us the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And you see, when David said,
Redeem Israel, O God, out of all His troubles, he was thinking
in a more nationalistic sense. But when the Lord Jesus Christ
speaks of redeeming Israel, He is talking about that true Israel.
They are not all Israel which are of Israel. But He said, They
are all which belong to Me. That's the true Israel of God. And that's the Israel that we
are concerned about, dear brethren. I don't know about all these
political things. You know, people get, you've
got this political candidate and he's a friend of Israel and
all that. I mean, it's all right. I mean, I don't have anything
against national Israel. I think they're probably an ally
to us. But dear brethren, that's not what I'm concerned about.
I mean, they are another country. But you see, that Israel of God,
I would like for a candidate to get up and say that I am a
friend of the true Israel of God. I am a friend of those whom the
Lord Jesus Christ went to Calvary's cross and purchased with His
own blood and redeemed out of every kindred, tribe and tongue
on the earth. Now that's the kind of candidate
I'd like to see, but I won't ever see that. Because he wouldn't
get three votes. He'd get mine, but he wouldn't
get too many. Oh, redeem Israel, O God, out
of all his troubles. And you know that's what redemption
is. Because you see, every trouble we've got is caused by one thing.
And the Lord has redeemed us out of our sin. And as He has
redeemed us out of our sin, He has redeemed us out of our trouble.
Now, He hath destroyed all His enemies, and the last enemy that
shall be destroyed is death. But, O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? Because, you see, we triumph
in Christ. All of our troubles, death is a trouble. I don't look
forward to dying. When I see people die, it brings
sadness to my heart. I hate to see it. You know, we don't like it. But
you see all of our troubles, not just those in this world. I had my clock radio It got on a station, and I don't
even know where this station is. And these people mean well
and everything. But it's a preaching station,
and their whole thing is about teaching you how to live and
what you need to eat and how you need to you know, do all
these different things and all to make your life better. And
maybe all that stuff, too, it might. I mean, I don't know anything
about that. But that's not the trouble that
the Lord came to deliver us from. The troubles that the Lord Jesus
Christ came to deliver us from is a far greater trouble than
all of that, because you can take the best care of your body
that you ever could dream of. I don't know what the most perfect
food is, but you could eat it every day of your life. But you
are going to die. But the Lord Jesus Christ, He
has triumphed over death. And because He did, we have confidence
that He shall raise us from the dead. Dear brethren, Paul said,
As he stood there before the Sanhedrin and he said, Because
of the hope of the resurrection, I stand accused today. Oh, I hope to be accused today.
The hope of the resurrection. Dear brethren, that is the deliverance
from all of our troubles. For the Lord, He has redeemed
us body, soul, and spirit. And these bodies, though transformed
in a moment in the twinkling of an eye, Yet, as Job said,
in my flesh shall I see God. That's the hope of the resurrection.
Job knew it, and he didn't know much. He said, I didn't know
my whole life, but he said, now I see a thing. I have hold myself
and repent.