Let's begin reading in verse
11, Psalm 25. It says, For thy name's sake,
O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great. What man is
he that feareth the Lord? Him shall he teach in the way
that he shall choose. His soul shall dwell at ease,
and his seed shall inherit the earth. 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, though bring thou me out of my distresses. Look upon my 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, the Lord does all things. for His purpose,
but it is our desire that that be so. A lot of times when people think
about asking the Lord to do His will, that it's as if if we don't
do that, it won't be done. No, His will will always be done,
but He causes us to be reconciled unto His will. And those whom
He is pleased to cause His Spirit to work in us, He causes us to
desire that. Now that doesn't mean that we
enjoy all the different things that might transpire as we see
the will of the Lord revealed and His purpose accomplished,
but when we desire that, even though something might cause
us pain, we are thankful that the Lord's will is done, even
though it might not be a thing that makes us happy at that moment
of time in the flesh. pain and suffering and disappointment
in the flesh, we'd all like things to just go great. Most of our complaint is about
things that don't go just like we want them to go. Not necessarily
that they're all that bad. For thy name's sake, O Lord,
pardon mine iniquity, for it is great." For thy name's sake.
Now, the Lord revealed to Moses who he was. He said, I am. Moses said, well, who shall I
say sent you? He says, I am. Tell them I am
sent you. Now, He is the self-existent
One. He is that One who does not borrow
from anything. He doesn't gain anything from
His creation. He is not aided in any way by
the things that He makes. He does it for His namesake.
And so it is in the same fashion that the prayer of God's people
would be for thy namesake. Why? Because, one, He has revealed
to us that He is the true and living God. Now, as we look at
this as the prayer of Christ, which it is, as Christ in all
things is our example, and He has set forth for us how that
a man ought to live, and He who knew no sin in Himself, who was
perfect and without sin, yet became sin for us. And He has
borne our sins. And when this prayer says, pardon
mine iniquity, I believe the Lord Jesus Christ did indeed
cry out to be pardoned from his sin, not because it was his sin
that he had personally committed, but because it was his sin because
he owned it. He took it upon himself. He said,
it's me. It's like, you know, it was Harry
Truman, I think it was, the president, supposedly had a sign on his
desk that said, the buck stops here. He said, whatever happens,
he says, even though I might not have personally committed
it or whatever, he said, I take the responsibility for it. He
says, I'm willing to bear it. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ has
borne our sin in a much greater way than Harry Truman ever had
the buck stop there, because probably most of the time, even
though he might have said the buck stopped there, he was looking
around to find out who caused the problem. I mean, it's one
thing to say that. It's quite another to actually
mean it. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ, when He took upon Himself
our sin, He meant it. It became His. Just like when
that woman at the well, a woman that was taking in a doctor,
came to Him and He said, Where are your accusers? And she said,
I don't see any. He said, Well, I don't condemn
you either. Neither do I condemn thee. What a glorious thing.
What a glorious thing to look into the Savior's face and hear
Him say those words, Neither do I condemn thee. Now why did
he not condemn that woman? She was guilty, was she not?
She was taken in the very act. He never said, you didn't do
these things. I mean, he pointed out a woman's
adulterous behavior, the woman at the well. He pointed it out
to her. He said, go call your husband.
She said, well, I don't have a husband. He said, you're right.
He said, but you've had five husbands and the one you have
now is not your husband. Now, was he railing upon her?
No, he was just pointing out to her what she was. Well, see,
he didn't need to point out to the woman that was taken in the very act of adultery.
He didn't need to point her sin out to her, did he? Because it
was very apparent. And the Spirit of God convinced
her of her sin. But by the grace of God, the
Spirit of God also convinced her that this One that spoke
to her, who had the power to forgive sin, don't forget that.
Because you remember, he said when they got him about healing
and what not, he said to one man, he said, well, your sins
are forgiven. They said, oh, what are you doing? You can't, the only one that
can forgive sins is God. He said, well, let me ask you,
which is easier? To say, rise up and walk, or to say, thy sins
are forgiven thee? I mean, who could do that? Who
could do either one of them? But God Himself. And so He testified
to them of who He was. And He said, For thy name's sake,
pardon their iniquity. That's powerful. Oh, for His
name's sake. The Lord Jesus Christ, the One
who is, His name is above every name. The One who spoke to Moses
and said, I am that I am. For His name's sake. He says,
Oh pardon, my iniquity, for it is mine, for it is great. Now, some people think they sinned
a little. But until a man realizes that
his sin is that which is separated between him and God, and it is
great, he'll never be in the place of repentance. was in the place of repentance,
and he confessed. He said, Lord, against thee and
them have I sinned and done this wicked thing. And so it is that
when the Lord teaches a man about his sin, he knows that it is
great. It's not just a little thing.
It's not just a minor thing that we're asking the Lord to overlook.
You know, boys will be boys. No, it's not about that. It's
about the fact that we are corrupt from head to foot, and we need
to be cleansed, for it is great. What man is he that feareth the
Lord? Now, what man is he? I think
we talked about this last week. What man is he that feareth the
Lord? Now, in a measure, we are made to fear the Lord, but who
is this speaking about here? What man is he that feareth the
Lord? Who has feared the Lord perfectly? Who has walked in His ways day
by day? Whose whole life existence was
to do His Father's will? Who does that describe? It can
only describe one man. He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity. It has
to be speaking of Christ, does it not? What man is he that feareth
the Lord? Him shall he teach in the way
that he shall choose. Him shall he teach. The Lord
Jesus Christ learned obedience by the things which He suffered.
He was taught. Now, I can't quite get grasp
at it. It's just beyond my mind, but
I think of Him in the temple. He knew the answers to all the
questions that He posed to the to the men gathered there, but
yet he was as a sponge gaining knowledge at the same time, because
the Word of God was precious to him. Just as a man, he gathered
it in, but yet he as the Son of God, he knew all things. Oh,
what a wondrous thing! But the people of God shall be
taught. He said he would send his Spirit
to teach his people, to lead them into all truth. Now when
a man has been led into all truth, what? Austin. Austin. Son, you can sleep later on. The Lord will lead His people
into all truth. He will guide them in the way
that they should go. He'll teach them. The way that He shall choose,
not the way they shall choose. You probably wouldn't choose
all the things that the Lord has guided your feet into, but
He has nonetheless led you according to the good pleasure of His will
and taught you things that you would never have known otherwise.
His soul shall dwell at ease, and His seed shall inherit the
earth. didn't have an easy life. But
you see, he shall dwell at ease because of the fact that he has
triumphed. When the battle is over, when
the victory is won, then that's the time when men can dwell at
ease. They beat their swords in the
plowshares. And that's exactly the place that the Lord Jesus
Christ is. He has triumphed over all his
enemies. And there's none that can bring unrest to his kingdom. His soul shall dwell at ease,
and his seed shall inherit the earth. Now that is a glorious
passage of Scripture. The seed of the Lord Jesus Christ
shall inherit the earth. His seed. He speaks about his
seed throughout the Word of God. He said to Abraham, he said,
your seed shall be as the stars of the heavens. Can't be numbered.
Well, he wasn't speaking specifically and primarily about the seed
of Abraham in the natural sense, although that was true as well. But he was speaking about the
fact that his people, that he would call in Abraham, that is
through Abraham, through the son of Abraham. Because to Abraham
and his seed was the promises made. His seed being not of many, but
as of one, Jesus Christ. For in Jesus Christ are the sons
of God called. Just like He said, Jacob have
I loved, and Esau have I hated, so Christ is the distinction. Christ is that one who is the
seed of God. He is the begotten of God. Though
eternal, though one with the Father. I mean, who can grasp
such a thing as that? I can't. But yet it's true. And He has a seed that are in
Him, just like what Adam was created. The seed of the human
race was in Him, was it not? I mean, every man descended from
Adam. And so whatever, I don't know
how small microbiologically things can get. I don't know. But nonetheless,
the seed of the human race was in Adam. So the seed, spiritually
speaking, of Christ were in him from the beginning. Because the
Scripture says they are chosen in him. He didn't go eeny, meeny,
miny, moe. He didn't create the human race
and then go eeny, meeny, miny, moe, but He created His people
as the seed of Christ. Now, brethren, sometimes men
go shipwrecked on true things, and you can go shipwrecked on
that if you want to spend all your time in trying to dissect
and think about it. I don't have all the answers
for how that is, but I'll tell you this. The Scripture makes
it very plain that we were chosen in Christ. There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. How did
we get in Christ? It wasn't through our own will,
but it was through His will. It was according to His purpose.
What a wondrous thing! Now what can we say about that?
Who is sufficient for these things? All we can do is fall down and
worship Him and bless Him. For those brethren, it is by
His grace and according to His mercy that any of us ought to
be called the sons of God. None of us deserve it. None of
us are worthy of it. But it is according to His grace.
It is according to His mercy. According to His kindness. Why? That the glory might be His and
not men. Because you see, men will seek
to find glory in everything. They want to share in it a little
bit. And the Lord said, I will not share my glory with another.
It's not going to happen. And so his seed and his seed
alone shall inherit the earth. Now that's the interesting thing.
Shall inherit the earth. Now the scripture says that there
is coming a new heaven and a new earth. Now, wouldn't it be a
terrible thing If the Lord said, this is your home from now on,
with all the problems coming, you've got all this pollution,
and you've got all these different things, and all these problems
that go on in the earth, and you've lived in a place where
you might be happy and everything one day, and your home and everything
you've worked for your whole life is gone the next. But that's
going to be your inheritance forever. It wouldn't be a very
good prospect to look forward to, would it? Now, the man who
is in the flesh, and all he desires is the way of the flesh, then
he would think of all the different things he likes to do. If he
likes to fish all day, well, buddy, he'll be able to fish
all day. But something might come along and kill all the fish,
and then there wouldn't be any fish left. How much joy would
there be in that? Man, you ever went fishing? I
mean, when you knew there wasn't any fish, I mean, you know, a
man says, I like to fish. Well, he could just get him a
55 gallon drum and fill it up with water and go put him a,
you know, drop a line in there. Now, he wouldn't do that. Why?
Because he knows he ain't going to catch any fish because there
ain't any fish in there. So you see, the joy of fishing
is knowing that there's some fish out there. And that would
be the joy. But you see, this world, that's
a crude example, but this world is not the place that would delight
the sons of God. It's got to be a place that is
beyond the pleasures of this world. There's something that's
greater than the things we find in this world because these things
don't last. These things are tainted with
sin. But the scripture says there is coming a new heaven and a
new earth. And the seed of God shall inherit
it. What a glorious thing. Now again,
I can't rightly describe and picture that, but you know God
created men to inhabit the earth. And He created us as men. He could have created us as angels.
He could have created us as any kind of creature He wanted to
make us, but He made us what He made us. And the only thing that's wrong
with us is sin. You see, that's the only thing
that causes heartache in the world, is it not? I mean, the Lord told Adam, he said, you know, in the
sweat of your face, you're going to till this soil and you're
going to work in this. But yet, before Adam ever sinned,
the Lord put him in the garden to keep it. And it was a blissful
experience. He had all the things there before
him. Now, the Lord didn't create the
natural Adam to live forever. Some say, well, the Lord made
him where he could live forever, but he messed it up. No, the
Lord never created Adam to dwell there forever. He created Adam
for the purpose of manifesting the second Adam. Because the
Lord created the world to manifest the glory of His grace and the
redemption of the people in Jesus Christ. That's a glorious thing. And dear brethren, the seed of
God shall inherit the kingdom of God, and they shall inherit
the earth, that new heavens and that new earth, which is yet
to be revealed. And I'm not sure what it looks
like. I don't know where it is. I don't claim to know. But it
is a thing for God's people to rejoice in, for it is a world
wherein dwelleth righteousness. And the glory of Christ is that
which is preeminent. The secret of the Lord is with
them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. How can
a man fear the Lord? How shall a man fear the Lord?
Can you cause a man to fear the Lord? No. I mean, some men, they have no
fear of God. There's no fear of God before
their eyes because they just go their way without any regard
to the things of God. Can you scare them? See, some
people think you can preach about hell and describe it in such terrible
ways that it will cause men to say, oh, well, man, I better
do something different and serve God and not go there. But you
can't do that. I mean, you might scare them
for a little while. But unless God causes a man to fear Him
in the depths of his soul, all of those things will fade away.
But the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. You
see, He shows to God's people the mystery of the Kingdom of
God. The secrets, the secrets that
Christ is the Savior of sinners, they're nothing more sweet for
the sons of God, for the seed of the righteous, than to hear
the message of the gospel that exalts and honors Jesus Christ,
gives Him glory. That's a blessed thing. The secret
of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them
His covenant. And we talked about the covenant
a little bit last week. What is the covenant? Now, the
covenant that He made with Moses was a temporary covenant. Why? Because it was made upon
a impossible principle. Not that it was anything wrong
with the principle of law, but the problem with the law was
the flesh. That's what Scripture says. I
mean the law was weak in the flesh because men could not do
it. They would not do it. And the
law cannot help us, cannot bring us It can't bring us happiness.
It can't bring us light. It can't bring us life. But there
is a covenant that the Lord shows to His people that does do all
of those things. And it's that covenant which
He made with the Son. That promise that He made, not
to the seeds as of many with Abraham, but a covenant that
preceded the covenant of Abraham. A covenant that preceded the
covenant of Moses. And that was a covenant with
Christ. And He said, Ask of Me and I will give thee the heathen
for thine inheritance. And there He is. You see, the
Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills and He owns the people
that were given to Him before the foundation of the world.
And He loves them with an everlasting love. And He calls them unto
Himself. And He causes them to fear Him.
to love Him, to delight in His way. And the manner in which
He is pleased often to call them is through the sweet wooing sounds
of the Gospel, where Jesus Christ is presented and set forth as
the Savior of sinners, as that One who says, Come unto Me, all
you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Dear brethren, that's just as
true today as it was then. And that is the call of God to
His people. Is it not coming by? I mean,
that's what He said to His disciples as they fished on the shore. They caught nothing, and yet
He said, cast the net on the other side. And they drew a multitude
of fish that they couldn't now bring. He said to them, come
and die. And they came to the shore. And the Scripture says
that when they got there, there was a fire built. And the fish
were upon it. Already cooked. Everything was
ready for them. Now, I've often pondered that
in my mind. Did the Lord just... When He got there on the shore,
did He just say, boom, and then there was a fire? Or did he go
and he gathered some sticks and he put them there and he lit
them some way? I mean, it was just an amazing
thing. How'd the fish get on there?
Did he just cause fish to be there? Did he grab one out of
the water? What did he do? How did he do
that? But see, the point of all of this is this. He prepared
it without human aid. And he said to his disciples,
come, I have a feast prepared for you. Come and eat it. Here it is. And is that not how
the Lord speaks to the children in the world, and He calls them
out of darkness and into the light, and He says, Come, there's
a feast prepared for you. He says, If you had asked me,
I would have given you living water that you'd drink of and
never thirst again. And oh, the sons of God say,
even as that woman did, Lord, oh, give us that water. Give
us that water that we do not thirst. Give us that bread from
heaven which comes down and feeds our soul. May we eat it. May
we delight in it. Oh, that the Lord might call
unto His people today. Because you see, until He does,
until He's that one that's calling and not man. See, it's not the
words of men. We stand out there all day and
not a person would ever call on the name of the Lord. But
when the Lord calls, His people answer. Oh, that He might call
today, that He might call sinners unto Himself, because He is the
Savior of sinners, and He'll save everyone for whom He shed
His precious blood. And that's what we come today
to do, is to remember the Lord's death, till He comes again. He is coming again. How it will
be, I don't know. But I know that He said it would.
And He said to His disciples, if these things were not so,
I wouldn't have told you. And I believe Him. Because I
don't believe He would deceive His people. And so we come to
remember the Lord's death. Then He comes in the only fashion
in which He told us to do it.