Psalm 21, and we are going to
begin reading there in verse 6. So where thou hast made him most
blessed forever, thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance. For the king trusteth in the
Lord, and through the mercy of the Most High he shall not be
moved. Thine hand shall find out all
thine enemies, Thy right hand shall find out those that hate
thee. Thou shalt make them as the fiery
oven in the time of thine anger. The Lord shall swallow them up
in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them. Their fruit shalt
thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the
children of men. For they intended evil against
thee. They imagined a mischievous device. which they are not able to perform. Therefore shalt thou make them
turn their back, when thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon
thy strings against the face of them. Be thou exalted, Lord,
in thine own strength, so will we sing and praise thy power."
Now what a glorious word this is. So many things that are set forth
as we began last week looking at this, and I think it is very appropriate
this morning that we come to the time when we remember the
Lord's death in the fashion in which He told us to do it, that
this psalm is set forth before us as it speaks in verse 6, for
thou hast made him most blessed forever. And you know, as you
look, as we look at the unfolding of the Word of God, there is
one name from the beginning to the end that is most glorious. It says, in the beginning, God. though the Lord had hid in the
beginning who it was that the name that He would reveal later
is the same God. Some people get confused. They
say, well, God was over there and then Jesus came along later.
Well, no. The Scripture plainly says that
by Him were all things created. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Creator. And He has created all things
according to the good pleasure of His will. So when the Scripture
says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,
it is indeed the fact that the One who walked upon the earth,
who went to the cross, who poured out His blood for our sake, is
the same One who created the heavens and the earth. And all
glory belongs to Him. Thou hast made Him most blessed
forever. Thou hast made Him exceedingly
glad with Thy countenance." Now, I don't claim to understand or
be able to explain or to set forth why the Lord has seen fit
to reveal Himself in the fashion in which He did as Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost. And I have said this before and
I stand by it, I believe anybody that spends an inordinate amount
of time trying to come up with an explanation that can fully
satisfy the human mind in the understanding of that concept
is wasting their time, because that is part of what makes us
fall in worship of God, is that we do not understand those things. That's a wonder. That's an amazement. Some people think they just got
God all figured out, you know. They got Him down in the book
and whenever they get ready to go see Him or whatever, they
know right where He's at. And they can just go find Him
and He's always just right where they put Him. But God's not like
that. Our God inhabits this eternity. He dwells in that place that
no man can approach unto. And so he cannot be fully known
in that way. The only way that God can be
known is how he sees fit to reveal himself. And he has seen fit
to reveal himself in the person of Jesus Christ who walked among
men and showed himself to men. And he is the one whom we praise
and worship because the only way you will ever know God is
in Jesus Christ. I mean, you can't approach unto
Him in any other way. We approach to Him as He has
told us to. And He has been exceedingly glad
with the countenance of the Lord. When the Lord Jesus Christ walked
in the earth, He was exceedingly glad to do His Father's will.
And he did do his father's will. The king trusteth in the Lord,
and through the mercy of the Most High he shall not be moved. You see, that was his strength
in the times of trouble, was trusting in the Lord. He went
to the place of prayer because he was trusting in the Lord.
Now most people think that you need to pray in order to get
something done. And that's usually what people
say, oh, well, we need to pray about that. Well, I don't ever
discourage somebody from praying about anything. But that's not
the reason that we pray. The reason that we pray is not
in order to get God to do something for us, but because we trust
Him. We desire to know Him. We desire
to have fellowship with Him. We come into His presence because
He has enabled us to do so, and we desire to do so. And so the
Lord Jesus Christ, as a perfect man, depended upon His Father. Just as we are made dependent
upon Him, so did the Lord Jesus Christ. So He learned obedience
by the things which He suffered. That just blows my mind every
time I read that passage of Scripture. He learned obedience by the things
which he suffered. He became perfect, the Scripture
says. Now we know he was perfect when
he came here, but yet he was fitted for a task. Because something
is predestined to occur, that doesn't mean it doesn't have
to occur. You see, that's where people go astray a lot of times
when we talk about predestination or God's ordination of things.
They think, well, it's like all these things are ordained to
occur and they might or might not happen. No, everything that
God has ordained to come to pass must come to pass. And it was
ordained that Jesus Christ would come into the world and suffer
in the behalf of His people, and the time came when He actually
did that. That's a glorious thing. And
so it is, we see it set forth throughout the Scripture, that
He is that One who directs things to occur, and the Lord Jesus
Christ is that One who manifested that very thing in the earth,
because He came to do His Father's will. Well, wasn't His Father's
will going to be done? Well, sure it was, but He had
to do it, did He not? I mean, when we pray, Lord, may
thy will be done, what are we getting out of getting God off
the hook and saying, well, Lord, you just go ahead and do whatever
you want to? No, He is going to do what He wants to do. You
see, when we pray, Father, thy will be done, that is the Spirit
of God working in us to cause us to be reconciled to the will
of God. We're not going to change the
will of God, nor is God going to sit by and say, well, you
know, I was wanting to do my will, but I can't because they
didn't pray that my will be done. No, He's going to do His will.
But it's a glorious thing when men are made conformable to the
will of God, when that becomes precious to us and we delight
in it. Because you see, by nature we
don't. And every one of us finds ourselves from time to time Kind
of wishing God would have done something different. You ever
find that? Well, I wish that. You know,
I wish that would have turned out a different way. Well, no,
you don't really. You know, aren't you glad when
you look back at your life with all the nooks and crannies and
the darkness and the things that are just regrettable from a human
standpoint that you look at? What would you go back and change
if you could? You see, God is wise in His dealings
with His people and He brings His people on the pathway that
He would have them to go to bring them to the place He would have
them to be. It's a glorious thing. And the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing
that, in the depths of His soul, without any lack of knowledge
of that, prayed, sought the Lord. He trusted in Him. He waited
for Him. He needed him. Sure he did. Thy hand shall find out all thine
enemies. Thy right hand shall find out
those that hate thee. Now does that mean that he is
searching to find who his enemies are? And he does not know, but
he found out somebody was his enemy? No, he knows who his enemies
are from the beginning, does he not? I mean, he knows the
end from the beginning, so he knows who his enemies are. He
created his enemies just as surely as he created his friends. And
what can men say about it? You know, what is there for a
man to say? He can't say a thing other than
fall on his face and worship him. Thou shalt make them as a fiery
oven in the time of thine anger. This is one thing that I believe
is pretty clear throughout the Scripture, and that is that the
Lord will destroy the wicked. As surely as He will redeem the
righteous, He will destroy the wicked. Now, there is no question
about that. Whatever you sow, that you shall
also reap. I mean, that is a true principle. It is going to occur. And the
wicked will be destroyed, Not because they... I mean, let me
say this in a way that would be correct. I know what I want to say, but
I might not come out like it is. The wicked are destroyed
because of their wickedness. Now, they're destroyed because
God predestined them to be destroyed. Now, that's as clear as you can
say it. People get nervous about that, but that's just a fact.
God destroys the wicked because He predestined for them to be
destroyed. But they are destroyed for their
own wickedness. Pharaoh is a good example of
that. The Lord said, I raised up Pharaoh to this end that I
might show my glory. Now why was Pharaoh destroyed?
He was destroyed according to the ordered purpose of God, but
he was destroyed because he was a wicked man. And God will destroy
the wicked. That's what he says in his book. If that doesn't cause you to
tremble, then you don't fear God. I mean, that's all there
is to it. When you read that God will destroy
the wicked, you don't say, well, I'm glad it's them and not me.
Huh? I mean, is that how we look at
it? No, when I read that God will destroy the wicked, I say,
oh boy, I hope I ain't numbered among them because I surely ought
to be. If I'm not destroyed along with the rest of the wicked,
it will just be because of the mercy and grace of God. It won't
be because of anything that I've done to change that. But the Lord, He says that He
will make them as a fiery oven in the time of His anger. The
Lord shall swallow them up in His wrath, and the fire shall
devour them. Now, I'm not going to go into
a long discourse hell and all the different nuances and things
about that. But let me just say this. When
you read about hell in the Scripture, it is about destruction. It is
about devouring. It is about that which is put
away. Now, hell is an awful place. Any man that reads anything in
the Scripture about hell ought to tremble at the consideration
of it. It's a real thing. I'm not among
those that say there is no hell. There is a hell. But hell is
a place of destruction. God will devour His enemies.
He will burn them to a crisp. I mean, He is going to obliterate
wickedness from the earth. That's what he says. It says
the Lord will swallow them up. Their fruit shalt thou destroy
from the earth. That is, the works that they
have performed will all be gone. All the grand schemes and ways
of men, the fruit that they have borne in the earth will be gone. It won't amount to anything.
It will be remembered no more. and their seed from among the
children of men. Now the Scripture speaks about
the seed of the wicked and the seed of the righteous, the seed
of Christ. The seed of Christ are those
whom He chose from before the foundation of the world because
He loved them. They are those that are hidden in Him. You see,
the elect of God are chosen in Christ. They are not chosen out
of. the human race. Now, a lot of
people look at election as though God lined up all the people. He created all these people,
you know, in His purpose of creation. He lined them all up and He went,
any, many, miny, moe. That is not what the Scripture
speaks about when it talks about election. But rather, the Lord
created His people to be His people. He chose them in Christ. They have been His people from
the beginning. He didn't pick them out of the
human race. He made them to be His children. Just like He made the wicked
to be the wicked. And who maketh thee to differ
from another? See, what can a man say to that? Now, a lot of people
get mad. I mean, you go preaching that
kind of stuff there, in most places they'll run you out of
town in a hurry. Because see, men want it to be
something they do. They want to build that altar.
They want to say, well, all that might be true, but... Well, there's
no buts. It's according to the mercy of
God that any man is ever saved. God doesn't give people a fair
chance and a square deal and say, now, if you'll meet this
criteria, you'll be okay. But if you don't, I'm going to
destroy you. The Scripture says the Lord is angry with the wicked
every day. He didn't start being angry with them. The Lord is
angry with the wicked from the beginning. He will destroy them
just as surely as He will bring out His people from among them,
set their feet upon a solid rock, and they shall never perish.
But the seed of the wicked shall be destroyed from among the children
of men." There is not going to be any
of the seed of the wicked that inhabit the shores of heaven,
which I believe is a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth
what? Righteousness. So it is impossible
that the seed of the wicked could inhabit that place. Scripture
plainly says they are cast out. For they intended evil against
thee. They imagined a mischievous advice
which they are not able to perform. Boy, I'm glad we never did that. You see, this is the description
of all mankind, is it not? I mean, have we not devised devices
at our mind for the way of God? Well, you know, we'll do this.
He won't ever see us when we do this, and we'll sneak this
one in. And worst case scenario, we'll just say, well, we're sorry,
and everything will be okay. Isn't that how men think? You know, the old saying, of
course I say it all the time in dealing with government issues,
it's easier to get forgiveness than it is to ask permission.
But that's how men think, isn't it? I mean, just go on and do
whatever you want to do and then deal with the consequences later.
Well, that's the way men are. And if left to ourselves, what
would we be? What would happen to us? You
see, men have that mindset and they think everything is just
going to, well, one day it's just going to all kind of work out
okay. Well, no, it's not going to work out okay. apart from
the mercy of God to deliver us from the pathway of destruction
upon which we willingly have set our own feet, we would be
destroyed were it not for the kindness and the mercy of God
revealed to us in the Gospel and the constraint of the Spirit
of God to move our hearts to seek Him. Why did we seek Him? I mean, why does one man hear
the Word of God preached, and he just goes on his way. And
it's just like warding off a duck's back. It doesn't make any difference
to him at all. And another man hears it, and he says, you know,
that's the truth. Oh, Lord, deliver me from that
destruction which I so richly deserve. Why is that? There's only one answer. It's
not the free will of men. It's the grace of God. the mercy
of God, the kindness of the Lord to deliver those whom He loves.
And who is sufficient for these things, as the Scripture says?
I'm certainly not. You know, they imagine the mischievous
device which they are not able to perform. See, men devise devices
against God, but the fact of the matter is that they shall
all be destroyed in the midst of it. I mean, didn't Adam devise a
device against the Lord? He said, you know, I got to thinking
about that. When he gave him that proof,
he says, because he was deceived. I mean, she was deceived. She
was plain out deceived, but Adam, he wasn't deceived. He said,
you know, I've been thinking that very thing. I think I'll
eat that." The Lord said he would. And sure
enough, he did. See, he didn't believe the Lord,
did he? You know, if Adam had believed the Lord, when the Lord
said, in the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die, it would
have fell on his face, and he would have said, Oh God, keep
me from that, wouldn't he? He didn't believe God. He said,
It ain't going to happen. Man, look at all this good looking
food right here. I can eat all this and I'll be
happy. I won't mess with that." But he did. Because you see,
he desired it. Just like men devise mischievous
devices which they are not able to perform. Now it didn't turn
out like Adam thought it would. There again, if he had believed
God, he would have known that was going to come out, wouldn't
he? But see, he didn't believe God. Therefore thou shalt make them
turn their back when thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon
the strings against the face of them. Now let me stop it again. I can't emphasize this point
too much. And that is that all men are
judged according to Their own sin. Not somebody else's. Now, we
do know that we are sinners because we are born in Adam's race. Is
that not true? But there has never been a sinner
destroyed by the Lord who was destroyed simply because of Adam's
sin. Now, we are sinners by nature.
But every man who is destroyed is destroyed because of his own
sin. because he loved those mischievous devices. And there's not a man
who can stand before the Lord in the day of judgment and say,
well, Lord, I shouldn't be distorted just because I wasn't one of
the elect. That's not going to have anything to do with it.
No, when the day of judgment comes, it's not going to have
anything to do in that respect with whether or not somebody
is one of the elect. Now, it does have something to
do with it in the sense that those who are the elect will
be found in Christ with the perfect righteousness. But you see, the
wickedness of men is going to be judged on the basis of what
they are. And they shall be destroyed because
of their wickedness. Not because they were trying
to do what God said and somehow or other they were thwarted.
See, a lot of times people try to make out, well, you know,
he just went about it, he lived his whole life just trying to
do what the Lord wanted him to do. I mean, he was a good man.
You know, we look at people and we compare them, do we not, to
one another. We look at them and say, well,
you know, he was a good man. Oh, you know, surely the Lord will
have some respect for that. Listen, the Lord has no respect
unto any righteousness that any man has ever devised to come
before Him with, because it is all filthy rags in His sight.
Now that is just what Brother Al was talking about there this
morning, about building that altar. Men build beautiful altars. Listen, there are some people
that have built some beautiful altars. But I'm telling you,
there's not an altar built by a man ever devised that is of
any consequence before the Lord. There's only one standard of
righteousness in the kingdom of God, and that's Jesus Christ,
the perfect righteous. And if your righteousness does
not measure up to that, if the person whom you think is such
a wonderful person, if their righteousness doesn't measure
up to that, it doesn't make any difference what else they may
have said, done or whatever. It's not going to be enough.
It's not going to be respected in the courts of heaven. Therefore
thou shalt make them turn their back when thou shalt make ready
thine arrows upon the strings against the face of them. The Scripture says that men will
flee from God in the day of judgment. They will call for the rocks
to fall upon them, to hide them from the face of God. They shall
turn their face. They are going to run away because
they are going to see Him put the arrow in the bow to smite
them. Now, what are the terrors of
hell? You know, people have different ideas about that. And I can't think of anything more
terrible than simply coming before the Lord in the place of judgment,
knowing that destruction is real. Brethren, you know, burning in
a fire, that would be secondary stuff there. I mean, that's what,
you know, when I was a kid, that's what they used to get us scared
so we'd go make a decision about, tell us how hot the hell was
and we was going to burn and fry like a French fry and all
that kind of stuff. And that was designed to scare
us into doing something. And it did for about ten, fifteen
minutes until we got outside and got to playing again and
then we forgot all about that. The terror of facing the Lord
outside of Christ is an awful prospect. I cannot envision it. It is an awful thing. Be thou exalted, Lord, in thine
own strength. So will we sing and praise thy
power. That's the place we're brought
to, is it not? Just to praise Him for His power.
To praise Him for doing the thing that He would do according to His good pleasure. I'm glad the Lord does all things
according to His pleasure. David was. He said, you know
the heathen, they worship all these other gods, but He says,
our God, is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever He hath
pleased. I'm glad. Praise God. You know, we will rejoice in
the power of God, the Almighty. Does He always do everything
that I think He ought to do? No. He didn't ask me. And what I think doesn't make
any difference whatsoever, but I'm glad. That He is God and
there is none else. That He is God and there is none
like Him. Not in the heavens and not in
the earth. He is past finding out. But oh, He has revealed
Himself in Jesus Christ. And He has shown us and given
us these emblems and tokens of His love for those for whom He
went to Calvary's cross. Bread that is the broken body
of the Lord Jesus Christ and this wine which is the blood
which was shed for us. May He give us a mind and heart
to worship Him today and to remember those things which He has done.