Psalm 101 says a psalm of David. I will sing of mercy and judgment
unto thee, O Lord, while I sing. I will behave myself wisely in
a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me?
I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. I will set no
wicked thing before mine eyes. I hate the work of them that
turn aside. It shall not cleave to me. A froward heart shall depart
from me. I will not know a wicked person. Whoso privily slandereth his
neighbor, him will I cut off. Him that hath an high look and
a proud heart will not I suffer. Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful
of the land that they may dwell with me. He that walketh in a
perfect way, he shall serve me. He that worketh deceit shall
not dwell within my house. He that telleth lies shall not
tarry in my sight. I will early destroy all the
wicked of the land, that I may cut off all wicked doers from
the city of the Lord. Now the Scripture says this is
the psalm of David, and indeed it is the prayer of David, but
I believe that one does not have to look very hard to see and
understand that this is actually the words of Jesus Christ. He says here, A froward heart
shall depart from me, I will not know a wicked person. Whoso
prevalently slandereth his neighbor, him will I cut off, him that
hath an high look and with a proud heart. Will I not suffer? Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful
of the land, that they may dwell with me. He that walketh in a
perfect way, he shall serve me." Now, we know that the Scriptures
were penned by men as the Holy Ghost gave them utterance. They
were not things that they thought up out of the clear blue, but
it was those things that God gave them. Now we don't believe
that this Bible can be, you can make it say anything you want
to. Now a lot of people make it say whatever they want to,
It's not a book like you can read a book that some author
wrote. And, of course, if you go to
college, you get into this where these professors, they take what
a man wrote and then they think that by looking at what a man
wrote, they can tell everything about the man and they can figure
out why he said this and what he really meant and all of that.
Well, the book is not. The Bible is not a book that
we need to find out what it really means, because it means what
it means. It is not debatable what it means. Now, what is debatable is man's
understanding of what it means, but the Bible means what it means,
and what we desire by the grace of God is to know what it means.
And I believe God does not hide that. from those who seek it
with all their heart. Now that does not mean that we
will be without error because we are not perfect men in the
sense of having no personal ideas about things or things that we
maybe bring to the Scripture and want it to say or want it
to mean. That is the danger that we have
is that we will have it to mean what we want it to mean. And
that is the thing we have to constantly watch ourselves about
and that we come to it honestly as God would give us a mind to
see it. But I know one thing and that
is that if we do grasp what it means, it will be because God
who is rich in mercy has shown us those things and not because
of our abilities to comprehend things. None of us are smart. We can be smart maybe about certain
things, but you can't be smart about the things of God. A man
that's smart about the things of God, Paul said, we know nothing
as we ought to know. So you can't be smart about this. Now you can be mindful of it,
and you can read it, and you can by the grace of God be given
understanding about it, but the smarter that a man gets, to use
that term, the smarter that a man gets concerning the Word of God,
the dumber that he knows that he is. The more you learn, the
less you know. And so it is that when we look
at the words that are penned by these various prophets and
whatnot, they had some understanding of what it was they were writing,
but they didn't necessarily know exactly what the Lord meant by
all of what they wrote. Now, if you'd have asked Isaiah
what exactly that it meant when he said, Behold, a virgin shall
conceive and shall bring forth a son, and he shall be the prince
of peace, the everlasting Father, he said, You know, I don't really
know what that means. How could he know what it meant?
Because it wasn't until the Lord revealed what it meant. Nobody
could have known what that meant. There was nobody sitting around
waiting for the Messiah to be born of a virgin. Not really.
I mean, not... because nobody believed it when
it happened. And so it is that the learned
men of the day, they knew exactly how Christ was supposed to come.
Now there are a lot of people that spend a lot of time and
they spend a lot of effort in defining and delineating exactly
how the Lord is going to come again. I believe He is coming
again. The angel said this same Jesus
whom you saw go in like manner shall so come in like manner
as you have seen Him go. He is coming back in the same
body in which He left in. I believe that with all my heart.
If I have any understanding whatsoever of what the Scripture means,
that He is going to bodily return to gather His people. I believe
that. But there are many times that men
will spend inordinate amounts of time and effort trying to
say and convince us that they know exactly all the events surrounding
that. And I don't believe that they
can. And I believe that many times it is that men are lifted
up with pride in thinking that they've discovered some mystery
that men don't know. The Lord has hidden some things.
The Lord Jesus said it when He walked upon the earth. As a man,
He said that even... He said it is not given to the
son to know the day and the hour. when He would come again. Now,
I don't fully understand that and have no actual total explanation
of it. I have some kind of an understanding
of what He was getting at. But I believe what He was actually
teaching men was that these things are not given to men to know.
the exact day and hour. So when men come preaching the
day and the hour of Christ's return, you can be sure that
they are not speaking according to those things that are revealed
in the Word of God. It is impossible, even though
there is no shortage, seemingly, of those that make these predictions
from time to time, because they think, well, I've got the understanding
of it. So while these men who wrote
the Scriptures did not have a full knowledge of what it was they
were writing, they wrote exactly what the Lord would have them
to write. Now they had a reason in their
mind of why they wrote that, but they did not really necessarily
understand it in its fullness. And so I believe David speaking,
and the Scripture says David was a man after God's own heart,
And of course, you know that has various layers of meaning. But I believe that it essentially
means that the Lord saw fit to teach David some things and to
lead David and give David some wisdom that was beyond his own
understanding. Because as you look at David,
he was certainly not a paragon of virtue, was he? I mean, he
was not someone whom you would say, well, I want to pattern
my life after the life of David. Because the Lord didn't say,
David is going to be your pattern in life. He said, David is a
man after my own heart. You see, the Lord is pleased
to call sinners to Himself. And He uses imperfect men to
tell perfect things. I mean, he uses imperfect men
to tell perfect things. Now, there is a perfect truth
that is found in this book right here. It was written by an imperfect
man, but it is the perfect truth of God. And David said, I will
sing of mercy and judgment unto thee, Lord, will I sing. And that is the song of the people
of God, to sing of mercy and judgment. Now those are two things
that are kind of on two opposite ends of the spectrum, aren't
they? I mean, usually if you're thinking of judgment, you're
not thinking of mercy. But you see, mercy and judgment
have met together in Jesus Christ. He is both just and the Justifier,
them which believe in Jesus. God is that One. And so it is
that David says, I will sing of both mercy and judgment. We will praise the Lord for His
mercy. Now, that is the first thing
that he has revealed of himself. When Moses went up on Mount Sinai,
and the Lord gave him the law, think about this, breathing out
fire from the mountain, and the mountain set on smoke and fire,
and the Lord says, when Moses asked to see His glory, the Lord
says, I'll show mercy to whom I will show mercy. Now, He could
have said anything. He said, I'll make all my goodness
to pass before thee. He could have said, I'm going
to show you just how judgmental I can be. But He said, I'm going
to make all my goodness pass before you. And so it is that
we will sing of His mercy, because that's the first revelation that
we have of who He is, is that He is full of mercy, that He
is good to all who call upon His name. There's no man that's
going to be able to stand before the Lord in the day of judgment
and say, well, Lord, we came before you as humbly and in the
contrite spirit as we could, and you turned us away. It is
never going to happen. Because in the first place, a
man that will come into the presence of God and say anything that
would argue with God would be showing that he was not of a
contrite spirit. Job said, though he slayed me,
yet will I trust in him. You see, there's just no place
for the man with a broken and a contrite heart to have any
sort of reply against God. That is why we know that those
that the Lord spoke of in the seventh chapter of Matthew, we
said, Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter
into the kingdom of heaven, but he which doeth the will of my
Father which is in heaven. For I tell you there are many
who will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not
done many wonderful works? And he will say to them, Depart
from me, I never knew you. Now what is the problem? because
they're bringing their works before God. I mean, they're indicating
their mind, they're cast away because they're of the mind that
they would bring something righteous before God. Because who else
would think, if God said, depart from me, who else but the self-righteous
who would think of, well, wait a minute, God, I did all these
things. See, our righteousness is not
of ourselves. And if the Lord says to depart
from Me, what could any of us say but just to say, Lord, because
it seemed good in Thy sight? You're right. But you see, it
is God's mercy that is revealed throughout His Word. You see
so many times when men should have just been destroyed.
I mean, the Lord should have just forsaken them. But those
whom He loves with an everlasting love, He keeps. And that is the
revelation of His mercy. Because, you see, His mercy is
sovereign. Now, a lot of people like to
think about mercy as being general. God is just generally merciful. But God's mercy is sovereignly
dispensed. Now, general mercy would be something
that a man could expect simply on the basis of the fact that
he was created. But sovereign mercy is that which
he knows can only receive from the hand of Him who is able to
show mercy. Because if mercy is in any wise
earned, deserved, somehow or other just a normal
course thing, it wouldn't be mercy, would it? Because mercy
is kindness which is dispensed strictly on the basis of the
goodness of the one showing the mercy. And that is what the mercy
of God is. And David said, I'll sing of
it. I'll sing of thy mercy forever. And judgment, because it is the
judgment of God that causes the mercy of God to be magnified. Now, if there was no such thing
as judgment, then why would men see the need for mercy? But it
is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.
And therefore those who are awakened to flee from the wrath to come,
they desire the mercy of God because they see the ultimate
result and the righteous judgment. See, God's judgment is a righteous
judgment. When the Spirit of God has come
into the world, the Lord said, He will convince the world of
sin, righteousness and judgment because His judgment is righteous. It is that which is the contrast
to that which is the mercy of God. It is the flip side, if
you would speak. God is merciful to all who call
upon Him, but His judgment is sure to all those who go contrary
to that. A man does not have to be a bad
man to be cast from the presence of the Lord. In fact, I would
venture to say there will probably be far more good men who will
be cast out from the presence of the Lord than there will be
bad men. as men look at it. Didn't the Lord say that? He
said the harlots and the publicans go into the kingdom of heaven
before you do, speaking to the Pharisees, and they were good
men. I mean, we think of them as being hypocrites, and well,
they were, but I mean, they were righteous men in the sense that
they went about doing good. Their problem was they took notice
of the good they were doing. And they said, well, look at
the good we're doing. I mean, especially compared to these
old people over here, these old publicans. And we won't even
mention the harlots and all of those. And the Lord said, those
people are going into the kingdom of heaven before you. Why? Because
they thought themselves to be righteous. And so we will sing
of the judgment of the Lord. We will sing of it, not we will
just talk about it, but it will be the song of our heart. It
will be something we delight in. You sing about things that
you like. I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. Oh,
when wilt thou come unto me, I will walk within mine house
with a perfect heart. When David says he would walk
in a perfect way, he's not saying I'll walk in a way without sin. He's saying I'll walk there blamelessly. I'll walk there not as one who
is a hypocrite. In other words, I'll walk in
your house, I'll walk according to your way because I believe
it's the right way. Now, the greatest difficulty
for the children of God is seeing in themselves an evil heart of
unbelief and a contrary nature to the Word of God. Is that not
true? I mean, isn't that what Paul said? He said, the good
that I would not, that I do, and that which I want to do,
I don't do. I mean, that is the place that
the children of God are. And that's the place that Paul
would say with David, I will behave myself in a perfect way.
I want to walk in the right way. I want to do the thing that is
pleasing in thy sight. Oh, when wilt thou come unto
me? Lord, if you don't help me, I won't be able to walk in thy
right way. And that's what Paul said. He
said, Oh, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
This wickedness that dwells within me that keeps me from the thing
that my heart desires to do. Only the Lord. Oh, when wilt
thou come to me? You see, the righteous man, the
perfect man, the man who is blameless, he knows from whom his strength
comes and he desires that he have that strength, that he might
walk in it. And he knows without the presence
of the Lord that he can't. What David said, as you said
there a moment ago, speaking about the Lord and His creating,
this same David, the same one that says, I will walk before
the Lord in a perfect way, this same David said, O create in
me a clean heart, O God. Now why did he say, create in
me a clean heart? If He already had a clean heart,
why did He say, create me a clean heart? Because He knew He didn't
have a clean heart. He knew what He was by nature.
And He said, Oh God, create in me a clean heart and take not Thy Holy Spirit
from me. Oh, I believe it's a true thing
that the children of God, the greatest fear that they have
is that God will remove His presence from them. I can't think of a
worse place to be for a child of God than to be cast out from
the presence of the Lord. Now, the average person going
around out here and the average religious person, they could
care less. They're not interested in the
presence of God. What they're interested in is
going through the motions of their religion. They're satisfied
with it. It's a thing that pleases them
because they believe it's pleasing to God. But you see, the man
who has been taught the things of God, he knows that even his
most righteous act is filthy rags inside of God. It's nothing.
We have nothing to bring before Him. I will walk with Him within
my house with a perfect heart. Now this is also, as I said,
this is the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He is that
One who is indeed perfect, not just blameless, but actually
without sin. And he says, I will walk within
my house with a perfect heart. Now, David says by his desire,
I will walk before thee with a perfect or blameless heart.
The Lord Jesus Christ in reality has walked before the Lord with
a perfect heart. I will set no wicked thing before
mine eyes. I hate the work of them that
turn aside, it shall not cleave to me." Now what is it to turn
aside? That means to walk contrary to
the way of the Lord. It is that which is opposite
to the way that the people of God desire to go. And we hate
an evil way. Now in the flesh we love an evil
way. the work of the Spirit of God,
we love that way which is contrary to that evil way. And we don't
want to go the evil way. We see the evil way as such an
attractive thing to us, but we hate it. And we war against it. And we say, I will set no wicked
thing before mine eyes. I hate the work of them that
turn aside. It shall not cleave to me." Now only the Lord Jesus
Christ could say that in reality in the fullness of what this
Scripture says. Here only the Lord Jesus Christ
could fulfill that because He was a man who had no guile in
His mouth. That means there was nothing
that you could... He had no inclination whatsoever
towards wickedness, and therefore He could say that. It shall not
cleave to me. I hate the work of them that
turn aside. Remember the Lord said He gave
this illustration. I believe it's in the ninth chapter
of the book of Luke, verse 62 or 63. It's the longest chapter
in Luke. He said that no man having put
his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of
God. Those are those that turn aside.
Now, why would a man look back? Because he wants to admire the
work that he's done, wouldn't he? I mean, he looks back and
says, you know, I plowed that pretty straight furrow there. That looks good. Well, what's
happening all the time that he's He's looking back. He's getting
out of the road. And that man who turns aside,
I believe it has reference to the man that turns aside from
the way of God because he's looking at his own way. And we all have
a tendency to do that when we look at the wickedness of others
around us. Because we can always find somebody
that's worse than we are, can't we? And a lot of times just about
everybody is when we really get on our high horse. I mean, you
know, we can just look around us and we just don't find anybody
hardly that measures up to us. Well, that's not the place of
God's people. And, you know, we know it. We
know that it's not. A froward heart shall depart
from me. That's a proud heart. And I will
not know a wicked person. And that's exactly the words
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, Depart from me, I never
knew you, ye that work iniquity. Now what was the iniquity that
they worked? They did good deeds. They did religious deeds. But
the iniquity that they worked was in thinking that these deeds
were beneficial and good before God. And He said, I will not
know. I never knew you, he said. Whoso
privily slandereth his neighbor, him will I cut off, the man that
privately slanders his neighbor. You know, a duplicitous heart,
that is, a man who says one thing in public and another in private,
That's the thing that Scripture speaks about that is a hated
thing. It's an abomination to say one thing and do something
else. That's what He said here. Whoso privily slandereth his
neighbor, when he in the privacy of his own heart in his own home
can speak evil of somebody and in his heart mean it, he'll be
cut off. because he is a self-righteous
man. Him that hath an high look and a proud heart will I not
permit to come into my presence? I don't want them around me.
And this is what the Lord Jesus said. He said a broken and a
contrite heart would not be despised, but the man with the proud look
would be turned away. A proud heart will I not suffer.
Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell
with me. He that walketh in a perfect
way, he shall serve me." He said this is the ones to whom he looks,
upon the faithful. Without faith it is impossible,
the Scripture says, to please God. Now, well, we have got to
get some faith then. Isn't that what the religious
man says? He says, well, without faith
it's impossible to please God. So, brother, we're going to do
this and we've just got to have faith because we're going to
please God. There is a faith that's pleasing
to God, but it is the faith of Jesus Christ. He is our faith. He is that one in whom all our
hopes rest. We have no other confidence in
any other and the Lord shall be upon the faithful of the land."
Who are the faithful of the land? Those who are in Christ. How
does a man get faith? He is given to Him. To whom is
faith given? To those who are in Christ by
the sovereign work of God. They are those who are seen to
be faithful. Now, when you stand before the
Lord, Do you want to come there and say, well, Lord, I've been
faithful? Or would you rather come and say, He's been faithful
and I'm with Him? Now you see, that's the difference
between the faith of men and the faith of Christ. I don't
want to have any confidence in any faith I might come up with
because I'd be suspect that it wasn't any good. But I know that
the faith of Christ is a pure faith. And it is that which is
given to the people of God. Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful
of the land, that they may dwell with me. He that walketh in a
perfect way, he shall serve me. Again, that man who is blameless
will serve the Lord. Now, who is the one who served
the Lord and did the will of God? I only know of one. There has only ever been one
man that did the will of God. perfectly, whose desire was to
do the will of God perfectly. That is what he said. I came
not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me. Oh, dear brethren, He is the
One who is faithful in all of His ways, that walks in a perfect
way, that serves the Lord, He that worketh deceit shall not
dwell within my house. He that telleth lies shall not
tarry in my sight." No man is going to be able to stand in
the sight of the Lord who has the concept of deceit as his
goal. Now some people think that that
would be the height of being smart, isn't it? when you outfox
somebody and you can make them think you're going to do one
thing but you're really going to do something else. And that
to me, an old man, he's really shrewd. You ever heard somebody
that's a shrewd businessman? Well, there's shrewdness and
then there's shrewdness. I mean, there is a wisdom But,
you know, we need to be careful that we don't get numbered up
among the shrewd, because shrewd often means, well, they figured
out a way to take advantage of somebody. And that's not the
place God's people are called. It certainly wasn't the Lord
Jesus Christ. He went about, the Scripture
says, doing good. He even prayed for those that
despitefully used Him. He had no thought towards harm
in any way to those whom he walked among. He that worketh deceit
shall not dwell within my house. He that telleth lies shall not
tarry in my sight. He can't stand there long. Now,
that's why the Lord cast those people out. They said, we've
done many wonderful works in thy name. He says, you're lying. He says, you're lying. Because
by the fact that you can come and you've recounted them and
you've got a list of them and you know all the things that
you did, the very fact of that shows that you're a liar. Because
you didn't do them for the glory of God. You didn't do them because
your heart was moved in these things. You did them because
you said, well, one day we'll be able to stand before the Lord
and say, Lord, look what we did. You see, you only keep track
of the things you want somebody to know about. Isn't that right? I mean, you know, when you get
a little cash on the side in your business, you don't want
anybody to know about that, do you? So you don't tell anybody. That's
kind of like that. You just go on. You just didn't
even know it was there. Well, that's a funny way, but
that is an illustration, dear brethren, of how we are. The
Lord said when you do your alms, don't let your left hand know
what your right hand is doing or your right hand's left. I
don't know which one it was, but I guess about the same difference. You do it as unto the Lord. You don't do it thinking about
what you're going to get out of it. That's not what God has
called His people to do. I will early destroy all the
wicked of the land, that I may cut off all wicked doers from
the city of the Lord. There will be no wickedness in
the kingdom of heaven. And that is the thing that makes
it amazing that such as we are should ever be given an entrance
there. The man who has any notion or
inkling that he has some sort of deserving way of being in
the presence of God is most surely the one who should be cast out.
The Lord will cast off all eviltoers. He will cast off the wicked.
The wicked are not those who have committed sin. They are
those who have committed sin think themselves somehow to be
worthy of the Lord's mercy, or somehow that the Lord will overlook
it, or somehow that they don't need a Savior. But the man who
knows himself to be in need is a man who will never be cast
away from the Lord, the man who comes seeking mercy for Christ's
sake. He is the Savior of sinners.
And He will save all who call upon His name. Lord, give us
grace that we might be among those.