Looking back at Psalm 56, we had looked at that psalm a
few weeks ago. We didn't get completely through
it because of the strictures of time which are often upon
us. Beginning in verse 9 of Psalm
56, we read this. when I cry unto thee, then shall
mine enemies turn back. This I know, for God is for me. In God will I praise his word. In the Lord will I praise his
word. In God have I put my trust. I will not be afraid what man
can do unto me. Thy vows are upon me, O God. I will render praises unto thee. For thou hast delivered my soul
from death, wilt thou not deliver my feet from falling, that I
may walk before God in the light of the living?" Now the order
of things is an important matter. It is often in the thinking of
men that the order of things gets turned around. If you hitch
up a horse to a cart and you put the cart in front of the
horse, you're not going to go very far because you've got to
have the cart hooked behind the horse. Modern theology and erroneous
theology puts the cart ahead of the horse and often makes
the order of things to be reversed. God is the first cause of all
things. Now, that is a simple thing to
say. But it is not a simple thing
to grasp, nor is it a simple thing to accept. But it doesn't make any difference
whether or not we accept it. It makes a difference that it's
true. And as Brother Al said, it doesn't make any difference
what science says about how things were created. It really makes
no difference at all, and we shouldn't be amazed that the
world doesn't believe the account that is in the Scriptures. Why
would they? How could they? How could you? The Scripture is very plain.
Paul says that it is by faith that we understand that the world
was created out of things which did not appear. That's the only
way a man will ever believe what's in this book. You can argue with
a man until you're blue in the face, and if God doesn't give
him faith to believe that this is true, he will never believe
it. And you won't either. Keep that in mind. Now, if you
wonder, and if you get exasperated with people that don't believe
what this book says, Just remember that the only reason you believe
it is because God, who is rich in mercy, has shown you that
these things are true. And when God has shown a man
that these things are true, who can take that away from him?
It does not matter what happens to us, nor does it matter what
men think of us. If the Word of God is the Word
of God and we believe that it is, now see, A lot of times people
go to great lengths to prove that the Bible is the Word of
God. Well, dear brethren, you cannot prove that the Bible is
the Word of God to the sufficiency of a man believing that it is
coming and saying, Oh, well, now you have convinced me it
is the Word of God. You will never do it. I mean
you can read every book that has ever been written about proving
that the Bible is the Word of God and it will not do a bit
of good. But God, who is rich in mercy, when He opens a man's
eyes to see that it is the Word of God, then nothing can change
that. Nothing can turn him away from
it. I mean, he is drawn back to it like a moth is drawn to
a flame, and he goes around it, and it consumes him. He is not interested in what
men say about it. Now this is ultimately the reason,
I believe, that as the world goes on, that the people of God
will be persecuted and hated even more so than they are in
the general sense, because as the knowledge of man increases
in the earth, the lack of knowledge that there is of these things,
because God has ordered it that way. It has been ordered that
way. The wise and the prudent are
not given these things, but unto babes does he reveal the things
of God. And so as man increases in his
knowledge, then the likelihood that men will embrace the things
of God grows slimmer and slimmer. Now, God can, in a moment, He
could convert the whole world if He is so pleased to do, but
it does not appear to me from the Scripture that that is going
to occur, but rather the opposite, that as time goes on, the Lord
Jesus said, when the Lord comes, shall he find faith in the earth. That's a rhetorical question.
And the rhetorical answer is no. I mean, it's not that more
and more people are believing. Now, more and more people are
religious. I mean, you've got, you know, more and more religious
people. I mean, there's religion all
over the world. And religion is in vogue in a
lot of places. You know, it's become a topical
question. Do you pray when you make a touchdown? Is that good? Do you pray when you make a touchdown?
Well, do all things to the glory of God. You don't have to make
a show of it, however. But I mean, all things to the
people of God are done for the glory of God. So, you know, religious
shows are the easiest thing that men can do. I can go around and
tell you how holy I am and how much I pray and how much I read
the Bible and all of these things. I can tell you all these things,
but that doesn't mean anything because the Lord would have men
to worship Him in spirit and truth. And the only way that
that will occur is if the Lord, who is rich in mercy, visits
a man and brings that past in him. It won't occur because he
thinks that he might want to do that or want to be that way. So, getting the cart ahead of the
horse. Now, I believe that you have to go down to verse 13,
which is the last verse in the Scripture. And the Lord often
reverses the order of things in the Scriptures because as
man would say what it is that is produced, It is as he understands
what it is that's produced that he comes back to the place where
he knows that it began. And so it is that all that he
said before this, the beginning of it is in verse 13. He says,
For thou hast delivered my soul from death. Now religion and
the natural understanding of men says this, that you do some
things and then God will deliver you from death. Isn't that the
way that modern thought is? Well, here God said, do these
things. Now, if you will do this, then you will get this result.
Now, that is how the natural man thinks. Now, David said up
here, he says, In God will I praise His Word, in the Lord will I
praise His Word. In God have I put my trust. I will not be afraid what man
can do unto me. Now, the natural man in his thinking
about the order of things, he says, well, a man has put his
trust in the Lord and therefore the Lord will deliver him from
death. I mean, wouldn't you say that would be a fair representation
of how the average person, if you ask them how it is that a
man is delivered from death, they'd say it's because he put
his trust in the Lord. That's not what David said. He
said this. He said, For thou hast delivered
my soul from death. You see, the result of having
been delivered from death is that a man puts his trust in
the Lord, because dead men don't trust anybody. Now, a man who
is dead in trespasses and sins is not going to call upon the
Lord. He is not going to trust the
Lord. He is not going to praise the Lord in His Word, is he?
But he says, For thou hast delivered my soul from death. Now if He
has delivered our soul from death, what does He say? Wilt thou not
deliver my feet from falling? I know people that will tell
you, oh brother, you better stay faithful, because if you don't,
You are going to ultimately perish. It is up to you. You better do
it. That is not what David said.
He said, Thou hast delivered my soul from death. You have
delivered me from death. I am alive in Christ. Therefore, what? Thou wilt not Thou wilt thou
not, or wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I
may walk before God in the light of the living? Is that not the
work of the Lord in a man, to keep him from falling because
he has been delivered from death? Now there is no doubt, dear brethren,
that there is a preservation of the saints and there is a
perseverance of the saints. And it is vitally important that
we understand that both of those concepts are taught in the Scripture.
But it is of the ultimate importance that we know what the order in
those things is. Now the Lord said, If he that
endureth to the end, the same shall be saved. Now, man would
take that and he would say, okay, see there, you better endure
to the end. Now, there is no question about
it. It is necessary for a man to endure to the end. But, dear
brethren, well, look what David said. He said, for thou hast
delivered my soul from death, therefore will you not keep me
from falling? Isn't that what Paul said? Faithful
is he which calleth you who will also do it. He which hath begun
a good work in you will perform it until the day, until that
final day. in the present day, you can turn
the radio and the TV on and you can find men without exception,
without fail, telling you what you need to do to remain faithful,
what you need to do to do this and what you need to do to please
the Lord and what you need to do and how you need to do it.
There is no shortage of those that tell you how you need to
do it. But there is a great shortage
of those that will tell you without any question about it that if
you do any of those things, it's because God has begun a good
work in you. And He will perform it. And dear brethren, this is the
place of our comfort. You see, I don't take any comfort
in knowing that It is necessary for me to endure to the end.
I don't have any comfort in that. Because if I look at that long
enough and I don't know the fact that he's begun a good work,
well performed, I'll get depressed pretty quick. Because I know
that left to myself, dear brethren, I'll depart tomorrow. I mean,
I'll sit there and I'll go to the camp of those that say, well,
science must be right. Now why is it that a man studies
the Word of God his whole life, goes to school, becomes a professor,
and then he comes up with the idea, well, none of this stuff
is true. Why is that? Because God never
began a work in him. David said, I will praise thy
Word. He said, ìIn God will I praise thy Word.î Now why would David praise his
Word? Does he mean Iíll praise his
Word for fifty years and then in the last ten years of my life
Iím going to cast it off? Is that what he said? No, he
said, ìIíll praise his Word.î Why? ìBecause he has begun a
good work in me.î and he hath caused me to love his way." Now,
dear brethren, we know this for a fact, that if the Lord is pleased,
He can remove Himself from us in a moment if He is pleased
to do so. But we also have the Word of
God to tell us that He will not do that to any that He loves
in Christ. The Lord does not play games
with men. But He works in us, both the will and the do of His
good pleasure, and He gives us a love for the things of God.
And He does not give us a love for the things of God temporarily. Now, He sometimes gives men a
love of religion. The Lord told the woman at the
well. Now, the woman at the well had a love of religion, didn't
she? I mean, she brought it up real quick when she found out
the Lord was a Jew. I mean, she wanted him to know
real quick, hey, that's not how we believe. No, sir, you see,
our religion, my religion, it tells me. You ever heard anybody
say, well, my Bible says this. You know, what they mean is,
buddy, you better listen to what I'm saying, because this is what
the truth of the matter is. Well, it's not my Bible. It's
not your Bible. It's the Word of God. And we'll
praise the Word of God in whatever it says. And whatever God gives
us understanding of, we'll bow down before Him and worship Him.
And it tells us that we don't have any understanding apart
from Him. But it's not about, you see,
it's not about a man claiming to believe something. Now, I
know that we have gone through, and most all of us have been
raised up and seen just played out before our eyes, that the
predominant mindset is that a man makes a decision to follow the
Lord and all things occur as a result of what he did. And you often hear people stand
up and give what they call a testimony that is not a testimony about
what God did, But it's a testimony about what they did. And they
say, because they did this, God did this. Well, brethren, God
doesn't do things because you do things. You do things because
God does things. Now, that's a simple matter,
is it not? But it is a vital matter. And
it is ultimately important that a man have a grasp of that understanding
or he is in error. He does not know the way of God.
He does not know the working of God. In God will I praise
His Word. In the Lord will I praise His
Word. Now, I think it is a fair thing to say that because man
is natural in his beginning, he often thinks in his beginnings
in the faith that he is the one that brought things to pass. I mean, when the Scripture says,
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, I mean,
the man, if he says, I believe, I mean, because he does believe. If the Spirit of God works in
him, he does believe, does he not? And in his infancy and in
his fleshly understanding of things, if you ask him at that
point in time, Well, did you believe? He'd say, yeah, I believe,
because he does believe. If you ask me if I believe the
Word of God, I'm going to tell you, yes, I believe it. But you
see, the Lord's given me some understanding, and now I know
this, the only reason I do believe it is because God showed it to
me. Now, I didn't know that, maybe,
to start with, right off the bat. But when God, who's rich
in mercy, was pleased to continue his work in me. He showed me
that. Now I can understand how a man might not have an understanding
of that when he begins his journey with the Lord, but I can't comprehend,
dear brethren, how a man can walk very far down the path that
he is not brought to that awareness. And any man who goes on down
that path, I don't know how far, I can't tell you, But I cannot
believe, I cannot comprehend it, how a man can go through
his whole journey believing that he is the one that brought these
things to pass. David certainly did not. And
it would appear to me that the testimony of the redeemed of
God is they got the order right in their mind, do they not? For
thou hast delivered my soul from death, And it is because He has
delivered us from death that we will not fall. It is not because,
on the other hand, that we don't fall, therefore we don't die.
No, we have life. You see, that is the work of
the Spirit of God, is to give life unto His people. The Lord
Jesus said very simply to Nicodemus, Nicodemus, except a man be born
again. You cannot see the kingdom of
heaven. Now, he was not talking about something that's going
to occur another time. He's not talking about the same
thing that's going to occur twice. What he's talking about, the
literal translation of that is that you'd be born from above. Now, we speak about being born
again because it is a second birth. Because he said in Nicodemus,
except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now, the water birth is the natural
birth. So what he's saying is a man
is born of his mother in a natural birth, but that's not sufficient
for a man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. You see, a man can't
enter into the kingdom of heaven based simply upon the natural
things. He can't just decide in a natural
way. He can't be persuaded in a natural
way to seek the Lord. But Nicodemus except a man be
born from above, that is, except there come a life-giving force
into him that did not exist there before. Except that wind that
blows that a man can't see it, but he sees the sound thereof,
except that come upon him, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
And so it is, dear brethren, that life precedes light. You can't have light unless you're
alive. A dead man can't see anything.
But when a man's given life, then he desires to depart from
the dead, does he not? I mean, when Lazarus lay in the
tomb as dead as a wedge, he'd been there long enough that he'd
started to rot and to putrefy. Now, that's not
a good thing to think about, is it? But the Lord, in order
to demonstrate exactly what man is by nature, used that when
He showed to Mary and Martha and all those other Jews that
were gathered around there the power that He had over death.
Now, you know, if a man came along and said, I have read about
some of these cases of people that have had this Ebola virus
over in Africa, and a few of them, they laid them out there
and they said, well, this guy is dead. Well, six hours later,
he pops up and he is not dead. Now, we understand that, do we
not? But I guarantee you this, if
you saw one of them and he had been dead for four days and his
body is bloated up and flies have lit on him and maybe maggots
are starting to crawl in and out of his nose or his ears,
and that man sat up You'd think something just couldn't happen
happened, would you not? Absolutely you would. And so
the Lord Jesus, in order to demonstrate the state that man is in by nature
and the power that He has over death, not in just the natural
sense, but of course to illustrate the spiritual power that He has,
He said to Lazarus, come forth. Now, we know that the Lord has power
in His Word. Now, sometimes, and we need to
be careful about this and how we understand this because, again,
the order of these things is important. Sometimes men talk
about preaching the gospel as though the gospel can give a
man life. The gospel cannot give a man
life. Now, the Lord sometimes uses
the gospel in the process of giving a man
life in that the Lord quickens him and causes him to hear the
Word of God. Now, that is the way that things
happen. And it is the Lord does sometimes seemingly simultaneously
give a man life and quickens him to hear the Word of God in
a way that can't be separated. Now when he spoke to Lazarus,
I don't know exactly how this occurred. I know that when the
Lord spoke the Word, Lazarus heard it. Dead men can't hear. Can they? But those who have
been made alive by Christ certainly can. And so it was the Word of
God from the lips of Christ that awakened this man. The words
from the lips of a man will never do that, from a natural man. But the words from the lips of
Christ do. And sometimes Christ speaks those
words in the same way as He did to Lazarus. But you see, what
happened to Lazarus was, when the Lord gave him life, guess
what? He didn't want to be in the tomb
anymore, did he? I imagine it smelled bad in there.
Now, when he was dead, he didn't know it, did he? I mean, if you
went out to the graveyard and dug one of those guys up, and
you looked at him and said, Do you like being here? He wouldn't
say anything, probably. You'd probably run if he did,
but he wouldn't say anything. You know he wouldn't say anything.
Why? Because he's dead. But here's
Lazarus. He comes. I can just picture
this. You know, the script says he
was still wrapped in the grave clothes. I mean, he was like
a mummy, I assume. I don't know how he was, but
I can just see him kind of hobbling out of here. And he comes out.
And what? Lazarus is alive. But he's still
just like he was when he was dead, isn't he? As far as what
you can see. I mean, he's like a dead man.
He looked just like he did when he was dead, did he not? I mean,
he's still wrapped in the clothes. What did the Lord say? Loose
him and let him go. Because you see, the gospel is
that which brings life and immortality to light. It is that which comes
to the soul of a man that has been awakened by the Spirit of
God and causes him to rejoice in that which Christ has done.
And Lazarus was made to rejoice in what the Lord had done. Now,
we haven't been told a whole lot about what occurred after
that, but we do understand what the Lord
did to Lazarus. was something that apart from
which Lazarus would have remained in the tomb. And the order was
that he became alive and then he came out and not vice versa. Men don't come out, men don't
believe, men don't receive, men don't see, men don't hear except
the Lord does the work. But oh, when the Lord does that
work, You couldn't have kept Lazarus in there for nothing,
could you? I mean, he was the living among the dead. He wasn't
the dead among the living because he was delivered and he came
out. And the Lord will deliver my
feet from falling that I may walk before God in the light
of the living. Isn't that exactly what happened
with Lazarus? I mean, the Lord gave him life.
He came out of the tomb. And he walked before the Lord.
And, dear brethren, that is the order which God is pleased to
work in His people. Now, I want to ask you a question.
Who is it that gets all of the glory in a situation like that? I mean, did the people go up
to Lazarus after he had come out and say, Lazarus, buddy,
we are glad you came out of the grave. Well, you've made a decision
to come out of this grave that's just going to stay with you for
the rest of your life. You made the right choice, buddy. No. They fell on their faces before
Christ. They said, Depart from us. We're
not worthy to be in your presence. This is a glorious thing that
thou hast wrought. I mean, there wasn't any doubt,
dear brethren. There certainly wasn't any doubt
in the mind of Lazarus as to what happened. But there was
no doubt in those that witnessed what happened to Lazarus about
what had occurred. Now he said, In God, if I put my
trust, I will not be afraid what men shall do unto me. This is
the work of God that a man is able to trust the Lord. Trusting
the Lord is not an easy thing. It's an impossible thing for
the flesh to do. And it's only as the Lord subdues
our flesh that we will trust the Lord, because then we'll
trust the arm of the flesh, will we not? I mean, isn't that your
natural tendency? When something's happening, something's
going on, you say, well, what can I do to solve this? It's just natural. That's the
way men are. But, dear brethren, there's no
solution to it like that. Now, I know everybody says, oh,
well, you know, you've got to do all these things. Listen.
God's people trust in the Lord. And as they trust in the Lord,
I believe the Lord gives them guidance. He gives them a way.
He shows them. But He doesn't always deliver
them. from the problems that we get into. Sometimes we get
in situations that we can't be delivered from because it pleases
the Lord to put us in that, to bring us to the place He wants
us to be. But you see, dear brethren, whether
we are walking with our hands in the air praising God and rejoicing
or whether we are walking down the road with our hands hanging
down to our knees and our legs are weak, and we find ourselves
unable hardly to take another step, the work of God is the same. See, the Lord is not working
more in the guy that is praising the Lord than He is in the one
whose hands are hanging down if they belong to Him. He is
bringing them by a way that they knew not. He is bringing them
the path He wants them to go. But you see, what He is doing
in every one of them is causing them to trust Him. He is causing
them to delight in His Word, to know that there is no other
way or deliverance than that which He provides. Brethren,
that is a glorious place. He will not. Let's read that
again, what David said. For thou hast delivered my soul
from death, wilt thou not, or wilt not thou, deliver my feet
from falling? He delivered us from death. He
will keep us from falling. And in the bleakest of hours,
He is still our Helper and our Guide, and He will bring us to
the place that we may walk before God in the light of the living. Because, you see, the light of
the living is to understand the way of God. The light of the living. Now,
the light of death is that that thinks... I'll tell you what
one of the lights of death is. Oh, brother, you've just got
to have faith. Brother, you've just got to take
the bull by the horns. You've just got to pull your
bootstraps up. You've just got to strap yourself
in the saddle, and you've just got to go on. Oh, no. The light of the living
is to know that God alone is the one that can deliver us,
and He will keep our feet from falling, and He will not abandon
His people. And if He has given us a love
for Him, a love for Christ, a love for His Word, He will not forsake
us. David said this. He said, I have
never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging for bread.
It has never happened. It is never going to be. Brethren,
those who are made righteous in Christ shall indeed be delivered. and they shall walk in the light
of the living according to the order that God has established
in the earth.