Turn back to Psalm 85. I was just sitting there thinking
about how absolutely unworthy I am to stand before you this
morning and to say anything in the name of the Lord That's absolutely
so unworthy. But as they sang that song, the
thought occurred to me that all my unworthiness can never diminish
His worthiness. So if God is pleased to help
us and to bless us this day, And if he does so in Christ,
there's no reason why he can't, because he is worthy. This is a wonderful psalm, and
every single verse of it is almost like a message in itself. And one thing that is so amazing
about it is, if you notice, it is said to be a psalm for the
sons of Korah. In other words, just before we
even begin to hear what is said, we have to notice that this is
all about the grace of God. A psalm is, as you might know,
a song. And this song was to be sung
by these sons of Korah. And that is very amazing if we
know anything about Korah. Now if you'd like to know, you
just go back and look in the book of Numbers sometime in chapter
16. where we find Korah and some
others like him rebelling against Moses and refusing to hear what
God spoke through Moses. And so they find themselves without
mercy and without grace. The Bible says that God had them
all gathered up together by themselves, and he opened the ground, and
it consumed them all in an instance, and they all went down to the
pit." So to read a psalm that would be ascribed To these who
would sing, the sons of Korah has to be something of the grace
of God. And it shows us also and reminds
us of the consequences of not hearing what the Lord says. Not hearing what He says and
the way that he says it. But if you'll notice with me
what the psalmist says in this 8th verse, he says, I will hear
what God the Lord will speak, for He will speak peace unto
His people and to His saints, but let them not turn again to
folly." He says, I will hear what God
the Lord speaks. And I thought about that, and
I asked this to my own self, and I ask it to everyone Who
hears me? Will we hear what the Lord God
speaks? I know this, I know our Lord
says that His sheep will hear His voice and they will follow
Him. And I know also that it's only
by God's grace And it's only by the power of God's Spirit
that anyone truly hears Him. And I know also this, that they
only hear who hear His Word, who hear His Gospel. We cannot
say we hear God if we do not hear the words of God. And I'm sure of this, I'm sure
if He ever says anything to you or to me, it will be through
His gospel. He's not going to speak audibly
out of heaven. He's not going to speak through
signs and wonders. It says that He has in these
last days spoken unto us by His Son. The gospel is the gospel
of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And my prayer is this morning,
that He would put this resolve in every heart, especially my
heart. That I might be able to say with
this psalmist, this man, just like we are, but that God used
and that God showed mercy and grace to, maybe David, Maybe
Asaph. But if any one of us, then or
now, is ever enabled to resolve in our hearts and say, I will
hear what God the Lord speaks, that's amazing grace. That's a work of God in our hearts. And I know this, it is not just
to hear in some general sense, but if you notice here, he says,
I will hear what the Lord speaks. There are a lot of folks who
say they hear the Lord. They've heard the Lord. But it
isn't just to hear Him, it is to hear what it is that God the
Lord speaks. You cannot believe what you have
not heard. And the Apostle Paul says in
Romans 10, he tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the Word of God. And this means that to truly
hear is to believe. It is to believe God. It is to believe what He says. You can't just say in the face
of what He says, I believe God, but I don't believe that. Or,
I believe in God, but I don't believe in what you've just read
from the Bible that He says about Himself. Or, I believe God, but
I don't believe that He is the way He says, or He saves the
way He says, or that I am the way He says. You see, if that's our attitude,
we haven't heard Him speak at all. We haven't heard Him in
what He says. And we haven't believed on Him. We have not, as He commands us,
believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. Because when we believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, that involves a who and a what. And that's
what Paul means when he says, we preach not ourselves, but
we preach Christ crucified. In other words, it is involving
a proclamation of who He is and also a clear proclamation of
what He's done. His person and His work. And thus we preach Christ crucified. If we do not hear what the Bible
says about who He is, or if we do not hear what it says about
how He saves sinners, or what Christ came to do, we haven't
really heard. All we've done is kind of stop
the ears of our mind and say, I believe, but I'm not going
to hear what He says. But if you notice here in this
verse, He tells us here also who God's going to speak to.
Look at that 8th verse again. He says, I will hear what God
the Lord will speak, for He'll speak peace unto His people. That means everybody's not going
to hear. But it says He's going to speak something to His people. He's going to speak something
to His saints. And actually, they are one and
the same people. They're His people. Christ came
to save His people. God has a people. And not only
that, they are characterized in this way, they are called
at the same time His saints. Religions supposedly make saints
of individuals. But the truth of the matter is,
all of God's people are saints. There were the saints at Corinth. There were the saints at Ephesus.
All of God's people are saints because the word saint is sanctified
ones, which simply means set apart unto God. They are described as them that
are sanctified. And that doesn't mean that they've
had some kind of extra experience. It simply means that all His
people, He did Himself set apart unto Himself. Them that are sanctified. And they are this people, these
saints, these separated ones, or these set apart unto God,
which He set apart unto Himself in what He calls the everlasting
covenant. All religion is interested in
our day is right now what somebody is going to do, but salvation
always begins with God, and God is eternal. He set apart a people,
these saints, He set them apart in the everlasting covenant.
He chose them in Christ. He gave them to Christ to be
His bride. He distinguished them from all
of Adam's fallen race by His grace. It always begins with
God. He's the sanctifier. He set them
apart in this everlasting covenant. He set them apart by His divine
choice in election. And He set them apart in and
through the death or the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
not in some random way that Christ comes into this world to suffer
and to die simply to make something available. Christ comes into
this world as the Head and the Representative and the Savior
of this people that are set apart by God. He's not dying on that
cross in some general way. He's dying on that cross in a
particular way for a particular people. These saints, or set-apart
ones, who are set-apart in Him, they're chosen in Christ, given
to Christ. And God always has viewed them
in Christ, not in themselves. He has never viewed them in any
other way except by them being in union with the Lord Jesus
Christ. They're saints. Separated ones. They're all saints. And they're
also set apart by a mighty work of God's Spirit. Every one of them. Each and every
one of them in that covenant, each and every one of them that
Christ came into this world and died on the cross for, each and
every one of them will, by God's Spirit, in this total agreement
and harmony within the Godhead, they will be set apart and they'll
each one experience this work of grace. And I don't know of
a better way than to describe it. It's described in so many
ways, but in light of this text, I don't know of any way that's
better to describe it other than this very fact. They of themselves
would not hear Him speak, but when the Spirit of God works
in their heart. When this people that are described
in another psalm as being this people of the Lord Jesus Christ,
it says of them, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy
power. Here they are all through their
days, up until that appointed time, doing their own thing,
thinking they're having their own way, making their own decisions,
and their decisions are always against God. They will not hear. They'll fill their minds and
their ears with thoughts and sounds of everything else in
this world. They'll seek to do everything
they can to shut off the sound of His speaking. But there comes
a day, as hard as they might try by
nature, as hard as they might seek to close their minds and
close their ears and close their thoughts to anything pertaining
to what God says in His Word about Himself and about them
and about salvation, shut it off as they would, but they cannot. They cannot because they're set
apart. They cannot deny, they cannot
hide from this work of the Spirit that comes to them and gives
them spiritual life and faith and these ears to hear what God
the Lord speaks. They are saints. And not only
that, they are set apart by the gospel through which He speaks. In other words, men and women,
they go forth in this world, in the name of God, speaking
things and saying things, and a multitude of people, they'll
believe them. Sometimes I find myself, when
I think about what people believe, in opposition to the Holy Scriptures. I'll catch myself almost unknowingly
just sitting there shaking my head. How could anybody possibly
believe that? How could they be so deceived? Because they're spiritually blind
and they will not hear what God says in His Word. They'd much
rather. They'd much rather hear what
someone says than to face the reality of what God says in His
Word. We pass by every Sunday morning,
pass by parking lots full of cars, people gathered around
all these various religions, and why would people do all this? Because they'd rather go hear
what is not true about God than go hear what is true about God. But these people, they will,
in spite of all of this, in spite of their own selves, and in spite
of their own weakness, and in spite of their own rebellion
and defiance, all of which was pictured of these people that
the psalmist speaks of. They will, in spite of this,
everyone, be brought to hear the gospel. It amazes me sometimes
When I stop and think about all that God does in the lives of
these His people in order to bring them under the sound of
His gospel. He does it so many ways. He uses
everything that He causes to go on in this world to always
be moving these people by the affairs of his providence, always
moving them and bringing them to hear the truth." They're not
looking for the truth. Lots of folks say they're looking
for the truth. All they're looking for is something
that will make them content in themselves rather than believing
what God says. But He's always moving them.
He's always bringing His people. By so many ways, by so many things,
events that we think are totally bad, things that we think happen
to us that are just the worst things that could happen, no. He's working all things together
for good for this people. He's always bringing them to
the truth. He may take years in the doing
of it. He may take all of these sad
events in the course of it. But He's always moving them,
always bringing them to hear the Word of the Truth. And that's why Christ says this,
When he prays in John chapter 17, he makes this statement and
he begins it with the word, sanctify. And what he's saying is, set
apart. Father, I pray You that You would
set apart them. Who's that? Those, he says, You've
given me out of the world. He says, "...set them apart through
thy truth, thy Word is truth." In other words, they're not only
set apart in that everlasting covenant, they're not only set
apart in the doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ, they're
not only set apart by this work of new birth in their hearts
and their minds giving them faith, but they're set apart, they're
distinguished by the true gospel. And they'll be brought to hear
that gospel. And family will say, oh, you
don't need to believe that. And friends will say, oh, that's
the most awful thing I ever heard. My God's not like that. Or they'll
say, it's not right, it's not good, it's not this, it's not
that, it's not loving, it's all these things. But they'll all
say, in the face of all that, in the face of their own natural
rejection, I will, I must hear what God the Lord shall speak. Christ says this in another place.
He says, He that is of God. These who are the people of God. These who are the objects of
His grace out from among Jew and Gentile, the people of the
earth. He said, He that is of God hears
God's Word. And when He said that, He was
looking At those Pharisees, He was looking at those who would
not hear Him, who did not believe on Him, who would die in their
sins, and who yet were very satisfied and contented in their religion. The Pharisees. And He said to them, "'Ye, therefore,
hear them not.' because you're not of God. Oh, that won't be the cause of
your final judgment, that you're not chosen of God. That won't
be the cause. The cause will be your sins,
and the cause will be your refusal to hear the gospel of Christ. And Paul wrote to those believers
at Thessalonica, He said, we're bound to give thanks always to
God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit, through this setting apart this work of the Spirit,
and what? And belief of the truth. I'm thoroughly convinced. that
one of the first evidences of a work of God's Spirit in a man
or a woman. This is not all the Reformation
that people talk about. This is not all the signs that
somebody is this or that or the other. The first evidence of
a work of God's Spirit in the heart of a man or woman is this. They begin to regard The Word
of God above everything else. And my friend, that will be tested.
That will be tried. Because there are a million voices
out there. Some of them the voices of those
we love. Some of them the voices of friends.
Some of them the voices of preachers that are so well respected in
this world. Some of them are the voices of
this authority and that authority. But the sheep will hear the shepherd's
voice. what God the Lord speaks. They'll hear His truth. But now there's this. Not only
will this take place, not only will they be brought to this
resolve, not only will they hear, but they'll hear what God the
Lord speaks. But this is another question.
What does God the Lord speak to His people? Now, if I just
asked that question to a bunch of people in a crowd, it would
be a lot of different answers. What does God the Lord, what
does Elohim, what does Jehovah, what does Jehovah Jesus speak
to His people? Do you know? It's right there
in the verse. I will hear what God the Lord
will speak, for He will speak peace unto His people and to
His saints. He will speak peace to them. And that doesn't mean that He
will tell them as so many have been told throughout all the
ages to make peace with God. No, He'll tell them of a peace
that has been made. There's a big difference. It's
not peace spoken to sinners like we are if it is a command for
us to make that peace. It's only peace. if He speaks
to us of a peace that's already been made by the Prince of Peace. When I use that term, you know
it's a biblical term, the Prince of Peace. But all people think
in their natural minds of is some kind of leader of world
peace. No, that's not it. He's not talking
about world peace, and He's not talking about peace among all
men, because He said, I came not to bring peace, but a sword. In other words, there's something
about this that is going to divide men and women. That's what the
truth of the gospel always does. He said, there must needs be
heresies. That means divisions. There must
needs be heresies or divisions among you that they which are
true might be made manifest. Now this means peace with God.
This has to do with peace with God for these who have been at
war with Him. Did you know we've been at war
with God? We've been at war with God as
the descendants of Adam since that moment in the garden that
He fell and we all fell in Him. Immediately, immediately after
that time, He went and closed His ears to God. And His descendants have been
closing their ears. They've been raising their hands
in rebellion against God. They've been trying to unseat
God from His throne. They've been trying to kill God,
which was most clearly manifest when He came in human flesh.
It isn't that we're just in disagreement with God. By nature, we're at
war with God. by nature rather than thinking
as we so naturally do, well, I believe in God. No, you don't
believe in God at all. Because you can't believe on
God who you don't even know who He is. And you'll never know
unless He speaks His Word to you. reveals Himself to you just
as He is exactly, because unless He does something for us, the
Scripture says that our natural minds are enmity against it. What does that mean? It means
hatred. It means opposition to. It means
that we, every one, are by nature All the same, the children of
wrath by nature." In other words, these that he speaks peace to,
naturally, they're just like everybody else. And not only did we go to war
against God in the garden in our father Adam, we go to war
against Him from our birth. It says, "...we come forth from
the womb speaking lies." Because all sin is first of all
against God. Do you know that? Sin is against
God. It not only doesn't have His
approval, it's against Him. It's against all that He commands.
It's against all that He is. It's an affront to His holy character,
to His throne. And the psalmist says, if thou,
Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, who shall stand? He does mark iniquities. And
there's nobody that can stand against Him. Men war against
God, but they cannot win against God. They write poetry and it
gets lifted up in the halls of great poetry. And a man says,
I am the captain of my fate, I'm the master of my soul. But unless God showed mercy to him,
that man's in hell and he's lost. We liken to those who are said
to, at God's command, cast yourself on the rock that you might be
broken. lest the rock fall on you and
crush you to pieces." You see, we should be the ones
seeking what the Bible calls conditions of peace. Let me read you a verse out of
Luke's Gospel. He says, going to make war against
another king, sitteth not down first, and consults whether he
be able with ten thousand to meet him that comes against him
with twenty thousand." Now here we are in our little puny existences,
and we're at war with God. And the ratio isn't anything
like this. It's not, we're 10,000, he's
20,000. We're nothing and he's everything. Would you go out to try to face
an enemy? To make war with him? Here you
are one person and this is a great king and he has a million soldier
army? You say, well, no, we wouldn't
do that. Well, it's far worse to try to
rebel against God. He says, or else while the other
is yet a great way off. He sends an ambassador. He sends
some of his people. He sends these ambassadors out
to this king and desires conditions of peace. Have you ever done that? I know I've rebelled against
you. I know I'm in an earthly family that sinned against you
and we fell against you. I know my mind's against you
and I've never had any interest in you. I've never sought to
hear what you say in your word. I've not really done any of these
things. What are your conditions of peace? But that's not the way it is,
is it? No, God in His sovereign grace, He knows our condition. He's not taken by surprise by
the way we are, by nature. He's not taken by surprise by
the way we respond to everything, all the natural gifts He gives
us like life and breath and food and clothing and family and all
these things. He's not surprised. You see,
He knows who we are. That's what I found out. I found
out I didn't know who I was, but God knew who I was. He knew
I was a rebel. He knew I was spiritually blind. He knew I was lost and couldn't
find myself. He knew I was unrighteous and
ungodly and unholy. So if He's going to save me,
He's got to know more about me than I know about myself. He's
got to take into account all that I am. And so He sends in His purpose
to these saints, to these separated, set-apart ones, He sends messengers
of peace. He sends those who preach the
true gospel to them, which is to preach the gospel of what? Peace. Did you know that's what
the gospel is called? The gospel of peace? You see, in Jeremiah, God makes
this statement. I think it's the most wonderful
statement concerning His people He says, for I know the thoughts
that I think toward you. Somebody might say, well, you
can't know what God is thinking. Oh yes, you can. Oh yes, you
can. Why? Because He's spoken it.
He's spoken it to His people. He says, I know the thoughts
that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace. Not thoughts of evil. to give you an expected end." These are the thoughts of God
to His people, to these saints. They're thoughts of peace, not
thoughts of evil. Do you know that God has never
had an evil thought toward any of His people? You say, how can
that be? Because he's always thought of
them in Christ. He's always loved them in Christ.
He's always viewed them in Christ. And in Christ, his thoughts to
them are thoughts of peace. Peace by which he will bring
them to an expected end. This is not a matter up in the
air. God did not think thoughts of peace to His people and send
His Son, the Prince of Peace, to die for them and send the
gospel of peace as if this was something random, we don't know
how it's going to work out. No. There's an expected end. He's going to save every one
of them. He's going to bring every one
of them into His presence. His grace. will always be followed
with glory." Don't you ever forget that. His grace is never in vain. His grace to His people is never
hit or miss, trial or error. His grace always precedes for
them glory. Glory. Paul says again in the 10th of
Romans, concerning those that God sends to preach this gospel. He says, "...and how shall they
preach except they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace." And so, when He sends out His
people, who are His witnesses in this world, And it's described
in Ephesians 6, all their armor that they're described spiritually
as having, he says, "...and your feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace." In other words, everywhere God's people,
His true people go, they leave this footprint, this track. It's
the gospel of peace. The gospel of peace. I said,
it's the gospel of a peace made. I want you to turn to Colossians
chapter 1. These are some of the most important
words, I believe, in all of Scripture. Colossians chapter 1, the Apostle
Paul being led by the Spirit of God and speaking of Christ
In verse 19 it says, "...for it pleased the Father that in
Him should all fullness dwell." Now notice this next verse, "...and
having made peace." Does that sound like that this peace will
be determined by an act of a sinner? Or by somebody's so-called free
will, or somebody's decision, or somebody's faithfulness, or
somebody's dedication, or somebody's sacrifice? No. And having made peace. If we knew everything about ourselves
and our sins, when we read those words we just go, Having made peace, how? By the blood of His cross, by
His death. by Him to reconcile all things
unto Himself. By Him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven, and you that were sometime
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled."
Reconciled. Who did it? He did it. How did He do it? By the blood
of His cross. In the body of His flesh through
death. What will it actually accomplish?
What was He actually doing on that cross? He was making peace
for that people He represented. And it is such. They are so reconciled
to God in every sense. By what he did there, it says,
"...to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight." You say, well, preacher, you
don't always act and look and appear to be so holy and unreprovable. It says, "...in his sight." in
Christ through His cross death in God's sight. Every one of
these people, these set-apart ones, every one of them will
be presented holy and unblameable and unreprovable. That sounds
like perfect, doesn't it? That's exactly what they are
in God's sight. in the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, Christ is one in our
nature, yet without sin. And it's through His death for
our sins that He reconciles us to God. That's what it says in
2 Corinthians 5. God was in Christ reconciling. Now hath He reconciled." Now,
wait a minute, God doesn't have to be reconciled to them, because
He's never changed. But they fell in at Him. And
so now, through the doing and the dying of Christ Jesus their
Lord, they are every one reconciled to Him, at peace with God. They don't know it by birth or
by nature. I remember reading a story of
a Japanese soldier that was somewhere on one of the islands there in
the Pacific after the war and he had been hiding and living
in a cave and all this activity was going on and all these things. The war was over. The peace treaty
is already signed and everything, and yet he's still carrying that
gun around. He's still at war. And finally
somebody got to him and said, put your rifle down, because
the war is already over. Peace has already been made.
And that's the way we are. God sends somebody along with
the gospel of peace. He says, lay your guns down. Lay your sword down. Peace has
already been made. Not only that, you came out on
the good end. You came out on the good end.
Makes me think, if you take the nation of Japan,
they lost, but they won. When all that Marshall Agreement
and stuff was signed and everything was done, most of all the small
industry in the United States was sent to them. That's right. My wife tells me all about this
stuff as it relates to sewing machines. There was Singer sewing
machines, big industrial power making all this stuff after the
war. They sent that technology and
stuff to Japan, and then they took over the sewing machine
manufacturer. They lost, but they won. That's
what we do. We wave the white flag. I surrender. Well, you've already won. You've been reconciled to God.
He's already made peace through the blood of His cross. Paul
says, "...and not only so, but we also joy in God through our
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the atonement,"
or the reconciliation. In Psalm 29 he says, "...the
Lord will give strength unto his people, the Lord will bless
his people with peace." 1 Thessalonians 5, he says, "...for God hath
not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord
Jesus Christ." Wouldn't that be good news to
you? God's not angry with me. You let all these preachers beat
people to death, just bludgeoning them with the law. They're not
preaching the gospel of peace. I'm not preaching a gospel of
universal peace, but I sure am trying to preach it, the gospel
of peace in Christ. Peace made by the blood of His
cross. And here's where the false prophets
and false religions are exposed as being not of God. He warns
of them in Jeremiah 6 and Jeremiah 8. He says, they have healed
also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly. They put
a little Band-Aid on the conscience for a while. But they hadn't
cured that terminal disease. Saying, peace, peace, when there
is no peace. Or peace some other way. Peace
by your doing, peace by your quitting doing, peace by being
baptized, peace by telling a preacher something, peace by all these
ways, but there's no peace. As a matter of fact, there's
nobody that can speak peace to your heart but God Himself. You say, preacher, do you think I'm
saved? Sometimes I think by what you say, you don't think I'm
saved. I don't think one way or the other. And neither can
I give you assurance. God has to speak peace to your
soul, and He speaks it only in Christ crucified. He will. Did you hear that? He says here,
God will speak peace to His people. I don't know who they are. I
believe I know a few of them. But I don't know who they are.
So I just go preaching the gospel of peace. And he takes that gospel
and he speaks peace to his people. Not all of them are in this place
as far as my ministry is concerned. I hear from people a lot of places.
And it certainly can't be by my oratorial skills or what have
you. It's just by his gospel of peace,
he speaks peace to some folks. They come to Christ and they
find rest with their souls. But Paul says, of these, the
enemies of truth, he says, in the way of peace, they've not
known. But the Word of God, Peter says, is sent to his people,
preaching peace, by Jesus Christ. Peace in Christ alone. Peace
through His cross. Will we hear men or God? Will
we believe men or God? Will we believe religious lies? Or will we believe God's Word?
He says, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed
upon thee, because he trusts in thee." You trust in yourself,
you're never going to have peace. There's no such thing as trusting
mostly on Christ and then partly on yourself. You either trust
in Him or yourself. But if you trust in Him, peace,
peace. This morning I was sitting there
reading again and I thought about That chorus we used to sing some. Did you hear what Jesus said
to me? They're all taken away. Your sins are pardoned and you
are free. They're all taken away. That's what the gospel of peace
says. Will we hear it? He says, I'll
hear what God the Lord will speak,
for He will speak peace unto His people and to His saints,
but let them not turn again to folly. You see, everything else
is folly. Don't you turn to this or to
that? Don't you add Christ to this or this to Christ? No. That's folly. That's folly. I do pray that would be our resolve. That it would be real. That it
would be a work by God's Spirit in us. And we could say, I'll
hear. By His grace, I'll hear what
He speaks to me. By His grace, I'll look to that
Prince of Peace and only Him, no matter what anybody says.
If we do that, we give evidence of being His sheep. Father, this
morning we pray that we might be as this one
that You inspired to write these words that we might have the
resolve of faith in our hearts, come what may, no matter what
men say, cause us to hear the peace that you speak in Christ
crucified. Cause that word that you speak,
that truth, this message of the gospel, cause it to Bring peace
to our hearts, the peace that passeth understanding. Help us
and save us, keep us, for we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.