Alright, let's open our Bibles
again to Psalm 82, entitled the message this evening, Defend
the Poor and the Needy. If there's anyone here who's
poor and needy, that might be of interest to you. Defend the
poor and the needy. Now the word God's, little g,
that's used in this psalm means magistrates, or people who are
in positions of authority. Verse 1 says, God's stand is
in the congregation of the mighty, he judgeth among the gods. Verse
six, he said, I have said ye are gods. He doesn't mean that
you're deities. The word means magistrates or
rulers. And certainly there is a warning
here to people who are in authority, whatever kind of authority that
might be, to use their authority right. You know, we're told that
someone who's got authority is to defend the poor and the needy. They're not to give preferential
treatment to the rich and the powerful and their friends and
so forth. And I don't have any doubt, people that abuse that
power God gives them, they'll have to answer to God for it.
I have no doubt about that. And much to my dismay, that's
pretty much all the writers I normally read have to say about this psalm.
But if that's all that we get from this psalm, we haven't even
come close to the blessing that there is for us here in this
psalm. I see a warning from God here to preachers, to preachers
who have the authority in the pulpit to preach the gospel faithfully. And I see a warning to all men
and women, especially men and women like us who are under the
sound of the gospel. Men and women, both great and
small, are warned, bow to Christ. Bow to Christ. Don't take the
blessings that God has given you for granted, but bow to Him.
Let's look at it and see if we might learn something about that. Verse 1 says, God standeth in
the congregation of the mighty. He judgeth among the gods. Now
look at Romans chapter 13. We'll deal with this matter of
civil authority for a moment. We know this, that God is the
one who puts all authority in place on earth. He does it for
the good of man, so there's some law and order in this thing.
Romans 13 verse 1, the apostle says, let every soul be subject
unto the higher powers. There's no power but of God.
The powers that be are ordained. They're put there of God. Whosoever
therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.
And they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation, punishment
from those rulers. For rulers are not a terror to
good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid
of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise
of the same. For he, this one who's in authority,
he's the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that
which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain,
for he's the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon
him that doeth evil. Wherefore, you must needs be
subject, not only for wrath, not only just because you're
afraid he'll punish you, but also for conscience sake. Now,
believers certainly should be known as good law-abiding citizens,
citizens who give respect to authority everywhere we meet
it. If it's authority in the home, if it's authority in the
classroom, the workplace, out in society, you know, police
officers, governors, and so forth. Believers ought to be known as
good, law-abiding citizens because we know to respect that authority. If somebody has authority over
us, God gave it to them, didn't He? And Paul just told us it's
for our good, not for evil. But our text is talking about
something a whole lot more important than that. He's talking about
the preaching of the gospel. God has put authority in the
church. in the pulpit, in the pastors. God's pastors are to
rule the church and they're to rule it well. They're to rule. How do they rule it? Do you rule
with an iron fist, you know, scaring everybody after death
and beating them up with the law? No, not at all. God's pastors
are to rule the church by pointing sinners to Christ. They're to
rule the church by leading by example, an example of faith
and kindness and generosity. They're to rule by watching,
being watchful. to keep wolves away from the
church, to keep distractions, things that would distract from
the worship of our God, to keep those things out of the service.
And what a warning there is to preachers here. And really this
applies to anybody. Think about this in your own
life. God stands in the congregation of the mighty. When a pastor
sits down, a preacher sits down to study, God stands there. watching. When a preacher stands
to preach, God stands there watching. And God says here that He will
judge among the gods. He will be the one to judge those
people who are in authority. Look at Hebrews chapter 13. God
will be the one to judge if our faith is sincere. God will be
the one to judge if our motives are sincere. He'll be the one
to judge. Is Christ our goal? Is it? Or is self our goal? God will
judge that. Hebrews 13 verse 17. Obey them that have the rule
over you and submit yourselves. Submit yourselves to their message,
to the message of grace. Submit yourself to Christ who
they preach. For they watch for your souls
as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy
and not with grief. For that is unprofitable for
you. God's preachers must give an account. of their ministry. And the psalmist here gives a
particular warning to false prophets who abuse their authority. Look
at verse two, Psalm 82. How long will you judge unjustly
and accept the persons of the wicked? Judging unjustly, that's
accepting and judging unjustly and accepting the wicked is at
the very heart of all false religion. is to judge unjustly and to accept
the wicked. That's going to find a way to
accept the wicked. I know why they do it. Men, man
inherently knows there is a God. And we know we have to answer
to him. Man just inherently knows God must be pleased. But our
problem is this. By nature, we don't know God.
So we don't know what pleases him. So what we do is men make
up a religion. They make up a way to try to
please God, but it always falls short. It's never good enough. Cain made up a way. This is the
way it's been from the time Adam was thrust out of the garden.
Cain made up a way. He thought God would be happy
with him, didn't he? Bringing the best fruits he could
grow. He didn't bring shriveled up tomatoes. He brought the best
he had. This is his works, the best works that he had. And it
wasn't good enough. Cain thought God might accept
that because Cain didn't know who God is. He didn't know how
God could be pleased. And the same things continue
today. A false prophet saying that God
will accept the best we can do is judging unjustly. That's not
just. To say that God will accept us,
even though all of our sins are not put away. I know you still
sin, but if you do the best you can, that's judging unjustly. God's not an unjust judge. He
must punish sin. God's not an unjust judge who
calls a guilty man innocent. That's judging unjustly. How
would you feel if somebody was caught red-handed murdering one
of your loved ones? You know he's guilty, you know
it. And the judge let him go. All the evidence against him,
the judge just let him go. Well, that's an unjust judge.
God's not that way. To say that Christ died for everybody,
to give them a chance to be saved, makes God unjust. Wouldn't it be unjust for God
to punish our sins in Christ and send us to hell anyway? That's
punishing two people for the same crime. That's unjust, and
God's not unjust. To say that a sinner is saved,
if they just up and decide one day to accept Jesus as their
personal Savior. That's to accept the wicked as
righteous. To say that a sinner is saved
because they start acting better and clean up the outside of the
sepulcher, all that is is to call dead bones living. It's
to call filth holiness. That's all that is. Look at Isaiah
chapter 5. Spending more time on these false
prophets than we have to, but now we need to be warned about
this. So we recognize them when we see them. Isaiah chapter 5,
verse 20. Woe unto them that call evil
good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light
for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
See, this is what the false prophet does. They call evil good. The best that we can do is evil. Our righteousnesses, the very
best things we can do, God says are filthy rags. But the false
prophet says that's good. He's calling evil good. And he
calls good evil. Scripture says it's the goodness
of God that leadeth each of you. It's God's goodness. It's God's
grace that would move him to choose some out of Adam's fallen
race to save. But the false prophet says that's
evil. I say, oh no, that's evil. They say God's got to give everybody
a chance. Oh, really? Who are we to tell
God what he's got to do? He's God. We're the creature.
They say God's got to give us a chance. That's calling good
evil. Because that takes away the glory
of God in salvation. It takes it away from Him and
gives it to the creature. The false prophet puts darkness
for light and light for darkness. You know why they do that? Because
they're spiritually blind. If you're blind, you don't know
the difference between light and darkness. I know why they do it. They're
dead. They still love darkness rather
than light. They love man's will, not God's
They want man's will, not salvation that's all in Christ. By God's
will, by Christ's righteousness, by Christ's sacrifice, by the
Spirit's calling. And they put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter. The sweetness of the gospel is
there is a full and free salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ for
the guiltiest, the worst, the most vile sinners. There's nothing sweeter than
that. God's going to keep his people. Not one of them shall
perish. That's so sweet. But to say that
Christ died for everybody, but some of them are going to go
to hell anyway. There's nothing sweeter to the believer than
the sacrifice of Christ. There's nothing more important
than the sacrifice of Christ. that Christ would take my sin
away from me and then take it upon himself and he would suffer
and die for it so that that sin can never touch me again. What
could be sweeter than that? The sweet balm of Gilead, the
blood of Christ being applied to your heart. What ought to
make us angry when somebody takes that sweetness and makes it bitterness
and say, well, Christ died for you, but you go to hell anyway,
unless you, you know, if you don't do right. You take away
the sweetness of the gospel and you take away all my hope when
you tell me that any part of salvation depends upon my weak,
sinful flesh. That's what they do. And God
says, look here at verse 21, Isaiah chapter five. Woe unto
them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own
sight. Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine and men
of strength to mingle strong drink. which justify the wicked
for rewards." That's just what David's saying there. They justify
the wicked for a reward. They accept the wicked. And they
take away the righteousness of the righteous from Him. Now,
the false prophet thinks he's so smart. He thinks he's so smart,
he thinks he's smarter than God. That's why he thinks he can say
something that's opposed to God's Word. Because God's Word doesn't
make sense to him. He thinks he can say something
opposed to the Word of God because he thinks he's so smart. And
that false prophet will justify the wicked. He'll accept the
wicked. And Isaiah tells us why he'll do it. It's for reward. Give him enough money, he'll
say, you can't do that. Oh, you want me to say you're
righteous by what you do? Okay, I'll do that. And the problem
with that is this, I mean, besides the fact that it's an outright
lie, It takes away the only righteousness a sinner can have. You take away
the righteousness, the hope of the righteous. If salvation is
only for people who are strong enough to earn it and are good
enough to earn it, what happens to poor sinners? If salvation
is only for people who've got inside help, like nepotism, or
they can bribe somebody, what happens to the orphans that don't
have any money? The free will religion oppresses
poor sinners and abuses the orphans. Now, it sides right up to the
rich and the powerful, but it oppresses poor sinners by telling
them, you got to pay something you can't afford to pay. It abuses
orphans by not giving them any hope. It abuses people who can't
help themselves or can't help the false prophet, one or the
other. And this is the psalmist question. Enough with him. This
is the psalmist question now. How long? How long are you going
to do this? How long are you going to oppress
the poor and the needy? Well, here's the answer. They'll
do that until God reveals Christ to their heart. That's when that'll
stop. If Christ is ever revealed to
us, we're going to quit oppressing the poor and the needy. We're
going to quit demanding something from the poor and needy, and
we're going to preach Christ and Him crucified to the poor
and needy, which will take care of their every need. And this
is what he says in verse three, defend the poor and fatherless,
do justice to the afflicted and needy. Now God commands us, defend
the poor and the fatherless. How are we going to defend the
poor and the fatherless? That's what I said just a second
ago. by preaching Christ. See, that false prophet doesn't
have anything to offer to the poor. He doesn't have any comfort
to give to the orphan. But Christ does. Christ defends
the poor by making them rich again. The Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians
8 verse 9, he said, You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor,
that ye through His poverty rich in grace, rich in life, rich
in Christ. And this is what God's elect
need because we're poor by nature. They're poor in righteousness.
And when I say poor in righteousness, it doesn't mean they just got,
you know, just a little teeny tiny bit. I mean, they got none.
They're bankrupt. Zero. They're spiritually poor. They've got nothing to pay. Nothing that they can use to
even begin to pay for their sins. They're poor and they're poor
in spirit. Being poor in spirit means they're poor and they know
they're poor. They know they're bankrupt. They
know they have nothing. They know that their sin debt
is astronomical. It's infinite. And they know
they don't have the first penny to pay. Christ came. and make those people rich. You
know how he did it? In eternity, the father selected
a bride for his son. He selected a people for his
son. He gave them to his son. And a son came and he married
himself to those people. And when he did, he took all
their debt. He assumed their debt. He became
poor for their sake so they could be made rich. He emptied Himself
of all that He is to pay for their sin. He emptied Himself
of righteousness on the cross. When He was made sin, He emptied
Himself of righteousness. You know He cried from the cross,
I thirst. He's talking a whole lot more
than water. He's talking about more than water. David talked about hungering
and thirsting after righteousness. That's what the Savior was talking
about too. Thirsting for righteousness because he emptied himself of
it when he made sin for his people. And he did that willingly so
that his people would be made rich, so they'd be made the righteousness
of God in him, so that they would never thirst. He emptied himself
of his precious blood to pay for the sin of his elect. Without
the shedding of blood is no remission. Christ shed his blood, emptied
himself of it so that his people would have the free forgiveness
of sin. He emptied himself of life. He
is life himself. Yet somehow he emptied himself
of life and he died. So his people would have eternal
life. He came to give his bride everything she needs to make
her lives. And he came to be the father
of a people who were orphaned in Adam. Adam was our first father. And he wasn't much of a father,
was he? Not much of one. Adam cost his race everything,
took everything away from his children. Christ came to be the
father of his children, to give them back everything that they
lost in Adam and more. To give them a righteousness
that they cannot lose. See, Adam had a righteous standing,
but he could lose it. If you're in Christ, he's made
you righteous and you can't lose it. because it depends on Him,
not on you. He's given you a standing with
God that you cannot lose because it doesn't depend on you. It
depends on Him. He's given you life you cannot lose because
it doesn't depend on you. It depends on Him. He came to
be the Father of His children and He took those children up
in His arms and made them His. He adopted them into His family
so that they're given the name of our Heavenly Father. Isn't
that a blessing? For the Savior, the Prince of
Glory, to come to the orphanage of this earth and find the most
pitiful, dirty, rotten children. Say, I'm going to make them like
that. This is the one I'm going to take home. I'm going to give
them my name. I'm going to give them my house.
I'm going to give them everything that I have. But God's adoption
includes more than just a legal transaction where you sign this
over and say, yeah, I agree to take this child as mine. God's
adoption also includes something we can't do when we adopt a child.
God's adoption includes being born in this family. So that
we're given the nature of our heavenly father and the new birth.
And now we belong to him. We belong to the king. God's
going to see to it his children have everything they need. and
he's going to give it to them in justice. When God calls his
people righteous, he's not accepting the wicked as righteous. When
God calls his people righteous, he does it in justice. God is
holy. He will not accept the wicked. So you know what he did with
his people? They're born wicked. They're born in sin. He made
his people righteous. He made them to be what he loves.
He can call them righteous because that's what He made them in His
Son. He made them righteous. God saves His people in justice. By injustice, paying for their
sin. By punishing their sin fully
in the person of Christ, their substitute. And because of that,
God's elect are delivered from the law. They're delivered from
justice. They're delivered from death.
They don't have to worry about those oppressors anymore. They're
delivered from them. Verse four, he says, deliver
the poor and needy, rid them out of the hand of the wicked.
That's exactly what Christ the Savior did for his bride. That's
what our father has done for his children. He delivered them
from the wicked. This is the sweetness of the
gospel. You know how Christ delivered his people from the wicked? Because
he was willingly delivered into the hands of the wicked as the
substitute for He delivered His people from sin because He willingly
delivered Himself to be made sin for them. And the greatest wickedness every
believer has been delivered from is our own sin. It's not the
wickedness of others. It's not even justice. It's our own sin. We've been
delivered from condemnation because Christ was condemned for us.
Now we need to be delivered from sin. from the penalty of sin.
If God's going to accept us, we've got to be delivered, secondly,
from the power of sin. We've got to be delivered from
our own sinful nature. Verse 5, they know not, neither
will they understand. They walk on in darkness. All
the foundations of the earth are out of course. Now, by nature,
we know not. That is such a good description
of us just in three words. They know not. By nature, we
know not. We don't know anything. We don't
know anything about God. We don't know who He is. We don't
know what God's like. We don't understand God. We don't understand
what sin is. We don't understand how it is
God can save sinners. And all we do is we walk. The
writer here uses the word walk, but we don't really walk around,
do we? We stumble around in the dark. Because by nature, we don't have
any light. And that describes all of mankind. Everything is
just turned. Have you ever been in one of
those fun houses where the floor is like this and everything is,
I mean, it just makes me dizzy. Just everything's all crooked.
That's this world. It's off its rocker. It's off
its foundations. Everything's going the wrong
way. And Nicodemus is the perfect example of that. Nicodemus was
one of these ones who were mighty. He understood none. The Lord asked him, aren't thou
a master of Israel? And no, it's not these things.
You're a master in Israel and you don't understand what I'm
saying? No, he didn't, did he? Because none of us do by nature.
None of us understand these things because these spiritual truths
cannot be known by natural brain power. I mean, this congregation is
filled with highly intelligent people. And I'm glad. I mean, I guess it's better to
be intelligent than not. But that's not why you know God.
That's not why you know scripture. No. It's because God revealed
it to you. And when God reveals these things
to when God reveals Christ to us, all that's fixed. Look at Proverbs chapter 28. If we would just see Christ,
if God would just give us a view of Christ, everything that's
all off its rocker and out of kilter would be made plain, would
be set straight. Proverbs 28 verse 5, look what
Solomon says here. Evil men understand not judgment,
but they that seek the Lord understand all things. They that seek the
Lord find him. And once we find him, Once God
gives us a glimpse of Christ, now I understand. Now I see. Now I see how God can save a
sinner like me. It's got to be in Christ. It's
got to be. It's all in Him. Now I understand. Everybody God
saves understands this. God did it, not me. Christ did
it, not me. The Spirit did it, not me. When
we see Christ, we have light. We have the light of life. And
we're not going to walk in darkness anymore if you see Christ. It's
impossible. It's impossible to be in darkness
if you see Christ because darkness cannot be where light is. It's
impossible. I came in tonight. It was all
dark in here. I flipped on the lights and darkness
is gone. Darkness can't exist where light
is. Well, the ignorance of unbelief
darkness of our dead nature cannot exist where light is, where Christ
is. The darkness of unbelief can't
be where Christ is revealed. If He's revealed, we're going
to believe Him. We'll believe Him. And that's
being delivered from the power of sin. The power of sin used
to make it where I could not believe. Try as hard as I might,
I couldn't make myself believe. I tried it for years. Believe
me, it's an exercise in futility. Once God reveals Christ to me, darkness had to go. Where light
is. Once Christ is revealed, we got
a different foundation. Our foundation is not going to
be the shifting, sinking sands of this world and our works anymore.
Once we see Christ, we've got a new foundation. Christ, the
solid rock. That house is going to stand
sure. That house that's founded upon
Christ is going to stand sure through every storm. And there's
going to be plenty of them, but the house is going to stand sure.
It was founded upon Christ. And none of that's possible.
None of salvation is possible at all without Christ. Now, verse six, this is, I looked
and looked and looked at this verse. I've said ye are gods
and all of you are children of the most high. Now, what on earth
does that mean when God says ye are gods? Well, look at a
couple of scriptures. First Exodus 22. It means that
God has made you rulers. He made you rulers over things.
He's made you mighty and in blessings and gifts and so forth. He's
made you rulers. Exodus 22. Verse 28. Thou shalt not revile the gods
or curse the ruler of thy people. Now, that's not talking about
taking the name of the Lord, thy God in vain. That word God's
there. God is judges, magistrates, rulers. In Exodus chapter 7, the Lord
said unto Moses, see, I've made thee a God unto Pharaoh. He's
given Moses authority to be a ruler over Pharaoh. Pharaoh is the
most powerful man on earth, but God told Moses, I've made you
a God to him. I've made you the ruler over him. Now look at John
chapter 10. The Savior himself quoted this
verse. God made men rulers when he gave
them the scripture. What a blessing, what a mighty
blessing God gave to men when he gave them the scriptures and
he gave them the authority and the responsibility to teach them.
John 10 verse 31. Our Lord just told them, I and
my father are one. I am God in human flesh. And verse 31 says, then the Jews
took up stones again to stoning. Jesus answered them, many good
works have I showed you from my father. For which of these
works do you stone me? The Jews answered him, saying,
For a good work we stone thee not, but for a blasphemy, because
that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them,
Is it not written in your law, I said ye are gods? If he called
them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scriptures
cannot be broken, say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified,
and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest because I said I
am the Son of God? Here's what the Savior's saying
here. Talking to these scribes and Pharisees, he said, you're
gods in Israel. You're rulers in Israel. God
gave you the scriptures. He gave you the responsibility
to teach it. You're gods, rulers in Israel. And I'm sure they
wouldn't have disagreed with him at all. Well, really? It wasn't wrong for them to call
themselves rulers in Israel, was it? It wasn't wrong for them
to call themselves that. God gave them that authority.
He gave them that responsibility. They were rulers because God
gave them that responsibility. Then the Lord is saying, it's
not wrong for you to call yourself what you are, because that's
what God made you. It's not wrong for me to call
myself the Son of God. It's not wrong for me to call
myself who I am. Well, all right, how does that
apply to you and me? Well, we've been given the Word of God. Let that sink in for a minute.
Not just that we have a Bible, but God's given us men to teach
it, to preach it. He's given us faith to believe
it. All of us here are not preachers,
but I couldn't sleep last night and I made the horrible mistake. I was just flipping through the
channels and I saw Jimmy Swagger and I thought, is that guy still
around? I just got to see what he's doing
now. And I watched. And I just, I thought, my soul. Have you ever even, oh, he's
carrying, you know, he's carrying this book and you'll notice he
never ever opened it. He just carries it around like
this, you know. You just use this thing for a plot? Or have
you ever bothered to open it and read a page of it? Every
person here in your head knows more gospel than that man that's
got a TV ministry supposed to be preaching. Every one of you
do. That's, I mean, It's not wrong for me to say, what so?
You've been taught these things. What a blessing God's given us.
You know, it's not wrong for us to say, God's given me an
understanding of the scriptures. Now, I can read these things.
I understand, at least to a degree, I understand some things. By
His grace, He's given me an understanding. You too. It's not wrong for a
person that God has saved to say, I'm saved. It's not wrong
for a righteous person to say, I'm righteous. That's what God
made me by His grace. It'd actually be wrong not to
say it if God made you righteous. But it is wrong to have such
a high opinion of ourselves. If we know something, somebody
else does. See, that's the danger in talking
about these false prophets. I shouldn't have said what I
said a minute ago. The danger in talking about those false
prophets is it makes it look like or sound like we're so much
better than them because I know something that they don't. That's
wrong. How can we be so full of pride
when the only reason we know God is He revealed Himself to
us? And He had a stoop way down low
to do it. How can I be so proud? How can we be so full of pride
because we know something from God's Word when the only reason
we know it is God taught it to us. God revealed it to us. We didn't figure this out on
our own. God taught us and revealed these things to us. That's the
only reason we know anything. Well, all right. God's given
us this blessing. He's given us some understanding.
Now, here's the question. What good is all of our knowledge
of doctrine and all of our knowledge of the scripture and all of our
knowledge of the right form of worship without Christ. It's worth nothing. Nothing. Because everything is worth nothing
without Christ. At the end of verse six here,
he says, all of you are children of the most high. Now you know
that doesn't mean that all men are spiritual children, born
again Christians, born again children of God. It means you've
been given the high honor to have the Word of God in your
hand, to be given the opportunity to learn these things. But what
good does any of that do us without faith in God? Absolutely nothing. Verse 7 he
says, but ye shall die like men. and fall like one of the princes.
You know, if we get so full of ourselves, so full of pride,
everything we know and everything we see, well, you think you've
got some power. You think you've got some authority.
You think you're something now? But you're going to die just
like all flesh. You think you're better than
other people now. You think you're better than
these false prophets and people in false religion. You really think
you're better than them now? Well, just wait. You're gonna
die like all the rest of them. There's no difference. There's
no difference between powerful flesh and weak flesh. Between
rich flesh and poor flesh. Between famous flesh and unknown
flesh. Death is the great equalizer.
And when we die, you know what we're gonna find out? All I was
all along was a pile of dust. That's all I was. Same thing,
true for somebody that didn't know. who didn't have all the
blessings that I had. There's no difference without
Christ. So what's our cry? Lord, see
me in Christ. Verse 8. Arise, O God, judge
the earth, for thou shalt inherit all nations. That word judge
in verse 8 is the same word that's translated defend in verse 3. And it means to litigate. It
means either vindicate or punish. And this is the sinner's cry,
Lord, judge me. Litigate for me. Judge me in
Christ. Defend me in Christ. Defend me
in Christ by punishing him for my sin, not me. Defend me in
Christ by giving me his life, not my death. The word also means
to govern. And this is also the sinner's
cry, Lord, rule over me. Don't give me my choice. Don't
give me my way. Don't let me go the way that
seems right unto me. Lord, you rule over me. Lord,
choose me or I'll never choose you. Lord, make Christ my substitute. Send him to die for me. Lord, come save me against my
will. against the will of my nature
with my full consent, because you gave me a new nature. I hear
people say, God will never cross your free will. You better hope
he does. Lord, govern me and cross my will. Lord, give me
the righteousness of Christ. Make me submit to his righteousness
and quit going about to establish my own righteousness. Lord, teach
me. Teach me. I want to be taught
of God. I want to be taught the scriptures.
I want to know Christ, don't you? And I want to know Him better.
I want to know Him better today and tomorrow than I did today.
But Lord, don't let me get full of myself. Don't let me get full
of pride. Preserve me. Keep me by Your
grace. Not by my strength, not by my
knowledge. Keep me by Your grace. Lord,
comfort me. When you send me out on that
sea, that stormy sea, Lord, govern me, govern everything about me
and bring me all the way to glory. If you do that, if you defend
the poor and the needy, if you govern over them, if you litigate
for them, then I'll be saved. That's the sinner's only cry.
Lord, defend me, govern me, litigate for me. I hope the Lord will
bless that too. Let's bow. Our Father, how we thank you
for your word. How we thank you that you are God alone, ruling
and reigning over everything. That there is no event in this
earth that takes place without your express will. Even false
religion, even the rebellion of our nature, you're in control
of it all. Father, our plea is that you
would be our Father, that you would govern for us, that You
would save Your people by Your grace, that You would keep us
ever near to Christ our Savior, keep us looking to Him, keep
us depending upon Him. Father, I pray that You would
reveal Yourself to the hearts of Your people tonight. And let
us go home no longer trusting in anything about this flesh,
but trusting Christ and Christ alone. It's in his blessed name
we pray and give thanks.