All right, if you would, open
your Bibles again to Psalm 49. I titled the message this evening,
Wise Words for Anyone Who Will Die. I believe that applies to
everyone, doesn't it? This psalm is for everyone. David says it's for all the inhabitants
of the world, whether you're rich or poor, whether you're
high or low, whether you're wise or a fool. It's for everyone
who will die someday. And that's all of us, unless
the Lord returns first. And in short, let me give you
the wise words in just one sentence. The wise words that are recorded
in this psalm are these. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
only hope. He's our only hope of redemption.
He's our only hope of eternal life. In verse 1, David says,
hear this, all ye Give ear all ye inhabitants of the world,
both low and high, rich and poor together. My mouth shall speak
of wisdom and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.
David tells everyone everywhere to listen to his words. These
are wise words. These are words we desperately
need. David's words, wise words, are
words that are all about the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the
wisdom of God. Wise words tell us about the
Lord Jesus Christ. They tell us who He is, that
He is our salvation. He's our justification. He's
our righteousness. He's our sanctification. Those
are wise words. Understanding is the right use
of wisdom. So what's the right use of hearing
wise words? What's the right use of hearing
the gospel preached? Well, the right use of that understanding
is to run to Christ, run to Him for salvation, run to Him for
justification and righteousness, sanctification, run to Him for
everything that you need. The right use of hearing of Christ
is to go to Him and beg Him for mercy, to beg Him to forgive
our sin. The right use of hearing the
wise words of the gospel of Christ is to flee to Christ for refuge
from the wrath of God against our sin. Now that would be, those
are wise words and that would be understanding if we exercise
it. However, wisdom and understanding
do not come naturally to any of us. Boys or girls, men or
women, none of us. And David lists several mistakes
that men are prone to make And we make these mistakes because
we don't have any wisdom. We don't have any understanding.
Now, I don't point these things out to mock people who make these
mistakes. I was watching a movie the other
day, and this woman didn't know a man was blind. He stumbled
into a chair, and she was making fun of him. And he said, it's
not polite to make fun of the blind. And she was horrified. I'm not making fun. I'm not mocking
the blind. I point these mistakes out. Number
one, because they're in God's Word. So we need to understand
and read them. And I point them out with this
prayer. You know, I'm not preaching to everybody out there. I'm preaching
to us here. And my prayer is that the Lord
give you and me wisdom. And He'll give us understanding.
Not to make these mistakes and to run to Christ. Now Dave is
going to give us these spiritual truths in a parable. He says
in verse 4, I will incline my ear to a parable. I will open
my dark saying upon the heart. He begins, he's going to have
this parable, apparently some of it to be sang as to the chief
musician for the sons of chorus. So, apparently it was going to
be sung, but he opens it and he says a dark saying upon the
heart. There's some dark sayings here. There's some things that the
flesh does that are contrary to light and wisdom. And the
first one is this, these are wise words, pay attention. There's
no hope of salvation and earthly riches. He says, verse 6, they
that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude
of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother
or give to God a ransom for him that he should still live forever
and not see corruption. I left out verse 8, that's a
parenthetical phrase that explains what we just read. Why is it
that a man can't redeem his brother? For the redemption of their soul
is precious. It's precious. Now really it's
obvious. I mean you don't need much wisdom
to understand this. There's no hope of salvation,
the salvation of our souls in earthly material riches. It's impossible for material
riches to pay the redemption price for a soul. You can't pay
a spiritual price with material things. Our souls are eternal. You think how precious that is
eternal. We're not enough money in the
world to pay for salt. What will we give in exchange
for it? Our Lord said, look at verse 16. So you see those that
are rich and they're exercising power. He says, be, be not thou
afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house has
increased for when he dieth, he shall carry nothing away.
His glory shall not descend after him. Though while he lived he
blessed his soul, men will praise thee when thou doest well to
thyself. Men are going to praise him. He's going to gather these
things to himself in this life. But now he should go to the generation
of his fathers. They shall never see light. Now,
the rich man is going to die just like the poor man. He's
going to die. His riches, his material blessings can't stop
his flesh from dying. And all his material blessings
cannot pay the redemption price for his soul. He's going to die
and he'll never see light. You notice the psalmist says
here that when he dies, he'll carry nothing away. His glory
shall not descend after him. He didn't say they wouldn't ascend
after him. They won't descend after him. He's going to die
and he'll never see light. He'll have eternal darkness.
So don't set your heart on these earthly riches. They're not going
to do your soul any good. And here's a warning. This is
what we tend to think because we don't naturally speaking,
we don't have any wisdom. Don't ever think God's blessed
you spiritually when he blesses you with abundance of material
things. He blesses you with abundance of material things. He could
be trying you. So don't think that's necessarily
a blessing. Material blessing and spiritual blessings are two
totally different things. But I tell you mostly what this
is talking about. This is talking about something a whole lot greater
than earthly riches. Because most people in this life
are not rich, are they? I mean, so this really wouldn't,
this would hardly apply to anybody here. None of us are wildly wealthy,
you know, so this wouldn't really apply to us. And poor people
aren't trusted in material riches and things, are they? But I tell
you what, the poorest man on this earth is trusting in something
that he thinks will make him spiritually rich. He's trusting
in something that he thinks is good enough for God to accept.
Peter warned us about that. He said, now you know this. You
know better than this. You know you're not redeemed
with corruptible things as silver and gold. Now that does mean
silver and gold. You know, your riches aren't
going to pay the redemption price for your soul. It won't help
you from dying. I mean, how much silver and gold do you put in
an offering plate? God's never going to be impressed. He owns
it all anyway. But I'll tell you mostly what this means. It
means those things that we think are silver and gold. Those religious
works we've done, we put so much value on them. We think they're
silver and gold. God calls them rags of righteousness,
defiled with sin. But we think our good religious
works are silver and gold. And don't be deceived into thinking
any of those things will make God accept you. None of those
things can redeem us. Because what righteousness we
have is never going to be good enough. Never. It'll never make
us perfect. Our faithfulness, we ought to
be faithful. but our faithfulness will never be worthy of God. Our giving, we ought to give,
but our giving is never going to be enough. Our morality is
a mirage. None of those things will save
us, and if we're trusting in them, they'll add to our condemnation. Now, the reference that David
makes here is to the law of the kinsman-redeemer. You know about
the kinsman-redeemer. If a person would be the kinsman-redeemer,
they must meet three qualifications. First, they must be related to
the person in death. They've got to be related by
blood. Second, the kinsman redeemer must be able to pay the redemption
price. He must be able to pay the debt
in full. And thirdly, he's got to be willing to pay the price. Well, you and I are not qualified
to be the kinsman redeemer for our loved ones. We're not qualified
to be the kinsman redeemer for our own selves. And that's who
we love the most is ourselves. And we can't even redeem our
own selves. We're not qualified to be the kinsmen for anybody
else either. Because we don't meet the qualifications. Now,
we are related, aren't we? We're all sons of Adam, so we're
related. And we're all willing. Human beings are willing to work
hard to pay the debt. Now, I mean that spiritually,
not materially. They're not willing to do that
materially. But spiritually, they're willing to do what they're
not willing to do materially. They're willing to work hard
to pay the debt. They're not willing to have it
for free in Christ, but they're willing to work hard to pay the
debt. But here's the kicker, the third thing. We're not able
to pay the debt. We're not able. Because we're
spiritually bankrupt. We don't have anything good that
we can bring to God. All of our religious deeds are
worthless. There's no hope in our so-called
works of righteousness, all of our religious activity. There's
no hope in them. So if we're wise, When we act
with understanding, when we hear of who the Lord Jesus Christ
is, we'll seek him to be our kinsman redeemed. Second, these are words of wisdom.
There's no spiritual hope, no hope of eternal life in fleshly
wisdom, in the intellect of the mind. Verse 10, for he seeth
that wise men die. Likewise, the fool and the brutish
person perish and leave their wealth to others. Their inward
thought, is that their houses shall consume or shall continue
forever in their dwelling places to all generations. They call
their lands after their own names. Nevertheless, man being in honor
abideth not. He's like the beast that perish.
This their way is their folly, yet their posterity approve their
sayings. Look over first Corinthians chapter
three. Now it ought to be obvious to
us. It's not obvious to the flesh, It ought to be obvious to us,
there's no hope in our earthly wisdom, in the power of our intellect. 1 Corinthians 3, excuse me, 1
Corinthians 3, verse 18. Man's so-called wisdom is actually
foolishness. Let no man deceive himself. If
any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him
become a fool. that he may be wise. Let him
admit he doesn't know anything, that he may be wise. He may become
wise. For the wisdom of this world
is foolishness with God. For it's written, he taketh the
wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knoweth the
thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Therefore, let no man
glory in men. Don't glory in men. You know,
we think we're wise. And when we do, that's when we're
the most foolish. Our nature, is the nature of
a fool. The fool has said in his heart,
no God. Man is so foolish he thinks he
can tell God no. No God, I won't accept you. No, I won't do what you say.
You sent your son to die for me, but no, I will not accept
him. That man's a fool. Or man thinks he can tell God
yes and make it so. Yes, I will accept you. Yes,
I will do what you say. Men think, when they think it's
all up to me, that's when they display their greatest demonstration
of foolishness. The fool thinks he knows a better
way than God. That's a fool. David tells us
both the wise and the foolish. Naturally speaking, the wise
and the foolish, the educated and the ignorant, both die. And if they die without Christ,
no matter how much they learned in this world, no matter how
many degrees they got after their name, if they die without Christ,
both of them die as fools, without any wisdom whatsoever. The man
that we think is so wise, and naturally speaking, we know some
smart people. There's some smart people in
this room. Boy, there's some smart people. We know people
out in the world that are wise in things of their occupation
and things that they do. People are so smart. But those
people we admire their intellect so much, really and truly, they're
a fool if they haven't bowed to Christ. I'd a whole lot rather
be an eighth grade dropout and know Christ than have a PhD.
I really would. Man who is so smart. but has
not bowed to Christ, has not believed Christ, God's just left
that man alone in his natural foolishness. And the proof the
psalmist gives us here, and this is just, boy, nothing's changed
from David's day to today. David says this man is a fool,
even though he has a whole lot of natural understanding, natural
wisdom, he's a fool. He knows he won't live forever. I mean, everybody knows. I mean,
funeral homes, how many funeral homes are there in this town?
People die. None of us are going to make
it out of this thing alive. He knows he won't live forever.
But deep down, he thinks his name will continue forever through
the foundations and the charitable organizations he set up for his
children to run after him. He thinks he's going to live
forever through his children. I knew a man once, very wealthy
man, spent years accumulating wealth. He got towards the end
of his life, he went around paying money everywhere he could to
get his family name up on something, on ballparks and old folks' homes
and just wanting his name to live forever. But now he knows
better than to say, he knows better to say out loud, This
is what I'm doing. I want my name to live. I want
to live forever this way. He knows better to say it out
loud, but that's the inward secret thought of his heart. We thought
we were the only ones. David ran the same thing. Now
the man who wants to make his name with the things that he
leaves behind, he wants to make his abiding legacy so that his
name will live forever, is a fool. He seeks those things so much.
If you want to set your heart on those things, you can do it.
I mean, you can do it. But you're going to spend so
much time doing it, you're not going to have time to seek the
Lord. You're not going to have time to seek forgiveness. You're
not going to have time to seek righteousness. That man spends
all of his time making a name for himself, making a reputation
for the name of his family, and he dies like a beast that perishes.
That's what David says. Now, he doesn't die like a beast
in the sense that when he dies he doesn't exist anymore. Oh
no, he's going to live forever. He's got an eternal soul that
beasts don't have. But he dies like a beast in this
sense. He dies like a beast who only knows how to seek things
in this life. Things he can get his hands on.
That's all he knows to seek. All he's done throughout his
whole life that God's given him on this earth is seek pleasure
from this life. He sought his all in this life.
And he had some of it for a time. But when he dies, it's all gone.
He's not taking any of it with him and he's left with nothing. He's left with nothing of any
value. He dies like a beast. Now here's
the second way a person is like a beast. When they leave the
gospel. When they hear the gospel and
they turn away from it. Solomon said in Proverbs 26 verse
11. Now we're talking here about
wisdom and understanding. Wisdom is hearing the gospel
and understanding is following after Christ. Well foolishness
then is It's going the other way. Solomon says, as a dog returneth
to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. And Peter said,
when a person hears the gospel and leaves it, they fulfill the
proverb. The dog has turned to his own
vomit again and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in
the mire. That's a fool. Again, I'm not
preaching to everybody out there. I'm preaching to everybody here
has heard the gospel many times. I pray God make us not be fooled.
That'd be a good prayer for me every day. Lord don't let me
be fooled. Now seek what you need to live in this life. Seek
what gets you an education, get you a job. Seek the things you
need to live in this life. But you mind the words of our
Savior. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
You seek that first and foremost. These other things will be added
to you. Because if you die without Christ, you die without anything
at all of value. Like I said, I'm looking at a
bunch of intelligent people. I mean, I wouldn't play Jeopardy
against almost any of you. I mean, these are some smart
folks. But don't ever mistake human
intelligence for spiritual wisdom. Never mistake it. If we're going
to have spiritual wisdom, God's got to give it to us. You've
got to give us what we don't have. These things can't be studied
like you can study and memorize them. They must be revealed.
If we're wise and we act with understanding, we'll see Christ
to be our wisdom. All right, thirdly, these are
wise words now for everybody that's going to die. There's
no hope of eternal life. There's no hope of spiritual
blessing in our beauty. Verse 14, he says, like sheep,
they're laid in the grave. Death shall feed on them. They're
just going to go back to the dust from which they're made.
And the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning, and
their beauty, whatever beauty they had, shall consume in the
grave from their dwelling. Now, it ought to be obvious to
us, but it needs to be pointed out because of the foolishness
of our flesh. There is no hope in physical beauty. Physical
beauty is not a sign that you've got a better life than somebody
else. That's not what that means at
all. Yet, people seek it with all they've got. And long after it goes, they
still like to pretend they got it. It's just a lost cause. And you know why? Sin has been
working on these bodies from the moment we were conceived
in the womb. I don't know when the end of
it's coming, but I promise you this, the end of it ain't pretty.
It's not pretty. No matter how beautiful we think
we are, no matter how much admiration we think our appearance might
get us from other people, I promise you this, we're still ugly in
God's sight if we're outside of Christ. See, this beauty that
David's talking about here, it represents a lot of the same
things that riches represent. Most people aren't so foolish
that they think they're so attractive, God's going to accept them. But
this beauty represents the same thing those riches represented.
It represents all the beautiful religious things that people
do and people admire. People love religious ceremonies. Because they say, oh, that's
so beautiful. I feel so holy. They think it's so beautiful.
I warn you, those things are damning outside of Christ. Outside
of Christ they are. People love to talk about their
religious works. They say, oh, that's so beautiful.
You know, look how you give of yourself. Look how you do these.
Oh, it's so beautiful. I'll tell you what, that beauty
is going to take people to the grave of hell, outside of Christ. But there is a beauty that we're
to seek. The only beauty that God seeks,
the only thing He counts as beautiful, is His Son. The beauty of His
Son. The beauty of holiness is found
in the Lord Jesus Christ. His beauty will last. It'll never
fade and go away. Now, if we're wise, and we act
with understanding, we'll seek Christ to be our beauty. Ask
that He come on us like that baby found out there, polluted
in its own blood, cast out in the field to the loathing of
its person, and the Savior walk by and say, your time is a time
of love. I'll pick you up. I'll love you.
I'll wash you. I'll clean you. I'll clothe you.
I'll make you beautiful with my beauty that I put on you. That's the beauty we need, the
beauty of another, the righteousness, the holiness of another. And
if we're wise, we'll seek it. All right, here's the fourth
thing. There's no hope in earning honor that comes from men. Verse
20. Man that is in honor and understandeth
not is like beasts that perish. Everyone is held in honor or
esteem by someone, and we ought to conduct ourselves in such
a way that we earn respect from other people. That ought to be
important to us. When Janet and I were dating,
she bought me a plaque about an honorable man hanging up in
my study to this day. Anybody doesn't think I'm honorable,
there's one I care about, thinks I want to earn that. But in earning
that, now that's what we ought to do. You ought to be a respectable
person. But now listen, there's no true
honor without understanding, without Christ. See, the honor
that comes from men is just not real. I saw the perfect example
of that this week. It's just hilarious. Saw a picture
of this doll. This little dog, I mean, about
the size of our Yorkie, some sort of little terrier, mutt-looking
dog. It didn't look like much. This
dog's walking down the street in Mexico. And the street is
empty, completely empty as far as you can see. And on both sides
of the street, I mean, there are people packed in there 50
rows deep just packing up next to that street, just lying in
the street as far as you can see. And this dog comes on the
street. He starts looking around. Thinks,
huh, must be a prey. Nobody here but me. This prey
must be for me. And this little dog starts strutting
down that street, just looking at everybody, just taking all,
he's thinking, all this honor is for me. You know what all
them people were doing? They were there in Mexico waiting
for the pokemobile to come down the street. That dog just happened
to be there. They were only looking at him
because there wasn't nothing else to look at. That's us, isn't it? We think
all this is for me. That's what we think. All this
is for me. Everything God does, it's all
for me. No, it's not. No, no, no, no. It's all for
Christ. It's all for the honor of God's
son. We think we deserve so much honor. But it all belongs to
Christ. and none of it belongs to us.
The Gospel is not about us. The Gospel is not about how I
can go to heaven or how I can be righteous or how I can be a better
person. What's the whole Gospel? It's all concerning God's Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He gets all the honor. All honor
is found in Him. Now, if we're wise and we act
with understanding, we'll seek the honor that comes from God
only. Alright, now those are some of the mistakes David points
out. Let me close giving us some wise words, words of wisdom,
thoughts of understanding from this parable. Christ is our only
hope. First, Christ is our only hope
of having any wisdom or understanding. If we're going to have wisdom,
God's going to have to give it to us because we're natural born
fools. We're completely dependent on
Him to give it to us. And if we're going to do what
David says here and speak wisdom, We're going to have to speak
of Christ. We're going to have to speak of Him. And only Christ can give us that
wisdom. Only God can give us something
to say. And if it's going to be anything
of wisdom, we're going to speak of Christ. And if the meditation
of our heart, the thoughts of our heart, if those things would
be understanding, God's going to have to give us a new heart.
Because our old heart is not ever going to seek understanding. It doesn't want it. It hates
it. then let's ask God for a new heart. Let's ask him to give
us a heart that will meditate on these things with understanding.
Let's all seek Christ as an empty, know-nothing sinner. God just
might give us some wisdom. He just might. Second, our only
hope of redemption is in Christ, our kinsman, redeemer. Verse
seven says, none of them can by any means redeem his brother
nor give to God a ransom for him, that he should still live
forever and not seek corruption. Four, here's the reason that's
true, verse eight, for the redemption of their soul is precious and
it ceases forever. Lord Jesus Christ is our kinsman
redeemer. He did what we can't do. He fully
completed, he fulfilled the law of the kinsman. Christ came in
our flesh so he could be our big brother. That's a first qualification.
God's not related to you and me. God can't be our kinsman.
So Almighty God became a man. So He could be our kinsman redeemer,
our big brother. Now it's worth pointing out,
when we talk about the kinsman, you've got to talk about particular
redemption. Who did Christ come to save?
Who did He come to pay the redemption price for? His brethren. He didn't come to pay it for
everybody, He came to pay it for His brethren. He's related to
His people because He became flesh. bone of our bone and flesh
of our flesh. Now, I know our flesh hates particular
redemption as it's taught in scripture, but you know, everybody,
even the Armenian limits the atonement. Did you know that?
I got to pick this up this week. This is good. Everybody says
one of two things. They either say Christ died for
God's elect and only God's elect, or Christ died for everybody,
but His blood only saves those who decide to accept Him. Both
ways, the atonement's limited, isn't it? The atonement is either
limited by God's will or by man's will. One or the other, isn't
it? It has to be. There's no other alternative.
I'm here to tell you God's will reigns supreme. Man's will enters
into this nowhere. God's elect will be redeemed
by Christ, our kinsman, because he became bone of our bone, flesh
of our flesh. The second qualification is willingness.
Oh, God's willing. He is willing to save sinners. And the proof of it is he sent
his son to save him. Not only is he willing to do
it, he's going to do it. He sent his son to save him.
Now, I don't care who you are. Don't ever think, don't ever
say, well, I'm just going to have to be lost because God's
not willing to save me. Don't ever think God's not willing
to save you. If you come to him begging for
mercy, he'll show mercy. God delights to show mercy to
sinners. I've read a good bit of this
book. I've read, I know every word
of the New Testament a number of times. I challenge you anywhere
in this book, anywhere, you find me one sinner who came begging
for mercy that the Savior turned away. Find me one. You won't
find it. You come begging for mercy. You
won't be the first. God delights to show mercy to
sinners. You come to Christ for mercy.
God will give it to you because it's right. because Christ already
paid the redemption price. He's willing. And thirdly, he's
able. The Lord Jesus Christ, our kinsman,
is able to pay the redemption price. Our eternal souls are
precious. It's going to take a high price
to redeem them. Christ came with precious blood. Precious blood
to pay the redemption price in full. Nobody has more value than
Christ. He gave his blood, he shed his
blood, but he gave his whole self. He gave all that he is
as a ransom for his people. He shed his blood to redeem his
people from their sin. He made his soul an offering
for sin. So the father said, deliver them
from going down to the pit. I found a ransom. I've provided
a ransom in my own son. Brother, those people are delivered. God didn't try to save them.
Christ didn't try to redeem them. He got the job done. They're
delivered because of His precious blood, because of the preciousness
of His person. Oh, God, help us to seek Him.
The only way we wouldn't seek Him is if we're blind. Oh, unto
you that believe. He is precious. Alright, thirdly,
the Lord Jesus Christ is our only hope. He's a good hope. The end of verse eight says it
ceases forever. And what does that mean? Well,
it means this. Justice satisfied. There's not
going to be another offering for sin. Christ's sacrifice paid
the debt in full. There's no reason for another
sacrifice. It doesn't have to be offered again like all those
Old Testament sacrifices. Christ was made sin. Now that was just symbolically
done with those animals of the Old Testament sacrifice. But
Christ the Savior was made sin for His people. He took the sin
of His people away from them and He made it His. And now the
sin of God's elect is gone because Christ gave Himself as a sacrifice
for it and His blood blotted it out. There's no need for another
sacrifice. It's done. It is finished. That's a good hope, a completed
salvation. Fourthly, our only hope of eternal
life is in Christ. Verse 9 says, now man can't do
this, can't pay the price that he should still live forever
and not see corruption. But somebody can. If Christ pays
the redemption price, they can. Look what David says in verse
15. But God's going to redeem my soul from the power of the
grave, for he shall receive me. He's going to receive me in Christ.
He's going to receive me for Christ's sake. All of God's elect
is not just going to live forever. They have eternal life. They
have life with Christ. And it's sure because Christ
already died to satisfy justice for them. God doesn't have any
reason not to receive them. Christ put their sin away. He's
made them righteous. There's no reason for God to
condemn them. Christ has already been condemned in their place.
What joy and peace there is if Christ is my life. That's not
in this. There's all this world, this
junk, this flesh. But if Christ is our life, what
joy and peace there is. And then fifth, kind of where
we started, everybody's going to die. Now everybody, unless
the Lord turns first, everybody's going to die. But there is no
fear of death for the believer. I don't think we can say that
often enough. There's no fear of death for the believer. My
little timer's gone, so I don't know how long I've preached,
but I'm going to tell you a story. I don't know how many years ago it was.
Brother Henry preached an utter classic message. It was just,
oh! My dad got gravely ill up in
Canada. They were on vacation. They told
us he was going to die. We flew up there, but he didn't.
They flew him home. And my brother and I drove mom
and dad's car home. Now, from the Rocky Mountains
of Canada to Williamsburg, Ohio is one long trip. I mean, wow,
it's a long trip. I won't even tell you how fast
we drove. I mean, man, even running well in excess of the speed limit,
that's a long trip. And as we started that trip,
my brother reached behind the seat, and there was a box back
there, some CDs, and he just Grabbed one, pulled it out, put
it in. And we drove. We drove for 48 hours and we
still weren't home. We finally got a hotel room and
then came the rest of the way home the next day. And I couldn't
tell you in all that time how many times we listened to that
message. I mean, it was so good. And in that message, Henry made
this statement. There is no fear of death. for a believer. When my dad took
his last breath on this earth, those words came from a CD player.
There's no fear of death for the believer. There's none. Verse
5, wherefore should I fear in the days of evil when the iniquities
of my heels shall compass me about? Eric, we never got to know. I
shouldn't have told that personal story. I'm sorry. But I told
it for this reason. This is right where we live now.
This is right where we live. What are these days of evil David's
talking about here? They're days we're going to have.
They're the evil days that Solomon talked about, of old age, when
you can't find any pleasure in the flesh. How many times do
you hear Jim Meadows talk about those evil days? Well, from what I hear, it ain't
much fun. But we don't have to fear it.
When those evil days get here, you know what we know is coming?
Besides the pain of this flesh and the falling apart of this
flesh and stuff quit working the way it always did, we know
this, in those evil days, death's coming soon. I'm going to stand
before the judgment seat of Christ soon. Now that can sound pretty
scary, can't it? But David said, What do I have
to be afraid of? There's no reason for me to be
afraid. I don't have to be afraid of my sins coming and nipping
at my heels. I don't have anything to be afraid of. Christ has already
been judged and condemned in my place. I'm already accepted
in the beloved. I'm already, right now, seated
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. What do I got to be afraid
of? Not one thing. Not one thing.
When David talks about the heel here, it means the flesh. This
goes back to the kinsmen. God's people are never going
to die because the Savior's heel was bruised in the flesh. He was bruised just exactly like
God promised He would for the redemption of His people. And
when His heel was bruised, He crushed Satan's head. He crushed
the power of sin forever over His people. So now here are wise
words for everybody who's going to die. There is fear of death
for the unbeliever because that person will stand before God
without a covering. That person will stand before
God without a mediator and without a sacrifice that God requires. But there is no fear of death
for the believer because the believer stands before God accepted
in the beloved. We stand before God clothed in
the righteousness of Christ. We appear before the bar of God's
justice with a mediator who's never ever lost a case because
He always pleads His perfect sacrifice. I pray God will give
us the wisdom to know Christ, to hear and to know who He is,
and the understanding to seek after Him. Let's bow together. Our Father, how we thank You
for giving us these wise words in Your Word. We thank You for
giving us this opportunity to look at them, to hear Father,
I pray you give each heart here wisdom tonight. Wisdom to know
Christ. Wisdom to see Him. Faith to believe
Him. A heart, a new heart that loves
Him and clings to Him. Father, give us understanding.
Give us understanding to not look to this flesh, to not
trust it, to not look at it, but give us understanding to
seek the Lord Jesus Christ. by your mercy and grace to find
him. It's in his precious name we pray, for the glory of his
name we pray and give thanks.