It says here in my order of service,
and I never get tired of reading this, Leah Watson, dad. Such a blessing. Well, let's
open our Bibles again to Psalm 34. I had begun preparing an outline
for continuing our study in the book of Romans. If I preach from
this Psalm 34 Wednesday night, And I had kind of had in my mind
an outline of something that I would preach when I got back
from vacation that first Wednesday night, but I could not. Try as
I might, I could not get away from it. And I thought it would
be a good message to bring this morning. I titled the message,
Words to Live By and to Die By. I don't think I've ever done
this, but I've got a subtitle, too. How about that? How to Live
in Contentment and Die in Peace. How to live in contentment. It's
like to live content and die in peace. David begins, we'll
begin, our text begins in verse 11. He begins this passage with
some instruction for children. And that's one of the reasons
I thought it'd be a good passage for me to deal with this Sunday
morning. When everyone was here, more of our children were here.
David has some instruction in God's word for our children and
also for the children of God. Now these are words to live by.
Now if you want to know how to live life, this is, I'm not a
very deep thinker, so if you want to know how to live in contentment,
the first thing you've got to know is how to have life, don't
you? If you want to live in contentment, the first thing you've got to
know is how to have life in the first place. And I'm not just
talking about existing while there's breath in this body and
our hearts are beating. I'm talking about having life.
having life that's real, that's eternal, real life. How do you
get that? How do you have life? Well, that's
my first point. Here's how to have life. Verse
11, David says, come, you children, hearken unto me, and I will teach
you the fear of the Lord. Now, you know the situation here.
David wrote this psalm while he's hiding in the cave of Dolom. Now, what is David doing hiding
in the cave of Dolom? Samuel's anointed king of Israel.
This is God's king? How come he's not down there
in Jerusalem sitting on a throne? How come he's not in all the
king's finery sleeping on a great, you know, thick mattress, you
know, king's bed with all of his soldiers around him guarding
him? How come he's hiding in a cave? Well, you know the story
how David's on the run from Saul, but while he's here in a cave,
about 400 men came out to him. These are men, scripture says,
who were in distress, who were in debt, who were discontented.
What a rabble. Come out to David. Nobody came
out there with all these riches and strength and things that
could help him. They're all in debt. They're all weak. They're discontented.
They're in distress themselves. And here they come out to David.
And David's got to see him coming. I mean, he's kind of glad somebody's
come out there to be his friend, you know, but it's adding to
David's stress. Not only does he got to lead
this bunch, David's got to figure out how to feed 400 men and his
family while he's hiding in a cave. He can't just go down to the
grocery store. He can't expose himself anywhere. There might
be food. David's got a lot on his mind. He's got a lot of responsibility
suddenly thrust upon him in a very difficult situation. He's got
a lot on his mind. But you notice David still has
time to stop and have some words of instruction for children.
Isn't that something? Maybe David came out of the cave
one day and he saw some of these ragtag children playing. They're dirty. They're not able
to take a bath. They're not clothed real well.
Hard to tell them what they're talking about. Maybe they're
talking about shooting marbles. Maybe they're talking about,
you know, why are we here in this cave? I thought David was
supposed to be king. They don't understand why their parents
did what they did. They don't understand why their parents took them from
their homes and families and neighborhoods and schools and
friends and took them out here in this cave. They don't know
why they did that. Why did my parents turn my world
upside down? They don't know. And there they
are. And David's heart just goes out
to him. He says, y'all come here, come here, gather around, let's
sit down. Let me talk to you for a minute. Let me give you
some instruction. This is the king, this is the
man, all this responsibility on says, come here, let me teach
you something. Does that tell us how important
teaching our children is? The classes that we have for
them every Sunday, the Bible school, the way their pastor,
Do you know, you children, you know, your pastor thinks about
you every time I prepare a message. I think about some of our young
children. I think what they understand is I think about you every message. It's important. Nobody else going
to teach him unless we do that, right? We don't, we sure don't
want the world teaching them. So somebody better teach them.
Shouldn't be us. Well, children, here's the first thing you got
to know about life. You got to know how to have it. If you're
going to have life, if you're going to be content in your life,
you've got to know what life really is. Real life is not what
we naturally think it is. It's not the riches and comforts
of this world. It's not having the applause
of this world, everybody patting you on the back and telling you
how wonderful you are, you know. It's fine, I suppose, if you have
all that. But I can promise you, quickly, you'll vanish away. Quickly it will. Before we die,
probably it'll all be gone. Certainly the day, the very day
we die, it'll all be gone. Now listen, I am not being a
sour old man. Really and truly, I'm not. I
want you to enjoy this life. I'm getting ready to go on vacation
with my sweetheart and I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to enjoy
it, Lord willing. I'm going to look forward to that. So it's
fine to enjoy this life. I hope you do. But you can really
only enjoy it if you understand it in its place. It's temporary. It's so temporary. It's hard
to believe when you're young. How quickly it's gone. How quickly it's gone. Everything in this life, everything
that you think is so wonderful about this life won't stay that
way for long. It'll change so quickly. What
is so valuable today just have no worth at all tomorrow. You
know, our natural inclination, the thing that we naturally want
to do is make ourselves happy by accumulating stuff, don't
we? Pretty soon, it'll all be a nuisance to you. If you start
accumulating stuff, pretty soon you're going to read on the internet,
I'm a minimalist. I want to be a minimalist and just this stuff
is the biggest nuisance to me. I've got to get rid of it all.
Either it gets old and falls apart or it's in your way or,
you know, or you leave it to your children and they think,
oh, goodness, what was mom and dad doing getting all this stuff,
you know? Goodwill won't take it. I got to sell a rummage sale
to get rid of this stuff somehow. It's just quickly. There'll be no value to it whatsoever. Well, that's what life is not.
Here's what David tells us. Here's the first thing we got
to know about life, where it's found. It's found in the fear
of the Lord. It's found in the respect, the
reverence, the worship of the Lord. Real life, life that can
be had is eternal life. And we can only have that eternal
life by knowing who God really is, by knowing the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, the world is going to tell
you about a God, little G, but it's not God. Almighty God is
holy. God can't even look upon sin,
much less approve of it. So He's not going to accept us
in our works. God's holy. God is sovereign. God is in control
of absolutely everything that happens. When you see something
happen, whether you think it's good or whether you think it's
bad, you think, why'd that happen? I can tell you why it happened.
It was God's will for it to happen exactly. Recently, we saw a sniper
go up in a hotel and shoot Dozens and dozens and dozens of them.
I can't explain that. I have absolutely no idea what
purpose that served, but I can tell you this, that was God's
will. That's the only way it could happen. It was God's will.
God is sovereign. And if I understand God's sovereign,
I can rest in it. I can be content even when I
don't understand it. God, Almighty God, the God with
whom we have to do is just. He must punish sin and he must
accept righteousness because God's just. At the same time
God is just, God is merciful to sinners. He's merciful to
sinners and he remains just by punishing Christ, our substitute,
to the fullest extent of his wrath against sin so that he
can have mercy upon his elect in justice. One of the favorite
phrase of grace preachers is God is just and justifier. Now
we're talking coming children. Let me tell you what that means.
You hear God is just and justified. Do you have a slightest clue
what that means? Coming children, let me tell you. This is what
it means. God is just. At the same time, he's the justifier. He justifies his people through
the sacrifice, through the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
he has mercy on them in justice. It's right for God to show mercy
to his people because Christ has put away their sin. And if
anybody's saved, that's the God who saved them. That's the God.
They're saved by the will, the purpose and the action of that
God, Almighty God. Now, that's where life is found,
is found in knowing God and fearing him. And if we know who God is,
we'll fear him. If we know God, we'll have eternal
life. Now, if you listen to the idol
of this world priest, there is no reason whatsoever to have
any respect for him. But we know God, who he is, will
fear before him. And we'll have eternal life.
And if we have eternal life, we can go through this life content. Even in its ups and downs, in
its dark days, in its cloudy days, we can go through this
life content. we have eternal life that can
never be lost. Now, if your happiness depends
on how much junk of this earth that you can accumulate, you're
never going to be content. You'll never be able to get enough.
But if your happiness, if your contentment, if your life depends
on who God is and what God provides for his people, you'll go through
this life content. Now, I'm not saying that you
won't have times you'll be sad. I'm not saying you have times
you'll be broken hearted. We'll deal with that in just
a minute. But no matter what those days bring, you'll be content
in those days. If your contentment is based
upon, depends upon who God is and what God provides for his
people. Now, David asked, he's got his children gathered together,
he said, do you want to see good in your days? He says that in
verse 12. What man is he that desireth
life and loveth many days that he may see good? Do you desire
to see good? Do you desire to have eternal
life? Now here's words to live by,
here's how to have it. Verse 13. Keep thy tongue from evil
and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil and do good.
Seek peace and pursue it. Now if you desire to have eternal
life, if you desire to see Christ, if you desire to have union with
Him, if you desire to have His blessing, keep your tongue from
evil. That means more than just not
using evil language. I'll not do that. But that's
not primarily what Dave is talking about here. Don't let your tongue
repeat the evil gospel of this world. We looked at that in our
Sunday school lesson this morning, the nature of false religion.
Don't let your tongue repeat what they say. They say Christ
died for everybody. That's not so. Don't you repeat
it? They say Jesus will save you if you'll just make a decision
to let Him in your heart. If you'll just allow Him to be
the king of your life, Jesus will save you. God helps those
who help themselves. That's a lie. Don't repeat that. Don't ever tell anybody that.
When tragedy strikes in the form of hurricanes and tornadoes and
terror acts and all these things and the world is just so awful
and people say, oh, the devil did that. God didn't do that.
The devil did that. Don't you ever say that. Don't you let
that escape. That's evil. That's evil. You keep away from
it. Here's what God says about himself.
If you want to know what is the real answer to a question, you want to know an answer about
who God is, what God has done, why God does it the way he does
it. What does God say about himself? You find that out and you repeat
that. Just find out what God says and repeat it. Here's what
God says. Christ said he came to die for
his sheep. He came to die for His elect. That's who His sheep
are, the elect. And you know what He did? He saved them. Repeat that. Christ saves those
who cannot help themselves. This is not a self-help thing.
No. He saves those who cannot help themselves because they're
dead in sin. But He gives them life in Christ. God's offering. He's in control of everything.
He rides upon the storm and the waves. He sends them all. He
directs them all. I remember being a little boy
and we had tornado drills. Y'all still have tornado drills
in school? We had to get on your desk. We did that. And we even
had, I don't know if y'all still, we even had to get on our desk
or stand over against the wall for a nuclear bomb, like that
was going to happen. And my teacher, Mr. Burke, said, he said, now
we could be standing right here. And he said, I'll be standing
right next to Frank. And that tornado comes through
and just smashes me to smithereens and Frank won't even be touched.
And that's just the way a tornado is. I was in sixth grade. I knew better than that. That
tornado comes through and smashes one person and leaves another
person untouched. That's because Almighty God controls to the
most pinpoint accuracy 120 mile an hour winds of a tornado. God's
sovereign. God's in control. This is what
God said about himself. I formed the light. and I create
darkness. I make peace and I create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things.
Now you fear before me. That's the God I can fear. And
someone says, well now, you've got to explain that to me. Reconcile
that to me about God's holiness and how He can still create evil.
You explain that to me about God's goodness, how He can still
create darkness. I can't do it. Can't do it. And
I don't have to. We just repeat what God says.
Just repeat it. If I start trying to explain
that with my mind, I can't begin to understand God. I must speak
evil. So just repeat what God says. And that fear of the Lord
will make me continue in all those different days. See, this
is what evil words say. Evil words always begin with
man. What does man have to do in order to earn salvation or
to be saved? And those were if they start
with us, There are going to be evil words because everything
about our nature is evil. So don't let those words be in
your mouth. Righteous words are words of the gospel that tell
what God and his mercy and grace and pity and wisdom and power
has done for his people to save them from their sin. Now let
those words be in your tongue. When you talk to God, when you
go to Him in prayer, let those words be in your mouth. When
you don't understand, just say, God, I know you're suffering.
I know. I don't know the answer to this, but I know you do. Your
wisdom personified it. You do. Just be honest with God. Let those words be in your mouth.
And let those words be in your mouth when you talk to people.
Keep your tongue from evil. At the end, if you desire eternal
life, if you desire to see Christ, Keep your lips from speaking
guile. Now guile means being a hypocrite. And you know what a hypocrite
is. They say one thing and mean something else. They say something,
they don't mean it. It just depends on who they're talking to. They're
two-faced. They say one thing to you and
one thing to somebody else. They say to you, you know how wonderful
you are, and then how awful this guy is, and they go that guy,
and they talk about how wonderful he is and how awful you are.
That's a hypocrite. Don't be that way. That's evil. You know, the religion of this
world is full of hypocrites speaking God. It's you're just not being
honest. If you say you can do something
good, that's not being honest. They say, you know, I don't say
as much as I used to. I've done better. I'm keeping myself sanctified.
I'm keeping myself safe. That's being a hypocrite. They
know better than that. They say grace is something that
you can earn. If you keep the law better, God
will be more gracious to you. If you keep the law better, God
will give you more blessings. That's being a hypocrite. They say,
well, you won't be sick if you've got no faith. What about Hebrews
chapter 11? These all died in the bath. That's being a hypocrite, isn't
it? It's just not so, that's guile. So if you desire eternal
life, don't be a hypocrite. Deal honestly with yourself and
with God. Be honest with God. Don't make
a deal with God. God, I promise I'll trust you.
I'll do better. I'll go to church every Sunday.
I'll pray more. I'll read my Bible more. If you'll
just do this, I'll do this. Don't do that because it's not
honest. You won't do it. You just will not keep up your
end of the bargain. Be honest with your God, with God, and
confess your sin. Be honest with God and say, I'm
helpless. I'm just a totally lost cause. If you don't save me, I'm going
to perish. Confess not just your sins to God. Don't just count
up all the things you did wrong. Confess your sin. Confess your
nature, your lost, helpless nature to God. Just be honest with God. Beg God for mercy because you're
a sinner. You know God saves those kind
of people? God saves honest people. He sure does. People who are
honest with Him, they need mercy. They need help. They need grace.
They're sinners. They can't do one thing for themselves.
Those are the people that God saves. What does the Word say? Why did Christ Jesus come into
this world? To save sinners. Then be honest with God and don't
pretend. Say, God, I'm a sinner. I'm a
sinner. Would you save me? That will
make you a candidate for salvation. Then if you desire eternal life,
if you desire to see Christ, depart from evil. Now this is
more than just not stealing from people or hurting people or doing
bad things. Doing evil is trying to make
God happy with you by what you do, by how well you keep the
law or how religious you are, you know. To God, that's the
height of evil. I know that's impressive to our
flesh, but to God, and He's all that matters, that's evil. And
you know why God says that's evil? Because God sent His Son
in this world to save sinners. Here's somebody trying to be
saved by being righteous. That's a liar. God sent His Son in this
world to obey the law for His people, and God said, this is
my Son in whom I'm well pleased. I will accept Him. I'll accept
His righteousness. I'll accept anybody in Him. And
yet we go off and try to keep the law ourselves. You know what
we're saying? I don't need Christ. I've got a better idea than God.
If you want eternal life, depart from evil. Depart from evil.
Depart from your works. Depart... Don't be going and
trying to find out what all these different free works places tell
you, you know. If you hang around them too long, it's hard to tell
them what's going to happen. Hard to tell them what's going to
happen. You flee from it. Flee from it. Because salvation
is by grace, not by works. That's what God says. Then if
you desire eternal life, and you desire to see Christ, then
seek peace. Seek peace. And you're gonna
find peace. I mean, if you're gonna find
anything, you're gonna have to look where it is, aren't you? You're
gonna have to look for it where it's found. Well, if you want peace, look
for it where it's found. Peace is not found in you living better.
Now, I mean, we all ought to live better, I'm sure, but that's
not where peace is found. Peace is found in the Lord Jesus
Christ who has already made peace for us through the blood of His
cross. Peace is found in Christ because His blood took away everything
that made God angry. So there's peace. And His blood
applied to your heart will put you at peace with God too. It'll
make you not angry with God anymore. You'll be reconciled to God.
The blood of Christ is applied to your heart. That's where peace
is found. Then seeking. Seeking. Pursuing. Chase after him. Don't just sit
there and think, well, if I'm going to be saved, I'm going to be saved.
You know, if God's going to give me peace, I'm going to be... No, that's fatalistic.
Do you want peace? Then seek it with all your heart. If you will lay hold upon Christ,
you'll have peace. Peace in the heart. And nothing
will make you more content in this world than having peace
with God. Seeking. Seeking like that woman
with the issue of blood. She had a problem, didn't she?
The law said she can't go out there where all those people
are. But she thought, there's the one that can heal me. She
sought it. She sought it. Even if it meant
I've got to humble myself, I've got to get down on my hands and
knees and crawl through this crowd. If I can just get... Oh,
it's hard to get to, but if I can just get to Him and His garment,
I'll be made whole. If you seek Christ like that,
you'll be made whole. You'll have peace. And if you
have peace with God, Nothing will make you more content. Nothing
will make you more content than peace with God. And they'll let
you go through the days of your life in contentment. So seek
Christ and His righteousness. That's what some of what David's
saying here. Seek Christ and His righteousness. All these
things will be added to you. Really and truly. I know young
people, hard to believe, but I'm telling you the truth. Trust
me, I'm telling you the truth. Who cares how much stuff of this
world you get if you spend those years without Christ? So seeking,
seeking. That's what David's saying there,
but let me make an application to this life from these verses
too. Would you like your life in this world to be just a little
bit easier? Then don't talk about evil things. Just don't talk
about it. Don't spend your time thinking about evil things. Don't
speak evil of people. Don't spread evil gossip. Don't
say something evil that kills somebody's reputation. Just because
you know some little evil juicy tidbit, you don't have to tell
it. Don't tell everything you know, do you? Just don't tell
it. And don't be a hypocrite with people. Don't be two-faced
because I promise you think you're getting away with it. People
see through that. They're going to see through it. Don't be that
way. Be a dependable person. Be able to keep a confidence
for somebody. Be somebody that other people
can depend on when they need somebody. And depart from evil. Now don't just don't do evil,
but run away from it. Don't even be around it so you
get sucked into it. Just run away from it. And seek
peace with people. If you want this life to be just
a little bit easier, seek peace with people and pursue it. Now,
you're going to have to put some energy into this, because this
world is not a peaceable place. What the natural thing in this
world is, is war, and war, and hate, and fighting. So if you're
going to have some peace, you're going to have to put some energy
into it. Don't be this guy. Everybody knows a person like
this. Don't cause drama everywhere that you go, and then complain
you don't have any peace. Don't do that. Take every opportunity
to keep your mouth shut. More than likely, that'll lead
you to have more peace. And it really will. Now, it's
impossible to go through this world without enemies. We're going to, especially a
believer, now this world is not a hospitable place for the believer.
No, it's not. You'll have enemies. But you
don't have to make them by acting like a fool. Act like you've
got a little bit of wisdom and follow this advice that David
gives us here and you'll have peace. The world is still going
to hate you because they hate everything good. They hated Christ
and they're going to hate you too if you believe on it. But
you will have a more peaceable existence if you do these things.
And let me sum it up this way. This is speaking in a worldly
way. We looked at the spiritual application.
Let me sum this up in a worldly fashion about living your life,
that you'd be content. Don't live your life trying to
make yourself happy all your days, because you'll never be
content. But spend the days of your life
trying to make other people happy that you live. If you do that,
you'll have contentment. You will. All right, that's what
real life is. Now here's where it's found.
Second, here's some words to live to let us live in contentment. First of all, if you would be
content, you must live crying to the Lord. Verse 15. The eyes
of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open under their
cry. And do you want life? Then cry
to the Lord. He's the one who can give it.
Cry to the Lord and ask him to give it to you. Not because you
deserve it, but for Christ's sake, for his mercy sake. Do
you want to see good? Then cry to the Lord. Cry to
the one who is good and ask Him to give it to you. Ask Him to
reveal Christ to you. The Lord hears the righteous. That's what He said. He hears
the righteous. Well, do you want to be righteous? The Lord hears
you. Then cry to the Lord and ask Him to make you righteous
in Christ. Not because of what you've done, but righteous in
Christ. What is it that you need? Do
you need mercy? Do you need peace? Do you need
forgiveness? Do you need strength? Do you need help? What is it
that you need? Cry to the Lord. He's the one
that can give it. His eyes, he said, are open upon
his people. He's always looking upon his
people. He never takes his eyes off of them. So he's close enough
to hear. And the ears of the Lord are
open to the cry of his people. Now listen, you don't even have
to make an intelligent argument to God. You don't even have to
make your prayer sound so intelligent so that God will, you know, so
well ordered and get all these right religious words and catchphrases
in so God will hear you and he'll grant your prayer. That's not
why God hears his people. You just cry. You just moan. You just lay out your heart open.
Even if you can't put into words, you just cry to him. He'll hear
you and he'll know exactly what you mean. He'll know exactly.
You know, before I was a parent, I heard parents say this all
the time. They had a little kid, and they'd hear the kid outside
or off in the other room or something, they'd cry, and the parent would
listen and say, don't worry about it, it's nothing. It sounded to me like
a blood-curdling scream, but the parent said, that's nothing,
that's nothing. And then you hear another cry, and you think, well, that
must be nothing, too. Wait a minute, that's a hurt cry. I thought,
I don't understand that. And I had children, and I thought,
OK, yeah, that's nothing. I knew exactly what it meant.
Our father, I'm far from perfect. Our father's perfect. He knows. Sometimes, even if I knew of
the hurt cry, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to
do. I mean, skinny or something, that's Janice DeParle, I don't
know what to do. Our father knows. He knows. You cry to him. You
just cry. You cry to the Lord for mercy.
Because you know, the Lord doesn't have to hear anybody, does he?
He didn't owe it to us to hear us. He won't hear the cry of
the wicked. He won't hear the cry of anybody
outside of Christ. Look at verse 16. Now the eyes
of the Lord are open upon the righteous, but the face of the
Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance
of them from the earth. Not only does the Lord not hear
the cry of the wicked, he just cut off the remembrance of it.
He's not going to remember them, he's going to cut off the remembrance
of them from everybody else too. He's not going to hear them.
But the Lord will hear the cry of the righteous, and the righteous
person is the person who's in Christ. Now, the Lord still don't
have to hear us. He don't owe us that, but he
will hear his people for Christ's sake, because of who Christ is,
because of his covenant of grace with Christ, he will always hear
the cry of his people. Now, this is pretty obvious,
but it needs to be said, then cry. Cry for mercy. Cry for forgiveness, cry for
help for Christ's sake, and the Lord will hear you. Verse 17,
the righteous cry and the Lord hear it and deliver them out
of all their troubles. The Lord hears and he delivers.
To be heard of the Lord is to be delivered of the Lord. He
hears and he delivers. And I can go through the days
of my life in contentment if I know that God will hear my
cry. He may not fix every little thing
immediately that I got going on, but this I know, He'll give
grace for the hour. And that gives me contentment.
All right, the second word to live by. If you would be content,
then seek contentment where it's found, in Christ. Verse 18. The Lord is nigh unto them that
are of a broken heart, and save as such as be of a contrite spirit.
Now we would do anything to avoid being heartbroken with them.
We would do anything to avoid being contrite, to be humbled
and embarrassed in front of people. We'd do anything to avoid that.
But you know, that's where true contentment is found. True contentment
is found in being heartbroken before God. If we're heartbroken
over our sin, God forgives our sin. If we're heartbroken in
trial, God will comfort us in that trial. Here is when a believer
is content. When the Lord is near. Are we
content when the Lord's near? He's near. He's close to them
of a broken heart and contrite spirit. That's when we're content. Newton said, how tedious and
tasteless the hours when Jesus no longer I see. If I have no
sense of his presence, if I don't have a sense that he's near,
Those hours aren't worth living. I can't be content then. But,
he said, content with beholding his face, my all to his pleasure
resigned. No changes of season or place
would make any change in my mind. Oh, I'll be blessed with a sense
of his love. A palace, a toy would appear.
In prisons would palaces appear. Jesus would dwell with me there.
I'll be content when I have a sense of his presence. So we would
do anything to avoid being humbled, contrived, embarrassed. But that's
who God's close to. And that's who God saves. God
saves sinners who are humbled by their sin. They're humbled
by it because they can't quit it. They're humbled by it because
they see something about the filth of their sin. They're embarrassed
by it. God saves those people by taking their sin away, by
washing them white as snow in the blood of Christ. And I'll
be content. Now, I'm just going to be content
with the salvation that God has provided for a weak, broken sinner
like me. All the days of my life, whatever
else it is, whatever changes of season or place is going on,
I'll be content with salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
I'll be content, this is what David is going to tell us here,
with that salvation, even when the changes of season or place
bring me into the midst of a trial. I'm going to be content. because
I'm going to be content with Christ, not the things of this
life. Verse 19. Many are the afflictions of the
righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all. Now I'll
make a shocking statement here. Contentment is not found by not
having trials. It's not. Contentment is not
found by just never having troubles or never having heartaches and
a broken heart. That's not where contentment
is found. Because it's not possible. It's not possible. It's not possible
for anybody in this world, but especially for the believer.
Our Lord promised those things to us. So contentment cannot
be found by avoiding trial and heartache and trouble. It can't
be found there. Contentment is found in the Lord delivering
us out of our trials and out of our heartaches, out of our
sufferings. Contentment is found and the Lord keeping us, and
the Lord preserving us, and the Lord delivering us. Contentment
is found in relying on the Lord. He will deliver me. I don't know
when, but He will. And I'm content to trust His
strength, to trust His wisdom, and to trust His goodness. That's
where contentment is found, is when the Lord delivers us. Now
the religion of this world that you ought not let be on your
tongue says, God's gonna make you happy, He's going to make
you wealthy. He's going to make you healthy. He's going to make
you full of the things of this world. Well, that's just a lie. It's a lie. Do you know it's
actually good for us? It's good for us to be in great
need spiritually. David says it's good for me.
I think it's good. It's good. It's good for us to be in fleshly
need because that's the only way we'll ever experience the
Lord to live. It's the only way we'll ever
experience the Lord providing for us. And that's where contentment
is found. You see, the Lord doesn't send
trials to his people so they'll perish, so he makes them feel
bad. That's not why he sends trials to his people. The Lord
sends trials to his people so he can deliver them and he can
get the glory in doing it. I can be content in it. If I
trust the Lord, that'll give me contentment. And here's how
that deliverance, that salvation is accomplished. It's through
the sacrifice of Christ our Passover, verse 20. He keepeth all his
bones, not one of them is broken. Now, obviously this refers to
the Passover lamb. The instructions of the Passover
lamb where they couldn't break a bone of it because that lamb
is a picture of Christ our Passover. When that Roman soldier came
to break the legs of those three men who were crucified, he didn't
break the legs of the Lord because he was already dead. But he didn't
do that just because he's a good guy. No, he didn't break the
legs of the Lord to fulfill the prophecy of the Savior. The bone
of him would be broken. But to show his meanness, you
know what he did? He took his spear and he thrust it through
the side of the Savior. And out came blood and water.
And He did that to fulfill the picture, the prophecy of the
Savior. That gave us a picture of complete salvation in the
Lord Jesus Christ. There's blood to atone for sin,
blood to blot the sin of His people out, blood to pay the
sin debt of His people, and water to make us holy. There's complete
salvation in Christ. And since salvation in Christ
is complete, not one of His people will ever perish. Now you just
don't have to worry about a trial making you perish and separating
you from Christ. You don't have to worry about
that. Because not a bone of His spiritual body shall be broken.
Not a bone of His will be taken away from Christ. If you're in
Christ, your soul is eternally secure, no matter how many storms
and trials and difficulties you go through. If your salvation
is Christ, you're secure. Nothing can take you away from
Him. And that will give contentment as we go through this life. All
right. I told you, I got words to live
by and words to die by. We've seen where life is found
in Christ, haven't we? Seen some words to live by. Now here's
some words to die by. Here's how we can die in peace.
Verse 21, evil shall slay the wicked and they that hate the
righteous shall be desolate. That word desolate is guilty.
The evil is going to slay the wicked. The sin of the wicked
will be exactly what slays them. They're going to be judged and
they're going to be damned because of their sin. They went through
the days of their life hating Christ our righteousness. They
hated righteousness in Christ. They hated salvation by grace.
So they're going to be found guilty. They're guilty because
they don't have the only righteousness that God will accept. Not only
do they not have that righteousness, they hate it. They're guilty. You can't die in peace knowing
you're guilty. You can't go before the judge of all the earth knowing
you're guilty and have any peace about it. Can't be done. So here's
how to die in peace. To die in peace is to die trusting
Christ. Verse 22. The Lord redeemeth
the soul of his servants and none of them that trust in him
shall be guilty. No one who trusts Christ is ever
going to be found guilty. ever before the all seeing eye
of God, God's going to say they're righteous because Christ made
them righteous. Well, what about all their sin?
All they ever did is sin. That's true. All they ever did
is sin. But Christ took the sin away from it. He saved their
soul. He took their sin away from them.
He took it into his own body on the tree. He was made sin
for them so they could be made the righteousness of God in him
as sacrifice. washed it all away, blotted it
out. Christ has redeemed the soul
of his people from sin. He paid the death the law demanded.
So they're redeemed. So now, now there's no condemnation
to them, but you're in Christ Jesus. That's the way you go
before the God of all, the judge of all the earth in peace. That's
the way you lay down and die in peace. Christ made me not
guilty. He's redeemed my soul. My body's
going to go to the grave, go back to the dust, but not my
soul. No, He's redeemed it. He's going to take that to be
with Him forever. You see, a gospel that doesn't tell you how to
die in peace is no gospel at all. A message that just tells
you how to live in this world and how to get more stuff in
this world, how to be happier in this world, that's just an
absurd message. Because no matter what you do,
you're going to leave it all to somebody else to deal with,
and you're going to go meet the Lord. Well, the way to do that
in peace is to die trusting Christ. And you'll die in peace because
your soul has been redeemed. So if I trust Christ, I'll be
content. I'll be content to live here
as long as the Lord's pleased to leave me here. And if I trust
Christ, I'm content in Him, then I'll be happy whenever He says
to leave this world and go be with the Lord with absolutely
no fear. No fear of judgment, no fear
of condemnation, because Christ is made not guilty. If I'm innocent,
I can go before the judge in peace, can't I? I'm innocent.
Those are words to live by. They're words to die by. See
a common thread through there? It's all Christ in there. It's
all Him. It's all trusting Him. It's all being found in Him.
It's all having union with Him. May the Lord be pleased. Apply these words to our hearts.
Follow these words to live by, live in contentment, and to die
like those who died in the faith. Die looking to the Lord Jesus
Christ who will die in peace. All right, let's bow together
in prayer. Our God, how we thank you for
your word. How we thank you for the plain,
simple teaching of your word. That all of life, all of contentment,
all of peace, everything we need is found in the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, you said, cry to you.
Now we're crying. We cry for mercy. We cry for
your grace. We cry, Father, for you to come
do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Father, come give
life to the dead. Come and hold up your sheep.
Hold us close to your bosom. Let us feel your strength and
your power. Let us be comforted and edified
by looking to Christ, by enjoying that sense of his love and his
presence. Father, be with us. Cause us
to not only see Christ, but to run to him, to seek him, to pursue
him, and to rest in him. It is in his precious name we
pray and give thanks.