Let's open our Bibles again to
Psalm 11. The title of the message this evening is, If the Foundations
Be Destroyed. David wrote this psalm at a time
when his friends felt like David's life was in grave danger. They
were afraid that at any moment Saul would seek out David and
kill him and they wanted David to flee. At this time politically,
Israel had just gone down the tubes because The foundations
were destroyed. You know, in any government,
the foundations of integrity and morality are destroyed. The
foundation is going to crumble. The country goes downhill. And
they were afraid for David's life because of that. But David's
message to them and to us. Is that the Lord Jesus Christ
is his rep. Christ is the believer or the
every is the refuge for every believer. And he can't fail. He can't fail. So why would he
flee to the mountain? And David asked this hypothetical
question in verse three. If the foundations be destroyed,
what can the righteous do? And we know the foundation of
faith itself cannot fail. It could. What a disaster would
that be to the righteous? Thankfully, that could never
happen. The foundation of faith cannot fail. But I want us to
look at these verses and we'll come and see the believers refuge
and then we'll come back and spend a few minutes on this foundation
in verse three. But verse one, in the Lord could
I my trust. How say ye to my soul, flee as
a bird to your mountain. David's friends told him he should
flee to his mountain, a mountain David was familiar with. They
said, David, you need to get out of here, get this mountain
where you'll be safe for Saul can't find you. But David tells
them, why would I seek refuge in my mountain? I've already
got a refuge. Christ is my refuge. The Lord
is my refuge. Why do I need to go to a mountain?
I've already got a refuge better than a mountain. And the key
word here is my, my mountain. This is a picture of a refuge
that we've made. There's no safety in a refuge
that we've built by our works or by our intelligence. That
was the Lord's message warning to the self-righteous in Isaiah
28. He said, yeah, you think you built your refuge, but your
covenant with hell or your covenant with death shall beat us in old.
Your agreement with hell shall not stand. When the overflowing
scourge shall pass through, you should be trodden down by it.
So David tells his friends, I'm not going to trust in my works
because that's not going to build me any refuge. He said, I put
my trust in the Lord. And that's very wise. You know,
trusting in our works and a refuge that we've built by our ideas,
by our good works, by our intelligence is always going to be a bad hope
because of who we are. It's a bad hope because of who
we are. But trusting Christ, that's a good refuge, a sure
refuge because of who he is. And that's what David tells us
in the rest of the psalm. He says in verse two, for lo,
the wicked bend their bow. They make ready their arrow upon
the string, that they may privilege shoot at the upright in heart.
David's not denying their enemies. He's not saying I don't have
enemies. There is no denying. We have real enemies on this
earth. Wicked aim their arrows at God's elect. They lay in wait
to set traps for the righteous. Now they're there. But David
says we don't have to be overly concerned about them. And we
won't be overly concerned about them if we're trusting in the
Lord, if we're looking to him, if we're hiding in him. And then
David here gives us fourfold, a fourfold trust in the Lord.
First, David says, there's a God in heaven. So you trust him. Verse four, the Lord is in his
holy temple. That holy temple is heaven. It's
not a building on earth. Solomon hadn't built the temple
yet. God is in heaven. He's out of our sight. But we're
not out of His sight. He can see us. God's in heaven
where He hears all the prayers of His people. We don't need
to go to heaven and bring God down here to be with us. You
know, like we need to go get God, bring Him down here so He
can hear us or so He can help us. Our God's in the heavens. He sees. He hears. But more than
that, God's in the hearts of His people. That's what Paul
told us in 2 Corinthians 6. He said, you're the temple of
God. You who believe, you are the
temple of God. If so, be that the spirit dwells
in you. You're the temple of God. Eric read that in a study
tonight with Paul preaching there in Athens, told the people, he
said, God's nearby everyone. He's so near the believer, he's
in you. Then he hears, he hears your innermost groans. He hears
your cries. He dwells in His people to preserve
them and protect them. There's a God in heaven. You
can trust Him. And He's holy. David said He's
in His holy temple. Everything God does is holy. Then He'll never do anything
wrong to His people, will He? He'll not do wrong anywhere.
He's holy. You can trust Him. Second, David
says, trust in the Lord. Because He's the one who rules
and governs this world. Verse four, the Lord's in his
holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. Now the Lord's
on his throne. That's a doctrinal fact. Every
person in this room believes. But we need to be reminded, don't
we? The Lord's on his throne. When the wicked temporarily prosper,
the Lord has not abdicated his throne. He's on the throne. when the wicked temporarily prosper
and are able to get the rule over us. The Lord hadn't fallen
asleep at the wheel. He's on the throne. David told
the wicked another psalm. Our God's in the heavens. He
hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. God's on the throne. And we say God's on the throne.
We don't mean just that God's sitting there on the throne.
Jane and I started watching this show about Queen Victoria and
there she sits, you know, on her throne. I don't know what
good that does, but there she sits. When we say God's on the
throne, he's not sitting there still. He's ruling and reigning
and directing everything that happens in this creation. I mean,
everything. Everything is under his direct
control. It can only happen if he wills
it. If something happens, you can
just rest in this. God willed it. If he didn't will
it, it wouldn't happen because he's on the throne. Then isn't
it enough? It ought to be enough for us
to trust the king of kings. He's the king. Kings, governors,
rulers, presidents, our enemies, they're all under his control.
If he's the king of kings, he's the king of the other pipsqueaks
too. He rules. He rules. Then what do we have to fear?
What do we have to fear? You know, a little child, we
can learn so much from small children. A small child never
fears the will of a loving father. Never. We have a loving father. The believer knows, you know,
my girls were little. They trusted me. But there were
things I had no control over and they just assumed it was
going to be okay because daddy was here. But really, I didn't
have any control over it. Believer? Our father's in control. God
Almighty is our father. He's going to work all things
together for good to them that love him, to them who are called
according to his purpose. I don't have to understand why
the Lord's doing what he's doing in order to trust him, do I?
No, I just trust him because of who he is. He's my father.
I trust Him because He's too holy to do wrong. I trust Him
because He's too wise to make a mistake. I trust Him because
He's too loving to cause any harm to His children. Our God
is on the throne. And that throne that rules over
all is a throne of grace to His people. God's a throne of grace. Then let us come boldly to that
throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help.
God's on the throne. We can trust Him. And thirdly,
David says, trust in the Lord. He sees what's going on. There's
nothing hid from Him. At the end of verse 4, he said,
His eyes behold, His eyelids try the children of men. Now
this phrase about the eyelids means that the Lord sees everything. He sees through everything. It's
kind of like how we squint our eyelids so we can, you know,
see detail up closer, you know, we squint. You do that as you
get older, you start to squint. Well, the Lord with his eyelids,
he sees every detail of everything that's going on. Not only does
he see what's going on, he sees clear to the hearts of men. He
sees the motive behind it. The Lord knows what our enemies
are doing. He knows their motive behind it. He sees all those
things that are unseen to us. Germs and diseases that are hidden
in our body. He sees them. He sees those things
and he knows what to do with them. Because he's God. And his
eye is always open. His eye is always there to guide
and protect his people. Always. He doesn't even close
his eyes and sleep. He that keepeth thee will not
slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber
nor sleep. The Lord sees. He hasn't forgotten
his people now. Now when something what we call
bad happens, the Lord says, this is not something that's snuck
by, you know, his, you know, he missed it. He knows what's
going on. So you can rest in him to take
care of it. And fourthly, David says, trust
in the Lord. He loves his people and he hates
the wicked. Now can that once and for all
Put an end to this thing, God loves everybody. Who does God
love? God loves his people and he hates
the wicked. Well, then I know how this thing
is going to turn out. I know how it's going to turn
out for the righteous because the Lord loves them. I know how
this is going to turn out for the wicked because the Lord hates
them. Verse five. The Lord tried the righteous,
but the wicked and him that loveth violence, his soul hated. Upon
the wicked, he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and in horrible
tempest, this should be the portion of their cup. For the righteous
Lord loveth righteousness. His countenance doth behold the
upright." Now the Lord loves his people and how that ought
to bring comfort to our hearts. The Lord has always loved his
people with an unsearchable, eternal love. Then he's not going
to let anything happen that's harmful to his children, is he? You know, we parents, we love
our children and we're a mess. I mean, we're a mess. Think what a mess we are with
our girls. What's it going to be like when there's grandbabies?
We're a mess. And if we can help it, we never let them suffer
a bit with it. I mean, not a bit when we let
them suffer because we love them too much. But truth be told,
Our children need to suffer. They do. They need to suffer
discipline. That's the only way they're ever
going to learn how to act, what not to do if discipline causes
them to suffer. It's the only way. Children in
this life need to suffer some losses so they learn that they're
not invincible. We need to suffer some losses
to humble us a little bit, make us more tolerable to be around.
Children need to suffer the unfriendliness of this world. That was one of
the things that graded on me more than anything when our girls
were little. Summer was over. It's time to send them back to
school. I was just sick about it because they're going to suffer
the unfriendliness of this world. And it's awful. It's horrible.
You kids are going through that right now. I'm sorry. I really
am sorry. It's something you got to learn. And I'll tell you some good things
you can learn from that, from the unfriendliness of this world.
You can learn to seek to not be like them. Don't be like them. You can learn the unfriendliness
of the world, so you don't seek your pleasure from this world,
but rather you seek the Lord. From the unfriendliness of this
world, do you know what you can learn? You can learn how to be
a good friend. Don't be like them, be a good
friend. See, us parents, we're not in control of those things,
are we? And it's a good thing, because we keep our children
from suffering those things, but it's what they've got to
go through to learn. The exact same thing is true
of God's children. The difference is our Heavenly
Father is in control of everything. He can control. He can stop. He can direct. He does. And He
knows just exactly what His children need. I didn't know that. I don't
know it now. Our Heavenly Father does. He
tries His children for their good. Not to bring them harm,
but to bring them good. The Lord tries His children so
they'll learn to trust Him more. Oh, and that a blessing to learn
to trust him more. The Lord puts his children in
the fire of the furnace of trial to make us more valuable, just
like the refiner puts his gold in the fire to burn off the dross
and make the gold more valuable, more beautiful. That's what God
does with his children. He puts them in the furnace of
trial to burn off the dross, make them more beautiful, make
them more valuable so you can comfort others with the comfort
where with you yourself have been comforted. Now, the trial
is going to be painful. There's suffering involved in
this. But if I'm seeking refuge in Christ, if my confidence,
my hope, my salvation, my rest is in Christ, I shall not be
greatly moved. I won't be moved. The Lord will
never forsake the righteous. He's not going to forsake his
children. That would be the Lord forsaking what he loves. God
has made his people to be what he loves. He's made us the righteousness
of God in him. Then he's never going to forsake
them and he's never going to allow them to be lost. He loves
his people. Then their end is going to be
a good end, isn't it? But the Lord hates the wicked. The Lord
will not bring in this life or in the life to come, he will
not bring one good thing upon the wicked. Not one. You think, wait a minute, what
about all these blessings that the wicked have? They grow fat.
They even wrote a psalm about that. They're growing fat. They
don't have any problems like I do, you know. All those blessings
of this life will do is add condemnation to their head. That's right.
When they think they got one up on God's children, they mistreat
one of God's children. God's going to settle that score.
Our Lord said it were better for him that millstone were hanged
about his neck and he would drown in the depths of the sea. He'd
deal with me for mistreatment on my level. He's going to settle
that town. The Lord's going to rain unending
fires of judgment upon the wicked who refuse to bow to King Jesus.
He'll never look on them with any faith. David tells us that
not to try to scare people into repentance. He tells us that
to comfort the heart of the believer. Just don't spend too much time
and energy worrying about The Lord's going to take care of
it. The Lord is a sure refuge. Let's be wise like David and
run to him. Not some device we've made up, but run to Christ. He
will never fail to preserve or protect his people. That's a
good hope. Hope in Christ is a good hope
and the foundation of that hope will never fail. It'll never
be destroyed or never, never crumble, ever. But David asked,
when I first read this, I thought this is a hypothetical question.
I don't think it is. I don't think it's a hypothetical
question. He says in verse three, if the foundations be destroyed,
what can the righteous do? Now, we've already talked about
politically what happens to a country. Foundations are destroyed in
leadership. The country's in for a bad time.
We know the foundation of faith can never fail. It can never
be destroyed. If the foundation of faith were
destroyed, the whole building of faith would collapse, wouldn't
it? The Lord's never going to allow that to happen. If our
faith's in Christ, that cannot happen. But here's where this
is not a hypothetical situation. In our preaching and in our belief,
we've got to be careful to not let the foundations be destroyed
in our preaching, in the things that we believe. If we suddenly
start to water down the gospel for whatever reason, we've allowed
the foundation of our preaching to crumble and the foundation
of what the people believe will crumble. We could let the foundations
of our preaching be destroyed through the fear of men, just
like David's friends. They were afraid of men. Well,
if we become afraid of men and we water down our message, we
take the edge off of it. We've destroyed the foundation.
the very foundation of the gospel we've destroyed. We could destroy
the foundation through laziness, just flat laziness, flat laziness
on the preacher's part to seek God's word in his word, to seek
God's message for that hour, for that people, for this service. Laziness through lack of prayer,
lack of prayer for the Lord's blessing, lack of prayer for
the service, lack of prayer for the Lord's glory. They're just
through plain laziness. the foundations of our preaching
can be destroyed, the foundation of our public worship. We can
destroy the foundation through too high a view of self, thinking
that we finally arrived, we've learned so much that we can never
go backward. The moment we get there, we'll
destroy the foundation of our preaching, the foundation of
the public worship. If we take our focus off of Christ and start
talking about how we're going to live in this world, how to
get along better in this world, how to do this, how to do that,
we're going to destroy the foundation of our public worship service.
And if the foundations of the gospel crumble through our preaching,
you understand what I'm saying, the gospel is not going to crumble,
but the way we preach it, if that crumbles, what will the
righteous do? They can't establish any righteousness
on their own. They can't establish a refuge
on their own. If we allow the foundational truths of the gospel
to crumble in our preaching, the lost can't be saved. The
hungry can't be fed. The thirsty can't be refreshed.
The suffering saint can find no comfort. God's sheep won't
be fed. If the foundation of our preaching
crumbles, We've got a disaster on our hands, a disaster. What's the foundation? What is
the foundation of the gospel that we must preach and that
we must believe? Why don't you look at a couple
of scriptures. First, Isaiah 28. Isaiah 28,
verse 16. The foundation that we must preach
and that we must believe is the foundation that God laid for
his people. Isaiah 28, verse 16. Therefore, thus saith the
Lord God, behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a
dried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. He that believeth
shall not make haste. Now you know who that is. That
stone, that foundation is Christ. upon this stone, upon this rock,
will God build his church built upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Look
over first Corinthians chapter three. This is what Paul tells
us in first Corinthians chapter three. That the foundation is
Christ and that foundation is laid through preaching. First
Corinthians chapter three, verse 10. According to the grace of God
which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I've laid the
foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take
heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man
lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ
is the foundation. Now, if any man build upon this
foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, Every man's
work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it,
because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try
every man's work of what sort it is. Now Paul says the foundation
is Christ. The foundation that we must preach,
that we must believe is Christ. Not things about Christ. Christ
himself. And Paul said, I've laid that
foundation by preaching Christ to you. And if we would lay the
foundation here in Ashland, Kentucky, we must do it by preaching Christ. The foundation is Christ. And
we lay that by preaching that Christ is everything. When I
say preach Christ, I mean preach that Christ is everything. Christ
is our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption.
Christ is our justification and our sanctification. We need peace
with God. Christ is our peace. We need
a good hope. Christ is our hope. All of our
faith is in Christ. It's all in Him. Who He is. He's
the Son of God made man come to save sinners from their sin.
You reckon He's going to fail? No. Our faith is in who He is. He's the Son of God, the successful
Savior. It's in Him and what He did.
He put away the sin of His people. Why? Why did he do it? He did
it for the glory of his father. Where is he now? David already
told us he suffered and died, but he rose again. He's sitting
on the throne of glory doing whatsoever he has pleased, working
all things together for the salvation of his people. That's our faith.
We need forgiveness. Christ is our forgiveness and
we forgive one another because God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven
you. Christ is all to the believer. All. What is it that you need?
He's all. You are complete in Him. See,
Christ is the foundation, isn't He? Now, Paul says, you beware
how you build upon that foundation. Don't build the wood, hay, and
stubble of man's works on Christ. Now, that's just foolish. That's
mixing grace and works, and that building's going to fall. You
build upon Christ. You build gold, silver, and precious
stones on this foundation. What's that mean? It means build
on Christ with more Christ. Just keep preaching Christ. There's
nothing else we need. Nothing else. Now look over Hebrews
chapter 6. This will be the last scripture
we turn to. Hebrews chapter 6. The writer to the Hebrews gives
us six teachings or six doctrines about Christ, foundational truths
about Christ. This is the foundation of the
gospel, the foundation of our faith. And if we do not constantly,
clearly preach these truths, what we've done is we've let
the foundation of our preaching be destroyed. And if the foundation
of our preaching is destroyed, then faith is going to fail.
We're not going to give the people anything to believe. We're going
to fail to comfort God's sheep. We'll fail to save the lost.
We'll fail to give encouragement to God's people because the only
way we can do that is through preaching Christ. Look here at
Hebrews 6 verse 1. Therefore, leaving the principles
of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection. Now the
doctrine of Christ is simply this. It's the teaching of who
Christ is. Because of who he is, we know what he accomplished
for his people. And if we would preach Christ,
we must preach these six foundational truths. The righteous don't have
any hope without these six foundational truths. The first one is this,
repentance from dead works. Let us go on to perfection, not
laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works. Now,
repentance is a turning. It's a changing of mind. And
we must preach this. All men are lost in Adam. All
men, you and me, my babies, your babies, all men, people we love,
people we don't love, people we know, people we don't know,
you and me, all men are born dead in sins. We died in Adam. We became guilty in Adam. And
when we died in Adam, our spiritual understanding died too. It became
darkened because we're dead in sin. So everything we think about
God is wrong. Everything we naturally think
about how God saves sinners is wrong. Everything we think about
who God is and what he's like is wrong. It's just wrong. So
by nature, what we do is we worship idols. Now, we're spiritually
dead, but we're religious. So what's our religion? It can
only be what we made up in our own mind because we don't know
God. We're dead. So we worship an idol. The way
we've made up, we think a man could be saved. We're going to
preach the gospel. We've got to preach that. You've
got to start. Men are dead. We've got to understand
that we're dead in sin. We've got to tell people who
and what we are by nature or the foundation is going to crumble.
But when God saves a sinner, when we preach, and I'll tell
you the way we do, we just preach Christ. When we see Christ, if
God ever gives us a view of Christ, then we'll see, oh, I'm dead. Oh, I don't know anything. Oh,
I'm in darkness. We'll know that if we see Him. Just preach Christ.
That's how God reveals Himself. And when God saves a sinner,
that sinner's got to change of mind. Everything he used to think,
he knows that's wrong now. He's got to change of mind because
God gave him a new mind. in the new birth. And when we
see Christ, it's just natural. We will turn from our dead works
and turn to Christ. If we see him, we'll turn to
him. Well, what are dead works? Dead works are any works that
we do before or after conversion, any works we do trying to earn
God's favor. Those are dead works. Those works
will always lead to death. They'll never lead us to life.
But when we see Christ, We're going to quit trusting in anything
we do and we'll trust in Christ. That's turning from our dead
words to Christ. He already finished the work.
There's no more work for me to do. He already did everything
that God requires to accept me. I just rest in Him. But the only
way anybody will turn from their dead words is if we preach Christ. That's not going to happen by
preaching morality. It's by preaching Christ. All right, the second
foundational truth. We must preach this. We must
believe this. It's faith toward God. Look here
in verse one, not laying again the foundation of repentance
from dead works and of faith toward God. Now, salvation is
by faith. It's by faith in Christ, by believing
Him without any of our works added to Him. And saving faith
is a gift that God gives His people. You can't earn it. You
can't be so intelligent, you know, you finally learn it. It's
a gift that God gives his people. And how does God give the gift
of faith? There's just one way. It's through the preaching of
Christ. Faith, saving faith, is in Christ, who's the savior
of sinners. Who has faith in Christ? Sinners. That's who he came to save. Saving
faith is in Christ, who justifies the ungodliness. Who believes
Christ? The ungodly who need Him. Faith
lays hold on Christ who justifies the ungodly. That saving faith
is in Christ who makes His people righteous without them doing
a single thing. Who is it that has faith in Christ?
The unrighteous, those who need Him. They have faith in Christ
who makes His people righteous. He is their righteousness. Now
the only way anybody can have faith in Christ is if we faithfully
preach it. You can't believe somebody you
don't know. Somebody's got to preach Christ and tell us who
he is so we'll believe him. Alright, the third foundational
truth is the doctrine of baptisms. Verse 2 of the doctrine of baptisms. Now you notice the writer here
says baptisms plural. He's not talking about one, he's
talking about two baptisms in particular. The first one is
the baptism of being immersed into Christ. It's God putting
his people in Christ by divine election. God's people were put
into Christ so that he's our representative. And when we're
in Christ, we did what he did. That's what this is talking about.
This is the only way a sinner can be made righteous by being
in Christ. He kept the law. I did too, if
I may. It's the only way a sinner can
be dead to the law. It's by being in Christ when
he died for my sin. If I'm in Christ when he died,
I died too. That's the baptism of being immersed
into Christ. It's the gospel of representation. We looked at that a week or two
ago in Romans. The second baptism he's talking
about here is believer's baptism. And this is where the believer
confesses that Christ, we publicly confess Christ is our salvation. That I was in him. We confess
when we're baptized that when Christ died, I know He died for
a sin, the sin of a multitude no man can number. But when I'm
baptized, what I'm confessing is He died for my sin. I'm a
sinner. I need a Savior. The only hope
I have that my sin is forgiven is that He died for my sin. He
died, I died in Him. And He lay in the tomb. When
we baptize somebody, we put them completely under the water so
that not any part of them sticks up above the water. giving a
picture of Christ in the tomb. Christ really died. It wasn't
like he died. He really died to satisfy the
law's demand that I die for my sin. Baptism, I'm confessing,
I died in him. Not like I died in him. I died
in him. Justice is satisfied because
I died in Christ. And then when Christ arose from
the tomb, he arose, Because His sacrifice justified me. His sacrifice
put my sin away. And when Christ arose, I arose
in Him. I arose to eternal life, spiritual life. Believer's baptism
is a confession of salvation through union with Christ. Not
because of anything that I've done. It's all because of who
He is. But now, the only way anybody
will ever confess Christ is if we preach Christ. You can't confess
if you don't know. This is a foundational truth
we must preach. Four, this is a foundational
truth, the laying on of hands. He says that in verse two, and
of laying on of hands. Now, this is not giving someone
some spiritual blessing or gift by physically laying our hands
upon them. The apostles can do that in various
situations, but none of us are apostles. So we don't need to
worry about how that happened. I think the best commentary I've
ever heard on this from Brother Henry, he said, it won't do you
any good for me to lay my empty hands on your empty head. So
that's not what this is talking about. I'll tell you what it
is talking about, what this is teaching, the doctrine of imputation. That's exactly what it's teaching. Sin of God's elect was imputed,
transferred to Christ and his righteousness was transferred,
imputed to his people. The sin of God's elect became
his. It was imputed to him. And he put it away through his
sacrifice. And his righteousness was imputed
to his people. So that his righteousness actually
becomes our righteousness. That's what was pictured in the
day of atonement in the laying on of hands. The high priest
would lay his hands on the head of the scapegoat and he confessed
the sin of the people. And symbolically, the sin of
the people was transferred to that goat And the fit man took
that goat and let him out into the wilderness into a land not
inhabited and left that goat there. And that fit man came
back. Nobody ever saw that goat again, which was a picture of
exactly what happened to the sins of God's elect at Calvary.
The sins of God's elect were not symbolically transferred.
They were literally transferred, literally imputed to Christ. That's the only way they could
be taken away from us. And Christ our scapegoat bore
that sin. He put that sin away through
the sacrifice of Himself. He's the scapegoat and He's the
fit man. He took those sins to a land
not inhabited. He took those sins to a place
where they do not exist anymore because His blood blotted them
out. Now the only place you'll hear that truth of the gospel,
the truth of salvation, is through the preaching of Christ. And
we're not preaching the gospel. we don't preach this doctrine
of implication. You cannot preach the gospel
and not preach this foundational truth. All right. The fifth foundational truth
is the resurrection of the dead. The three resurrections given
in scripture and all of them show us Christ, the successful
savior. First, there's the bodily resurrection
of Christ. Why was he resurrected in bodily
form? It's the proof. It's the evidence.
His sacrifice justified his people. There's no more sin to keep him
dead. There's no more sin to keep him in the tomb. He put
it away. He arose because he's the victorious, successful savior. He saved his people from their
sin. Then there's a second resurrection when God gives life to the dead
in the new birth. Now we talk about a spiritual
resurrection. Don't think in the new birth
that the flesh has changed. that the flesh is somehow, you
know, reborn and given light and life and these things. No,
the flesh is unchanged. The new birth is God causing
a new man to be born. A holy, righteous man who's never
existed before. It's life given to the dead.
And then third resurrection is the resurrection of these bodies.
One day we're going to be resurrected from the grave. Unless the Lord
returns first, every one of us in here is going to die because
of sin. Sin in these bodies is going to kill this flesh, but
these bodies are going to be raised. And when they're raised,
we're going to be ourselves. We're going to see each other
and say, Bob, everything's right on schedule. We're going to know
each other, but they're going to be a great difference. We're
going to be raised in perfect bodies, glorified bodies. because
Christ is the successful Savior. We're going to be raised in a
body just like His glorious body and we'll spend eternity worshiping
Him with a perfect body and a perfect soul. See, that resurrection
of the dead all speaks of the successful Savior. You can't
preach the gospel without preaching that. There is no gospel unless
Christ is successful. And then the last foundational
truth is eternal judgment. Now, this is more than eternal
judgment for everybody who's in hell that refuses to believe
Christ. It means eternal judgment and eternal salvation. Both ways,
not starting with me, not starting when I believe, not starting
when I heard, not starting when I was born and going out, you
know, eternal both ways. God chose to save a people. He
chose those specific people before the foundation of the world.
He's always loved those people. God always saw those people and
loved those people because he eternally saw their sin punished
in Christ, the lamb slain from the foundation of the earth.
I'm not saved because Christ's death changed God's mind about
me. No, I'm saved because God sent his son to fulfill what
God eternally purposed. That's why Christ came. eternal
justification. Can't preach the gospel without
it. Now don't ever let these foundational truths be destroyed. In this place, in our minds,
in our hearts, through a watered down gospel. I know the foundation,
Christ. I know that foundation will never
fail. The foundation of God, stand
assured, having this seal, the Lord knoweth then that it is.
That foundation is not going to fail. But let's not let the
foundation of our preaching, our belief fail, be destroyed
through a watered down gospel. If that happens, Christ won't
get to glory. Sinners won't be saved. Saints
won't be comforted. Sheep won't be fed. I pray God
will be pleased to make us like that wise man we read about to
open the circles, to dig down deep. I mean, make this a matter
of urgency. Dig down deep. and build on Christ
the eternal rock so he won't be taken away from us. Let's
pray. Our Father, how we thank you
for this psalm of great comfort that believers have a sure, a
sure, safe, eternal refuge in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
how we thank you for him. How we thank you for a Savior
who puts away How we thank you, there are gods in the heavens.
He hath done whatsoever He pleased. He rules and reigns over all.
We rest in Him. Father, how we thank you. And
Father, we beg of you that you'd cause your gospel to be preached
in this place for many, many, many, many years. Don't take
your presence from us. Don't allow your gospel to be
taken from us. What will the righteous do? We
don't have a gospel to come, to be fed, to be comforted, to
find assurance. What will the sinner do if there's
no gospel to hear, declaring Christ the successful Savior?
Father, cause us to be faithful. Cause us to look always and only
to the Lord Jesus Christ. If we could but see him, our
faith, our preaching, our confidence will all be sure and certain
in him. It's in his precious name.