Well, we come then back to Psalm
119 and to the section that is headed, oh no, where have I gone?
I've gone the wrong page. Verse 89, Lamed, which is a letter
of the Hebrew alphabet. You might wonder why it is that
there is so little true belief of the truth of God. Why is unbelief
so widespread? And people are intellectually
proud in their unbelief. Well, if any of you have read
my book or remember back to the first message I think I preached
on the book of Revelation six or seven years ago, I recount
our experience, Christine and mine, in going to Switzerland.
And we arrived in the village of Villars, about four and a
half thousand feet above sea level, and it was thick cloud. thick mist, and you couldn't
see a hand in front of you. Well, you could, a hand in front
of you, that's exaggerating a bit, but you couldn't, you literally
couldn't see the trees across the street from our hotel room,
and so it remained for two days, and then the next morning, the
third morning, we woke up and opened the curtains on the balcony
and there was the most magnificent, glorious view of snow-capped
alpine mountains and deep valleys and Lake Geneva in the distance. It was absolutely glorious. Was
it not there when we arrived? Of course it was. The reality
of it was there, we just couldn't see it. And you know, it's a
good illustration of unbelief in the human heart. A fog of
unbelief hides the glories of God from the natural man in his
natural state. It just hides it. It's there.
The reality of God and his glory and his word and his plan of
salvation and his accomplishment of salvation, it's all there.
The realities of Christ are all there to be seen, but a fog of
unbelief shrouds the minds The God of this world, Satan, has
blinded the minds of those who don't believe. He's God's devil,
by the way, don't forget that. But you see, Jesus told the hearers
in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 5, to seek and
they shall find. Those who seek shall find. You say, there's a fog of unbelief
clouding my mind. Ask God, because he said, ask
and you shall receive. Well, I can't see a thing. Ask
God to show you and you shall receive the sight to see it.
Trust in this world of turmoil and of sorrow, this veil of tears,
trust and you will find comfort. Comfort. Comfort in the things
of God. Follow after Jesus, running the
race that is set before us. Follow after Jesus in his footsteps
and you shall arrive in heavenly bliss. This life is not all that
there is. You shall arrive in heavenly
bliss. You know, the truth of God is
there, but it's shrouded by a fog of unbelief in mankind in general,
and those around us. They just cannot see the reality
that is there. Now, in Psalm 119, it's the Psalm
of David, and David is an old man, and he's writing verses
of poetry. And he writes one verse for every
letter, 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. And each one of them
has been split up in our Bibles into eight verses. So there are
22 eight-verse sections, one for each letter of the Hebrew
alphabet. And it's based on a life of experiencing the knowledge
of God as a sinner in a sinful world. David was a sinner. You
know, he was. There's no hiding it, you know,
don't for one minute. Do you know, I think the majority
of such as reformed Baptist churches in our day, if a man like David
came to them, they wouldn't let him be a member of their congregation.
Because although he knew the grace of God and the gospel of
God, they would judge him, and they wouldn't let him be a member
of their congregation. True, you know. David summarized
his life like this. In 2 Samuel chapter 23 and verse
5, he said, my family's a complete mess. My family, and it was a
complete mess. And do you know why it was a
complete mess? Because of his sin. His sin had brought great
trouble upon him. Even his own son Absalom rose
up to take the kingdom from him and to kill his own father. that
God prevailed. But he says this, my family's
a complete mess, but, and I'm paraphrasing that, God hath made
with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure,
for this is all my salvation and all my desire. This is the
testimony of David, the old man we think he is when he wrote
these verses. God's made with him an everlasting covenant,
that's the covenant of grace, the covenant of saving grace,
When God, who purposed from before the beginning of time to save
a people for His own glory, to populate His kingdom, His glorious
kingdom, with sinners redeemed from their sins by the blood
of His Son, that covenant was revealed to David and he wrote
about it. The sweet psalmist of Israel,
this is all my salvation and all my desire. Haven't you got
great things in your kingdom, David? They're just incidentals. His
desire is the kingdom of God, His salvation, His presence in
God's kingdom. Through all the turmoil of His
life, there were great heights, there were great depths. There
was joy, there was sorrow, there was triumph, there was despair. God had been unchanging, utterly
stable, utterly reliable in his unconditional promises concerning
his kingdom. No change, absolutely utterly
reliable. This stanza, these verses 89
to 96, revels in the delights of knowing God and his revealed
plan. That's what it says, unless thy
law had been my delights. David revels, the law of God,
his delights. He's not talking about the Ten
Commandments, though it encompasses the Ten Commandments, the expression
of the righteousness of God, but it's the gospel law that
we've just been singing about in Gadsby's hymn, the gospel
law. That's what it is, the gospel
law that shines in the face of Jesus Christ. What does it say? The gospel's the law of the Lamb.
My soul of its glory shall sing. With pleasure my tongue shall
proclaim the law of my Saviour and King. It's a glorious law.
It's a law of liberty that frees us from the yoke of Moses, as
he says. By Jesus from Moses are freed. The law of Moses, which was to
show what we are and how short we fall from the glories of God. Now, this is The experience of
David as all these psalms are, I mean not all the psalms are
of David, the one that Peter read to us earlier, Psalm 90,
is a psalm of Moses, a prayer of Moses, a song of Moses, but
most of them are by David. And they're his personal experience
in his life. God gave him that experience
so that he might write these scriptures inspired by the Holy
Spirit and thereby speak of Christ, because they're also, of course,
prophetical of the experience of Jesus. Jesus, the God-man. God become flesh, God incarnate,
as one made, as Hebrews 2 tells us, one made for a little while
lower than the angels. Only for a little while of this
earthly life was he made lower than the angels. Why? For the
suffering of death. Why? Because God can't die for
his people. But Jesus could die, so God became
man, that he might die, the substitute for his people, and pay their
debt to the law of God. But it's also, all of these,
David's experience, the prophetical of Christ, the experience of
Christ as the man, but also his people in him. Because the people
of God, the people he saved, are betrothed to Christ from
before the beginning of time. He is the husband. His people,
His church is the bride. And we are heading, we're betrothed
to Him. We're heading, if you're a believer,
we're heading for that marriage supper of the Lamb in eternal
glory. That endless, blissful marriage
supper of the Lamb. God with His people and His people
with their God, in intimate, unending, unbroken, uninterrupted,
communion, no barrier between, no barrier of sin to separate,
for you know, as the scripture says, your sins have separated
between you and your God, but there, there will be no sin to
separate or put up a barrier. So it's for the comfort and instruction
of all of his believing people as we walk through life on the
narrow way to eternal glory. But what is it that is the basis
of David's delight? What is it of the law and the
precepts of God that has been his delight? And I've got a number
of points here, and the first one is God's eternal existence. You know the thing that most
people around you don't believe in? God's eternal existence. You talk to the great high priest
of the natural world on the BBC's programme, Sir David Attenborough,
and no doubt he's a very nice man, but when it comes to understanding
why things are the way they are, he has no knowledge. he has no
knowledge, because in his arrogance and his pride, he will not seek
the Lord, he will not ask in order to receive, he will not
do anything other than disbelieve God. But God's eternal existence
is what gave David great comfort. Forever, O Lord, verse 89. In actual fact, the original
doesn't say forever, O Lord, it says forever you are, O Lord. You are forever, O Lord. Can
you get your mind round that? You know, we're limited. Peter
read in Psalm 90 that 70 years is the span of the life of a
man, and if by strength we make it to 80, well, they're not very
pleasant years, aren't the extra ones you get. They're full of
trouble, they're full of strains and problems and health and the
body breaking down. But God is eternal. God is eternal. The height of human intellect,
the cleverest of people, the Albert Einsteins of this world,
cannot discern it by human intellect. No. Not to the wise does God
reveal himself. Just look over at 1 Corinthians
1. Remind yourself of these things.
You wonder why people don't believe. In 1 Corinthians 1 and verse
19, God says through Paul, it is written, I will destroy the
wisdom of the wise, the worldly wisdom, the human wisdom of those
who reckon themselves to be wise, and I will bring to nothing the
understanding of the prudent, those who think they're prudent
in human intellect. Where is the wise? Where is the
scribe? Where is the disputer, the debater
of this world? Hath not God made foolish the
wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom
of God, the world by its wisdom knew not God. It pleased God
by what the world regards as foolish, the foolishness of preaching,
to save them that believe. It pleased God to save them that
believe. He brings his people to belief
of the truth. The Jews require a sign, the
Greeks seek after wisdom, but the answer is we preach Christ
crucified. The power of God and the wisdom
of God. That's where the wisdom of God
is, in the law of the gospel of grace. Not in the earthquake,
not in the wind. And there was a couple of other
verses I should have read. You see your calling, verse 26, you
see your calling brethren, how that not many wise men after
the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God
has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty. I don't know the state of salvation
of Queen Victoria, who lived in the 1800s of course, but she
said, reputedly, she said on verse 26, she said, I am so grateful
for the letter M, because it doesn't say not any mighty, not
any wise, not any noble are called, but not many. And she counted
herself amongst the few that were called. No, the word of
God, the word of God, the wisdom of God, is revealed to his people. It isn't in the, you know, as
Elijah. Elijah was, you know, when he'd
done great things for God, and he ran away. You know, he'd done
mighty things for God. And Jezebel said, by this time
tomorrow you're going to be dead. So he runs for his life. He runs
for his life, and there's 40 days in the wilderness, and he
finds himself in a cave, and there's a great earthquake. And
then there's a howling wind, and then there's a fire, tremendous,
tremendous things that would frighten you to death. And it
says, but God was not in the earthquake, the wind, or the
fire. Where was God? In the still, small voice. The
still small voice, that's the voice of God that reveals God
and His truth in the soul. As Peter read to us in Psalm
90 verses 1 and 2, to reveal this, Moses knew this, the true
people of God know this, Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place
in all generations, before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world. Even from
everlasting to everlasting Thou art God. That there is the eternal
God, the eternal God, what a delight to the soul of the believer.
coming to an awareness that God is not distant from each one
of us. As Paul preached in Athens in
Acts 17, 28, speaking of the unknown God whom he was declaring
to them, he said, in Him, in this God, we live and move and
have our being. He is not far from each one of
us, is what he said. Do you know, this infinite, eternal
God, who is our Creator, is not far from each one of us. In Him
we live and move and have our being. Oh, He's a distant, unknowable
deity. Isaiah 54 verse 5, thy maker,
He's your Creator, is not a distant, unknowable deity, but thy maker
is thine husband. thine husband, and if you read,
where is it? Is it in Hosea? Ishi, and I can't
remember, it begins with B, but one is the harsh husband of legal
strictness, and Ishi is the loving, tender husband. Thy maker is
thy Ishi, the tender-hearted husband. This God who is infinite,
this God who dwells in unapproachable light, nevertheless is not far
from each one of us. And if you believe him, and you're
a member of his church, and you only know you're a member of
his church by belief of the truth, he is your husband. He is your
loving, caring husband. What can we say of him? What
Psalm 102, 27 says, we change all the time, don't we? But God,
thou art the same. Thy years shall have no end. The years have gone, he's infinite,
he's endless, he's eternal. Psalm 100 in 1957, and this vast,
infinite, Almighty God, it says, thou art
my portion. This God is the possession of
his people, for God has so decreed it, that his people shall be
his people, and he shall be their God. Thou art my portion. Do you see what a great God is
the God of the universe, the God of salvation? Romans 8, 31,
if God before us, Who can be against us? If God
before us, who can be against us? If God is on your side, and
He is if He's taking you to eternal glory, who? I don't care how
powerful or threatening or frightening they are, who can be against
us? Spurgeon put it like this, that
in this life, If you're a child of God, if you're a member of
His kingdom, if you're a member of His church, if you have the
faith of Jesus Christ, the faith of God's elect, you might lose
your goods in this life, but you can't lose your God. You
might lose your land, but you can't lose your Lord. Your savings
might evaporate or be destroyed by inflation, looks quite likely
doesn't it at the moment, but you can't lose your salvation.
This is a delight. What a delight. Unless thy law
had been my delights, I should have perished in mine affliction.
A delight. What a delight to rest in this
confidence. You know, many will say to you,
unbelievers, they'll say, it's not a delight, it's a delusion.
But if they're right, and I say that with an incredibly big if,
because I know that they're not, but let's say they're right.
I'm no worse off than they are when it comes to the end, am
I? I'm no worse off at all, and I'm greatly comforted in this
life, but if they are wrong, and I know they are, I am infinitely
better off in knowing the living God, knowing the eternal God,
whose law is my delight, Then, secondly, here's my second point,
his settled word, verse 89, thy word is settled in heaven. Thy word is settled in heaven. What does he mean by his word?
Oh, you say the Bible. Well, just hold on just a second,
because I think it's somewhat broader than that. I believe
the word spoken of here that is settled in heaven is better
described as Revelation chapter 5 and verse 1. In Revelation
chapter 5 and verse 1, in the vision of heaven that was given
to John the apostle, I saw in the right hand of him that sat
on the throne, in the right hand of God, on the right hand of
him, a book. A book. written within and on
the backside, sealed with seven seals. There's a book there,
a seven-sealed book, a seven-sealed scroll on the hand of God. I
believe that our Bible, our Bible is described in Revelation 10
as the little book. He had in his hand a little book,
verse 2. And this is the book that's to be preached in the
age in which we live. Go and prophesy, you must prophesy. But I think the book he's talking
about, Thy Word is Settled in Heaven, I think he's talking
about this seven seal scroll, which is God's plan of redeeming
grace. The Bible is the revelation to
God's people of the salvation which God has purposed to accomplish
in Christ and which He has accomplished in Christ. It is the covenant
of which David testified in 2 Samuel chapter 23, ordered in all things
and sure, this is my salvation. And this is settled in heaven,
he says. It is settled in heaven. It is
not settled on the earth. It is settled in heaven. Settled
in heaven. It's not settled in the highest
institutions of man. You know, think about the top
universities, that's not where the Word of God is settled. No, it's settled in heaven. It's
not subject to the changing whims of sinful man, it's settled in
eternity. Verse 90, thy faithfulness is
unto all generations. God is faithful. God is unchanging. God is a rock. God is a solid
anchor. We read of Him, we read of the
Lord Jesus Christ, God, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is unchanging. His Word is
settled in heaven. The eternal purposes of God are
not subject to any change. There is no event that can upset
the plan of God. You know, as the young reporter
asked Harold Macmillan, what can upset your plans for your
government of this country? And Macmillan replied, events,
dear boy, events. There are no events that can
upset the plans of God. in His determination to implement
this seven-sealed scroll. His word is settled in heaven. He will work it out. He will
accomplish its purpose. Because He has decreed it, it
cannot fail. God is faithful. God is unchanging. God is a rock. God is a solid
anchor. His word, his eternal purposes
are settled in heaven. And what does David say? That
purpose of God is the law that he's speaking of, the gospel
law, the law of salvation, the law that reveals the Lord Jesus
Christ as the savior of his people. That is settled in heaven, and
it is unchanging. Therefore, What a delight it
is to the believing soul. What a delight. You know, the
things of this world, you know, we hope that next week the weather
will be fine, but it might not be, and we've no control over
it. But this, it is settled in heaven. It is the Word of God.
And then, here's my third point, God's work of creation. God's
work of creation. Thou, verse 90, second half,
Thou hast established the earth and it abideth. It abides. as the seen. Why is it? Why is this creation here? What
was it created for? We read in Colossians chapter
1 and is it about verse 18, something like that, that all things were
created by the Lord Jesus Christ and for the Lord Jesus Christ. This creation is the seen. You know, like an artist's canvas
is where he paints his picture. And this creation is the canvas
on which God paints his picture of redeeming grace, on which
he implements his eternal plan of saving grace. In verse 91,
they continue this day according to thine ordinances. They? What's
they? God's word, thy word is settled
in heaven, thou hast established the earth. The word and his creation,
they continue for one reason. They continue according to thine
ordinances. What are the ordinances of God?
The will of God. What is the will of God? The
Lord Jesus Christ told us. This is the will of Him that
sent me, that of all that He has given me, all of the people
that He has given me, the innumerable multitude out of mankind that
He has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it
up at the last day. That's why they continue, for
the fulfilment of God's plan. This world continues for the
fulfilment. You read that seven-sealed scroll
as the seals are loosed, and it's all to do with things implemented
in this creation. They are His servants. all are
thy servants." End of verse 91. They, his plan and his creation
on which he implements his plan, are his servants to implement,
to accomplish his eternal purposes of grace in saving his people
from their sins. And these things are experienced
by his people. they're experienced by His people,
they're borne out by the experience of those who believe the Gospel
grace. Verse 92, unless thy law, these things, the eternal purposes
of salvation of God, the creation on which He's implementing those
purposes, unless thy law had been my delights, I should have
then perished. Without God's revealed plan,
His people, those whom he has loved with an everlasting love
from before the beginning of time, they would have perished. I would have perished in mine
affliction, would have perished along with the rest, in the afflictions
of this life, and then in the judgment. But the law of God,
says David, has been my delight, and therefore I don't perish
along with the rest. I don't perish in mine affliction.
I have affliction, but I don't perish in it like the rest. The
testimony of God's saints. When I say saints, I don't mean
saints so-and-so and saints somebody else. I mean believers. Saint
is a set-apart one for the purposes of God. Believers, they're saints. You know, the epistles are to
the saints of God. It doesn't mean they're to a
little band so named by the Catholic Church. It means those who believe
the gospel of grace. The testimony of God's saints
is this. This is the testimony of God's
saints. Psalm 34, verse 19. Many are the afflictions of the
righteous, those whom God has saved, but the Lord delivereth
him out of them all. Many afflictions. Even if it's
to deliver you into eternal glory, The Lord delivereth him out of
them all. God hears prayer, and he rewards
the faith of his people. Hebrews 11 verse 6, He that cometh
to God must believe that he, God, is that he is, and that
he, God, is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. He
does. He rewards those who diligently
seek Him. He rewards with eternal life.
He rewards with truth. He rewards with gospel grace.
And the longer we go on in the path of faith, looking unto Jesus,
the more we prove the truth of this. You know, the older you
get, sometimes somebody might say to me, wouldn't you just
love to live it all over again? No, I wouldn't. God's taken me
on a certain path, and that's the path I'm content to lead
this life, having lived. You know, I don't want more and
more of it, forever and ever. Three score years and ten, plus
a bit through strength, as long as he allows. But you see, it's
on that path of life, on that path of faith, looking unto Jesus,
that we prove the truth of this. You know it's in the face of
Jesus Christ that we see and experience the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God. People say, I can't see, their
minds are clouded by a mist of unbelief. But the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God is seen in the face of Jesus
Christ, and it's seen by faith. And that, not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God. It is seen by that gift that
God gives to his people. When He speaks of Thy Word, and
when He speaks of the creation, Thy Word is Christ. It's all apprehended and experienced
in Christ, and in knowing Christ. God is not some mystery apart
from Christ. We only know God in Christ. He
is the manifestation of the hidden God to our souls. No man has
seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is
in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. He has made
Him known. Thy Word is Christ. Look at Revelation. That's the name that's given
to him. This is his name, the Word of God. The earth, the creation,
was established by him. When he had made the worlds,
this brightness of the Father's glory, this express image of
his person, he established the worlds. All things were made
by him and for him. We see it all in the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is how we apprehend it.
This is how we apprehend the eternal riches that we enjoy
of God. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And verse 92, again, I keep coming back to it because this is our
subject. This is the delight of the believer. Unless thy law
had been my delight, I should have perished in mine affliction.
What a blessing it is to know these things, independent of
the things that happen in life. You know, everybody's experience,
their happiness and their sorrow, is totally determined by the
hap of life, the things that happen, the events that happen,
but not for the child of God. Think of Bunyan, John Bunyan,
12 years in Bedford jail. Something evil happened to him
and he was put in jail unjustly for 12 years. But it didn't remove
from him the delights that he had in the gospel law of God. The exile on the island of Patmos
for the old Apostle John. And it didn't remove from him
that blissful experience of being given the revelation of Jesus
Christ. And you can read the history, read in Foxe's Martyrs,
the martyrdom for many saints in the 1500s and other times,
how much what they saw of the eternal truth of God went far
beyond what the physical hap of life was doing to them. The
reality of God, His Word, His creation, the purpose of grace,
it all shines like fixed stars. Imagine there's a sailor out
on a very stormy sea, long way from land, and it's a clear night
but the wind is howling a great gale and the stars are there.
Those stars are fixed, they don't move. And he's tossed around
in his little boat in every direction by the waves. But this is what
it's like. Life is like the storm and the
boat in the storm, but the The law of God, the gospel grace
law of God is like the fixed stars on the clear night sky. It gives comfort, gives assurance,
gives delight to the soul. You see, your family, your career,
your finances, your health may all come into turmoil, may all
pass through storms. Your flesh might feel the pain
of it all. But if God has shown you the
delights of His law, if He's shown you His gospel grace, if
He's shown you His accomplished salvation in the doing and dying
of the Lord Jesus Christ, if He's shown you your sin debt
paid by the blood that He shed on the cross of Calvary, the
precious blood of the Lamb of God, If He's shown you your conscience
cleansed from its debt, from its sin, from that for which
it must give an account, cleansed from it, your righteousness,
if He's shown you this, your righteousness is written in heaven,
not in the things that you do or don't do. No happening of
life will overwhelm you. As I said earlier, if God before
us, who can be against us? There was the account in 2 Kings
chapter 6 of Elisha and his servant in a perilous situation, surrounded
by the Assyrian army, about to be overwhelmed and destroyed.
And the servant is full of fear. And Elisha prays, O Lord, show
him that those who are with us are more than those who are against
us. And he opens his eyes of faith and shows him the angels
of God surrounding the Assyrian army. And there they are, of
course, they escape. and the Assyrian army is destroyed.
There's a tale told, Spurgeon told this because he was a good
friend of Mr. Onken, or he knew Mr. Onken,
and he went, he was in Germany preaching the gospel in the first
half of the 1800s, and he went to Hamburg, and the Burgermeister
of Hamburg said to him about his gospel, the Burgomaster said,
I'm so powerful, he said, you know, like Pilate said to Christ,
you know, don't you realize I've got the power to let you free
and to destroy you? And Jesus said, you've got no
power against me whatsoever other than that which was given you
from heaven. The Burgomaster of Hamburg said, I'll crush you
with my little finger. And Mr Onken said, ah, but your
little finger is up against the mighty arm of God. And it is
reported that sometime later, there in the Baptist congregation
in Hamburg, under the preaching of Mr Onken, was the Burgermeister
of Hamburg listening to him, because the mighty arm of God
had prevailed over that little puny finger of that man. Then
we've got the indelible imprint of regeneration. Verse 93, I
will never forget thy precepts, for with them thou hast quickened
me. You know, when God saves a person, he puts an indelible
print in your soul, an indelible stamp. It cannot be erased. It
cannot be erased. Oh, you might lose it if it's
something that you thought was a good idea, but if God has saved
you, you cannot lose it. Salvation is of the Lord, said
Jonah. In the belly of the whale, Jonah's
testimony was, salvation is of the Lord. If it's the Lord's
work, it's never in vain. For the Lord never does any work
in vain. Philippians 1 verse 6, Paul writes
to the Philippians, being confident of this very thing, that he which
hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ. If God has started that work
in you, as a believer, he will finish it, he will take you to
glory. Look at Ezekiel chapter 36, look this is what he does
for his people. Verse 25, then will I sprinkle
clean water upon you and you shall be clean from all your
filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. It's
the work of God to do this. A new heart also will I give
you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away
the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of
flesh. Oh, you say, oh, that person is so hard-hearted, he'll
never believe the gospel. I'm telling you, if God works
on him, he will, because he'll remove that stony heart and give
a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within
you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep
my judgments and do them. These are the things that God
does. Can I be lost? Of course I can be lost if it's
up to me, but if it's the work of God that he began in me, he'll
complete it, he'll perform it, he will never lose me, he will
never leave me nor forsake me if I am his. I am thine, verse
94. If I am his, I am thine, save
me, for I have sought thy precepts. To know that we belong to God,
that I am his and he is mine. Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me. Thy rod and
thy staff, they comfort me. If God before us, who can be
against us? This eternal, almighty God. To
have begun here to seek God's precepts, Things that the angels
desire to look into, Peter tells us. The things of salvation are
things that the holy angels desire to look into. It will be the
eternal object of our fascination, the redemption of God, the subject
of eternal fascination. Oh, the delights of God's law,
of God's gospel precepts, they continue through life and death
and into eternity. So have you sought God's precepts? In verse 94, I have sought thy
precepts. Have you sought the precepts
of God? His commandment is exceeding
broad, it says at the end of verse 96. This gospel law of
God is exceeding broad. It's immense, it's vast. Who can fathom it? Who can get
to the bottom of it? The unbelieving wicked, In verse
95, the wicked have waited for me to destroy me, but I will
consider thy testimonies. The wicked, the unbelieving wicked,
because that's what it is to be wicked, is to be unbelieving.
They seek opportunities to conform you to their thinking. because
they're doing the will of their father, who is the devil, the
father of lies. They're seeking opportunities
to get you to pursue the pleasures of sin for a season. But you
know what we read about Moses in Hebrews 11, verses 24 to 26,
when he was come to years, when he grew up, he refused to be
called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He was brought up in Pharaoh's
palace. you know, the stepson of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing
rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy
the pleasures of sin for a season. The world wants to drag you into
conformity with it. He esteemed the reproach of Christ
because the world reproaches you for your faith in Christ.
But he esteemed the reproach of Christ, unpleasant as it is,
but he esteemed it greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt
which he had at his disposal. For he had respect unto the recompense
of the reward, the eternal life with which God had blessed him.
delights in knowing and walking with God. This is what David's
speaking about. Unless thy law had been my delights,
delights in knowing and walking with God, now on this earth,
and a heart set on the promise of eternal reward, which is eternal
possession of God, untainted by sin. Everything, everything
in this life is limited, however seemingly good, but the truth
of God revealed in Jesus Christ is without limit. Oh, that God
might grant to all who hear this the faith to see and to believe. Amen.