The 11th Psalm, Psalm of David,
is another psalm in which the great emphasis is on the faith
of the believer. David cries out in faith in the
opening words, in the Lord put I my trust. In the Lord put I
my trust. He sets forth where his hope,
his confidence, his trust, his faith is set. Man can do anything
to him and ultimately he will not be destroyed because he knows
that his Lord will watch over him. In the Lord put I my trust. But having opened with the words
of faith, he goes on to consider the opposition and the hatred
poured out upon the righteous and the fears that may be put
in the heart of the believer. There is as it were a conversation
here between faith and the fears that faith may encounter. But
faith in the end reigns. In verse one he says, in the
Lord put I my trust And then goes on to say, how say ye to
my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain. And then in fear as it were,
for lo, the wicked bend their bow. They make ready their arrow
upon the string that they may privily shoot at the upright
in heart. If the foundations be destroyed,
what can the righteous do? And then faith rises up again.
The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold. His eyelids
try the children of men. The Lord triumphed the righteous,
but the wicked in him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain
snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest. This shall
be the portion of their cup. For the righteous Lord loveth
righteousness. His countenance doth behold the
upright. In the Lord put I my trust. How say ye to my soul? flee as
a bird to your mountain. If the foundations be destroyed,
what can the righteous do? In the Lord put I my trust. How
say ye to myself, flee as a bird to your mountain. David here
is saying to those who would tell him to flee, Why should I? How can I? I trust in God. I trust in the
living God, in the Lord. Then why should I flee as a bird
to my mountain? Why should I flee from trouble? Why should I desert where the
Lord has placed me, wherever it may be? Whatever I may face,
whatever trouble and trial I may be in, I have the Lord for my
protector. So why do you say to myself,
flee as a bird to your mountain? And in so saying, he as it were
says to the old man, the flesh, the sin, the corruption within,
who would cause him to doubt his God. How say ye to my soul,
flee as a bird to your mountain? Because David, as with every
believer, knows the war between the flesh and the spirit. He
knows what it is to have faith in the new man, in that living
man within that looks out unto his God. He knows what it is
to have the spirit within rise up in faith and trust in God,
but he knows what it is to have the old man, the flesh, sin,
cause him to doubt and to fear. And sin as it were rises up in
all of our hearts and says, flee! You're not strong enough to stand,
the enemies will crush you. Where is your God when you need
him? Flee as a bird to your mountain.
And should faith give way to this doubt, and this mockery,
and this scorn, and the fears of the natural heart, then we
would flee. But the spirit is greater than
the flesh. And faith overcomes all fear. And David looks at this questioner. at this mocker, at this scorner,
he stares him in the eye and says, in the Lord put I my trust. I don't trust in man and I don't
trust in my own flesh or my own power or my own self. I don't
trust in myself and I don't trust in others. I trust in God. Then how say ye to myself, flee
as a bird to your mountain. Why should I flee when I have
God on my side? Why flee? Why flee from where
the Lord has placed us? Thus far hitherto the Lord has
helped us. The Lord has brought us to this
place. Why flee? However painful it
is, however great a trial you may face today believer, why
flee? Is not your faith, is not your
trust in the living God? The God that parted the waters
of the Red Sea and led Israel through dry shod. The God that
led Joshua and the people of Israel into the promised land.
The God that brought the walls of Jericho down flat and destroyed
all their enemies in their face. The God that raised his son Jesus
Christ from the dead when his enemies thought they had silenced
him forever. The God that delivered all his
people from their sin, from death, from corruption. The God that
causes great company of people chosen in Christ to be risen
from the dead. The God that gives everlasting
life. The God that sends forth the
power of his gospel to the four corners of this earth. The God
that shines light in the darkness. The God that says to a dead soul,
live and he lives. The God that by the Spirit of
God caused his soul to be born again. The God that in the beginning
when there was nothing spake and this world was brought into
being. The God that on the sixth day
created man. The God that can do wonders. If He is your God. If He is the one to whom you
look. If your faith and your trust
is in this God, then you have nothing, nothing to fear. No matter what may face you,
this day, tomorrow or in the years to come. no matter how
hard the trial. You may say you don't know my
circumstances. Perhaps your friends hate you
for your profession of Jesus Christ. Perhaps your family hates
you for the profession of Jesus Christ. Perhaps your own mother,
father, son, daughter, wife or husband hates you. Perhaps your
trial as a believer is daily and constant. Perhaps you live
in a country where to profess Christ's name and to be known
to profess Christ's name could bring you great persecution even
unto death. Perhaps you face great personal
tragedy of illness. Perhaps you suffer on a daily
basis in great pain with cancer or some such disease. And some
days you don't know where to put yourself because of the pain.
It's so hard to concentrate, so hard to think. Whatever the
trial And there are great trials. And I don't minimise the trial.
And I am not without sympathy for the trial, whatever the trial.
And there are terrible waters that some are brought to pass
through. And set terrible fires through which they must walk.
Whatever the trial. If God is your God. If Christ is your Saviour. if
he has opened your eyes and put faith in your heart then though
the outward man perisheth though you are coming to an end though
you have no strength though you face each day and think how am
I going to get through it if God is your God ultimately
faith will rise up as David's faith rose up And you will say,
I cannot trust man, I cannot trust myself, but in the Lord
put I my trust. And how say ye, you my enemies,
you my flesh, whoever, how say ye to my soul, flee as a bird,
to your mountain I shall not flee because I know that I must
be where my Lord is and if my Lord has brought me here this
is where he is and this is where I stand with the Lord in whom
I trust and if I flee from this trial I flee from him but I stand
in this trial because he stands with me in the Lord put I my
trust Why flee as a bird to your mountain? We have the Lord to keep us.
David would not flee. And Christ, of whom David is
a figure, and of whom David's words in this psalm are a reflection,
Christ would not flee. All men rejected the Saviour
when he walked upon this earth. when the light of God stood in
the midst of the darkness, when he came unto his own people and
his own people, the Jews rejected him, when all men, women, cried
out of him, away with him, crucify him, when they took him and nailed
him to the tree, when they spat upon him, when they scorned him,
when they derided him and mocked him. He said in his heart, In the
Lord put I my trust. How say ye to my soul? Flee as
a bird to your mountain. When they crucified him and lifted
him up and passed by and derided him, some said unto him, you
say you're the son of God. If you're the son of God, come
down. Call a legion of angels to deliver
you. Save yourself. They, as it were, said unto him,
Flee as a bird to your mountain, you've the power, go on. But he in faith said, In the
Lord put I my trust, how say ye to my soul? Flee as a bird
to your mountain. If I should take this cup and
pass from it, if I should leave this cross, if I should flee
this point, then I would not fulfil my Father's will. Then
I would not deliver my people from their sins. Then I would
not fulfil the covenant which I entered into with my Father
before all time. Then faith would come to nothing. then the foundations would be
destroyed. But I have come to save my people
from their sins. And though it brings the worst
of trial, though it brings death itself, Christ said, I will not
flee. I will not turn. His face was
set as a flint. towards Jerusalem. His whole
life had the cross in view and he journeyed towards that cross
and when upon that cross he would not come down for he trusted
in the Lord. David would not flee. Christ
could not flee. And believer, though your flesh
may cry out unto the Spirit, flee! Run away! You will not. In the end you
will not. At times you may. At times like
Jonah you may have the Lord say go this way and you know that
that way may be a way that your natural man does not want to
go and maybe you run away from it. Maybe you reason with yourself
and reason out and provide a reason why you should not. Maybe you
think you're doing God's service by going another way. even though
you know that God really has said go this way. Maybe you reason
out and you go in a certain path and trouble comes your way as
it did upon Jonah who was put upon that ship and in the ship
the storms came. And the men upon the ship thought
they'd perish. And Jonah realized why. He knew he was fleeing. He knew he turned from his God.
And he knew that this chastisement was upon him because of what
he had done. And he said, throw me overboard.
And they threw him overboard. And the men were saved. Oh, you may at times flee or
be tempted to flee. and you may feel the chastisement
of the Lord upon you and you may feel that things go wrong
because of it but ultimately the Lord will work out his purpose
and he'll bring you back, he didn't turn his back on Jonah
Jonah learnt a lesson but the Lord was with him still and the
Lord used him still and the Lord will lead his people
by the right way. But we need not flee, for where
the Lord is, is where we must be. We're not to withdraw from
where God has placed us in this world as light in the darkness. Some, as it were, Some, as it
were, look upon the darkness, look upon the wickedness of this
world, the sin of this world and having a hatred for that
sin they withdraw from it. They separate from the world
and all its activity. They, as it were, go into a monastery
as the monks do and they lead a monastic lifestyle and they
think that they are doing God's service because they're untainted
by the sin of their fellow man. and they feel that they can seek
the Lord in this privacy and separation and whilst there might
be a good motive in their heart that they want to turn from sin
and want to turn to the Lord ultimately they end up turning
from where God has placed them they take the light and place
it under a bushel and the world no longer sees them for they're
hidden But Christ said to his disciples, ye are in the world,
but ye are not of the world. You may hate the sin, you may
be light in darkness, but I am not taking you out of this world. You are in it as light. You are
here to preach my gospel. And though it might bring you
to great trial, Though you may walk with people who grieve you,
though the sins of the wicked may vex you, and though their
persecution may come upon you because of who you are and what
you are and the message you declare, though you may know their hatred,
I will have my light to shine. Yes, we are in the world but
not of the world. The believer is called to walk
where God places him and called to go forth with his gospel. For there are others yet in the
world in the darkness who must hear and they will not hear except
the light comes to them. Christ entered this world of
darkness. He came to sinners. He sat and
drank with sinners and was accused of being a wine-bibber. He was
rejected by the religious, by the Pharisees with their legal
self-righteousness as though he was worldly, as though he
was a drunkard because he went to where sinners were. But he
went because he was seeking his people with his gospel. We are in this world, there is
much that will grieve us, we don't rejoice in the sin, but
we are light in the darkness. And no matter what the consequence
of being light in the darkness may be, no matter what opposition
it may bring upon us, we are to be where the Lord sends us.
Why say ye to my soul, flee as a bird to your mountain? We are
light in the darkness that the gospel might shine forth, that
the church might be gathered in, that the church of God might
be built up upon its foundations. The foundations of the gospel,
the foundations of the 12 apostles. With Christ himself, the chief
cornister. but having made his declaration
of faith. David goes on, as it were, to
express what Theus says in response. For lo, the wicked bend their
bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may
privily shoot at the upright in heart. If the foundations
be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Oh, he sees the enemies. He sees their bow. He sees how
they privately aim at the upright in heart. They try to attack. They try to shoot their arrows
when you can't see them. When you can't see the enemy,
when you can't see where the arrow is coming from. They take
aim. And fear says, well, how can
I stand? There's these arrows coming at
me from places where I cannot see. What can I do? I will be
struck down. But faith says in the Lord, put
on my trust. We have a shield from the arrows. We have armor that we may stand. We have a helmet. to protect
our heads, as Ephesians describes. We have a helmet of salvation,
shields and armors of righteousness, the gospel and Christ to watch
over us. And no matter what arrows may
be shot, if we're in Christ, if we are clothed in the righteousness
of God, if we're washed in the blood of the Lamb, there is nothing
that our enemies can do to destroy. If the foundations be destroyed,
what can the righteous do? If the foundations be destroyed,
what can the righteous do? What a question this is. How
it gets to the roots of the matter. Our enemies can attack. And if
they knock, as it were, a few bricks off a turret, you can
rebuild that. If one or two walls of the city
are penetrated, they can be rebuilt. But when they start to get at
the very foundations, and it feels like not only have they
shot their arrows, not only have they shot their mortar at the
walls, not only have they penetrated some of the walls, but they're
even beginning to undermine the foundations. When it feels like
the enemies are destroying the foundations, oh the fear that
comes into the heart of the child of God. If the foundations are
destroyed then the whole thing shatters. The whole building
crumbles. How can the church stand when
the foundations are undermined? What a question this is. It gets
to the very heart of the greatest fear that can come upon us. We trust in God. That's where
our faith is, that's where our hope is. But if the foundations
were destroyed, we'd be lost. And it can seem like the foundations
so often are being destroyed. It can seem so often like they're
being undermined. Sometimes you wonder where the
foundations of the Church of God and the Gospel of Christ
have gone. At least when you look at that
which professes to be the Church of Christ. The foundations be
destroyed, what can the righteous do? Certainly in false religion
certainly in much that professes to be the church of Christ in
our day, that takes Christ's name, that speaks of the Bible,
that speaks of the death of Christ, that says that we are the church,
certainly in much that proclaims Christ's name, the foundations are gone. they are being destroyed. In many cases there are no foundations
left. They have an edifice of walls
built up that claim Christ's name and take the name Christian
and they say we are the church but they are built upon sand
and when you build upon sand as Christ says When the storms
come, when the enemy comes with his bow, everything will fall. There are no foundations. In false religion, in the professing
Church of Christ, it certainly appears that the foundations
are destroyed, partly or completely, or undermined, or neglected,
or forgotten about, in reality simply not there. They're doing
all their building, yet there's no foundation to build upon. They have their meetings, they
have their praise and their worship, yet who are they worshipping? Where is their gospel? What do
they know of Jesus Christ? They can say they worship Jesus
but if their Jesus is not the Jesus who is the chief cornerstone
of the church of God and if their Jesus is not that one upon whom
the apostles doctrine is laid. If there is no revelation of
the true Jesus Christ and the righteousness of God which he
brought in at the cross, if there is no understanding of the sovereignty
of God, and the depravity of man and the great need of man
to have his sins forgiven by the blood of Christ. If these
things are absent then whatever they may say about meetings and
preaching the gospel and bringing people in and their youth work
and this work and that work, it's all on sand. There's no foundation. And it
will perish in the end. It may have a wonderful building
now because the storms haven't come. They may have 200, 300,
1,000 people in their meeting and scoff at those who gather
with two or three in Christ's name and say unto them, where
is thy God? Where's your God? Look at us.
We're the ones who are favored. They may have the building. But
if there's no foundation, as soon as the storms come, it will
all come to nothing. and it will be revealed what
has been built upon true foundations. Don't be fooled by numbers. The
devil loves to see a people gather, taking the name of Jesus, leading
the blind as led by the blind, which is not A meeting, a building
built upon the foundations of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Certainly the foundations appear
to be destroyed in false religion and certainly the enemy wants
to destroy these foundations. He does his best, he takes aim
with his bow daily. He'll coax you and tempt you
and try to lead you to neglect the foundations, to compromise
the foundations, to say oh this truth is offensive to many and
we're not seeing anyone come and gather with us because they
find this offensive. Do we really need to go on about
it? Maybe we should keep a little
quiet. Maybe we shouldn't stress divine sovereignty. Maybe we
shouldn't stress election. Maybe we shouldn't talk too much
about the effectual particular redemption which Christ wrought
upon the cross. Maybe we should just compromise
a little. Maybe we should humour the people. and set aside the authorised
version of the scriptures and take one of these modern translations
because it's a little easier for them to understand. Even
though, hidden away in the sweet sound in easy to understand English,
the foundations have been chipped away at and the words have been
altered and the doctrine has gone. maybe we should consider
what the people want in a meeting and make the meetings a bit shorter
and put a bit more hymn singing in and chorus singing in and
a little less preaching because the people cannot understand
and follow and little by little as you're led along by the whispering
subtlety of the enemy, you begin to undermine foundations. And what begins little by little,
soon becomes a flood, until there's nothing left. Yes, the enemy
wants to destroy these foundations, don't listen to him. Because
if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? You're
washed away. But ultimately, as the psalmist's
trust in his God proves, and as the latter verses of this
psalm show, the foundations of God's church, of Christ's church,
in which his people are truly gathered, are never destroyed. They cannot be. they may disappear
in that which masquerades as his church and those of God's
people who find themselves in those charades of churches those counterfeit congregations
of Christianity those are God's people who find themselves in
these places find their hearts grieved as the gospel is set
aside and ultimately they cannot remain and they will either leave
by volition or they'll be forced out by the opposition of those
in the midst who no longer want them with them because as it
were they become a voice of conscience in the midst of an evil people
and the evil people don't like the voice of conscience that
comes from the righteous and they don't like the breaks that
are applied to their frenzy of chorus singing they don't like
the stern and the sad face upon the righteous which they see
in their midst which spoils the party and they'd rather be rid
of them in the end So the righteous God's people ultimately will
be forced to leave or will leave of their own volition when they
can take it no more. And where they must find the
people who are gathered and built up upon the foundations of Jesus
Christ. Now the foundations of God's
church, Christ's church, are not destroyed, they cannot be.
Christ said, I will build my church and the gates of Hades
shall not prevail against it. There are plenty of congregations
you see, plenty of professing churches in which the elect find
that the foundations are gone. The foundations of the truth,
of the gospel have been dismantled and set aside. They've been destroyed. And what can the righteous do?
They cannot remain where they are. For there's no longer anything
to stand upon, nothing to build upon, nothing upon which the
house can stand. The wicked will stay. For the
wicked is foolish and says God hasn't seen, God isn't worried,
God is blessing us. Look at how many of us there
are standing upon this sand. But the righteous cannot. Who
is the righteous? If the foundations be destroyed
what can the righteous do? Who is the righteous? Not the wicked. Not the wicked
who bend their bow and aim privily at the upright in heart. Not
the wicked in religion who are happy to build houses taking
Jesus' name. On the foundations of sand. On
the foundations of free will. On the foundations of the works
of man to earn his own righteousness and his own salvation. On the
foundations of the modern questioning of God and the undermining of
the sovereignty of God and the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Not on the foundations of lies. The wicked is happy to build
on such foundations but the righteous will not. Who is the righteous? The elect, God's chosen, His
people in Christ, yes. All who are chosen in Christ
and washed with His blood are righteous in Him. And they cannot
build upon foundations of sand. But ultimately the righteous
is Christ Himself. and what will he do when the
foundations are destroyed by a professing church? When you
have a congregation once built upon the foundation of truth
where Christ once dwelt by his spirit in the hearts of his people
and then time goes by and that generation dies and others leave
and others come in and those in charge take over and set aside
the gospel and set aside the foundations. What will Christ
do in such a place which has destroyed his foundations which
were previously laid? What will Christ do when this
new generation comes in and rejects the gospel of their forefathers? He won't remain in their midst. And He will not bless such a
people, such a congregation, such a house. He will write Ichabod
over the door and leave the people to it. He will not remain where
the apostolic foundation of the gospel has been rejected. He
will not. He will go and take his people
with him and build his church elsewhere even if it's just with
two or three. He will take them out and gather
them and say build here upon my foundation and He will build
them up on His foundation and He will bless them and honour
them even though the world hates them and persecutes them even
though the religious world hates them and persecutes them He will
say you are my people and I am your God follow me He will come
as it were to His disciples in their ships on the water side
and say follow me and they will leave all they will leave these
buildings of men these churches of men these buildings at the
hands of men they will leave it all whatever name it takes
Whatever great names they have in the midst, they will leave
them all and follow Him. Christ will not remain in the
congregations of the wicked. He will build His church elsewhere
and He will take His people with Him. He will build His church
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. He moves,
He leads, He leads His people by the Spirit and they won't
remain where Christ is not. He won't remain. And neither
can they. And neither can we. Can we? Can we? If the foundations be
destroyed, what can the righteous do? Consider briefly the foundations. The doctrine of the apostles.
With Christ himself as the chief cornerstone. Deny their doctrine
and deny Christ, His person or His work. Undermine any aspect
of that doctrine and undermine any aspect of Christ and His
work and you destroy the foundations. Consider briefly twelve foundations. The divinity of Christ and the
triune nature of one God in three persons. How many there are who
attack this, even in those places that call themselves evangelical
Christians, Christendom. They speak of Jesus, but they
do not own him as truly God. and they do not own Him as one
of the persons of God as one of the persons of one God in
three persons as equal with the Father and the Spirit as eternal
as the Father and the Spirit from everlasting to everlasting
Christ says in Revelation I am Alpha and Omega the beginning
and the end He is from everlasting to everlasting He ever was He
ever was the Son of God. Yet how many, seeing the man
Jesus, seeing his birth, and tangling themselves up with the
wisdom of men in the Scriptures, cannot comprehend that this is
God who came and took humanity into union with his divinity.
and was born a man, but forever was the Son of God. Secondly,
in relation, they deny so many the humanity of Christ and His
virgin birth. Oh, what a foundation this is
of the Gospel. Christ is truly man. He came, He was born of Mary. The Holy Ghost came upon her
and took that holy Humanity. And the son of God entered in
and was born with a body prepared for him. He is perfectly man
and yet perfectly God. Eternal as God and yet incarnate
as man. that He may suffer as a man,
that He may live as a man, and that He may die as a sacrifice
equal to men, that He may take the sins of men and the sin of
mankind and bear it upon the tree at the cross and deliver
His people from their sin. Thirdly, they deny the eternal
Sonship of Christ, a great foundational truth, He ever was the Son of
God. He came into this world. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. He was made of the seed of David,
as it says in the beginning of Romans. He existed before being
born, before being made flesh. And to deny it is to undermine
the gospel. Fourthly, False religion denies
the state of man by nature, the fall of man, the total depravity
there is in man. It has a false view of God and
a false view of man. It doesn't recognise how bad
it is, how bad we are, how wicked we are, how greatly in need of
salvation we are. We're not just not good enough,
we're not just falling short of the mark, but we are utterly
corrupt, full of sin, sinful through and through, born in
iniquity, born speaking lies, totally depraved, able every
one of us to do the worst of deeds if God allowed us. We look
down through history and we see wicked men, the Hitlers of this
world, who've been allowed to do awful deeds of mass murder. And we say, how could someone?
Well, you could, my friend, and I could, for we're all the same,
we all have the same heart. Yet so many in religion that
has destroyed the foundations hate this. and sidestep it, or
we're not that bad, they say. Yes, you are. You are that bad. Fifthly, they deny that salvation
is entirely, entirely by grace. Not by law. Entirely by grace. Irresistible grace. It's all
of God or it's not at all. God saves or there's no salvation. God does not offer salvation. He does not present 99 parts
of salvation for you to do the final step at the final work
or make the final decision. It's all his work. And if you're
willing to be saved, it's because He's made you willing who were
once unwilling. Justification is by faith and
not by works. We are justified by faith. Our works are corrupt. They are
full of sin. They are filthy rags. There is
not one deed that any man has done that can make himself righteous
before God. So God cannot justify us on the
grounds of our works. We are justified because of faith
in the blood of Christ and because of the faith of Christ which
he exercised in his God when he laid down his life for his
people. It's his act of faith, his deed
of faith upon the cross that delivered his people and nothing
else. Sixthly, a foundational stone
is election. Unconditional election and particular
redemption. God chose who will be saved. He chose a people in Christ before
the foundation of the earth and Christ came to save that people
in particular. He had their names written upon
his heart from before they were ever born. God chose them. He said you will save this one
and he went to the cross with that one's name upon his heart
and he bore that person's sins. and everyone whose name was written
upon his heart he bore every one of their sins and that particular
number of people were saved and they were chosen by God and they
will be brought to salvation when the Spirit of God preaches
the gospel to their soul and opens their eyes to see it. It's
foundational and any gospel, any religion, any Christianity
which denies it, which attacks it, which undermines it or which
remains silent about it has undermined the foundations. Seventhly, the
sovereignty of God. We worship a God who is king
over all. He's ultimately sovereign over
all things. He does whatsoever he wills. He is not subject to the will
of man. Salvation is not a God who desires
to save all and only manages to save those who agree with
him, those who decide to follow him, who choose him, who make
a decision for him. So God sits there weakly on the
sideline hoping that everyone will accept and ultimately being
disappointed because only a few ever make the decision. That's
not a sovereign God. That's a sovereign man. It puts
man upon the throne and God as a beggar at his feet. Man shows
God mercy when he says, all right, I'll be saved by you. What kind
of a gospel and a lie is that? Foundation of the gospel is that
God is sovereign. He rules, he's a king and he
says, this man will live and he lives. Whether you want to
live or not. because by nature we're all unwilling
and we don't want to be saved. But when he opens our eyes and
speaks peace into our heart and brings us to life, how thankful
we are, how thankful we are that God is sovereign and not us. Eighthly, the righteousness of
God, the revelation of the righteousness of God. Paul says of the gospel,
he's not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power
of God unto salvation, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith. That righteousness in the gospel
gives it its power. Then if you rob the gospel of
the revelation of that righteousness, you rob it of its power. and
if you confuse what the righteousness of God is as in God himself and
as made known by the faith of Christ and mix it up and confuse
it with law and a falsely so-called vicarious active obedience of
Christ then you confuse and undermine the gospel because the gospel's
a revelation of the righteousness of God which Christ made known
through his faith upon the cross. when he bore the sins of his
people and the sin of his people and God judged that sin in his
righteousness and judging it in his righteousness that righteousness
was manifested as Christ by faith suffered and looked up to his
God knowing that God would judge that sin until it was taken away
and until that people were clothed in that righteousness and washed
by that blood which makes that righteousness theirs 9th foundation
of the gospel is the faith of Christ Not only the message that
declares Christ, not only the faith which he gives unto his
people, but his faith. The righteousness of God is revealed
from faith to faith, out of his faith. As he suffered upon the
tree, unto our faith as we look on and behold and are granted
that faith to believe. His faith is our faith, it's
given to us. We believe because he believed. We live because he died and lives
for us. We died with him, we rise with
him, we live with him and we live by faith which is his faith. I'll never depart from this foundation. Tenthly, the reign of grace. We're delivered from law, we're
under grace. The gospel is grace from start
to finish. We are not only justified by
grace, but we're sanctified by grace. You don't start one way
and finish another. If you start by grace, you will
reach the end by grace. It's all of grace. There is a
reign of grace. 11. For foundation is the building
of God's Church, of Christ's Church, through the preaching
of His Gospel, and by the application of that message by the person
and the work of the Holy Spirit, who causes dead sinners to live
as they're brought to life and born again. You shall not see
the kingdom of God except ye be born again. Except you're
born again you'll never live and there's no foundation upon
which to stand. And lastly for now, a 12th foundation
is the final preservation and the inheritance of the saints
to come. Whom God saves, he saves. Because God chose a people in
Christ, because Christ died for that people, because the Spirit
of God will preach the gospel to that people, because by the
gospel they will be brought to life, and because they will be
sustained to the end by grace, they will persevere, none will
fall aside. Christ says that his sheep will
not perish, they're in his hands, they hear his voice, they follow
him, another they will not follow and he will bring them into the
security of that inheritance to come where they will dwell
with him forevermore, in light, inaccessible by nature. but brought
to them by the gospel of Christ. Oh what a foundation! Undermine
any of this and you begin a slippery slope to all the foundations
being destroyed. But the gospel and God's church
and salvation is built upon it. and as a consequence David can
rise up in faith and say the Lord is in his holy temple, the
Lord's throne is in heaven, his eyes Behold, his eyelids try
the children of men. The Lord triumphed the righteous
and he finds them righteous. He finds that they stand in Christ
because they're chosen and delivered in him. But the wicked, those
who've built on another foundation, those who've built on sand, no
matter what they say of Jesus, those who've undermined these
foundations, those who've built on sand, no matter how religious,
Him, the wicked, and him that loveth violence, God so hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain
snares, fire, and brimstone, and a horrible tempest. This
shall be the portion of their cup. For the righteous Lord loveth
righteousness. His countenance doth behold the
upright. The Lord is in his holy temple.
Christ God incarnate came into this world the eternal son he
died for a people chosen by his father and given to him whose
names are upon his heart he rose with them and he is enthroned
on high with them as the risen man and this foundation will
not be destroyed. His throne is in heaven and from
heaven he looks upon this world and he sees those for whom he
died and justifies the righteous and he sees the wicked and he
will pour snares, fire and brimstone and a horrible tempest on their
head. This shall be the portion of their cup. The same cup that
Christ drank, that he might deliver his people from it. The same
cup that Christ drank, that he might save his people, the righteous. His countenance doth behold the
upright. Who is the upright? None by nature,
only Christ and those who are found in him. Are you found in
Christ? Has he built you as a member,
as a brick of his church, upon his foundations, which can never
be destroyed? And do you, in the midst of persecution,
when the enemy, the wicked, bends his bow and takes aim, do you
stare at your enemy and say unto him, how say ye to myself, flee
as a bird to your mountain? In the Lord put I my trust. Amen.