Wherefore doth the wicked contemn
God? He hath said in his heart, thou
wilt not require it. Thou hast seen it, for thou beholdest
mischief in spite, to requite it with thine hand. The poor
committeth himself unto thee. Thou art the helper of the fatherless.
Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man. Seek out his
wickedness till thou find none. The Lord is king forever and
ever. The heathen are perished out of his land. Lord, thou hast
heard the desire of the humble. Thou wilt prepare their heart.
Thou wilt cause thine ear to hear, to judge the fatherless
and the oppressed, that the men of the earth may no more oppress. Now he says, wherefore doth the
wicked contemn God? The word sounds and looks like
condemn. It's almost like condemn, but
that's not it. That's not what it means. Think
of contempt instead. Contempt. It means to despise,
to spurn, to abhor. And this is man's problem. This
is our essential basic problem from the beginning. Our root
problem is not that we ate a piece of fruit in the garden that we
shouldn't have eaten. We did that because of something. Because
of the rebellion in our heart. Because we wanted to be God.
Paul said the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is
not subject to the law of God. Neither indeed can be. I wanted
to spend a little time talking about something because There
in Romans where I just quoted, it says the carnal mind is enmity
against God. In our text, it says that the
wicked man has said in his heart, God won't require it. He's wicked. He contemns God in his heart. And then the mind is mentioned
in Romans eight and all through scripture, the mind and the heart
and the spirit are mentioned. I've heard men try to talk about
these things as though they knew what they were talking about.
and made it evident that they didn't. But the scripture does
speak of the mind and the heart, but these are really inseparable.
The hearts mentioned in our text, as I said, I was thinking about
this just a day or two ago and thinking on these verses, but
I was mourning the limitation of my mind, how weak my mind
is. And we think about the mind and
the heart. Let me ask you this. If I had
no mind, if my mind was dead, I've seen people that had no
conscious awareness, their mind was gone. What would that do
to my heart? Would my heart be gone too? Would
I have any heart in the sense that the scripture says believe
in thine heart or lay up these things in thine heart? We know
the heart is not an organ that pumps blood in the scriptural
sense. If I had no mind, would I have any heart? Obviously no,
clearly no. I wouldn't have any desire, I
wouldn't have any awareness of anything, no will, no emotion. So it's all really the same,
but the reason that we have the mind and the heart and scripture
separate is to be able to consider them individually. What we know and understand is
one thing. God has given us an understanding
that we might know Him that is true. And then what we feel and
desire is another thing altogether, though they are essentially all
us. You see how in the scripture
they're used separately and sometimes seemingly interchangeably. The
word spirit often includes both. if you look at it in its context
in the scripture. Sometimes the spirit seems to
indicate merely the attitude or the disposition, the spirit
in which you do something, in other words. And so body, mind,
heart, spirit. As I said, I've heard men try
to distinguish these things and talk about the different elements
of man. I don't think they can be understood and seen as different
entities. The body clearly is different
than the soul, the spirit. But these are different aspects
of the soul, the mind, the heart, the spirit, the man, the inner
man, but not different entities. Anyway, though, the heart is
mentioned here. This includes the way we think.
He mentions the heart here, But it includes the way we think
and the way we feel about things. What think ye of Christ is not
just what your intellect knows about him. It's how you feel
about him. Do you love me, Peter? The carnal mind is enmity. My
thoughts are not your thoughts, God said. So it has to do with
the way we think, but it also includes our desires and our
will. And it seems to be referring to the way man thinks with regard
to what he says here about God. In this immediate context, the
thoughts of his heart are this, God won't require it. And we'll
talk about that. But it comes from a heart of
contempt. He contemns God, and so he thinks
a certain way about God. So you see the mind and the heart. They're all in on this together. As a man thinketh in his heart,
so is he. Is that right? A man in all of the faculties
of his soul is the born enemy of God. That's the lesson here. Because of what happened in the
fall. Because of sin. Not just outward deeds of sin,
but the sin nature that we're born with. When the Lord says
you will not come to me that you might have life as we've
said before the word doesn't just mean there You shall not
come You're not going to come It means to be resolved To determine
to purpose to desire to love to take delight in to have pleasure
in You don't have any pleasure in the Lord. That's why you won't
come to him You will not you determine not to because you
take no pleasure in him. You don't delight in him You
have no desire. You don't love him all of the
words that define that word will there Make it clear how man feels
about the Lord Jesus Christ because he contends God And his son he
spurns he has contempt for he despises him. That's why he won't
come to his son You will not come And we're all born with
this heart that contends God. It's our nature. We can't do
contrary to our nature any more than the leopard can change its
spots. Jeremiah said, when the leopard does that, then you'll
do good. We're hopelessly and helplessly depraved God-haters. We contend God. That's what we
do. Just as naturally as a bird flies
and a fish swims, we contend God. What man said here, what he said
in his spurning and despising of God, what he says here, that
God will not require it. What does that mean? Well, it's
not only stupid, but it's in direct opposition, no surprise,
to God's Word. He's saying that God won't hold
me accountable. God won't punish sin. God will
not require justice for my actions. That's what he means by require
it. He won't require it at my hand. You've heard that expression
in scripture. It'll be required at your hand. In other words,
God's gonna hold you accountable. The wicked man says God won't.
God says I will. Deuteronomy 18, 18, he said,
I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren. That's
the Lord Jesus Christ, like unto thee. And I'll put my words in
his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command
him." That's what he said. What I tell you, I don't say
it of myself. I received it of my father. And
it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my words,
which he shall speak in my name, you will not. You will not hearken. And why did he say they wouldn't?
He said, if you love Moses, you'd love me. But you hate me. Therefore,
you believe not. And those who will not hear the
words which he shall speak, and hearken to the words which he
shall speak in my name, I will require it of him." Man, the
wicked man says, God won't require it. God says, I will require
it. Every word. Every word of God. Every gospel
message. Every truth. And this is vital
gospel truth itself. that God will require it. He
will punish all sin. He will hold man accountable
for every sin, all sin. What are you going to do about
your sin? Because God will require it. Do you have a sin offering? God requires obedience. He requires
perfect obedience from every man and the consequence of not
obeying God in every aspect of his law. In a word, the consequence
is hell. It's eternal death, spiritual
death, infinite death. Because our sin being against
the infinite holy God is infinite in its evil. The punishment is
infinite. God will require it. He will
demand satisfaction for every sin. God will be satisfied for
every sin, except in the sense that the sinner in hell can never
fully satisfy God for his sin. That's why it's eternal. If there
was a way you could fully pay your debt, then you'd be in hell
for a certain amount of time till it was paid and out you'd
come. God's just. You're not going to pay one farthing
more than you deserve to pay. But what you deserve is eternal
damnation. And I do too. But God will receive
justice. And in that sense, satisfaction
for every sin. He requires it of you. He requires
it of you now. He either requires perfect obedience
or infinite punishment. You're going to render one of
the two to God, you are. Now what God ultimately requires
is glory for himself and he will get that by you obeying him Or
he will get that by punishing you for not obeying him. You
see how it has to do ultimately with his glory. He's going to
be glorified in his holiness, in his perfect law, in his justice,
in his righteous demands upon you and I. He's going to be glorified.
And he's going to get glory from you by perfect obedience or by
eternal punishment. The difference between the wicked
and the righteous And as David refers to here in our text, the
wicked in our text, and usually everywhere in scripture where
it talks about the wicked, this is the difference now. They are
those of whom God requires obedience or satisfaction from them personally. In other words, you've got to
produce it. That's the way it is outside of Christ. You don't
have to obey God perfectly and you've already blown it. We're
born into this world having already blown it. because of what we
are. And that's the wicked. God requires
obedience or satisfaction. He will either get obedience
from you or he will punish you eternally. The righteous are
those in whose case God has required obedience and satisfaction from
their substitute. That's the difference now. You're
either in Adam or you're in Christ. In Adam, that's you by nature.
That's you as you are born into this world. That's you standing
before God as you are. That's the carnal mind, the old
man. But if God has put you in Christ
from the beginning, if you're sitting here this evening and
you're in Christ, you've always been in Christ. And God has never
looked to you for obedience or satisfaction. Never has. That's why I said this the way
I did. Because the wicked are those who are required by God
themselves to produce. And that always ends the way
God's going to be glorified that way is eternal punishment of
you. The righteous are those in whose
case God requires obedience and satisfaction. the honoring of
His law from your substitute. I can show you that in the Word
of God now. It means that He renders for you the Lord Jesus
Christ, the substitute of sinners. That's what it means to be in
Christ now, to be in Him, to be found in Him, Paul said. Not
having mine own righteousness, but that righteousness which
is of God by the faithfulness of Christ. I don't want to Stand
before God in my righteousness. That's the wicked. I want to
stand in his. I want to be found in him. That's what we're talking about. It means that he renders for
you what God requires from you. And that's the word in our text.
God will not require it. God does require it. If you're
in Christ, Christ renders it. what he requires, and he does
it for you. He does it in your stead. He does it as your representative,
as your substitute, as your last Adam. Turn to 1 Corinthians 1,
I'll show you. 1 Corinthians 20, chapter 1,
verse 26. For you see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble, are called. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are
despised hath God chosen, yea, things which are not, to bring
to naught the things that are, that no flesh should glory in
his presence. Now, you don't have anything
that God requires. Remember, we're talking about
what God requires. The wicked man says he won't require it.
He won't require perfection. He won't require me to obey his
law. He won't require me to follow his path. We're base. We're despised. We're foolish.
We are not. We're weak. But, verse 30, but
of him, of his purposing, of his power, of His perpetrating
it, of His perpetuating it, are you in Christ Jesus, who has
made unto us everything that we're not. Everything the opposite
of what we are by nature when He chose us. We're foolish by nature, but
He's made unto us wisdom and righteousness. He is the Lord
of righteousness. God will not require, oh yes,
yes, he requires perfect righteousness. I can't render it, but Christ
has made it unto me. He is my righteousness before
God. He's my sanctification. I'm not holy by nature. I can't
render unto him the holiness that he's worthy of, but Christ
is my holiness. He's my redemption. He will require
satisfaction from your sin, and I can't pay it, but my Savior
did. He redeemed me with his precious blood. Not silver or
gold, but the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without
blemish and without spot. And so everything that God requires
from me, Christ is made unto me. We can't change our nature or
act contrary to it, but God can give us a new one. He can put
us in Christ. He can make Christ all that we
aren't unto us. And He can give us a new nature.
He can give us a new heart. He can give us a new will. He
can make us a new creature so that now all things are new.
The carnal mind is enmity. The wicked man contemns God by
nature. But what about now? Do you love
me, Peter? You know all things. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creation. Second Corinthians 517. Now look
at David's answer to that. Verse 13 man contends God and
he says God won't require it. He won't hold me accountable
for my sin, but look at what David says now. This is what
the believer knows. David knew it. We know it. Thou
has seen. It didn't get past God. for thou
beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand. He not just aware of it, but
he don't let any of it slide. It's not like the wicked man
thinks. He says God won't require it. David said you're going to
requite it. You know what that word requite means? That's an
interesting word because In light of other scripture, it's so helpful. The word means to pay wages. God's going to pay you for everything
you do. You see now why Paul said, I
don't want to stand before him and myself. Oh, not my righteousness,
Lord, which is of the law. But I must win Christ. The wicked
says God won't require it, but by grace we know better than
that. We know that He sees it. And with His very hand, He'll give you what's due unto
you. To pay wages. Paul said the wages
of sin is death. But the gift I don't want what's
coming to me. I must have the gift. A gift
is not what's coming. David said here, God sees your
mischief, that is, your evil deeds, and your spite, your hatred
of him. And he will pay you what you
deserve for it. Well, what hope is there then for any sinner?
Well, here's what I recommend, the last part of that verse. committeth himself unto thee.
Lord, here I am. What is it to commit yourself
unto the Lord? Well, I'm not sure I can define
it very well, but I know what it looks like. It looks like
the old publican standing there beating his chest, saying, God,
be merciful. I commit myself to you. Be merciful. Be merciful unto me, the sinner.
It looks like that old leper, the incurable, miserable. Can
you imagine the agony he was in? By law, he wasn't even supposed
to approach anybody, but here's the one who's my only hope. I
must come where he is. I must come. And he cried, Lord,
if you will, you can make me clean. That's what it looks like. Off to the gracious king approach
whose scepter mercy gives. Perhaps he will receive my touch,
and then the sinner lives. I can but perish if I go, I'm
resolved to try. For if I stay away, I know I
must forever die. What are you going to do? I'm
going. That leper knew he wasn't supposed
to, by law. He wasn't even supposed to be
out in public. He was supposed to avoid everybody and cry unclean,
unclean. But he came and fell down at
the feet of the only one who could do for him what he must
have done. He said, Lord, you can do it. Will you do it? That's committing yourself to
the Lord. And then he said, you're the helper of the fatherless. Spiritually speaking, the fatherless,
what does a father do for you? Well, he provides for you. Spiritually
speaking, we have nothing. We have no provision. We live
in a land of no bread. We live in a loaded bar, like
Mephibosheth. No provision. A father protects
you outside of Christ. You're standing in the rain outside
of the ark. A father loves I don't care how
many times religion says, smile, God loves you, if you're outside
of Christ. You can lay no claim to the love of God. God's love
is in Christ. Period. We're fatherless by nature, spiritually
speaking. We're the children of wrath,
Paul said. And there's no help for us from
our father Adam. But like David said, and think
of this in spiritual terms now, in Psalm 2710, when my father
and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. When
there's no help for us in the flesh, when we've spent all we've
had and only gotten worse, when we are yet without strength,
Christ is the help of the helpless. This world talks about God helps
those who help themselves. Nah. I'm so glad that's not true. Aren't you? I'm so glad that's
not true. That man bleeding to death in
the ditch wasn't doing much for himself when the Good Samaritan
came where he was and poured in oil and wine. That's me. That's me. And when he has purpose to help
us, he will bring us to the place of helplessness. We will have
spent all we had. God always strips before he clothes.
He always brings down before he lifts up. And in verse 15,
David said, Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man.
Seek out his wickedness till thou find none. Now this is interesting
because David clearly in the context here is talking about
his enemies. He's talking about those who are against him as
God's king. as God's anointed. So it's not
just personal. His enemies are God's enemies.
But you're talking about somebody else. But I'll tell you this,
David also said in another place, Lord, search me and know me,
and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting. So we've got to see this in a
spiritual sense, too. He's not just talking about the
wicked. He's talking about the wicked. And when he says, until
you find none, what he's talking about there is until every wickedness
is found out and there's not one more sin that's left undiscovered.
Or it speaks of the wicked himself, seek them all out until there
are no more undiscovered in your earth. And God will thoroughly
rid the earth of the wicked in his time. No question about that. and that new heaven and new earth,
he said, there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth,
neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but only they
which are written in the Lamb's book of life. And when God burns up this earth,
as we saw in our Matthew study, that he will do, it's right there
in second Peter three that he would, and then he's going to
make new heavens and a new earth. And I like these three words
in 2 Peter 3.13, wherein dwelleth righteousness. The arm of the wicked. He said,
break their arm. That's the power. The word arm
in the scripture almost always refers to the power which God
will easily break as soon as it's his time. Indeed, the wicked
in this world only have power as long as God gives it to them.
And every sin will be accounted for. He will requite it, David
said. Every sin. And I'll tell you this, and you
know this, I pray you do. We can't do much about man's
evil, can we? I can't do anything about my
own evil, much less the evil of the wicked of this world.
I can't break the power of the wicked. But I can cry to him
who can. And I'll tell you this, boy,
I feel a little bit, just a little bit now, because I'm not, I'm
not saying that we suffer like David did. He feared for his
life, for his very life, just almost daily. But you, like me,
I'm sure it gets harder and harder to even turn the news on anymore.
It's just depressing until we realize who's on the throne.
And I'm not a squeamish person, but I got to where I can hardly
watch it. I'm honest with you. I can't do anything about it,
but I can cry unto God like David did here. And I do. And here's
who I cry to, verse 16, the Lord is King. That's why we don't
despair. That's why it's depressing until
when I'm thinking about, you know, my mind is down here in
the dust. Paul said, think on things above,
not on earthly things, on things above. And when I do that, I
cry to the Lord who is King forever and ever. The heathen are perished. out of his land, they just don't
know it yet. They just don't know it yet.
And this is the Lord Jesus Christ. Capital L-O-R-D. The Lord Jesus Christ. He said,
all power is given unto me in heaven and earth. that I should
give eternal life to as many as the Father hath given me.
And this is what Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 9, 6. The Lord's King,
that baby that's going to be born unto you, a child is born. He's the Son that's given. He's
the gift of God's Son. And the government shall be on
his shoulders. They're not going to be able
to kill him. They're going to try from his infancy But the government's
going to be on his shoulder. And his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father,
the Prince of Peace. And the government shall be on
his shoulder, all government. Men speak of the presidency of
the United States as the most powerful position on Earth. I
suppose that's true. You know how powerful that is? It is Christ that sitteth upon
the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are his
grasshoppers. I've seen some pretty mighty
looking grasshoppers before, but they're still grasshoppers.
How about you? And this is who Paul refers to
in 1 Timothy 6, 13. I give thee charge in the sight
of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who
before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, that thou
keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable until the appearing
of our Lord Jesus Christ. I hate the way religion talks
about Jesus this and Jesus that. He's the Lord Jesus Christ. And you won't find his disciples
referring to him as Jesus anywhere in this book. He is the Lord. He is the king forever and ever.
And Paul said, which in his times he shall show when he gets good
and ready, when he has purpose from eternity, he shall show
who is the blessed and only potentate, the king of kings and Lord of
Lords, who only hath immortality. dwelling in the light which no
man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor can see, to
whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen. He's going to show in his
time who he is, and every knee is going to bow. He's the King
of Glory in Psalm 24 7. Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory
shall come in. And when He comes in, He's coming in for you. He's
coming into the presence of God. He's coming into the very gates
of heaven. And nobody's coming in except in Him. The King of
Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The
Lord strong and mighty. The Lord mighty in battle. He's
won the victory for us. And claimed it as our champion,
our representative. He does as He pleases, when He
pleases, with whom He pleases. No one can stay his hand or question
his authority, Isaiah said, or his actions. Nobody can question
what he does. He is the king of creation, Isaiah
46, 9. Remember the former things of
old, for I am God and there's none else. I'm God and there
is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from
ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying my counsel
shall stand and I'll do all my pleasure. It's my world. And
I'll do what I want to in it and with it. I'll bring a ravenous
bird from the east. I'll call a bird to feed my prophet
if he's hungry. Because that's my bird and my
prophet. And I'll bring the man. He doesn't just control the lesser
creatures. He controls you and me. He said,
I'll bring my man that executes my counsel from a far country.
Yea, I have spoken it. I'll also bring it to pass. I've
purposed it. I'll also do it. He's the king
of providence. Everything that happens in this
world happens according to his will, his sovereign, eternal
will. The king's heart is in his hand
and he'll turn it, whether so ever he will. The lot is cast
in the lap, but the Lord will decide how it comes up. What men call luck is the will
of God coming to pass as he purposed it, exactly as he purposed it.
The King of Providence. The King of Salvation. He said,
I'll have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. That's the way a
king talks. He does as he pleases. Paul said,
he that said, let there be light, and there was light, said that
in my heart. And when he did, When he did,
I saw God's glory in the face of his son when he said, let
there be light. King of salvation. Paul's testimony was also this,
when it pleased God, he revealed his son in me. God the Father
said, I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy and whom I
will, I'll harden. And man can rant and rage about that and
talk about how unfair that is all they want to. God's going
to have mercy on who he wants to have mercy on, and he's going
to harden who he wants to harden. God the Son said, as the Father
raises up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son gives life
to whom he will. He's God the Holy Spirit who
is as the wind which blows where it pleases. and gives birth,
new birth, life, eyes to see and enter into the kingdom of
heaven, to whomsoever he will. Isaiah 59, 1, the Lord's hand
is not shortened that it cannot save. The king does as he pleases,
he saves whom he pleases. And then verse 17, the Lord thou
hast heard the desire of the humble, thou wilt prepare their
hearts thou wilt cause thine ear to hear." What's the desire
of the humble? Well, first of all, who are the
humble? David also refers to them as the poor in verse 14,
and that's instructive because we find out who the poor, who
the humble are, and we find out what their desire is all in Matthew
5. Blessed are the poor in spirit. He's maybe not talking about
the poor. Our Lord here, Matthew 5, not talking about the poor
in money. He's talking about the poor in
spirit, who know themselves to be spiritually bankrupt, fatherless,
helpless, hopeless. Blessed are they, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven. God's just going to give it to
them. Fear not, little flock, it's your father's good pleasure
to do what? give you the kingdom. The poor that has nothing to
give in return, nothing to pay, it's yours. Blessed are the meek. Blessed
are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are
the meek, the humble, for they shall inherit the earth. And
the Lord also tells us, right in the same, the next verse,
what this man's desire is. The poor, the humble, what is
his desire? He said, Lord, you've heard the
desire of the humble. What is the desire of him that
mourns, him that's meek, him that's poor in spirit? Blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. That's the desire of the humble. Isn't that what Paul said? We
just quoted it. I've got to have righteousness, not man. I need
righteousness. I need real righteousness, not
man, which is after the law, but His. The righteousness which
is of God by what He did. I hunger and thirst. I've got
to have it. Blessed are they, for they shall
be filled. Ask and you will receive. Come
everyone that's thirsty and drink. To hunger and thirst after righteousness
is to desire Christ. Listen to the way Paul put it
there. He said, I don't want my righteousness, I've got to
have his righteousness. Listen to it, the way he words it though.
Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things and do count them but done that I may
win Christ. You've got to have righteousness,
Paul. How are you going to have it? I've got to win Christ. I
must have Him and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness. You see, it's not just righteousness
as some external entity that Paul... It's a person winning
Him. I'll be found in Him and I'll
have His righteousness. That's what I'm hungry for. The
bread of life. the water of life, not having
mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which
is through the faithfulness of Christ, the obedience of Christ,
the righteousness, which is of God, by faith, by believing on
him. And then in verse 18, he said
to judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the
earth may no more oppress. No, I like those words, no more,
don't you? No more. Not again. Not just
the wicked of this world. And I desire that, don't you?
Oh, I see the injustice in this world. And I long for that day the Lord
spoke of where every crooked way will be made straight. Every
mountain will be laid low. But not just other men, but the
spiritual context. Remember now too, it's the man
of the earth that dwells inside of me. I say no more to him too,
don't you? I desire to be what I am by nature
no more. The wicked man of the earth.
Don't oppress me anymore. Don't you desire that for the
sinful you to no longer war and struggle and fight and despise
and hinder the spirit. I want what David wants no more. Let's just go be with him. Let's pray together.