Turn with me to the book of Psalms
chapter 16. Psalms chapter 16. My subject
this morning is perfect faith. Perfect faith. As we examine
ourselves, or as I do, and I'm sure you have, Sometimes it's
hard for me to see, if I ever do, that I have any faith. And I wonder sometimes if faith
is believing, faith is trusting. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. We can't see
faith. with these natural eyes. We can't
really see the object of faith with these natural eyes. It's
seeing the unseen. We love Him whom we've not seen.
We believe Him whom we've not seen. We can't prove anything,
so we're not here to prove anything. We're here to declare something.
And God must give us that faith to lay hold of that object that's
unseen. In looking at the Lord Jesus
Christ, there's so much about Him that
is attractive. There's so much about Him, so many virtues that I'd like
to have. Isn't there you as you look at
this man, the Lord Jesus Christ? I'd like to be a man like him,
wouldn't you? I would. I'd like to have his
righteousness. As a man, I'd like to be able
not to do anything wrong. I'd like to have the ability
to do everything right. I make so many mistakes, do so
many things wrong. I'd like to have that quality,
wouldn't you? Just to be able to do things right. For once
in my miserable, carnal life, I'd like to be able to do something
right that's unselfish, that's sinless. I'd like to be like
Him. I'd like to have that quality. I'd like to be obedient. I'd
like to be obedient, to obey. He was, he, he obeyed that. Look
at him. He, he always obeyed his father.
He was obedient. He learned obedience. I'd like
to be obedient like he is, like he was. I'd like to have his
wisdom. He is wise. Lord Jesus Christ
was wise. He not only had knowledge, he
had wisdom. He understood things. Understanding. I'd like to have his attitude.
How many times have you had a bad attitude? Just a stinking, bad,
sorry, rotten attitude? When have we not had a bad attitude?
That might be easier to answer it that way. But he always had
the right attitude. Always said the right thing.
He said it punctually. He said it on time. He had the
right words. He had the right attitude and
the right motive. All those things are so attractive
about a person. And we see some of these things
in others, but even as we see them, we're very conscious that
at the best, at the best, man is altogether vanity. You know
that there's imperfection in the best that we can do. A man
that has integrity, we esteem him to have integrity. We know
that his integrity has flaws, but not the Lord Jesus Christ. The subject or object of our
faith is perfect. If God has given us faith, the
object of our faith is perfect. The Lord Jesus Christ is perfect.
The substance of our faith is perfect. But when we look at
ourself, We question our faith, but the faith that God gives
is perfect. He don't give anything that's
imperfect, does he? Does he? Think about it. He don't
give us anything that's not perfect, but yet we esteem what we call
faith to be imperfect, and rightfully so, because we doubt, we have
fears, We're anxious. These are imperfections of the
flesh. We're two men. There's a new
creature in Christ, the inward man that sins not, that has perfect
faith. Then there's this flesh, this
outward man, and both are very real. And we desire so much for
this man, for this man, to be subject to the inward man. So
much the believer desires that. We desire to be like Him. But of all the things that the
Lord Jesus Christ had, and He exemplified, that if we had that,
if we had that one thing, everything else would fall into place. And
it does, believe it or not. It will. And that is faith. That is faith. It's every believer's
desire to never doubt God's Word, to never doubt His promises,
to never doubt His Son. Wouldn't that be wonderful if
we never doubted? Never to doubt Him in our minds,
for our minds to never go astray from looking to Him. Looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. To never doubt
Him in any circumstance. To have uninterrupted faith at
all times in all things. To have perfect confidence and
trust Him at all times. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Wouldn't
that be a perfect man? We'd be perfect, wouldn't we?
If we just... If that's the way... If this
man, this inward man and this outward man, could come into
this place where there was no conflict, this would be a perfect
man in the flesh. That our conversation would be
as it becomes a profession of our faith. That if our walk and
our talk and our life, our conversation, was consistent with our profession
of faith, And we know that it's not consistent many, many times,
lots of times. We believe, we know, we do not
doubt that God is absolutely sovereign. We know that in our
hearts. Yet something comes up and we
become anxious, we become fearful. We think, what in the world are
we going to do? Why not just trust Him? Why not just rest?
He's sovereign. He'll take care of it. He said,
don't doubt, don't fear. He said, I'm here. We do. We
doubt and we fear. So we can't look at ourselves
to find perfect faith. When we look at ourselves, what
do we see? Imperfection. We see doubt. We see fear. We see failings. Oh, that we
would never deny Him or bring reproach upon Him by virtue of
our being doubtful and unfaithful. When we doubt and fear, We bring
reproach upon Him. Because the profession of our
faith is we trust Him. We count on Him. We look to Him. Isn't that what we profess? He
is our life. He is our provider. He is our
God. He'll take care of us. Oh, to
doubt. To doubt. Oh, what a horrible
thing. However, how many times a day
do we fail? How many times a day do we fail? How often do we come
short? How many times do we find that
when we would do good, evil is present with us? How often are
we reminded that in this flesh dwells no good thing? How often? Our Lord comforted His poor,
doubting apostles, His disciples, by reminding them of His faithfulness. If we're going to look for perfect
faith, we're going to have to look outside ourselves. We're
going to have to look to someone else besides us. Because just
as sure as we look at ourself, we're not going to find it. We're
not going to find it. We must look at Him. He told
them on the eve of His crucifixion, He said, don't let your hearts
be troubled. What causes a troubled heart? Lack of faith. Little faith. Our hearts wouldn't be troubled
if we had perfect faith. If we could exercise that which
we have, that perfect faith which we have, in this flesh, in this
world, in this man, we wouldn't We wouldn't fear, we wouldn't
be troubled. It doesn't matter what happened, we wouldn't be
troubled. He said, don't let your heart be troubled, you believe
in God, believe also in me. He said, don't look at your troubled
heart, look at me. Don't look in yourself to find
comfort, look at me. And in verse 27 of John 14, he
said, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, not
as the world gives, not as you can conjure up on your own and
you can give yourself or find in the world or in other people.
He said, Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Look to me. Look to me. All through the Scriptures, we're
admonished as God's people to look to Christ. to take our eyes
off ourself, off the world, and look to Christ. That's where
our peace is. That's where our comfort is.
He is the object of our faith. He had perfect faith, and I want
to show you that. He was a man. He was a man in
the flesh. He was born into this world by
a woman. He hurt. He cried. He was afflicted. He was a man
of sorrow. He was tempted. He was tried. He was tested. He got tired. He got hungry. He was a real
man. He was a man of flesh. He's God
in the flesh. And he said, look to me. His
whole life was a life of faith. He believed. He counted on. He looked to. He trusted in his
Father. He always looked to Him. And
we'll go over these verses that I read to you just in a moment. But in verse 18 of John chapter
14, He said, I'll not leave you comfortless. I'll not leave you
comfortless. This is the one thing you must
do. This is the one thing you do. He makes it simple, doesn't He?
He said, this is what you do. Look to Me. Trust Me. Believe on Me. You
remember when Paul and Silas were in jail, and they were bound,
and the keeper of the jail was there with them, and they were
singing and probably preaching and rejoicing, and there came
an earthquake. God had given them faith. They
were okay. And the doors were opened. And the chains fell off of them.
And the keeper of the jail was afraid. He came running in to
them. And he said, what must I do to
be saved? They said, believe on Christ.
You mean that's all I have to do? Just look to Him. Trust Him. Look to Him. He said, I'll not
leave you comfortless. I'll not leave you as orphans.
That's what that word means. I'll not leave you as orphans
with no one to care for you. How many times has he said, come
unto me, you that labor heavy laden, I'll give you rest. I'll provide for you. I'll feed
you. I'll clothe you. I'll look at
the birds. I feed them, I clothe them. Don't
you think I'm going to take care of you? Why do you doubt? Don't doubt me." And he always
had. You know, I get in these fits.
The economy's bad and everybody's experiencing something in this
realm right now, I'm sure, almost everyone. And sometimes you get
to thinking negatively. But me and April was talking
the other day and I said, what's wrong with us? You know, the
Lord's taken care of us until now. Why would we think He wouldn't? Why would He think we'd stop
now? You know, this is temporal things, physical things. He's
supplied all of our spiritual needs and, you know, He'll supply
our physical needs as long as He's pleased to. And when He's
pleased not to, that'll be all right too. That'll be all right,
too. But anyway, there's no perfect
faith that we can see in ourselves. That's what I'm saying. When
we look at ourselves, we can't find that perfect faith because
we'll always come up short. So we must look to Him. As always,
He reminds His children to look away from themselves and look
to Him. And that's what I do this morning.
That's what I do this morning. That's what I would encourage
you to do. And may God encourage us, as
His body, as His church, to look to Him. That's what He tells
me to tell you. He told Isaiah, He said, comfort
my people. Tell them that I've taken care
of it all, that I've taken care of it. Faith in Christ It doesn't
promote indifference. It doesn't promote carelessness.
But rather it promotes diligence and commitment and consecration.
True faith does. Looking to Christ encourages
us to come to him and to leave ourselves. When we see our self,
our doubts and our fears, our hopelessness, our helplessness,
our utter inability, what does that encourage a believer to
do? To look to Christ. He has perfect faith. He has
enough faith for all of us. The faith of God's elect is Christ's
faith. And He calls us to say this with
the psalmist, He said, what shall I render unto the Lord? When
we see His faithfulness and His faith, His life of faith and
how He rendered obedience unto His Father, trusted Him, believed
Him, relied upon Him, and we see Him, we see ourself, our
lacking, and His fulfillment, What shall I render unto the
Lord for all of His benefits toward me? Why did the Lord Jesus
Christ come into this world? Why did He live this life of
toil and labor and temptation and sorrow and suffering and
die on the cross? Why did He do that? He did it
for His people. He did it because He loved us.
He did it so we could look to Him and find rest. You remember Paul on the road
to Damascus to have Christians arrested and put in jail and
possibly killed. The Lord appeared to him and
spoke to him. That's what we need. We need
the Lord to appear unto us and speak to us. Not just this preacher. My words, there's no life in
them, but there's words, there's life in his word. There's life
for us in His life. There's faith for us in His faith.
And as the Lord appeared unto Paul, he became a weak man. He became a weak man before he'd
been strong. He's zealous in his labor to
destroy the faith. But now he trembling, trembling
and astonished fell down. And he said, Lord, what will
you have me to do? Faith in Christ does not promote
carelessness, selfishness, and lack of commitment. It's not
a believer, it's not a child of God as of yet that has the
attitude, well, he's done it all and I'm just going to sit
down and do nothing. It doesn't matter. That's not
the attitude of a child of God. A child of God is a seeker. He
has a desire to commit himself to God. The Lord Jesus Christ
is an example of that perfect faith, a man of faith. He labored
to do the will of His Father. He suffered to do the will of
His Father. And He is our great example. He's our Redeemer, yes. He's our salvation, definitely. But also He's our great example.
He is a man of faith. What did He do? He sought the
will of the Father. He said, let this cup pass from
Me, nevertheless not My will. but your will be done." The faith
which God gives His children is perfect. However, we cannot
look to ourselves to see it. To see this perfect faith, we
must look to a perfect man, one who in the flesh believed,
trusted, obeyed without fail and without interruption. That's
what perfect faith is. Now in Psalms 16, 8-11, our text,
he said, I have set the Lord always before me. Now David penned
these words by the inspiration of God. And this can be applied
to David, King David, Jesse's son. But this is the Lord's,
this is the Lord's word. This is the words of the Messiah.
This is a Messianic song. He said, I set the Lord always
before me. Could David, the son of Jesse,
say that and tell the truth? Did he have the Lord set before
his face when he looked at Bathsheba naked on the roof and had Uriah
killed and Tucker for his wife? Did he have the Lord set before
his face? Do we have the Lord set before
our face when our mind's off of Him and it's on temporal,
worldly, selfish, sinful things? Huh? No. This is the Lord Jesus
Christ. You see, remember this in studying
God's Word and listening to the Gospel. Remember this. We, as natural human beings,
even as converted sinners, In this flesh, we can do nothing
perfect. To look and find that perfect
someone or something, we must look to the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we come across phrases like this, I have said to the Lord
always before me, this isn't David bragging. This isn't David's confession. This is the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He always set the Lord before
him. These are the words of David,
our King. These are the words of God incarnate. These are the
words of Him who for the joy that was set before Him endured
the cross, despising the shame or the sin and is set down at
the right hand of the majesty on high. I have set the Lord always before
me. At the outset I said, if there's one thing that we could
have, that the Lord Jesus Christ had, that would set everything
straight, it would be perfect faith. Isn't that right? Perfect
faith. This would render perfect obedience,
perfect love, Everything would be, we'd be a perfect man if
we had perfect faith. Uninterrupted faith. This word, Lord, here in this
verse, verse 8, I have set the Lord always before me. This is
the Lord Jesus Christ speaking, but He's speaking of His Supreme
Master. That word in the Greek is Kyrios,
which means Supreme Master. The Lord Jesus Christ, a man
in the flesh, He looked to His Supreme Master. He bowed. He
prayed. He sought the will of God with
faith, with faith. In the Greek it's used also,
or in Hebrew, as one possessed of absolute power, adoin, adon. This Lord here is Adon, one of
complete power. And I know the Lord Jesus Christ
is the Lord. He is prophet, priest, and king. He has power. He had power while
He was on earth. But remember this, listen to
these sayings, some of them. He said, you would have no power
at all against me except it were given to you, He didn't say by
me, except it were given to you from Him, from God. As a man,
He looked to His Heavenly Father. Our Lord speaks this in His incarnation
as a man of flesh. He always from birth to death
looked to His Supreme Master. He looked to Jehovah. the God
of His salvation. He believed God. He trusted Him.
He trusted His Father. His heart, His eyes, His thoughts
were set upon God. He did always those things that
pleased Him, always without fail, uninterrupted. His Father made
promise to Him and He believed it without doubt. Without doubt. This is why we can see the glory
of God only and capitalize only in the face of Jesus Christ. We see the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ because the face of Jesus Christ was
always looking upon Him and mirrored His glory. He saw His glory, the glory of
His Father. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all
we did in this world as believers was seek the glory of God? Everything
we did, every road we took, every decision we made was in consideration
of His glory. I'll tell you one that did, the
Lord Jesus Christ. He did. His face was continually
beholding His Father. continually observing, understanding
and fulfilling his father's will with complete trust and obedience. This may be a poor illustration,
but I'm going to give it to you anyway. I think it delivers the
meaning. Have you ever seen a dog that
had been to obedience school, one that had been trained? I
mean really trained in a professional obedience school. And it's always
It's always looking at its master's face. You ever notice that? It's always looking. It's listening
intently. Its ears are perked up. Its eyes,
it's waiting for a command from its master. If I speak to it,
it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean a thing. If you
speak to it, it doesn't mean a thing. If another dog comes
by, it doesn't mean a thing. It's listening and looking to
its master. This is what faith is. This may be a poor example, but
faith continually listens and looks for the command from its
master. And the Lord Jesus Christ continually,
He became flesh. He was despised and rejected
of being, but He didn't look to man for anything. He didn't
ask a man anything. He never looked to the world
for anything. He never looked to us for anything. He never
looked to His disciples, the apostles, for anything. He never
looked away from His Father. He always intently, without interruption,
with faith, complete, perfect faith, looked to His Father.
Always listening. He said, I came to do My Father's
will. The words that He speaks, that's
what I do. The words that He speaks, that's
what I speak. When He commands, that's what I do. I came to do
His will. Always, day and night, in adversity
and in temptation and sorrow, even death, always the Lord Jesus
Christ. He was a man of faith. Our Lord
in the flesh yielded perfect faith so completely that it pleased
His Father. And I'll tell you what, if you
can please God, you've done something. If you can please God, you've
done something. And it's just beyond me. I ought
to understand something about it because I've been there, but
it still amazes me that men like me and you actually believe they
can please God. God is not pleased with anything
short of perfection. Perfect faith. Without faith, it's impossible
to please Him. And the only faith that God knows
anything about or recognizes or honors is perfect faith. And
we must look to Him. We must look to Him to seek perfect
faith. We must look to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Without faith, it's impossible to please Him. The Lord Jesus
Christ Received from God the Father
honor and glory. That's what it says in our text
here in Psalm 16. He received from the Father honor
and glory. We don't say that verbatim, but
that's what he's saying. Honor and glory. When there came
such a voice from the excellent glory that said, this is my son, In him, I am well pleased. In my son, I'm well pleased.
I'm well pleased with him. I'm well pleased with his life,
with his work, with his obedience, with his sacrifice. I'm pleased
with him and his flesh. This man in the flesh, I'm pleased
with every act he performed in the flesh. as a man. He did nothing wrong. He always set me before His face.
He always trusted me. He always believed me. And He
even said in verse 8, I believe it is, or verse 10, He said,
in your text, the Lord Jesus Christ said, before it happened,
He said, Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. Neither will
you suffer me, thy holy one, to seek corruption." He died
in faith. He lived by faith, he died by
faith. He already counted what his accomplishment
would be. He counted it as a joy and rejoiced
in it even before his death. That's how strong his faith was
and how perfect it was. His faith was without doubting,
ever. When the Lord Jesus Christ went
to the tomb of Lazarus, now Lazarus was a child of God. Mary and
Martha, Jesus, He loved them. He was close to them. He loved
them. He loved them in this world. They knew each other. I don't
know how to say it, but they were believers, and in this world
they communed together, they ate together, they loved one
another. And you know the story. They
had some doubts. They had some fears. They were
sorrowful. Their brother had died. Like
all of us, One of them was comfortable about things, the other sat at
the feet of Jesus. They were real folks. We liked one of them one time,
we liked the other another time. We liked Mary and Martha both,
but Lazarus died. And they loved their brother.
The Lord Jesus Christ came around the fourth day. And he said, let's go to the
cemetery. He's going to teach us a gospel lesson here. He's
going to teach us something. And one of the things he's teaching
us is that he has complete, perfect faith. I don't know if you've
ever seen that or not, but this is here. Not only does he have
the power to raise the dead, the spiritually dead and physically
dead, but he had perfect faith. And they took away the stone,
He said, take away the stone, they did, from the place where
Lazarus was laid. And Jesus lifted up His eyes
and said, Father, here is a prayer of faith. I thank Thee that Thou
hast heard me, and I know that You hear me always. I know You hear me always. How many times have you tried
to pray? I tried to pray. We were trying
to pray. We were trying to approach God
and we were just talking. Even in the midst of our concerted,
determined prayers, our mind flew away like
a bird. but not the Lord Jesus Christ. All through his life he prayed.
He prayed in the wilderness, he prayed in the garden, he prayed
here at the tomb of Lazarus, and he said, I know. He wasn't just saying it, he
said, I know. You hear me always. All right, let's go to another
place. In John chapter 17. He prayed for us. He prayed for us. He said, I
don't pray for the world, but I pray for those whom you've
given me out of the world, that they may be one with us, because you love them just like
you love me. And I pray for them. What was
it that told Peter? He said, Peter, I prayed for
you that your faith fail not. Even when you can't see it, can't
feel it, don't know it, and you're looking around for it, your faith
is not going to fail. I'll see to it. So therefore,
I'm going to speak to you a mysterious thing. The faith that God has
given you and me, if we're true believers, regenerated Children
of God, our faith, the faith that He's given us, has never
failed. Because it's perfect faith. It's
the faith of God's elect. Always had the same object. That's
how God sees it. And that's the way it really
is. How often it seems our faith is clean gone. His faith was
steadfast, unmovable, couldn't be wafered. How often it seems
we have so little that it's unnoticed by us. And we pray as a centurion in
Mark 9, 24. He said, Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. And it seems we hear often, or
I do, our Lord's rebuke. when he said in Matthew 6, verse
30, Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which
today is, tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more
clothe you, O ye of little faith? And he said unto them, Why are
ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose and rebuked the
winds and the sea, And there's a great comma. He never, ever
lacked faith. Perfect faith, always. Or as
Peter, when he denied the Lord and went out and wept bitterly.
Isn't that our case? It's sad that we must hear the
cock crow three times. Isn't it? That's our sad case. But he's going to see to it that
it grows. He's going to see to it that our faith don't fail. His didn't fail. And he gave
us the same faith that he had. His faith was not shaken or moved
because he was ever aware. And we're not ever aware. But
he is. We must look to him. He not only was before Him, but
He was His right hand. That's what it says in our text
here in Psalm 16. His faith didn't fail because
He was there before Him. He was His right hand. Right
hand is a place of power, authority, sovereignty. He perpetually believed that
God His Father was there exercising His sovereign power and glory.
for His eternal good. We know that, don't we? We know
that. We don't see it all the time.
We don't feel it all the time. We don't experience it all the
time. But it's so. And the Lord Jesus
Christ lived with a continual awareness, thirty-three and a
half years, that His Father was on the throne of His glory. ruling
and reigning in all events and circumstances, even in His death
and resurrection. All that He would suffer, even
death, was designed and executed by His Father in love and for
His good and glory. We believe that, don't we as
believers? We believe that. We believe that all things move
like a well-oiled machine ordered by God. All things fall in place
in time according to God's purpose for His glory and for our good. But yet, we have fits of despair,
doubt, and fear, not the Lord Jesus Christ. His only thing,
his only thing, and this is true, was his hatred for sin. That thing which he hated, he
was about to be made sin, and he knew it was true. And even
he entered into that with faith. He said, you won't leave me dead. You won't leave me suffering.
You'll raise me. He told his disciples, he said,
I must die, but I'll rise again. Remember that. Remember that. Because he is at my right hand,
I shall not be moved. I shall not be moved. That's
complete faith. I won't be moved. Complete trust. Perfect faith. This renders perfect obedience. He being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. That faith Him being a man of
perfect faith, rendered perfect obedience. And that brings us
back to our beginning, all to be able to obey him perfectly. I know one that did, the Lord
Jesus Christ. To obey, there must be faith.
There must be faith because we'll be called, we're called to do
things that are contrary to us. that looked impossible and devastating
to this flesh. And the Lord Jesus Christ was
called to that and he endured it, despising the shame, trusting
his father. He became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. I shall not be moved away from
your face, from my place beside you, from touching you. I'll not be moved. None of these
things will move me." And thirdly, he experienced peace,
rest, and joy and comfort in all of his sufferings because
of his faith. That's what he tells us. He said,
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices, and my flesh
also shall rest in hope, or dwell confidently in hope. For thou
wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine
Holy One to seek corruption. In his humiliation in the flesh,
even the experience of being made sin, he was upheld by his
undaunted faith. He set his face like a flint. to the fulfillment of God's purpose.
And we look unto Jesus by faith, the author and finisher of our
faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.
With holy faith, there's a holy determination. The fruit of faith
maintained him in his sufferings. That's what maintained Him, and
that's what will maintain us. That's what's going to keep us
going. What got you as believers, as children of God? You know
the Lord. What got you through your darkest night and your darkest
trial? Christ has faith in Him, looking
to Him. And that's not an exercise of
the flesh. That's not a nobility of the flesh. That's not just
saying, whatever will be, will be, and I can't do anything about
it. It's looking to Christ. The eternal joy before Him carried
Him above the despicable shame and suffering of the flesh, even
death, to the right hand of God, which was ever before Him. His
perfect faith gave the man of sorrow comfort when there was
none. Comfort when there was none.
His faith caused his heart to rejoice while he wept with bitter
tears. Do you understand that? And he was made sin and cried
out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Is that showing a lack of faith?
No. That sets forth faith in its
glorious, glorious personification in the Lord Jesus
Christ. His faith laid claim to the promise
that God would not leave his soul in hell, neither suffer
him to seek corruption. When he cried out, My God, My
God, that's the key. It's not, why hast thou forsaken
me? The key to this thing on the cross is who he cried out
to in faith. This was a man in the flesh that
was dying on a cross, that was dying that sinned not, yet bore
the sin of all of his people. And he didn't cry out for information,
he was crying out from the load of sin and guilt that was upon
him. But this doesn't show a lack
of faith. He's a true and faithful witness.
He witnessed all. And I'm going to say some things
here in closing that you may have never heard before. I'm
not trying to coin a new phrase or come up with something new.
But think about it before you judge it too severely. The Lord
Jesus Christ witnessed all by experience. He is the true and
faithful witness. He must witness it by experience. Have you ever heard me or you
or someone else say, we only learn by experience? He learned
obedience through suffering. He witnessed all. He witnessed
the love and the wrath of God. He witnessed it. He knows what
it is. We talk about it. We know what
the scriptures say about it. We know what God will reveal
to us concerning it, but little do we know, really, of the depth of the love of God
or to the severity of the wrath of God. But Jesus Christ knows
all there is to know. We must look to Him. We're idiots
compared to Him. He witnessed all life and death. He witnessed life, what it is
to live as a perfect, whole, full, complete man. in a world that knew nothing,
absolutely nothing about Him. All that men knew about Him is
what God would reveal to them. He witnessed all righteousness
and sin. He was perfect, unmitigated,
unadulterated righteousness, holy. He knew what that was. He's the righteous servant. And he also knows by experience. He didn't commit it, but he knows
by experience what sin is because, now listen, he was made sin. He must experience these. And
in all of this experience, His faith was perfect. He witnessed
all, and now here's one that may be hard to swallow. He witnessed
defeat and victory. He must. He must. He witnessed defeat and victory. Him being made sin, He, as it
were, saw the conquering of sin, the punishment of sin, the wrath
of God falling upon him to utter annihilation and defeat for his
people. He saw it done away in him. He
experienced it. The defeating of the enemy, the
adversary, he saw it put away. He experienced the putting away
of it in himself. And he also experienced the victory of conquering everything that
was adverse and against God the Father. In heaven and hell, in all He
did not sin because whatsoever is not of faith is what? Sin. So He couldn't sin. He couldn't have anything less
than perfect faith. And then His last words on the
cross, these very last words. This tells us that even in His
dying hour, He had perfect faith. Listen, this really happened
2,000 years ago. You know, sometimes I think we
just kind of think this is a tale or a fairy tale or a story. This
really happened. The Lord Jesus Christ, the sinless
Son of God, hanging on a cross, and He cried with a loud voice.
And He said, Father, into Thy hands, I commend my spirit."
And having said thus, he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. His very last breath exemplified
that perfect faith. He said, Father, I'm coming home. It's over. It's over. And believe it or not, This is
our story, because we're in Christ. We're in Christ. We have that
perfect faith, and it won't fail us. It may seem like it sometimes. It may seem like we don't have
any at all, but if we have Christ, we have faith. Let's bow our
heads.