Our reading passage tonight comes
out of the book of Psalms. We're going to work on two verses
in Romans chapter 10. But if you turn to Psalm 51,
the prophet Nathan had more backbone than almost all the preachers
in the world today. He went to David and put his
finger in his face. gave him that parable about a
poor man who had just one lamb. The man who had more than he
could count went and took the man's lamb and cooked it and
ate it. David said, who is he? I'll take
care of him. He won't breathe another breath.
Nathan said, David, you're that man. Preaching is not all fun
and games. If you don't tell the truth,
you're not God's preacher. Here in Psalm 51 is the most
complete account of David's thoughts and feelings, his beseeching
the mercy of God to have mercy upon him. Psalm 51, before we
read, may we pray. Lord, your grace is indeed wonderful,
beyond our capacity to even know, but what little we do know. How
wonderful indeed. David is amazed at your grace. Every sinner whom you save is
a debtor to sovereign grace. Lord, let us not forget where
we were when you found us, where we were when you performed the
miracle of the new birth in our soul. where we were when you
bestowed upon us that gift called faith. Lord, if you had been
simply a just God, you would have left us where you found
us. But you're not only just, you're
merciful and gracious. None of us in this room have
deserved any of your mercies. you've poured them upon us without
money and without price, altogether free, making it all the more
wonderful to poor sinners in the worship and praise of your
great name. Now, Lord, we come to your servant,
David, whose voice rings throughout the book of Psalms, none more
helpful than Psalm 51. Lord, if it would please you,
reveal to our souls what is said in this psalm, what David says
about himself, what he says about you, what he says about your
grace. Lord, open our eyes to see, our
ears to hear, our hearts to understand. Oh, to be able to see ourselves
in David, our glorious Lord, we beg if you'd bless our time
together this evening. Feed us with him who is the bread
and water of life, our Lord Jesus Christ. We beg in his name. You have a heading to Psalm 51. Many of the Psalms have no headings.
Many of them have a brief heading. This one has a longer heading. But none more important than
that first phrase to the chief musician. Mr. Hawker tells us
that that chief musician is none other than Christ. He alone can
put a song in a poor sinner's heart. And it's the Psalm of
David, as we shall certainly see and obvious to see, when
Nathan the prophet came unto him after he had gone into Bathsheba. Verse 1, Psalm 51. Have mercy
upon me, O God, according to your lovingkindness, according
unto the multitude of your tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly, that means
through and through, from my iniquity and cleanse me from
my sin. Now David is used here in the
short space of two verses, three different expressions describing
generally the word sin. The first one in verse one is
transgressions, the last word in that verse. Perhaps this means
our sins in the plural. In the second verse, it is iniquity. This is no doubt our self-righteousness. And then you have a third word
at the last of verse 2 that is singular in nature, and that's
sin, which has to do with my nature. I'm a sinner by choice,
by practice, and by nature. For I acknowledge, verse 3, my
transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. This little understood
statement in verse 4. speaking directly to God against
you, you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight. Now, we know David did evil to
his people, to his nation, to Bathsheba, to her husband, whom
David ordered virtually to be killed. But first and foremost,
all sin, no matter what it is, all sin, even murder, which is
what we have here in essence, is against God first and foremost. Sin is rebellion against God. Against you, you only have I
sinned and done this evil in your sight. Why is David confessing
that here? Because he's writing this down
in a psalm. Here's the purpose right here
in verse 4. To declare this truth, it is one that few people understand,
that you, that God, might be justified when He speaks. Everything God does must honor
His justice, His righteousness, His holiness. That you might
be justified when you speak. and be clear when you judge. That is, the judgment of God
must be right. Abraham argued with God, the
God of all the earth must do right. If I remember correctly,
he's pleading for a lot in Sodom. And all of his pleas were of
no avail. He said, if there's 50 righteous
people, will you save the city? And if there's 40, and if there's
this, that, and the other. Nobody but Lot and his daughters
were saved from that place. God might be clear when He judges. Behold, David now talking about
himself, talking about original sin, imputed sin, Adam's sin
imputed to us. This is our nature. Verse 5,
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity. And in sin did my mother conceive
me. Now, there is no sin in a husband
and wife conceiving children. David is telling us that he was
born a sinner. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you, the Lord, desires
truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you shall
make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, that branch
that they use to sprinkle blood in the Old Testament sacrificial
system. Purge me with hyssop and I shall
be clean. We would say, dear Lord, purge
me with that precious shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and
I shall be clean. And in the hidden part, you shall
make me to know wisdom. That means in New Testament terms
for us to understand that God has made Christ to be unto us
our wisdom, our wisdom. Verse 7, purge me with hyssop
and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness
that the bones which you have broken may rejoice. Hide your
face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities. Is David asking
too much? All my iniquities? Absolutely
not. If God doesn't blot them all
out, it won't make a lot of difference if he blots out most of them.
If he leaves one unatoned for, unpardoned, unforgiven, we'll
all perish. Hide your face from my sins and
blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O
God." That statement, create in me a clean heart, is to say,
God, give me a new heart. That's what He does in grace.
Preachers tell people to give their hearts to Jesus. No thank
you, He doesn't want it. but He'll give you one in His
grace. That's what David is speaking of. Create in me a clean heart,
O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from
Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore
unto me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with Your free
spirit. Then will I teach transgressors
your ways, and sinners shall be converted unto you. Deliver
me from blood guiltiness, O God, you God of my salvation. My tongue
shall sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open you my lips, and
my mouth shall show forth your praise." Here's a man right smack
in the middle of the Old Testament with their sacrificial system
of worship. You carefully notice what he
has to say in verses 16 and 17. For you, Lord, desire not sacrifice,
else would I give it. You delight not in burnt offerings.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite
heart, O God, you will not despise. How does David know that God
won't despise? this broken spirit, a broken
and a contrite heart, because a broken spirit, a broken heart,
and a contrite heart are the gift of God. God never despises
what He gives to poor sinners. He gave us His Son. He will not
despise His Son. Verse 18, David says to his God,
do good in your good pleasure unto Zion. God's people, the
church, the spiritual Israel, build you the wall of Jerusalem,
the walls of Zion. Then shall you be pleased with
the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole
burnt offering. Then shall they offer bullocks
upon your altar. So who is it, according to verse
19, in the language of Old Testament worship, Who is it that is licensed
to offer sacrifices of righteousness, burnt offering and whole burnt
offerings, and whole bullocks upon God's altar? Who is? Who has the right? It's people
whom God has saved. Lost men can do nothing except
be lost until God saves them. Their offerings to God, no matter
how costly or inexpensive for that matter, are not acceptable. If I'm not mistaken, this book
says, even the plowing of the wicked is an abomination in God's
sight. A lost man can't even plow his
fields without spitting in God's face. That's serious, real serious. All right, now let's go to Romans
chapter 10. Pick up two verses of scripture.
We can work on this statement particularly in verse 10 of Romans
chapter 10. Alright, verses 9 and 10 of Romans
10. That if you shall confess with
your mouth the Lord Jesus, or Jesus as Lord, and remember we
said this this morning, I'll have to say it again tonight.
1 Corinthians 12 says no man can call Jesus Christ Lord except
by the Holy Ghost. In other words, it's not mouthing
words. It means that Christ is truly
my Lord. That if you shall confess with
your mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in your heart that
God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. Verse 10,
for with the heart, man believes unto righteousness. Now, verse
10 is the opposite arrangement between the mouth and the heart
that we found in verse 9. But we learned something very
valuable in this statement in verse 10 that we did not learn
in verse 9, and that is, with the heart, man believes unto
righteousness. And with the mouth, confession
is made salvation. But if the mouth confesses and
the heart has not believed, it's an empty profession. So let's
work on this. With the heart, man believes
unto righteousness. In verse 9 it says, and shall
believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead,
you shall be saved. So let's talk about heart faith.
What does it mean to believe on Christ with the heart? Heart faith, not head faith.
That's good if head knows something about it, but that ain't the
same thing. Heart faith has, this is our first point, we have
seven points just like we did this morning, so let's get on
with it so we can finish. Heart faith has one object and
one object only. That is the blessed Lord Jesus
Christ Himself. Faith, saving faith, has no other
object. It's directed first of all to
His person, who He is. We cannot trust a Christ, we
could go on and prove that right here in Romans 10, we cannot
trust a Christ that we do not know. And we're not born in this
world even knowing who God is, let alone who the Lord Jesus
is. So we must first address, heart-faith addresses, the very
person of Christ himself. The Lord Jesus is God Almighty,
and he's the perfect, sinless, spotless man. And in that merger
of two natures, there is but one person, the God-man, our
Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Timothy 2.5, there's one mediator
between God and men, the man, the God-man, Christ Jesus. So heart faith addresses itself
to the person of our blessed Savior, the Lord Jesus. It's
funny, you run into people all the time that like to sound off
that they're Christians, they're believers, they're Baptists,
they're whatever, and try as you might I know, I've been there,
I've done this." You hear virtually no mention of the Savior Himself. No mention of Him. People like
to say, I got saved. That's dishonoring to God. Why
don't you say, God saved me by His grace in Christ, no less.
Religion has something to emphasize every Sunday that rolls around
in the 52 weeks of a year but no time for Christ. When they
run out of grandparents and Mother's Day and Father's Day and this
day and that day and the other day, Women's Day, Men's Day,
Youth Day and all the rest, then they start coming up with Old
Fashioned Sunday and New Fashioned Sunday and no telling what else.
Why? Because they do not preach the
blessed person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if they did, people
that they got to come there not preaching Christ will leave in
a hurry. And they know it. Whatever you use to get people
to come to church, you're going to have to use to keep them,
unless you're expecting God to do it. You tell me what's going
on today in the average church that needs God. Not one thing
in this world. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Saving faith, heart faith. as
the person, the blessed person of the Lord Jesus Christ. That
heart faith addresses itself secondly in reference to Christ,
to His work, His work, His work of redemption, His work of salvation. The blessed work of our Lord
Jesus Christ is perfect. His work is perfect. It needs
no additions and will tolerate no subtractions. It's done. Done one time and done forever.
Thirdly, we're still on point one now. I'm going to use one,
two, three, four for the points, and then I'm going to use first
and second and third if I need to divide something underneath.
The third thing about our Lord Jesus in regard to heart faith
has to do with His offices, Christ's offices, particularly Him. particularly
what are called his mediatorial offices, that is, the offices
of Christ as our mediator, that one mediator between God and
men, the man Christ Jesus. Those offices are basically three,
prophet and priest and king, prophet and priest and king. And you cannot find a single
character in the Old Testament who wore all three titles Even
old King Uzziah that was reigning when Isaiah came on the scene,
he decided that being king of Israel was not enough. And so
he intruded into the priest's office and took for himself one
of those censures and went into office. He was going to worship
God, mind you, and God smote him with leprosy. And to the
day he died, he died a leper. No wonder Isaiah said in chapter
6, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. Yes, he did. Uzziah was too big
for Isaiah to see God. When God smote him with leprosy,
Isaiah learned a whole lot in a hurry. Number two, heart faith
is born out of need. It's not something to be cultivated.
It's something a person is desperately seeking and must have. It's born of need. Born of need. Let me show you something here
in our Scriptures. John chapter 16. Back to your
left, two books. John chapter 16, verses 8, 9,
10, and 11 in John 16. The Lord Jesus is preparing His disciples for His
absence, and He promises them in verse 7 that He'll send His
Spirit, which He calls here the Comforter. And when the Holy
Spirit has come in verse 8, our Savior tells us what it is that
He comes to do. In verse 8, we have a summary. He'll reprove the world of sin. And what is the sin of all sin?
It's the one with which every man is born. It's called unbelief,
unbelief. And if it's not cured, it'll
wind up being the unpardonable sin. Reprove the world of sin
and of righteousness and of judgment. Now, take those three words,
of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And verses 9, 10, and 11 address
themselves to those three words. First of all, verse 9, dealing
with sin. On what basis does the Spirit
of God convict of sin? Because our Savior said, they
believe not on me. Heart faith has to do with Christ,
and it is a felt need in the soul. The second word is righteousness. That's covered in verse 10. Look
at it carefully. Of righteousness. Why? Because I go to my Father. In
other words, as human beings on this world, in this world,
living in this world, we have no clue what righteousness is
because we ain't never seen a righteous person. Now believers, mind you,
are perfectly righteous in the righteousness of Christ. But
the righteous one himself, the Lord Jesus, is no longer here. I mean, where men can see him
and touch him and talk to him. So it says, of righteousness,
because I go to my Father and you see me no more. So the Spirit
of God must take up the subject of righteousness in the sinner.
That's an important undertaking. Because every man is already
self-righteous in his own eyes. Whether he's ever been to church
or not's got nothing to do with it. We're born that way. We'll
die that way if grace doesn't intervene. All right? The third
word is judgment in verse 11. Of judgment, look at this now. How do we know there's going
to be a judgment? Who's the judge? The book says all judgment is
in the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ. How do we know he can
do it? Here it is. Because the prince
of this world, the devil, is judged. The devil now belongs
to Christ, and our Savior has him on a lease, and he can't
do anything without divine permission. First time I heard a preacher
say that the devil was God's devil, I like, it came out of
my mind. I never heard such an expression.
Scott Richardson. And did that man tell me the
truth or not? Absolutely he did. The Spirit of God convicts of
judgment because the devil has already been judged. And now
he's just the servant of God. One more scripture right quick
on this one. We'll have to speed up. Matthew chapter 11, talking
about need, about need and the sin of unbelief. Let's see. Let's read verses 20 through
25 and I won't be able to stop. Very tiny bit, I hope. Let's
see if we can do it. Have you found Matthew 11, verse
20? The Lord Jesus is speaking now to the cities that he frequented
during his earthly public ministry, lasted some three and a half
years. Some of these places that he names were favored with his
presence. I mean a lot. Capernaum, he just
came and went to that place so many times. Then began he to
upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done,
because they repented not. Woe unto you, Chorazin! Woe unto
you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which
were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which are
Gentile cities in that day, they would have repented long ago
in sackcloth and ashes. Let that sink in. But I say unto
you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day
of judgment than for you. Now listen, there ain't no such
things as degree of rewards in heaven. All believers have the
same reward. You know what it is? Christ and
nothing else. They don't want anything else.
That's who they're looking for. It ain't to see grandma, it's
to see the Savior. But in hell, there will be degrees
of punishment. And that statement proves it
along with a great many others. All right, come in verse 23.
And you, Capernaum, which are exalted unto heaven, shall be
brought down to hell. For if the mighty works which
have been done in you had been done in Sodom, Sodom would have
remained until this day. But I say unto you, it shall
be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment
than for you. far greater the sin of unbelief
than the sin of sodomy. That's what the book says. I
just read it to you. Verse 25, at that time Jesus
answered and said, I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, because you've hidden these things from the wise and
prudent and have revealed them unto babes. And that's still
what God does. He's still in that business.
right now. Now if you'd go back to Psalm
51 for just a second. I meant to tell you to save it,
but I forgot it. The book of Psalms is pretty large. You can
find it pretty easy. I want to read verse 4 in Psalm
51 again. Number 3, heart faith finds itself
in agreement with the justice and holiness of God. Here's David,
Psalm 51 verse 4, against you, you only have I sinned and done
this evil in your sight, that you might be justified when you
speak and be clear when you judge. One more example, the Gospel
of Luke chapter, oh, I think it's chapter 7. I only have time to read you
two verses. The Lord Jesus is giving testimony
concerning John the Baptist. And John, when he preached as
the forerunner of Christ, baptized people in the Jordan River, and
it was called a baptism of repentance, of repentance. And we learn in
verse 29 of Luke chapter 7 what it meant to submit oneself to
the baptism of John the Baptist. It's got nothing to do with Baptist
as a denomination or anything like that. All the people that
heard John the Baptist, these are our Savior's words, I remind
you. This is what He said about John. All the people and the
publicans, when they submitted to John's baptism, here's what
it meant. They declared God to be just. They justified God being baptized
with the baptism of John. Verse 30, but the Pharisees and
the lawyers, other places they're called scribes, rejected the
counsel of God against themselves. How do we know? Refusing to be
baptized of John the Baptist. It takes God's side against ourselves. And we say, Lord, if you send
me to the bottom of hell, I deserve it. You'd be right. But if it
pleases you, if you have mercy on this poor sinner. All right,
number four. Let's take a text out of Leviticus,
all the way to the front of your Bibles, Genesis, Exodus, Numbers. I may have them out of order,
I don't know. But anyway, Leviticus chapter 1, sometimes we can see things more
clearly with Old Testament illustrations than we can New Testament ones.
Here's a beautiful word picture of God's grace and mercy in Christ. Leviticus chapter 1, verses 3
and 4, what does it mean for heart faith to take God's side
against myself? Verse 3, if his offering be a
burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without
blemish. He shall offer it of his own
voluntary wills. God accepts no forced worship
at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the
Lord. Now watch this. And this worshiper
that brings this sacrifice, He shall put his hand upon the head
of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to
make atonement for him." The animal is slain and offered as
a sacrifice to God. And when this man, whoever it
is, no matter his status in life, he puts his hand on the head
of that animal, it is exactly the same thing as when God in
mercy and grace lets us reach out to Christ with the hand of
faith, and we put our hand on the head of our sacrifice, which
is what this man did in type and picture. And if he didn't
see Christ in this, he might as well have been playing marbles
somewhere. It would all have amounted to the same thing. But
if this poor man has been visited by the grace of God and is able
to see in that Old Testament worship, it's not that animal
that puts away his sin. It's that God-man that that animal
represents. It's that coming Redeemer, that
Messiah that the Old Testament speaks so much about. All right,
we go back to the New Testament, John chapter 6. Here's the fifth thing. Heart
faith continues and perseveres. In the sixth chapter of John,
as we get toward the end of that chapter, The professing disciples
of our Savior are leaving in wholesale numbers. We've looked
at all of those verses plenty of times. But here in verse 67,
68, and 69, when there's a whole crowd of people that are leaving
off following the Lord Jesus. In verse 66, it tells us about
those folks. And the word time is in italics,
and if you leave out the word time, I think it's far more understandable. From that, This teaching of our
Savior, when He said, no man can come unto Me except the Father
which hath sent Me, draw him from that, many of His disciples
went back and walked no more with Him. So our Lord turns to
the apostles, the disciples. He said unto them in verse 67,
He said to the 12, will you also go away? Then Simon Peter answered
and said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of
eternal life, and we believe and are sure that you are that
Christ, the Son of the living God. Saving faith never dies. Peter said, where are we going
to go? You have the words of eternal life. Number six, heart
faith regards, looks at, and receives trials and afflictions
from the Lord. Let me read you a statement,
Job. You need not turn. I'm just going to read one statement.
You'll be familiar with it. When Job lost all of his possessions,
when he lost his entire family at one time, you can read it
in the first chapter of Job. Here's what he said. Naked came
out of my mother's womb and naked shall I return there. The Lord
gave and the Lord has taken away. be the name of the Lord. First
funeral I ever conducted here in this auditorium, I opened
the funeral service with that reference and either read or
quoted that verse. And this stupid preacher that
got up behind me, his opening statement was this, my God doesn't
take, he only gives. Do you know for the first time
it dawned on me that my God and his God are not the same God?
We have the same Bible, we don't have the same God. My God's Job's
God. Trials and afflictions, if they
don't come from the Lord, where do they come from? That's scary.
If they don't come from Him, if it's just fate, if it's just
an accident, if it's orchestrated by somebody else with a bigger
and better and all the rest of us put together, my goodness,
we'd be in a fix. But if a man knows that nothing
comes and nothing goes without divine permission, we can just
walk through this world like everything's all right, even
when it ain't. Because trouble's going to come, ladies and gentlemen.
Most of us are old enough to know that already. We're going
to lose our loved ones. All right, number seven, heart,
faith. I'm turning to Philippians chapter
one. And verse 21, heart faith prevails
in the day of death. So if we don't have heart faith,
whatever we got, we need to get rid of. Let's see, Galatians,
Ephesians, Philippians. I can find it. Chapter 1, verse
21. Here's what Paul said. Philippians
1.21. For to me, to live is Christ,
and to die is gain. That'll do to live by, and it'll
do to die by. Heart faith.