I invite you to turn in your
Bibles to the book of Isaiah chapter 3, Isaiah the third chapter. I would like to read verse 10
and 11 of this third chapter of Isaiah. Say ye to the righteous that
it shall be well with him, for they shall eat the fruit of their
doings. Woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him, for
the reward of his hands shall be given him. Say ye to the righteous that
it shall be well with him, for they shall eat the fruit of their
doings. Woe unto the wicked, it shall
be ill with him, for the rewards of his hands shall be given him."
There are two classes of people that are mentioned here in our
text this morning, that is the righteous and the wicked. And
into these two classes the Word of God is accustomed to divide
the whole population of the globe. Very early in human history we
find the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent spoken
of in the Word. We meet with Cain who was of
that wicked one and slew his brother because his own works
were evil and his brother's righteous. And while the flood, which occurred
during the days of Noah, destroyed the ungodly, the wicked Noah and his family floated in
the ark in security as the representative
of the righteous. Let me give you that again. When
the flood destroyed the ungodly, the wicked, in the days of Noah,
Noah floated in the ark in security as the representative of the
righteous. I like that. I like that indeed. And when the destroying angel
smites the rebellious ungodly Egyptians, Israel dwells in their
homes in safety, eating the Passover lamb. The Lord will have the
distinction, this distinction, between the righteous and the
wicked maintained till the time shall be no more. The Lord will
maintain this distinction. Friend of mine, there are none
who dwell between these two conditions. There are none, I say, that dwell
between these two conditions. There is a sharp line of division
between the righteous and the wicked as clear as that which
divides death from life. A man cannot be between death
and life. He's either alive or he's dead.
If he's got any breath in him at all, he's still alive. He's
among the living. When that breath is gone, he
is dead. So a clear line of demarcation
exists between life and death, and such a division is fixed
by God between the righteous and the wicked. There are no
more in-betweens. You're either in grace or out
of grace. You're either saved or lost.
You're either sinner or saint. You've got to be one or the other.
There's no in-between. You are this day alive by the
quickening influence of the Spirit of God, or else you're dead in
trespasses and sins. He that is not with Christ is
against him, and he that gathereth not with him, the Scripture says,
scattereth abroad. So this text has a voice, I think,
to everyone in this room this morning. Everyone in this room. You're either righteous, or you're
wicked. You're either saved or you're
lost. You're either in Christ or out of Christ. You either
know the grace of God in truth or you don't. If you be righteous, it shall
be well with you. It shall be well with you. If
you're out of Christ, woe be to the wicked, it shall be ill
with him. Now this morning if you've heard
these texts and these few brief remarks that we've made, I don't
want you to apply this comfortable word found in verse 10 to yourself
if you're not among the righteous. Don't apply this. It's good always
for a man to examine himself to see whether or not he be in
the faith. It's good for a man that he should begin to question
himself. As to whether or not he truly
knows the Lord, whether he has a standing in the true grace
of God, whether God has ever dealt with his soul or not. There's
a comfortable word here, a very comfortable word here in our
text. Say you to the righteous it shall
be well with him. It'll be well with the righteous,
but don't take that to yourself. If you're not made righteous
through the blood of Christ and through the transforming power
of His Spirit, do not steal this consolation from this text. It don't belong to you unless
you're righteous. On the other hand, if this dark
and dreary and threatening, solemn truth found in verse 11 applies
to you and tremble, well, you may. For it may be that God is
visiting your soul today by giving you opportunity once more to
hear the gospel proclaimed that you may be yet numbered with
the righteous ere you leave this world. So you listen carefully
to what these texts of scripture say. Well, let us notice, first
of all, the well-being of the righteous. Let's think about
that a little bit. The well-being of the righteous.
Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him. This
word well means well-favored. You remember the Bible says that
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. It was well with
Noah. He was well-favored by the Lord. That speaks of the grace of God.
And so say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with you.
Now there seems to me to be an unusual amount of people that
are cast down now among the Lord's living family. There are many
that are discouraged. There's many that need to be
comforted. And I do believe that God is
in the comforting business. I believe that God would comfort
the souls of all those that are indeed discouraged and are cast
down. And this is the purpose of the
message today, is to comfort your soul and to encourage you
in the ways of your Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now Satan
seems to use this tool of discouragement more than any other. There's
a story told about Satan having a sale. And there was a particular
gentleman that went to the sale and Satan was selling all the
tools that he didn't feel that he really needed anymore. They
just certainly wasn't serving him as he would like. And so
he was putting them up for sale. And so this man went among the
tools and looked around and he came across discouragement. The tool of discouragement. And
he looked at it, and there was a sign on that tool that said,
not for sale. He thought that was unusual,
so he went to Satan, and he said, Satan, what's the meaning of
this? All these tools are for sale
except discouragement. And you got a sign on that that
says not for sale. And Satan said, well, these other
tools haven't worked real well. And he said, I'm not going out
of business, and therefore, that works the best, discouragement. And I do believe that all discouragement... ...are discouraged today and
cast down and they need to be strengthened, they need to be
comforted, they need a blessing. Hear me this morning, observe
the fact... ...mentioned here in our text
says that it shall be well It shall be well with the righteous. Now this statement is a very
simple statement, and this statement is a very broad statement. It
shall be well with him. It shall be well with those who
know the Lord. It shall be well with those whose
sins are pardoned, whose sins are put away. It shall be well
with him who is identified with the Lord Jesus Christ through
faith. Now, that is the whole of the Declaration, but the very
fewness of the word, I think, reveals a great depth
of meaning. First of all, we may gather from
the fact that it is always well with the
righteous. It is said it will be And that means it will be well
always with the righteous. It could have said it'll be well
with the righteous in prosperity, and it would have a limit to
it. It could be said it will be well with the righteous in
persecution, or it shall be well with the righteous when they're
all they ought to be, and it would have definite limitations
to it. Yet when no time is mentioned,
all time is included. Don't you think? All time is
included. When no particular occasion is
singled out, it is because upon every occasion this saying is
a true saying, it shall be well with the righteous. Well, when
they see his face, or sink amidst the flood, well in affliction's
thorny maze, or on the mount with God, well, well at all times. Say ye to the righteous, it shall
be well with him from the beginning of the year to the end of the
year, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the
same, it shall be well with the righteous. Now in the story that
Brother Randy read to us this morning, Now to 2nd Kings chapter
4 and verse 26, and if you have your Bible you might hold your
finger here in the text and turn back again to 2nd Kings chapter
4. And we see here the story of
the Shunammite woman, and she had a burden on her heart to
favor the man of God and had fixed up a room for him and his
servant to stay in when he came by their home. And Elisha wanted
to do something for this woman. And so through his servant Gehaziai,
he found that she had no son or no daughter. She had no children.
And so Elisha wanted that she would have a
son. And so he prayed and sought the Lord, and through the miraculous
power of God, this woman became a mother of a son. And as the
story goes, this boy grew up and went out one day to be with
his father as his father was reaping in the field. And he
said to his father in verse 19, my head, my head. And he said
to a lad, you carry him to his mother. In other words, he got
sick. And when he had taken him and brought him to his mother,
he sat on her knee till noon and then he died. And so she
took this boy, this corpse, and laid him on the bed of the man
of God and shut the door upon him and went out. And she called
unto her husband and said, Send me, I pray thee, one of the young
men, one of the asses, that I may run to the man of God and come
again. And he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to him today? It's
neither the new moon nor the Sabbath. And she said, It shall
be well. It shall be well. Now her husband
seems to be in the dark here about what the true circumstances
are. This boy is dead. And she said,
it shall be well. And so they saddled an ass and
said to his servant, drive, go forward, slack not your riding
for me, except I bid thee. So she went and came unto the
man of God to Mount Carmel. And it came to pass when the
man of God saw her for off, he said, behold, yonder is that
Shunmite. Run now, I pray thee, to meet
her and say unto her, ask her these questions. Ask her these
questions. Is it well with thee? Is it well
with thee? Is it well with thy husband?
Is it well with thy child? Or with the child? And she answered,
it is well. How do you explain that? How
do you explain it? Well, the way you explain it
is that this woman knew the Lord. She knew the God of heaven and
earth. She understood that those who
know the Lord and those who rest in Him by faith, that the Lord
has an overruling power, and that all things work together
for their good and for the glory of God, and that they're never
losers by their losses, that they're always blessed They're
blessed of the Lord, and they're favored mightily by God. And
so regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the test, regardless
of the trial, regardless of the appearance of the situation,
this woman says to her husband first, it shall be well, and
then she answered, it is well, to all these questions that were
asked by the servant of Elisha. And so, beloved, we come to that
place in our thoughts this morning where we need to understand that
it shall be well with the righteous at all times in any situation
that occurs. It shall be well with him when
like Samuel, and God calls him from the bed of his childhood,
It shall be well with him when like David in his old age he
is propped up in his bed to conclude his life with a song of praise
on his lips. It shall be well with him if
like Solomon he shall abound in wealth. And equally well with
him, that is the righteous, if like Lazarus he shall lie at
the gate of the rich man and the dogs lick his sores. It shall
be well with him that is the righteous, if like Job, when
he washes his feet with oil and he steps with butter, when the
princesses are before him, bowing their heads, the great ones of
the earth do him honor, but it still will be equally well with
Job in his trials when he sits down to scrape himself with a
potsherd, His children all gone, having been taken away, and his
wife telling him to curse God and die, and his friends become
miserable comforters, and himself left alone that shall be well,
always well, always well with the people of God. Tis well when
joys arise, tis well when sorrows flow, tis well when darkness
veils the skies, and strong temptations blow. Now the text evidently
means that it is well with the righteous at all times alike,
and never otherwise than well. Never otherwise than well. Now beloved, this will cheer
you. The poet said, what cheering words are these? Their sweetness
who can tell? In time and to eternal days,
tis with the righteous well. Now whatever your circumstances
is this morning, I think that you should begin to take heart
You should begin to cheer up a little bit. You should begin
to be comforted somewhat in your soul this morning that it's always
well with the righteous. It is always well, regardless
of what the circumstances are, and we supported that by the
woman that we read about in the book of 2 Kings, as well as these
other characters of Scripture that we've mentioned to you this
morning. Now my second point is, after saying that it's always
well with the Lord's people, it is well, let me say, upon
divine authority. Upon divine authority. Now a
wise man may come to us and say, you know, I've observed that
it is well with God's people at all times. And what he says
may be accurate. But how much better is it to
hear it come from the mouth of our God himself? to hear it come
from the mouth of God. Now, beloved, it's one thing
for you to tell me it'll be well. It'll be well when I'm in trial
and in deep circumstances and difficulty. It would be well
for you to come and say, it'll be well with you, preacher. But
listen to me. It's a whole lot more comforting
for me to read from the Word of God and to hear God say it
to my heart, it shall be well with the righteous. So we have
it under the hand and seal of omniscience, of omniscience. This God who knows all, who has
complete wisdom, knows the end from the beginning, knows all
of his works from the beginning of the world, this God has said
it shall be well with the righteous. He's that one that searches the
heart, who sees every secret thing. He says with the righteous
it will be well. It will be well. Now brother,
sister, if God says that it is well, 10,000 devils may say it
is not, and we can laugh them all to scorn. If God says it
shall be well with the righteous, let the demons and let the devils,
let them all say what they will, we'll laugh them to scorn. Let
God be true, the Bible says, and every devil and every man
a liar. Let God be true. Now, it's a
matter of faith, don't you see? Blessed be God for a faith which
enables us to believe this, whether we can see it or whether we can't
see it. Now, many, many times we're so
blinded by the circumstances that are around us, the situations
that we're dealing with, the various characters that we have
to deal with daily, that we're not able to see it, that it's
well with us. And so we need faith, we need
to believe God and believe the statements made by our God. And when he says it is well with
us, then we should bless his name because it's true whether
we can see it or whether we cannot see it. Believe the naked promise
of the Word of God. Nothing but truth comes from
the mouth of the God of truth, and we need to remember that.
It's a time to believe God. You're a believer, aren't you?
Aren't you so designated? So and so is a believer. If you're
a believer, then believe the naked promises of the Word of
God. God says, it shall be well with
the righteous. So, beloved, it is well emphatically
with the righteous. That is, it's well with weight,
because the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. He said, it shall
be well with the righteous. Now, notice again, that it is
so well with the righteous that God wants him to know it. That
God wants him to know it. He said, say ye to the righteous. Say it to them. Tell them that
it is well with the righteous. He would have his people comforted.
He says to his prophets, say ye to the righteous. It is not
dangerous. Is it dangerous to the believer,
to tell the believer that it's well with him? Well, I believe
that from God's choice of a believer in election unto his glorification,
it is well with the righteous and that we ought to tell them
about it. And there are those among the preachers of our land
who said it's dangerous to give the people of God too much security.
Well, I don't think it's dangerous. I believe that it's the right
thing to do. I don't believe the people of
God can react right and they cannot function properly in this
world unless they know what God has said and it's the business
of the preacher to tell them that it shall be well with the
righteous, that God's on the throne. and that God has made
certain promises and pledges, and that when we do not believe,
yet He remains faithful because He cannot deny Himself. God is
faithful, and He will fulfill His word. Every word which is
uttered, not one word shall fail of all that our God has said.
So I say unto you, from election unto glorification, all shall
be well with the righteous. Now the Lord would have us to
take this book, this good old book itself, and let it speak
plainly to the righteous of the dignity of their relationship,
of the security of their portion, of the comfort of their present
estate, and the glory of the world to come. That's what the
Lord would have us to do. Say ye to the righteous, say
it often and say it plainly. It'll keep the children of God
out of the depths. It'll thaw the icicles out of
their heart. It'll keep them out of the doldrums.
Tell them, say ye unto the righteous, it shall be well with them. Are you in Christ, my brother,
my sister? Have you been washed in the blood?
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you trusted in Christ Jesus? Have you passed from death unto
life? Now it may seem to you that everything
is out of whack in your life. You may say everything is just
so mixed up and so confusing and I'm so frustrated and the
more I try to straighten out things, the worse it gets. But
if you've answered amen to the questions I just asked, are you
in Christ? Have you been washed in the blood?
Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you passed from death to
life? Then regardless of how things appear to you, my friend,
I say to you today on the authority of the Word of God, I say to
you as God's spokesman this morning, I say to you as that one that
God sent here today to tell you Tell the righteous that it shall
be well with them. Oh, believe it, dear soul, it
shall be well with you. And as you begin to deal day
by day with the circumstances of life, how many, many times
should we come back to the naked Word of God and believe what
God says to us in order that we might be stable living in
this world to the glory of His name? Should not the righteous
be joyful? should they not be joyful. I'm
not joyful enough, and neither are you. I don't believe that
any of us here are joyful enough. We do not take seriously the
promises of the Word of God, the true statements of Scripture. There are so many Scriptures
in the Bible that we need to meditate upon and fasten our
hearts to, and we need to believe them We need to believe them
like never before. And the older you get, the more
you must cling to the plain teachings of the Word of God, or your soul
will be very unstable. The truest worship in the world
is joy in the Lord. And the Bible said rejoice in
the Lord always, and again I say rejoice, rejoice in the Lord.
Why should we not rejoice in the Lord if he said it shall
be well with the righteous? If he said it shall always be
well with the righteous. If he himself said it to us,
And if the book declares it plainly, why should we not rejoice in
the Lord? What a blessed God is ours in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the name of the Lord
forever and forever. Well, I wanted to talk a little
bit about how we can account for this truth. What are the
grounds of this truth? It shall be well with the righteous. Well, this text says that they
shall eat the fruit of their doings. Does that scare you?
It scares the life out of me. Now, listen to what I'm saying
here. Let me point this out to you
that the only grounds upon which the Old Covenant could promise
that it would be well with the righteous is that they eat the
fruit of their doings, the Old Covenant. You know, the Old Covenant
said, do and live. And the new covenant says live
and do. There's a difference in that.
There's a big difference in that. And so this is not the ground
upon which you and I stand under the gospel. It is not the grounds. Now if you haven't listened to
anything I've said, you listen now. You need to listen to what
I'm telling you at this point. The grounds upon which all things
shall be well for the believer, for the righteous, I'm giving
it to you now. I say to you, this business of
us to eat the fruit of our doings would be to us a very dreadful
thing, because we'd all go to hell if we eat the fruit of our
doings. There's not a one of us here that could say, I want
the Lord to deal with me, I want to eat of the fruit of my doings. If you got a lick of brains in
your head, a lick of spiritual sense, you wouldn't want to do
such a thing. I'm here to tell you that this
morning, seeing that there's none righteous, no not one, seeing
that the heavens are not pure in his sight, seeing that God
is thrice holy and that he will not at all acquit the wicked,
I'm telling you this morning that you would not want to eat
the fruit of your doings. But thanks being to God, we don't
have to do that. Blessed be God, under the gospel
of the grace of God, there is one, listen to me, there is one,
one whose doings for us are the grounds of our dependence, and
blessed be God, we shall eat the fruit of his doings. It's the fruit of his doings
that is the grounds of our being able to say, it shall be well
with the righteous. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, he
stood for us, and what a harvest of joy he sowed for us in his
life and his death. His living holiness, His dying
obedience has purchased for us a number of blessings. He is
the smart, but ours the blessing. Ours the sweet. His the labor,
ours the rest. Don't you see it was Him and
what He did that purchased for us this great blessing. As we
sit down at Heaven's Feast, the food which we shall bear, eat,
will be the fruit of The joy we shall there receive will be
the result of His griefs, and the well done will be the reward
of His righteousness. Now, beloved, we need to understand
this clearly, because this will give us the joy of our hearts
to know that we shall eat the fruit of His doing, the doings
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, beloved, He's either our
substitute or He is not. If He is my substitute, then
He's the one that does the doing. All the doing's been done, we've
told you that before. All the doing and the dying has
been done. The Lord Jesus did it, did it
all. Sin or nothing do, neither great
nor small. Jesus did it, did it all long,
long ago. And we need to remember that.
We need to remember it. Because this is the grounds of
all things being well for the righteous. And this brings me
to say this, that it is well with the believer when you consider
that his greatest trouble in this world is already past. The greatest trouble that he
had is already past. Now what would be the greatest
trouble that you had when you come into this world, the greatest
problem? Well, I think the greatest trouble
or the greatest problem was your sin. It's our sin. Our sin. Now you see, you could
not get out of this world and get into a glorified body and
spend eternity in heaven unless something was done about your
sin. Something had to be done. Somebody
who was able to do something about your sin, this awesome
problem that you had, somebody had to do something about it.
or else you'd never be able to spend eternity with the Lord.
Well, our greatest trouble is past. Our sin is put away. It's
put away by this substitute that we were talking about, by the
Lord Jesus Christ. Our sin has been pardoned. He
canceled our sin. It's been remitted. It's been
taken away. Furthermore, we're set free from
the terrible bondage of the law by the grace of God. by the grace
of God. The guilt of sin has been taken
away by our substitute, and the justice of God is now our very
best friend. We don't know the justice of
God one cent. Here we are, every one of us
here, sinners before God. We know that we are. The Bible
is clear on it, very plain on it. All of sin comes short of
the glory of God, but we don't owe the justice of God, and we
proclaim it boldly. We proclaim it without any fear
of being successfully contradicted. We are not in debt any longer
to the justice of God, and the justice of God pronounces us
clean, and that we owe that justice nothing. We owe it nothing. And the reason is because full
payment was exacted from the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The reason is that Jesus paid it all, that he laid down his
life for us, that he satisfied God on our behalf in our place. And so I say the justice of God
is now my best friend. It shall be well with the righteous
because God himself sees no iniquity in his people because he views
them in the beloved one, and they're accepted in him, and
he sees no sin in Jacob, no perverseness in Israel. He sees none in his
Israel, the Israel of God, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ,
which is made up of all saved people, all of those who are
in Christ. Now the next thing, I want you
to think a little bit about that, but your greatest trouble is
past. It shall be well with the righteous because your greatest
trouble is past. Was there not a time when you
would give your right arm if it could be said, this sin problem
of mine has been taken away? Praise be unto God there was
a time when we felt the guilt of our sin to the place where
we would have done anything to be able to get out from under
the guilt of our sin. Well, I'm here to tell you, shall
be well with the righteous because this has been taken care of.
The Lord Jesus has taken care of it. Now, your next greatest
trouble, let me say, is doomed. It's doomed. What is your next
greatest trouble? Well, this is important for us
to see, I believe, and the next greatest trouble of the believer
is the power of indwelling sin. Indwelling sin, the old body
that we have, and the old nature that we have, and that corruption
of nature which we have to deal with every day of our lives. The power of sin and the plague
that plagues us now, where I believe the Lord Jesus Christ drove or
has driven the spear through the heart of sin to the point
where that it no longer has power over the people of God. It shall
not have dominion over you, the Bible says, for you're not under
the law but under grace. It will not have dominion over
you. The Lord Jesus has driven a spear through the heart of
this sin, and the day is coming when we will drop all tendency
to sin. Do you believe that? The day
is coming when the Lord's people will not have any more carnal
passion, where they will not have one unsubdued desire. There will be no more sin in
the believer. The day is coming when all there
will be in the believer will be to draw him upward toward
holiness in God. And that day's coming. Just as
sure as the Lord Jesus Christ has driven the spear through
sin's power, we're going to come to that day. The holiness without
which no man shall see the Lord is guaranteed to every believer
in the covenant of grace so that our greatest trouble, our second
greatest trouble, will soon be over. It'll be over. God's going
to give us the spirit of holiness, and for all eternity we're not
going to thank one thought except that which would be honoring,
glorifying, and magnifying to our God. All sin shall be taken
away. Praise be unto God. And then
I would like to also point out that not only has our greatest
trouble and our second greatest trouble been dealt with by the
Lord Jesus, that our best things are safe and secure with the
Lord. Our best things are safe and
secure with the Lord. Now what I mean by that is our
souls are in his hand. They're in his hand. 2 Timothy
1.12 says, For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that
he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against
that day. Paul says that I've committed
my soul into the hands of the Lord and he is able to keep it.
until that day, until the day when he comes into the presence
of God, and that day when he'll be accepted before the throne
of Almighty God, and that day of fellowship and communion with
God, his soul will be kept. Now, beloved, if my soul was
something I could lose, I'd not be up here saying to you this
morning, saying to the righteous that it shall be well with them.
If I believed that a man could be saved today and lost tomorrow,
I wouldn't preach a sermon like this. I would not preach what
the word of God says because it contradicts my theology. But
I'm here to tell you this morning that I believe that our souls
are safe and secure in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
if the ship, when this whole ship goes down, the precious
cargo is not going down with it. I don't believe this soul
is going to sleep in a grave. I believe that as soon as I die,
my soul is going to go yonder to be with the Lord. I believe
that with all my heart. I think it's safe in the hands
of the Lord Jesus and will be transported right into the very
presence of God. I believe that. And we need to
believe that in order to understand how it can be well with the righteous
regardless of what's going on around them and what's going
on in their life in this world. And let me further say, and this
is a faith proposition, This is a faith prophecy. This is
the victory that overcometh the world. Even our faith, John said. Faith. We need to believe God. We need to trust God. Faith proposition
tells me that the worst things in my life only work for my good. Can you accept that? Now that's
what faith says. Faith says, brother, sister,
the worst things that happen to you are for your good. They're
for your good because God is in control. God is on the throne. God in his eternal power has
all things under him and he says that all things work together
for your good and for my glory. And so the worst things that
can happen to you in this life is for your good. Wait and believe
God. Trust the Lord. Trust him. Trust him, my friend. We gain
by our losses. Do you believe that? When you
lose something in this world, do you sit around and weep and
cry about it? Well, you can if you want to,
but I'm telling you, you gain by your losses if you're a believer. Trust the Lord. The Lord is in
control. Wait for Him, and wait till tomorrow,
and wait till the day after. Wait on the Lord. Be of good
courage, and He shall strengthen your heart. All you that wait
on him, wait on the Lord. It is good for a man to both
hope and quietly wait for the deliverance of the Lord. Faith,
my friend. Believe God. I'm telling you,
we gain by our losses. Now get this one. We acquire
health by our sickness. Can you accept that? Say, boy,
that's a tough one. We acquire health by our sickness. That's right. We're getting well. We're getting well. That's right. God's people are getting well.
We're on the way to perfect health. We're on our way, my friend.
Get away from all this frailty and all of this lameness and
get rid of all this pain and this sickness. We're on our way.
We're going to be well one of these days. We've already started
saying, according to the book of Isaiah, they shall not say
they're sick. Already, it's in our vocabulary. We're going to acquire health
by our sickness. And we're more than conquerors
in our defeats. Let them do what they will. Well, the scripture says, we
shall not fear what man shall do unto us. We'll not fear. Well,
why not? Well, because the Lord said,
I'm your helper. I'm with you. I'll be with you.
And so you need not, you're always more than conqueror through him
that loved you. Whatever be your defeats. You
know, there have been many that have thought the Lord Jesus Christ,
when he was crucified on Calvary, they lost the battle. That was
the end of it. That was the end of this imposter, this fake,
this con man. That was the end of it. But you
know what? The Lord Jesus Christ rose in victory from the grave.
The Lord Jesus is seated at the right hand of God. The Lord Jesus
has saved all of his people from their sin. The Lord Jesus has
glorified all of his people. They're as well as glorified.
He won the victory. The crisis of the world came
and he was triumphant over it. It looked like he was defeated.
But he was the conqueror, the mighty conqueror the Lord Jesus
was in his death. Well, I like, Mr. Spurgeon had some things to say
about the Christian and how it is well with him in this world,
and I'll hurry here and close in a little bit, that I liked
and I want to share it with you. Number one, he said the Christian,
all is well with the Christian because he's well fed. If somebody
is well fed, you assume that things are well with him. And
by the looks of this group, I think most of us are well fed. But the believer is well fed
because he feeds upon the Lord Jesus Christ. We're said to partake
of his body and his blood. We eat his flesh and we drink
his blood. And do that, of course, by faith.
So the believer is well fed. And then he said he's well clothed.
Bring forth the best robe and put it on him. We wear the garments
of salvation. We wear the imputed righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we're well clothed. And
we're also well housed. Now, he dwells in God, that is
the believer, who has been the dwelling place of his people
in all generations. So the believer dwells in God.
And that's where we're housed. And then he's well married. Our
soul is married to the Lord the Lamb. We're in union with the
Lord Jesus Christ. We're one spirit with Christ,
so we're well married. And so it is that it is well
with us. And then we're also well provided
for in the present. What did David say? He said,
the Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want. And so we're well provided
for by the Lord. So it is well with the righteous. Say ye unto the righteous, it
shall be well with them. Now just a word briefly about
verse 11. Woe unto the wicked, it shall
be ill with him, for the reward of his hands shall be given him. No question about the reward
of his hands shall be given to him. If we said that it shall
be well with the righteous at all times, might I suggest to
you that woe be unto the wicked at all times. Might I tell you
this morning the psalm says that the Lord God is angry with the
wicked every day. Every day God is angry with the
wicked. Might I tell you according to
the word of God in John 3.18 that the sinner or the wicked
are condemned already. Now the sentence has not been
executed but they're condemned already. God said they're condemned
already. Already and then it is will with
the ill with the wicked on God's authority as I said We got our
comfort from God saying it shall be well with the righteous I
tell the wicked today that God says it will be well ill with
them. Whoa He said unto the wicked
it shall be ill with him It'll be ill with you. God said this. This is not what the preacher
says alone. It is going to be ill with you.
It is ill with you because you have no substitute. You have
no one to stand in your place. You have no one to receive the
lash of God upon his back for you. You have no one that will
give you the reward of his hands. You must take the reward of your
hands and what your hands have done, and you must answer to
God for what you've done. And so I say to you this morning,
you have no substitute. And what an awful plight to be
without Christ, to be without God, to be without an intercessor,
to be without someone to stand between you and a holy God, someone
who's kept the books on you. And you shall, my friend, receive
the reward of your hands. It shall be given unto you without
fail. You have not the Spirit of Christ,
and so you're none of His. You do not have the Spirit, the
Holy Spirit. Somebody mentioned this morning
about the indwelling Spirit. And certainly all believers have
the indwelling Spirit of God, which is the earnest of our inheritance. It's the down payment. It shows
that God owns us, and the wicked don't have it. Roar unto the
wicked, because he has no pledge from God that God will own him
throughout eternity. No pledge. No pledge. Then you do not have the Lord
Jesus Christ dwelling in your heart, whom God favors. Now beloved,
if you got any spiritual understanding, you know that God has favored
you because of Christ. And He dwells in you. He dwells
in you. Christ in you. is your hope of
glory. And God favors him in you. That's why he's had the mercy
upon you that he has. Have you ever been astonished
at the goodness of the Lord? Pardon me for bringing it up,
but God has been so good, so merciful unto me. There have
been so many times when God has manifested his loving kindness
toward me and I was absolutely amazed. that God should show
me such astonishing mercy and love. And then I thought, it's
because of Him that dwells in me. It's because of the Lord
Jesus Christ. God favors Him. God would do
ten million things for His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Because
the Lord Jesus Christ always did that which was pleasing to
God. And you have no Christ dwelling in you. God has nothing in you
to favor, my friend. Nothing. Oh, my friend, I wouldn't
want to live an hour in this world, in this world that Mitch
described in his prayer as being a waste howling wilderness. I
wouldn't want to live an hour in this world without Christ
dwelling in me by faith, whom God favors. Because there's been
many, many times that I've been spared My worthless life has
been spared because God seeing His Son and smelling that sweet
smell and savor in this abominable sinner. God's nostrils receiving
that wonderful scent of the Lord Jesus, His own beloved Son. And
we've been spared. Woe unto the wicked! It shall
be ill with him because he has no Christ dwelling in him. And then you have no faith. No
faith. It shall be all unto the wicked.
It shall be ill with him because he has no faith. He has no faith. You cannot please God except
by faith. Except by faith. Or without faith. It's impossible to please him.
For he that cometh to God must believe that he is. And that
is reward of those that diligently seek him. You have no faith.
Scripture says over and over again, you're saved by faith.
Thine faith has saved thee. You have none. Woe be unto the
wicked. Woe be unto the wicked. And then
you have no love to Christ. Anathema, merinepha, on every
soul that does not love the Lord Jesus Christ sincerely. Let him
go to hell when the Lord comes back. Woe be unto the wicked. It shall be ill with him. Do
not love the Lord Jesus Christ. You don't love him. It will be well with the wicked.
And don't let present appearance make you doubt it. Oh boy, we
look around and we see like David did. Psalm 73 was it? We see all these people prospering. in all my soul how they do prosper. How they do prosper, how they
do get along in this world, how everything seems to go their
way. Everything they touch turns into gold. And they seem to have
no limit to resources. Everything is well with them. Don't let that fool you. Don't
let it fool you. I'm here to tell you this morning
that woe be unto the wicked. Because what shall it profit
a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What's
it going to profit him? It ain't going to profit him
anything. Ah, they fatten the cow, the steer, before they butcher
it, don't they? Well, I'm here to tell you that
you may be fat in this world, but God said, whoa, be it unto
the wicked. It shall be ill with the wicked.
Ill, always ill. forever, ill, emphatically ill
with weight, you shall be ill with the wicked. Well, I sometimes wish that some
people I know were as poor as Lazarus the beggar. That was at the rich man's gate. I mentioned him earlier. The
dogs licked his sores. That's the only comfort he had.
He's a poor man, but he was a believer. And you know what happened? One
glorious day, one glorious day, that old beggar died. And I tell
you what happened. He went off to paradise. He went
off to be with Abraham. He went off to be with the saints
of God. That's what happened. But he
was poor. Dirt poor. Dirt poor. Well, has not God chosen the
poor, rich in faith? to be heirs of the kingdom of
God? Well, I would rather see you this morning, I'd rather
see you dirt poor than to see you so full that you loathe the
honeycomb of the gospel, that you loathe it." He said, I just
can't stomach it hardly. to hear of this gospel all the
time, and hear this saving work of Christ, and all this about
Jesus Christ. I just hear it, and hear it,
and hear it, and I just hurt it until I don't want to hear
it anymore. My friend, you're in dangerous ground. Dangerous
ground. Here since by faith I saw the
stream, thy flowing wounds supply, redeeming love has been my theme,
and shall be till I die. I like that. I like that. Well, let me read you this poem.
There is a death whose pangs outlast the fleeting breath.
Oh, what eternal horrors hang around the second death. Lord
God of truth and grace, teach us that death to shun, lest we
be banished from thy face. and evermore undone. And evermore undone. We need
to escape that second death. Woe be unto the wicked. The fruit
of your hands, the reward of your hands shall be given you. Is that what you want? Is that
what you want? Answer! Is that what you want?
No? No, sir? You say, I don't want
that preacher. I got a memory here. I got a
memory here. That's one thing that won't die
when you die. It'll go on to hell with you,
your memory. You'll be able to remember. You remember there
in Luke 16, when it was said to this rich man who died and
went to hell, remember son, remember. Your memory goes to hell with
you. And you got a memory this morning, and if you got a good
memory, you don't want the reward of your hands given to you. You
don't want it. Flee to Christ. Flee to Christ. Now, Mike led this hymn a while
ago, It Is Well With My Soul. Now, he did not know that I was
going to preach this sermon this morning. He didn't know it. I
was going to tell him to sing that song, but I forgot to. But
he sung it anyway. It is well with my soul. And
so, if you people wouldn't object, and I don't think you would,
let's sing it again. It is well with my soul.