Psalms chapter 69. I think we should praise the Lord.
Let's sing the doxology. Praise God, from whom all blessings
flow. Praise Him, all creatures here
below. Praise Him, above the heavenly
host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost. Thank you very much. Look, if
you will, into Psalm verse 5. Verse 5, O God, thou knowest
my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from thee. Let us look to the Lord in prayer.
Holy Father, we come before you this morning and we thank thee
for the redeeming work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how we
praise thee for that lifting up that we receive through the
message of the gospel. how we praise you for that assurance
that thou hast given in our souls, the witness of the Spirit, that
we're thy children. We thank thee, Father, that our
sins have been put away, and truly thou hast washed away our
sins in the precious, precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
that Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world in
your mind. and then went to Calvary's rugged
cross and suffered experientially in that day when he was lifted
up, when he was nailed by the hands of wicked men to that cross. He suffered our death in our
place, and we praise you for him this morning. Now, fathers,
we come to this time of the preaching of your word We know how dependent
we are upon Thee. We thank You for this old hymn
that we've sang this morning, Fill Me Now. Lord, we need to
be filled with Thy Holy Spirit, that we might preach and others
may hear the gospel and be brought out of sin's death into the life
that is in Christ. And then, our Father, we pray
that there might have been somebody come in here this morning that
had that question of the Philippian jailer upon their own heart,
sirs, what must I do to be saved? Or Lord, that there might be
one like those Greeks that would come in and say, sirs, we would
see Jesus. Oh, Father, grant us that we
might this morning be able to lift up Christ. and be able to
preach him that those that might want to know the way to Zion,
that those that might want to know the way out, Lord, of the
bondage of this world and the bondage of sin, that they might
find that way in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No man can come to the Father
except he come by me. And Jesus is the one mediator
between God and men. He's the man Christ Jesus, and
only as sinners come through Him can they approach Thee. Grant that today that there might
be those whose hearts would be broken on account of their sin
and over the fact that Thou, God, seest us. You know our sin. All things are naked and open
unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Merciful God today,
be pleased to reveal thyself and make your truth, your searching
truth, known unto these that have come out today. We thank
you, Lord, for a message. And we thank you for a gospel.
We thank you, Lord, for the privilege of being able to assemble with
those that love thy name. This, our Father, is our joy
in this world, to assemble with those who love the gospel, those
who love your glory, and those who desire to place many crowns
upon the head of our beloved Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is in his name that we
pray this morning. Amen. Our brother has read to
us this psalm. I will not go back over and read
very much of it again. I want to point out to you that
it appears to me at least that this is one of the Messianic
Psalms. It is one of the Psalms where
David switches back and forth, quoting the very words of our
Master, quoting truths concerning the Lord Jesus Christ only could
be about Christ, and then switching back to himself. And we take
note that in the last part of verse 4, that the psalmist says,
then I restored that which I took not away. This, of course, is
speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, how that he restored the honor
and magnified the law, the holy law of God, and he restored that
honor, do the law, where all of Adam's posterity had broken
that law and had sinned against God and had dishonored the holy
law of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ restored
that, which he took not away. He did not himself break the
law. Christ was no lawbreaker. He was no sinner. The Bible teaches
that sin is the transgression of the law, and Christ never
broke the law. But he restored that dignity,
that honor to the law that it deserved to have. whenever he
lived under that law, him being born of a woman, him having our
nature, sin accepted, he lived under that law and obeyed that
law. And he fulfilled the law of God. And so that's the way that he
restored that which he had taken not away. The Lord hadn't taken
away the dignity of the law, but he restored it. And then
as we get on down a little further, In verse 9, he said, for the
zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of
them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. This is spoken of concerning
our Lord Jesus Christ. And then in verse 21, they gave
me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar
to drink. You remember that on the cross,
our Lord Jesus Christ, when he cried, I thirst, they gave him
vinegar to drink. And so these words speak of our
Lord Jesus. And you might wonder, well, how
in the world could verse five possibly be speaking about that
sinless, spotless one, about that Lamb of God who had no blemish
or no such thing? How could that be speaking of
the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, beloved, let me say, and
I'll quickly say it, If this verse of scripture has an application
to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I believe it does, I believe
that what he's saying here is, O God, thou knowest my foolishness,
and my sins are not hid from thee. Think of it, if you will,
of our Lord Jesus Christ not being a sinner himself, but yet
all of our sin transferred to him. Him, through imputation,
became the greatest sinner, the most foolish individual that
ever lived on the face of the earth. Through sin's imputation. That is, when our sin, my foolishness,
and my sin was laid upon Him. And Jesus would say, O God, Thou
knowest my foolishness. You know that I took upon myself
to represent your people, and you know what I have become because
of my affiliation, identification with them, that I am their surety. and all they are I have become. You have transferred, you have
laid upon me the iniquity of all of these thy children. Oh
Lord, your eye does not miss the fact that I am foolish because
I'm their substitute and I'm giving account for them and I'm
taking upon myself all that they are and were. And so then he
goes on to say, and my sins are not hid from thee. And you know
how that the justice of God, how that the justice of God relentlessly
pursued the Lord Jesus Christ until it nailed him to the cross,
until he was bruised on Calvary, until he suffered that awful
death of the cross. And the Bible says the wages
of sin is death. but the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And the soul that sinneth
it must die. Jesus was pursued relentlessly
by the justice of God and was put to death for our sin. Certainly,
the eye of God was not blind to him standing, being numbered
with the transgressor, him being as a criminal before God, as
a lawbreaker. The eye of God was not oblivious
to that. God saw it all, and he put the
Lord Jesus. And that's the reason why I'm
a firm believer in hell. I'm a firm believer that judgment
will come upon all those outside of Christ, because God did not
spare His own Son, but delivered Him up to Calvary to suffer that
awful death on behalf of His people. And I believe that all
those who die outside of Christ must go to hell and suffer their
own eternal death. Now then, I want secondly to
look at this as being the words of King David. The words of King
David, O God thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are
not hid from thee. Well beloved, how sincerely we
ought to rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ who is made of God
unto us wisdom when we see the folly that is bound up in our
hearts and which too often shows itself in our talk and in our
acts. It seems that the best of men,
David I believe, was a good man. I know that he had many faults.
I know that he had many failures. I know that he sinned against
God. But it seems that the best of
men have a measure of foolishness in them and that sometimes that
foolishness does indeed show itself. Now the word here denotes
any deviation of the mind, the word foolishness, from what is
true, what is good, what is right, what is wise, what is prudent. One who acts without counsel
and one whose will he's not able to manage by his understanding. He is willful and he has no reason,
rhyme or reason for many of the things he does, He's foolish,
and just because he has a mind to do it, he does it. And so
that's what the word foolishness means. Now how understanding
we ought to be with others who are foolish when we remember
how foolish we ourselves are. Certainly it ought to give us
patience, ought it not, with those around us who are foolish.
Now, in Psalm 38 and verse 5, David said, my wounds stink and
are corrupt because of my foolishness. Because of my foolishness. Proverbs
22 and verse 15 says, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a
child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Well certainly, There are many,
many times when the foolishness that's bound up in the heart
of a child is not driven far enough away by the rod of correction,
because we see that foolishness that was in us as a child still
in us as adults. So apparently it was not driven
far enough away. Now in Mark's gospel, chapter
7, In verses 21 through 23, I'm paraphrasing, he says, from within,
out of the heart, proceed blasphemy, pride, foolishness, all these
evil things come from within and they defile the man. And
the thing I want to focus on here is the fact that foolishness
is an evil thing and that it comes from within and it defiles
our person. But one of the marks of a true
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is that he knows that there is
folly in him and he's willing to admit it and he's willing
to confess his sin before God. The Bible says in 1 John, if
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth
is not in us. I say one of the marks of a true
believer is he will with David, oh God thou knowest my foolishness
and my sins are not hid from thee. He will acknowledge that
he has foolishness and sins about him. If we say as that Pharisee
did, I thank thee that I'm not as other men As other men are,
we shall go home, were we not as he did. He went down to his
house unjustified. He went down without the justification
which comes from God. He went down the same state that
he went up, thanking God that he wasn't like other men. But
beloved, all men are foolish by nature, and all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. It's the poor sinner who
stands afar off with that publican of old and cries, God be merciful
to me, a sinner whose foolishness and sin shall be blotted out. and he stand justified before
a thrice holy God. It's that sinner that admits
his sin and cries out to God that whose sin is blotted out.
There is one solemn thought which deeply impresses my soul as I
read this verse and as I meditate upon it here, our text, Psalm
69 and verse 5, It is one thing for a man to see his own foolishness
and sin and to mourn over it, but there's another thought here
that I think ought to move our hearts toward humility and toward
repentance. And that is, that thought is
this, that God sees it all. That God sees it all. He said,
O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from
thee. I don't know how that affects
you, but to know that we have this foolishness and this sin
about us, and yet at the same time to know that God knows about
it and that God sees it. My sins are not hid from thee. My foolishness you know all about
it. And this is why a believer values
so highly. Now you listen to me very carefully.
If you haven't got awake yet, then you get awake quickly. Because
we're going to go on and move quite rapidly here, and I want
you to listen very carefully to what I have to say Oh God
thou knowest my foolishness and my sins are not hid from thee
Listen to me. This is why I believe her so
highly values and the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
and His perfect righteousness which has been provided for us. You listen now to what I have
to say. Beloved, omniscience still sees sin. Yet the justice
of God does not see it anymore in a believer. God knows that
we're all sinners, but He imputes to all believers the righteousness
of Christ and looks upon them as they are in Him. It is so
important that we understand that. You go to the book of 1
John, you read through the book of 1 John, and it'll drive you
absolutely out of your mind if you do not understand that believers
are in Him, and in Him there is no sin. Keep that upon your
mind, keep it in your heart as you read through the Word of
God. That's the way that we're looked upon by God. We're in
Christ and there's no sin in Him. He cleanses us in the precious
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. John 1, 1 John 1 and verse 7,
the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanseth us from all sin
we are clean in God's sight we are clean every whit clean as
the Lord told Peter what a wonderful and you hear me now what a wonderful
atonement is that which hides from God that which cannot be
hidden now you listen carefully What a wonderful atonement is
that which hides from God that which cannot be hidden so that
God does not see what in another sense he must always see and
forgets what it is impossible for him in another sense ever
to forget. Can you understand that? Can
you get that? Let me give it to you one more
time. I say what a wonderful atonement is that which hides
from God that which cannot be hidden so that God does not see
what in another sense he must always see and forgets what it
is impossible for him in another sense ever to forget. I'm preaching
the gospel to you. In a just and judicial way, God
cast our sin behind His back and ceases to see iniquity in
His people because they're clean every whit through washing in
the fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. That song we just sang. Now,
beloved, this morning I want us to focus our attention for
a little while upon this great truth of the omniscience of God. What does God know? What does
God see? Well, in Psalm 69 and 5, O God,
thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from
thee. We'll focus our attention on that verse. First of all,
concerning God's knowledge of man's sin. Let me say that it
must be so. It must be so. God must know
our foolishness. For first of all, He is infinite
in knowledge. He is infinite in knowledge. He's not like the creature. God
is infinite. We cannot believe, and hear me,
I cannot believe and I cannot worship a God whose knowledge
is limited and incomplete. Can you? Could you worship a
God that has certain bounds and limitations in His knowledge,
in His ability to perceive what's going on among the children of
men? Absolutely not. That condition
of a man's condition, he's the creature, he's finite, but this
doesn't describe God. He is infinite, he's the creator,
he's the great first cause of everything. Now God knows all
the past, He knows all the present, and He already knows all the
future. He even knows all the things
that might have been and are not. Do you believe that? He
knows all those things that might have been. People are talking
a lot of times about what might have been. Well, God knows what
might have been and yet is not. All things knowable must be known
to God the Most High. His very nature implies it. And so He must know my foolishness,
for I know something about it myself, and He must know much
more than I know. God must know perfectly what
I know in part. Yes, the infinite knowledge of
God is an absolute certainty. An absolute certainty. And consequently,
his knowledge of the folly and sin of every heart is beyond
all question. Moreover, let me say that not
only is God infinite in knowledge, but God is everywhere present. He is everywhere present. At
all times, He is in every place. And so our foolishness and sin
must be known unto him because he's every place, at all times,
he's in all places. No, it's not, beloved, that you
committed some sin and somebody came and reported it to God.
No, no. That's not the way it is. He
was there during the doing of it. He was right there. His presence
was there when you were sinning. What you say, you say, well,
the blinds were closed. You say, well, the door was shut. How could anybody possibly know? Yet God was there. God was there. He observed your every move,
your every thought. Everything is known unto the
God with whom we deal. There is no darkness that hides
from Him. There is no screen that can be
used to shut out the glances of the eye of our God. He does not see from a distance.
He is on the spot. God is on the spot and he knows
everything that goes on and that's why David said, Oh God thou knowest
my foolishness and my sin is not hid from me. Now you would
not, I hope, put God down on the level of one who has eyes
and yet sees not. My friend, God is never blind,
and he is never blindfolded. God always sees. He that made
the ears, shall he not hear? He that formed the eyes, shall
he not see? Now the very fact that eyesight
and hearing comes from him proves how abundantly he possesses these
faculties himself. Do you believe that God can make
an ear and make an eye and still he not hear and still he not
see? Well, you're foolish, my friend. God is able to both hear
and see. He sees and he hears in every
place and there was never anything done of man without his complete
knowledge of that. Now, those secret unsolved mysteries
that you've heard about, Do you suppose that God didn't have
the answer to those mysteries? That secret murder that was committed
never been solved by human beings. But God knows all about it. The silent plot where everybody
has sworn themselves to secrecy. All is known to God. God knows
all about everything. There was never a thought in
a human mind and even if that thought was never put into words
that God did not see and did not hear. Even those thoughts
that never came to words in you, God sees it all and knows it. Does not this make the fact certain
that he knows my foolishness and that my sins are not hidden? They're not hidden from him.
Isaac Watts put it this way. in all my vast concerns with
thee, in vain my soul would try to shun thy presence, Lord, or
flee the notice of thine eye. Thy all-surrounding sight surveys
my rising and my rest, my public walks, my private ways, and secrets
of my breast. If winged with beams of morning
light I fly beyond the west, thy hand which must support my
flight would soon betray my rest. If o'er my sins I think to draw
the curtains of the night, those flaming eyes that guard thy law
would turn the shades to light. The beams of noon, the midnight
hour, are both alike to thee. Oh, may I ne'er provoke that
power from which I cannot flee. Well, that's my first point,
is that it must be so. Oh, Lord, thou knowest our foolishness,
and my sin is not hid from thee. Now then, being as we have established
the fact of God's omniscience, I want to ask In what particular
way does God know all these things that we've been talking about?
In what particular way does God know? First of all, it is complete
knowledge. The Lord knows us all together. All together. We're not strangers
to our God. He knows us all together. Our public service, God knows
about. He knows everything you do. And
so he knows your public service. He knows what you're about. He
knows our private thoughts. He knows what's going through
our minds at all times. The Lord not only knows the action,
but he knows the motive behind the action and the thoughts that
come after our actions. He knows all about our pride
and our self-seeking. And somebody says, I just said
a few words about myself, preacher, but did you not, did you not
in some way or another paint them up a little bit? Did you
not try to get people to think more highly of you than maybe
they ought to think? Is it not true that you're pride
of your heart, that it's real, and that you're stuck on number
one? Are you not? Well, God knows
all of that. He knows all of it. Every way
of man is right in his own eyes, but the Bible says the Lord pondereth
the heart. Now the word pondereth means
that he weighs us. He weighs the specific gravity
of our very actions. God weighs your motives. He weighs the gravity of your
actions. The fining pot is for silver
and the furnace for gold, but the Lord trieth the hearts. There is nothing hidden from
God's eye. Every separate part of us is open to his perpetual
inspection. You just stop and think of that.
Open to his perpetual inspection. His knowledge is complete. and
it battles all evasion. You could not possibly escape
from God's complete knowledge. Secondly, it is the knowledge
of a holy being. God's knowledge is the knowledge
of a thrice holy, holy, holy being. We may see all we can
as men and women here in this world. We may see all we can
But let me tell you, there's a whole lot more to be seen than
what we ever see. God is holy, my friend, and God
sees as a holy being. There was an artist one time
that painted a nice picture, a beautiful picture. There was
a lady who came up and looked at the picture. The artist was
standing nearby, and she said, I never saw such a thing as that.
And the artist said, wouldn't it be wonderful if you could?
Well, my friend, let me tell you, there's many, many things
that you and I never saw in this world. Many, many things about
ourself that we never seen. We don't know anything about,
but God does. God knows all about them. Now
listen. When God looks in a man's life,
he sees infinitely more in that man's life than that man ever
saw in it himself. Infinitely more. The Lord's eyes
are as a flame of fire, being himself essential truth. He truly
discovers everything that is within us, and he makes no mistake. God looks on your heart, He reads
your heart. You know the Bible says man looks
on the outward appearance, God looks on the heart, and God is
holy. He knows us as a perfectly holy
being, and many a thing that looked like it was white to us
is absolutely black to God. You say, well, I think that fellow
just did a wonderful thing. Well, we'll have to wait till
the Lord, see whether the Lord commends him for it or not. You
know, the Bible says it's not whom a man commends that is commended,
it's whom the Lord commended. That's who is really commended.
In other words, we've got to wait until all the facts are
in. We've got to wait until the God that sees everything and
weighs and ponders the heart, the God that knows that man's
heart and motives, knows his private thoughts, until He renders
His verdict on the situation. You call it white if you want
to, but God may very well call it black. He may very well because
his eye is a holy eye and God sees it. Now when we once get
to heaven, we shall realize how foolish we were to think and
to form the judgments and the opinions that we do here on earth. We'll see how foolish we are.
How foolish we were, having such limited ability, not being able
to judge the motives of hearts, not being able to understand
like God does and see as God sees, and certainly we see not
as God sees. Now we see through a glass darkly,
but then face to face. Now I know in part, I know in
part, but then shall I know even. as I also am known." The eyes
of a perfectly holy God sees more than the eyes of your wife,
sees more than the eyes of your husband, sees more than the eyes
of your children. Somebody said that if you want
to really know a man, ask his children. And whatever they say
about it, you can pretty well count on it, it'll be the truth,
as much at least as they know it, being finite creatures like
they are. And if a man's wife doesn't know
him, then who would? Who would? And if the husband
doesn't know his wife, then who would on this earth? But I'm
going to tell you, God knows a whole lot more about you than
your husband, your wife, or your children. He knows you because
he's looked at you through holy, holy, holy eyes, and he knows
you. All right, next, he knows our
sins as a judge. as a judge. How does God know
about our sins and our foolishness? Well, He's the judge. And we
know that He's committed all judgment unto the Son. And the
Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment unto the
Son. And the Bible says in Acts chapter
17 and verse 31 that God hath appointed a day when he will
judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained,
whereby he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he raised
him from the dead. And in Hebrews 9 it says that
it is appointed that a man wants to die. And after this, the judgment. And so there's coming a judgment.
And there's going to be a judge that's going to be sitting on
the throne. And he'll have no need to call
witnesses. in that last dread day, for the
judge knows all about us, he saw it all, he heard it all,
and besides that, he has written the record of man's sin in a
book. He's written it in a book. Now
I want you to turn with me to the book of Revelation quickly,
the book of the Revelation, and I want you to turn to chapter
20, and I'd like to read just a few verses here to show you
that this is true. that God has written our sins
in a book, and our sins will be a damning witness against
us at the judgment seat if we be not in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll read beginning with
verse 11 of Revelation 20. And I saw a great white throne,
and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the
heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And
I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. And the books
were opened, and another book was opened, which is the book
of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were
written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave
up the dead which were in it. Death and hell delivered up the
dead which were in them. And they were judged every man
according to their works. You see, those that come to this
great white throne judgment, they're on the basis of their
works. They don't have any grace. There's
no mercy here intertwined with this judgment. There's no grace
to be found, no favor with God to be found. It's what's written
in the books. And all lost people have a complete
record before God of every one of their sins, of every one of
their foolishness. God has it all down in His books. And it goes on to say, and death
and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death
and whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast
into the lake of fire. Whosoever was not found written
in the book of life. Whosoever had not found grace
in the eyes of the Lord like old Noah did when Noah was on
earth. Whoever it was that had not by
grace through faith been saved and been born again, been brought
into right standing in relationship with God, they shall be cast
into the lake of fire. The only names to appear in the
book of life are those who have been given life by the life-giving
Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam, the Lord from
heaven. So our sins then, if we be not
in Christ, will be a damning witness against us at the judgment
seat. We're dealing with the judge
of all the earth that must do right. And in that day of judgment
he'll shine an eternal light. into your soul and revive the
memory of all of your sins that you have forgotten. You say,
well, I've forgotten a lot of my sins, preacher. Well, beloved
God, one of these days is going to shine a light into your soul
and your memory is going to revive. You know, when a child tells
his first lie that he's conscious of, Many times he lays awake
at night and thinks about it and it bothers him and disturbs
him. After a little while he forgets all about it. And I say
to you though that whenever God reminds you of it and revives
your memory, those sins are going to be present and you're going
to know and feel that those sins were just committed, and that
you stand with the eye of God, you stand naked before God's
eye, and your sins and your conscience and your memory, what a hell
that's going to be! That your memory, conscience,
is going to be alive to the fact of all of the sins that you committed
in this life. Now, yet so it will be, but I
beg each unconverted So he'll remember now that his foolishness
and sin are known to him to whom you must give an account at the
day of judgment. Don't just say, well, I'm going
to stick my head in the sand. You're going to give an account
to this God. If you be not in Christ, if the
judgment of God's not been meted out to a substitute in your place,
you're going to give an account of every one of your sins. It's
in the book. It's down in the book, your sins. And oh, thank God for the believer,
the record book will never be brought out. Thank God it'll
never be brought out. I don't want the record. Somebody
said, bring out the record book. I don't want it brought out.
Do you? Do you? Absolutely not. Knowing that
God, infinite as He is, knows all of our foolishness and our
sins are not hid from Him. Well, one more thing before we
leave this thought. What God knows, Let me say this,
that what he knows and all he knows about you will be published. It'll be published. If God knows
about our sin, it's tantamount to everybody knowing about our
sin. If God knows about it, everybody
will know about it. Oh, you say, I trust it won't
be so. Oh, it will be so, my friend.
Everybody will know it, for there is nothing covered that shall
not be revealed, saith the word of God, neither hid that shall
not be known. All of it. Every idle word that
men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day
of judgment. Can we bear to have it? No one.
Paul spoke of that day when God would judge the secrets of men's
hearts by His gospel. He said, the day is going to
come when my gospel is going to be laid alongside men. And
those that were hypocrites said they believed the gospel, but
didn't. They will be judged as those
who have no salvation, no life, no hope, sent off forever in
that awful place of judgment. Can we bear to have it? No. And
those that we've deceived and deluded, they'll discover what
we were. to our everlasting shame and
contempt, unless we find shelter in the five bleeding wounds that
was received on Calvary. Unless we find shelter, everybody
is going to know. All that we've been in this life
will all be made known. It'll all be flashed on the screen
for men to know all about us. All right, that brings me then
to the last thing. And I just want to ask, what
then? What then? In other words, if
it be so that God is omniscient and he knows all of our foolishness
and our sin is not hid, and if it is so that God sees us in
the particular way, completely sees us as a holy being and looks
upon us as a judge to write down in his book every sin and all
of our foolishness to meet us in the judgment, if it be so,
what then? What then? First of all, how
terrible all of this is true, you see. How terrible for us
not to be mindful or to be conscious of this. How terrible. We live
our lives and we're not mindful that God's keeping a record.
We're not mindful that God sees everything we do. We're not mindful
of that. There was a man one time went
to rob a house. He was a thief. And he took his
little boy with him to help him carry the loot. And so they got
to the house and the man looked around. He looked around everywhere
and he said, he said, there's nobody around, boy. And the little
boy said to him, said, Dad, there's one direction you didn't look.
His dad said, well, what direction was that? He said, you didn't
look up. You need to look at it. You need
to be conscious that God sees everything you do. And you need
to be mindful of that, my friend. Now listen to me. Let's think
just a little bit about this. Just so we're not seen of men.
Just so we're not seen of men. That's the cry. That's the thought
of our heart. Just so nobody knows anything
about it. Well, let me ask you a question.
Do you so despise God that his presence has no effect upon you
while the presence of any mortal man would have stopped you from
the evil deed that you would commit. Now you think about that. Presence of God? Don't think
anything about it. Don't think anything about it.
But if there's anybody standing around, I ain't gonna do it.
Oh, I looked everywhere, boy, and there ain't nobody around.
My friend, what about God? God sees everything you do. God
knows everything about you. He does. And like we said, He's
keeping a record. He knows about it. So we ought
to be thinking. We ought to be thinking about
this. Now, what then to those that are believers? Well, you
know, there's some glorious things that the Word of God teaches
And when we have a searching message like this, when we know
that God knows everything there is about us, nothing ever missed,
nothing he ever missed, knows our end from the beginning, isn't
it wonderful to know that the foundation of God's standard
sure having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are his? Beloved, it takes all the faith
that we can muster in the atoning blood and in the divine substitute,
Jesus Christ, to gird up the loins of our mind that we may
face death and face eternity. Sinners dying. Sinners dying. Save sinners. Save sinners dying. Oh, my friend, you know there's
such a difference between a lost man dying and a saved man dying. You know, somebody put it like
this. They said that a lost man, when he dies, he leaves home. He leaves home. He leaves everything
he has. It's here. It's all here. He
leaves it all. Every bit of it, right here,
he leaves it all. He leaves home. But when the saved man dies,
he goes home. He goes home. He's going home
to be with the Lord because all of his glory is in the world
to come. It's all there. Well, the believer,
my friend, but in this world as we struggle and as we have
to face the difficulties of life and to face the various discouragements
and all of the afflictions and the burdens and the storms of
this life, we sometimes tremble to even think about death. And we tremble to think about
meeting God over on the other side. Is all of this real with
me? Am I truly clean before God? Such a sinner as I am, am I truly
clean? Oh God, you've seen everything
I've ever done, everything I ever thought. Am I really clean, Lord? Well, have you ever questioned?
Have you ever questioned, am I His or am I not? Is it true? Do I really belong to the Lord? Well, I say that it takes faith
to muster up courage and strength to face death and face this home
going that we're going to experience. The Lord knows. The Lord knows. And this is the best thing that
he knows about us is that he knows he knows He knows that
we're clinging to the Lord Jesus Christ alone. He knows that. He knows that we're not clinging
to anything we've done. He knows that we're not trusting
that his eye missed something and that we're going to just
slip through. No, no. He knows that we're clinging
to the substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. Unless I'm utterly deceived,
I can truthfully say to the Lord Jesus Christ, what the hymn writer
said, other refuge have I none, hangs my helpless soul on thee. And as I read this verse of scripture
here in Psalm 69 verse 5, I don't know how many times I've thought
about that little phrase, other refuge have I none, hangs my
helpless soul on thee. And anybody in their right mind,
anybody in their spiritual mind, If you hang your, listen, if
you have any other refuge, my friend, you are foolish if you
have any other refuge. One refuge, that is the Lord
Jesus Christ. Search me, O God, David prayed,
and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts,
and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting. David again said, Wash me thoroughly
from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Create in me
a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast
me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit
from me. And in 2 Samuel 12 and 13, And
David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And
Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin. Isn't it wonderful that you're
not going to have to face your sin in the day of judgment if
you're in Christ? Romans 8, 1 says, There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. John 5 and
24, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that he that heareth my
word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life,
and shall not come into condemnation. Judgment shall not come into
the judgment, but is passed from death unto life. What a marvelous
verse of scripture. Our Lord Jesus Christ said that
if you hear my word and believe on him that sent me, you have
everlasting life. Not in prospect, you got it right
now. And that you have past, you have
past, listen to me, the scripture says that there's no condemnation
to you. You missed the judgment. The
judgment fell on Christ. and you miss the judgment, and
you pass from death unto life. We all believe that sooner or
later we're all going to pass from life to death. We all believe
that. We're all going to pass from
life to death, but this is a reversal of it. We pass from death to
life. If you're going to miss hell,
you've got to pass from death unto life, and go out of this
world alive in Christ, if you're going to miss hell. All right,
Isaiah 44 and verse 22 says, I blotted out as a thick cloud
by transgressions, and a cloud by sins, returning to me, for
I have redeemed thee. Romans 8.33 says, Who shall lay
anything to the charge? of God's elect. It is God that
justifies. Isaiah 43 verse 24 and 25, Thou
hast brought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast Thou
filled me with the fat of Thy sacrifices, but Thou hast made
me to serve with Thy sins. Thou hast wearied me with Thine
iniquities, but I, even I, am He that plotteth out blotted
out thy transgressions for my own sake, and will not remember
thy sins." Isn't that wonderful? God said that to a people that
had wearied Him and made Him serve with their sins. But God said, I'm the one that's
blotted out your sins. You don't have to face this.
You don't have to face it. I know it, but then my justice
does not see it. And I blotted out your sin for
my own sake and will not remember it against you. Jude 24, now
unto him that is able to keep you from falling, present you
faultless before the presence of his glory with a static or
exceeding joy. Ephesians 1, 4, according as
he has chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world that
we should be holy and without blame before him in love. What then, believer? Wonderful,
isn't it? Glory in your God. Psalm 32 verse
1 and 2, blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord will not impute iniquity. And then in Ephesians 5, and
I'm done, verse 26 and 27, Christ also loved the church and gave
himself for it, that he might sanctify it and cleanse it with
the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself,
a glorious church, not having spot, wrinkle, or any such thing,
but that it should be holy and without blemish." Isn't that
wonderful? Isn't that marvelous? I want
to get in on that, and I believe in Christ, we've gotten in on
that. And so, while we tremble, O God, thou knowest my foolishness,
and my sin is not hid from thee. Yet, our sin is hid from the
justice of God, and our sin has been put away, blotted out, as
with a thick cloud. Blotted out. Praise be unto God
that that record book will never be brought out against a child
of God. Are you a child of God? Are you
a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? Flee to Him. Trust in
Him. Believe on Him with all of your
heart. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. May God bless you with an understanding
of this word this morning. Could we have a hymn, Mike?