Joe McSherry died last night. I was thinking though, he's in
the presence of the Lord right now, and he's not thinking about
us, but we're thinking about him. If there's anybody here
that doesn't know who that is, if you came here, he's been gone
eight or nine years, but he was here for Oh, long time, and I've
never known a finer man, and everything you see around this
place has got his name on it. He built so many things, and
he was a very, very special man. Psalm 119. I wanna begin reading in verse
113 of Psalm 119. I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love. Thou art my hiding place and
my shield. I hope in thy word. Depart from me, ye evildoers,
for I will keep the commandments of my God. Uphold me according unto thy
word that I may live, and let me not be ashamed of my hope. Hold thou me up, and I shall
be safe. And I will have respect unto
thy statutes continually. Thou hast trodden down all them
that err from thy statutes, for their deceit is falsehood. Thou puttest away all the wicked
of the earth like dross, therefore I love thy testimonies. My flesh
trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy judgments. Our merciful and gracious Heavenly
Father, we're. So thankful for who you are. We're so thankful for all your
glorious attributes. We're so thankful that in your. Person. You gave your son. To be the savior of sinners. Lord, we ask that you would meet
with us. That you would speak in power to our hearts. Enable
us to worship thy dear son. We ask that you would give us
the gift of faith. And give us the gift of repentance. Looking to thy son only, we ask
that you would enable us to confess our sins before thee. And we ask for the forgiveness
of our sins. We pray for your. Blessing on
those who are. Sick, suffering and. Body or
mind, we pray for your blessing upon them. We. Pray that you
give us the grace to. Hear the gospel in the power
of your spirit. We pray for your blessing on
all your people wherever they meet together in Christ name
we pray, Amen. Happy Mother's Day. I hate vain thoughts. Don't you? I hate vain thoughts. Now, the only time in the Bible
this word is used is right here. Vain thoughts. The word means
divided loyalties. Double-minded, doubting, a doubting
mind, and the Old Testament example of this is when Elijah made his
appeal to Israel. How long halt ye between two
opinions? And that's divided loyalties.
Remember when the Lord said no man can serve two masters? Can't
be done. And this is what the psalmist
is saying. I hate divided loyalties. I hate vain thoughts. Now, when James speaks of the
double-minded man, remember in James chapter one, he speaks
of the double-minded man. Let not that man think that he
should receive anything of the Lord. Who is this double-minded
man? It's the man who looks to Christ
and. That's being double-minded. It's
the man who looks to the scriptures and his own thoughts, his own
understanding, other people's words, not to the scripture only. It's the man who believes in
grace and that's a double-minded man. James said, let not that man
think he shall receive anything of the Lord. Oh, I hope we'll
all hate divided loyalties. Look to Christ only. Now, what does that mean? We have a tendency to hide in
the past and the future. My past experience. If you're
looking to a past experience, that's works. If you're thinking
about something you'll do tomorrow, That works. I'm going to believe
tomorrow. Well, that's the strength of
your flesh. You're not thinking of faith in Christ is looking
to Christ only as all you have right now. And anything else
is divided loyalties. It's duplicity. I hate vain thoughts,
but thy law do I love. Now, the only way you can love
the law is if you've kept the law. You can't really love it
if you haven't kept it. If it condemns you, you don't
love it, you resent it. But oh, if you've kept the law
and that's what every believer has done in Christ, I've kept
the law. Joe McCherry is in heaven right now because he kept the
law. Jesus Christ kept the law for him. That's his obedience.
He kept the law. There's no fear of the law if
you've kept. the law, and that is the heritage
of every believer. We have kept God's holy law,
and we love the law. Now, if you think you're under
the law, you don't love. It's only when you see the law
perfectly fulfilled in Christ and you have no sin before God's
holy law that you love God's holy law. And then he says in
verse 114, thou art my hiding place. Now you know the hymn we all
love. Hail sovereign love that first
began, the scheme to rescue fallen man, hail matchless, free, eternal
grace that gave my soul a hiding place. And this inspired that
song. Against the God who ruled the
sky, I fought with hand up lifted high, despised the mention of
his grace, too proud to seek a hiding place. Enwrapped in
thick Egyptian night and fond of darkness more than light,
madly I ran this sinful race, secure without a hiding place. But thus the eternal counsel
ran. Almighty love arrest that man. You know, there was a time when
you were arrested. I felt the arrows of distress
and found I had no hiding place. Indignant justice stood in view
to Sinai's fiery mount I flew. That's the place of the giving
of the law. But justice cried with frowning face, this mountain
is no hiding place. Ere long a heavenly voice I heard
and mercy's angel form appeared. which led me on with gentle pace
to Jesus Christ, my hiding place. On him, eternal vengeance fell
that must have sunk a world to hell. He bore it for a chosen
race and thus became their hiding place. Should storms of sevenfold
thunder roll and shake the earth from pole to pole, no flaming
bolt can daunt my face, for Jesus is my hiding place. A few more rolling suns at most
shall land me safe on Canaan's coast. There I shall sing of
sovereign grace to Jesus Christ, my hiding place. I need a hiding place. Christ
is my hiding place. Look what he says next. Thou art my hiding place and
my shield on the cross. Christ took my
blows as my shield, as my hiding place and my shield. All the horror of sin and that
it deserves was poured out upon Christ my shield and I am safe. And I love what he says next
in this verse, I hope in that word. Now, what we believe is,
Amazing that God is just in justifying me, that the righteousness of
God and the law of God demand my personal salvation when I
know what I am in and of myself, sinful, that I would have no
sin before God. And I don't mean just forgiven
sin, I mean no sin. That I stand before God having
never sinned. How can you believe something
like that? His word. Always be ready to give every
man that asks thee a reason for the hope that's in thee. Now,
what's your reason for believing that? It's what God says in his
word. I love the word of God. I love the scriptures. It's so
infinitely above all things human. He says in verse 115, depart
from me. Ye evildoers, for I will keep
the commandment of my God. Now, we want people to be saved, don't we?
Everybody we come in contact with, we want them to hear the
gospel. We want them to believe the gospel.
We want them to experience the grace of God. And that's true
with regard to everybody. I want everybody here to know
the Lord. So what is he saying when he says, depart from me
ye evil doers? Anybody that'll keep me from
keeping the command of God, which is believing the gospel, depart
from me. I don't want to hear what you
have to say. I want to keep the commandment
of God, which is to believe the gospel. And anyone that is seeking
to prevent me from believing the gospel, depart. Depart. And that's what the psalmist
is saying. Depart from me, ye evildoers, for I will keep the
commandment of my God. Let me read verses 116 and 117
together. Uphold me. according unto thy word. Now
he's never very far from the word of God, is he? He doesn't
simply say, uphold me. He says, uphold me in the way
you said you would do it in your word. Remember, the word of God
is everything in what we believe. God's word. Uphold me according
to thy word that I may live. Let me not be ashamed of my hope. My hope is that when I stand
before God on judgment day, that I will be justified. Don't let
me be put to shame of that hope. Cause me to see the reality of
it. Don't let me lose my hope. Don't let me be ashamed. Don't
let me be put to shame. Now, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I don't want to be put to shame,
and I'm not going to be because of the gospel. I'm going to stand
before God perfect. And that's the believer's hope.
And I'm hoping that everything that happens in between now and
then is working together for my good and the glory of God. And the only reason I believe
that is because that's what the word of God says. I mean, with
regard to some of the What I guess we would call tragic of events
that have happened in the last several weeks with Joe Terrell.
Well, here's my hope. The Lord God is the first cause
of everything and that he brings good out of evil all the time. Not most of the time, all the
time. And I can't see it. That's okay. The Lord God is God. I'm so happy. Uphold me according to thy word
that I may live. I won't live unless you uphold
me and let me not be ashamed of my hope. Hold thou me up and
I shall be safe. And that word safe is the word
generally translated salvation. Hold me up. Spurgeon preached
a message on these two verses entitled, My Constant Prayer. Uphold me and hold me up. Can you pray that right now?
Lord, uphold me. If you don't uphold me, down
I go. Hold me up. Listen to me. If the Lord holds
me up all the way until my last step into heaven, and then lets
go of me, you know what? I'm going all the way down to
hell. Do you believe that about yourself? Hold thou me up. And I shall be safe. And here's
what happens when he holds us up. Look in verse 17. I will
have respect. I will have regard under thy
statutes continually, nonstop. As long as he holds me up, I
will have respect. I'll, I'll have approval. I'll,
I'll love all the statutes as he holds me up. If he doesn't hold me up, down
I go. I so know that's true, don't
you? Verse 118. Thou hast trodden down all them
that err from thy statutes. For their deceit is falsehood. Now, erring from his statutes. Going astray from the gospel.
The word err is go astray. You seem to begin in the right
place. and then you veer off, you go
astray. Now anytime somebody leaves the
gospel, how wicked, how deceitful, how
willful to hear the gospel of grace, the gospel of Christ,
the salvation that's in Christ, and then leave it. And you and
I know that we will do that. if he doesn't keep us. I love
the last verse of this psalm. Look in verse 176. I have gone
astray like a lost sheep, like a dumb lost sheep wandering off. I have gone astray like a lost
sheep. Seek thy servant. For I do not forget thy commandments."
Now, this thing of going astray, erring from his statutes, he
says it's deceitful. It's deceitful. It's the work
of deceit and it is falsehood. It's all based on lies. Any,
any move I make away from the gospel is falsehood, deceit,
and lies. It's me lying to myself. It's
me deceiving myself and taking the bait. Thou put us away. Look in verse
119. Thou puttest away all the wicked of the earth,
like dross. And you know what dross is? When
you heat silver or gold, the dross that comes up is the impurities. Now, when I was working in a
steel mill in the summers of Armaco in Ashland, Kentucky,
there was a job I particularly hated. It was called slagging. And while they were pouring hot
metal into these molds, you'd be up there with this big silver
suit on, and you'd have these purple glasses on, I guess for
welding, so you could look at the stuff going on. And there
would be this silver dross coming up out of the metal, and you
had a big piece of two-by-four or something like that, you'd
knock it out. And I remember it looked silver, it looked good,
but it was worthless. That's what dross is. It's that
which is worthless. You know what causes rust in
metal? Dross. It's the impurities in the metal.
And dross is a completely worthless thing. What do they do when the
dross comes out? They get rid of it. It's not
good for anything. But it looks good. But it's not
good for anything. And he speaks of the dross of
the wicked. Thou put us away, O the wicked
of the earth, like dross. Therefore, I love thy testimonies. Everything God says, we love. That's an awesome thing to think
about, isn't it? Everything God says, we love. I love thy. Whatever judgments, and I don't
understand this. Of course, I won't until glorified. But even when we see the wicked
cast into hell, we're gonna praise God for that. I can't now because
I've got my old man still with me. But one of these days, we'll
be able to enter even more into the reality of this. All thy
testimonies I love. My flesh. Verse 120. My flesh trembleth for fear of
thee, and I'm afraid of thy judgments. Now, the fear of God. The fear of God is the beginning
of wisdom. The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge. That's
that all and that reverence and that respect for God, where you
really believe that whatever he does is right. You believe
that. I mean, this is not something
you've just been taught. You believe it. And you fear God. Now, the fear of God is what
produces a fear of sin. I don't understand how bad sin
is, but I know he does. And that's what makes me fear.
Sin is because of the fear of God. And the fear of God always
does this. If you fear God, you're afraid
to look anywhere but Christ alone all the time. Now, do you hear
that? If you fear God, you're afraid
to look anywhere but Christ all the time. I mean, on your best
moment, you look to Christ alone. On your worst moment, you look
to Christ alone and everything in between. All you have is Jesus
Christ. Christ is always the narrow way. If you have anything other than
him, you can't walk on this way. You can't get through the gate.
He's a straight gate. If you have anything other than
him alone, you can't get through. And it stays that way. You continue
in your experience all the time looking to Christ alone and nowhere
else. He's all I got. Is he all you
have? That is the fear of God. And look what he says, I'm afraid
of thy judgments. There is something awesome in
this. Turn to Psalm 130. This is what
he's talking about. Psalm 130. Verse three. If thou, Lord, shouldst mark
iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand but? There is forgiveness with thee. Now what's it say next? That
thou mayest be feared. When you think of what it took
for the Lord to forgive sin, that he had to bear your sins
in his own body and have the wrath of his father poured out
upon him to put away that sin, that God's justice and law might
be magnified. You fear him. That's the fear
of awe, of reverence, and respect to the living God. You fear him. I'm afraid of his judgments.
That's not just talking about his judgments of condemning somebody. We're talking about his judgments
in saving somebody. We fear we have an awe and respect
of his judgments. Amen.