This morning, Psalms chapter
50. I don't know if you noticed it
or not, sometimes it's difficult to just read these Psalms one
time and pick out these things, but as you read these Psalms,
you'll notice the Lord is speaking here to two groups of people.
Here in verse 4, He calls them His people. The first group,
He calls them His people. He shall call to the heavens
from above and to the earth that He may judge His people. And there in verse 7 He says,
My people. Here is another group of people.
Hear, O My people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify
against thee. I am God, even thy God. The first group here is His people
in truth. His people in truth. He calls
them His saints. Those who have made a covenant
with Him by sacrifice. Those He's forgiven. Those He's
called. Those He's justified. Those He
saved. His people. His people. And in
verse 7, He's speaking of another people that in the Old Testament,
every place is called His people, and it's the natural Israel. They're the seed of Abraham.
They told the Lord Jesus, they said, Abraham is our father.
He said, I know that you are the seed of Abraham. I know that
you sprang from Abraham's seed naturally. But he said, if Abraham
were your father, if he were your spiritual father, your true
father, you would do the works of Abraham. You seek to kill
me. Abraham would never kill me.
Abraham loved me. You are Abraham's seed naturally. But you're not Abraham's spiritual
seed. If we be of faith, then are we Abraham's seed. So we're
speaking here of these Jews, their formal professors. They
offered their sacrifices. They worshipped in their outward
form. Brother Larry read to us. But
they had no heart-faith in Christ. They had no heart-love for God.
They were professors of God, but not in truth, not in their
hearts. The Lord Jesus said this to him
one day, I know you, I know you. You think I don't know you, but
I know you. I see right in the very recesses
of your soul, I know you that you have not the love of God
in your hearts. I know that about you. I know
that. For I am come in my Father's
name, and you receive me not." And something else he told them
too. He said, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, you hypocrites. As it is written, this people
honors me with their lips, and they draw near to me with their
mouth, but their heart is far from me. Their heart is far from
me. And what's the final results of formal religion? Brothers
and sisters, some people say, we need false religion. Well,
maybe we need it. Maybe we need it, or maybe we
don't. It's here, isn't it? And maybe God uses it for a lot
of good. But I tell you so often, the
results of just formal religion, just gathering and worshiping
in a form, it often leads to the most ungodly people that
you can imagine. It makes some of the grossest
hypocrites and liars and thieves that you can imagine. I was reading
this morning about what I consider to be the Catholic Church over
in the book of Revelations. And she was decked out in all
of this garb and set upon this beautiful beast. And John looked
at her and he marveled. And he said, John, here's her
name. She's a mystery, Babylon the
mystery, the mother of harlots. and abominations of the earth. I was watching a fellow just
the other day and he had a little can and he had his big hat on
and all of his religious garb and he's walking down through
between people and shaking his little can and had little chimneys
coming out and it was smoking. I don't know what that was for.
But they're very religious people. But look at the abomination that
has come out of that. Look at the lies. Look at the
thieving and the murderers. Luther said way back in the 1500's,
he said, the ground under their monastery was full of unborn
babies where the nuns aborted them. Fornication and adultery
and abomination. That's what it leads to, isn't
it? And then he comes on down here to verse 23, and he goes
back to the first group. Those who offer praise, he said. Whoso offereth praise, Glorifyeth
the Lord." I mean, his heart is filled with praises. He's
just blessing God, praising God for saving him, praising Him
for loving Him, praising Him for redeeming Him, and calling
Him, and giving Him a new heart. Praising Him for it. He said,
that's who I'm going to show the salvation of the Lord. I
tell you, when a man's profession is one of praise to the Lord,
And his life corresponds with that. That's a true profession,
ain't it? The Lord ain't going to bless
open hypocrites. He's not going to bless willful
hypocrites. He's going to judge them, ain't
he? But those who offer praise, a heart praise, those who live
by faith. He said, that's the people I'm
going to show my salvation. And did you notice that word
there, I'm going to show? What does that mean? That means
we can't know it except He show us. Jesus Christ is everywhere
in this Bible. Is He not? But you can't see
Him until the Holy Spirit opens your heart. The Holy Ghost revealed
to that old man Simon, there in the temple, you're not going
to die until you've seen the Lord's Christ. And they brought
the little baby and He took him up in His arms and He said, Oh
Lord, let me now die in peace. My eyes have seen thy salvation. But I tell you, He's got to open
the eyes for us to see that, hasn't He? And those who are
honest before Him and walk before Him in truth, that's the people
He's going to show the salvation of the Lord to. Now let's go
back in verse 1 and just look for a few minutes. What I'm going
to do this morning, I'm just going to preach until I get tired
or you get tired. That's what I'm going to do.
I'm just going to preach to you and me, get tired and we'll quit, and
I'll dismiss and we'll go home. I have no idea how far we're
going to go. So if I see you going to sleep and getting tired,
why, I'll wake you up and maybe call upon you to dismiss if you're
one of the men and we'll go home. The mighty God, look at this,
the mighty God, even the Lord hath spoken. And He's called
the earth from the rising of the sun, And to the going down,
what a word this is, the mighty God has spoken. God has spoken. Isn't that wonderful? God has spoken. He spoke to the
fathers by the prophets. He spoke to the prophets and
the prophets would go and say, God has spoken to me. And he
would tell the people what the Lord had said to him. God spoke
in dreams. He spoke in visions. He spoke
in shadows and types. He spoke. And you know something? Not one word that he speak fell
to the ground. Not one promise, not one prediction,
not one threatening that God ever spoke fell to the ground. It all came to pass. Where the Word of the King is,
there is power. God has spoken. And listen to
this. In these last days, God has spoken
unto us through His Son. God has a Son. Isn't that remarkable? God has an eternal Son. He is
equal with God. He is God. And yet He is the
Son of God. And God has spoken to us through
His Son. The Lord Jesus went up on the
mountain, and He called the people unto Himself, and they sat there
on the ground before Him, thousands and thousands of people. And
He opened His mouth, and He said, Blessed are the poor in their
spirits, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Who said that? The mighty
God said that. That's what God said. Are you
poor in your spirit? Are you crushed? Are you broken
in your spirit? Here is what the mighty God says
to you. You are blessed. Yours is the
Kingdom of Heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke one
day and He said this, and what a grounds of assurance, brothers
and sisters, this is. He that heareth My Word and believeth
on Him that sent Me hath everlasting life. and shall never come into
condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." What are grounds
of assurance? How so, you say? Because that
is the Word of the mighty God. The mighty God has spoken. Oh, I think I could lay down
and die with that Word, don't you? He that heareth My Word. What are grounds of assurance?
That's why that centurion said, Lord, just speak the Word, and
my servant shall be healed. Just speak the Word. Why is that
enough? Because the mighty God has spoken.
And I'm telling you, when He speaks, it's done. When He commands, it stands fast. One man said, I'd rather be in
the Word of God as to be in heaven. Heaven and earth shall pass away,
but thy Word shall never pass away." What a Word! The mighty
God has spoken. And I think this takes us all
the way back here to the beginning. He says, God has called the earth
from the rising of the sun. You know, He called the sun to
rise the first day it ever rose. He called the rising of the sun.
He called the sun into existence, didn't He? There was a time that
this bright spot, this light that you and I see in the sky
today, there's a time that light did not exist. There's a time
it did not exist until God spoke and said, let there be lights
in the firmament. Let there be a big light to light
the world of a day and a little light to light the world of a
night. And let the firmament, the heavens be filled with stars
and with planets." And it was so. It was so. Why does the sun come up? God
calls it. He calls it to come up first.
And it's first rising. And He still commands it to come
up today, doesn't He? He calls His Son. to rise. Oh, but you go back before these
mighty lights that God had created. Go back to when there was nothing.
We can't conceive that, can we? A time when there was nothing. And where was God then? Where
was the mighty God then? He's where He's always been,
upon His throne. And the Scripture says, in the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And how did He
do that? By the Word of His power. Through
faith we understand that the world was created by the Word
of God. He created it. And then He made
this statement. And the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light. And there was light. God said. Said. There was nothing until
God said. That's power in it. That's power. God said, you look at those starry
heavens, and there was a time they had no being. You look at
the mighty Rockies, and there was a time they had no being.
You look at the great Alps, and there was a time that they were
not. And you consider this earth and its atmosphere and its seasons
and its beginning, and there was nothing until the mighty
God spoke and called it into being. And the same mighty God
is still calling the earth today, isn't He? He calls for the sun
to rise, and it rises. He calls for the stars and the
planets and the sun and the moon to hold their course, and they
do. He calls for the small rain to be on the earth. He brings
the snow out of His treasures. He does all of this by the Word
of His power. God does it. What a mighty God
He is. What a mighty God! The mighty
God has spoken. When I was a boy, they used to
tell me that there's coming a day when you can't tell summer from
winter. I don't know if some people ever told you that or
not. They've been telling us for a while now that it's going
to quit snowing and all we're going to have is heat. Some are
telling us that seas and the oceans are going to rise and
cover most of the earth. Don't you think, brothers and
sisters, it's pretty arrogant of the creature to think he can
destroy what God has created. I'm for clean air. I'm for clean
water. I want to be careful. I'm not pouring used oil over
my well. I try not to burn plastics and
rubbers, but listen, isn't it arrogant of me to think that
me, a creature, could undo what the mighty God has spoken into
existence and opposed by the Word of His power? You send your poor children off
to school and all of them become liberals. All of them start talking
about the environment. Something they better be talking
about instead of that. This mighty God. Huh? This mighty God. He's spoken,
hasn't He? Now look in verse 2. The mighty
God has spoken. Out of Zion, the perfection of
beauty, God hath shined. This is speaking about old Jerusalem. In the Bible, she was called
Zion in the Old Testament. This was the city God inhabited. He foretold it through Moses
and said, there is a city that I am going to put my name in.
I am going to build my temple there and my presence is going
to be in that temple. I am going to call it Zion. New
Jerusalem. And what a blessed place that
was. God's Shekinah glory dwelt upon that place, didn't He? His
people were there. They came to worship at Jerusalem. Zion. What a perfection of beauty. And you know something, brothers
and sisters? That's where our gospel came out of. You and I
can point to the time and point to the place where our gospel
had its origin, can't we? The Lord Jesus called His apostles
and He said, I want you to go into all the world and preach
repentance and forgiveness of sins in My name, beginning at
Jerusalem. It was there at Jerusalem the
gospel of God's grace began to shine. And it shined out of Jerusalem
into the hearts of men all over this world. And it's shown to
your heart, hasn't it? It's shown into your heart. I
don't know where all of these cults get their gospel. I have
no idea. I know you can find the Mormonism
there in Joseph Smith and the Jehovah Witness, that cult, and
another man, and Ishmael. You can trace it back to Mohammed.
Where did we trace our gospel to? Where did our gospel come
out of? It came out of Jerusalem, didn't
it? That's where God began to shine. Back yonder 2,000 years
ago, just outside the city walls of old Jerusalem, our redemption
was accomplished. Our sins were borne by another.
Our sins were punished. Our sins were atoned for and
put away. And it is from there that the
Gospel began to shine into all the world. We know where our
Gospel originated and who it originated with. Out of Zion
shall go forth the Law and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And verse 3, now look at this.
Our God shall come and shall not keep silent. Well, He has
come one time, hasn't He? in the person of His Son. He's
come one time to atone for our sin. But look at this, He's coming
again. He's not going to keep silent.
And look how tempestuous it will be. A fire shall defy before
Him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about Him. He's coming
again. And boy, what a sound, what a
commotion. The Scripture says when He stands
from His throne to come again, can't you see Him diving off
of the throne? The heavens and the earth sees
His face and they flee away and He dives off the throne. And
He comes down through the air with a shout, with a voice of
the archangel and the trump of God. And He's coming in flame
and fire, the Bible says. taking vengeance on them that
know not God, and that obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ. And
Peter said, the heavens are going to pass away with a great noise,
and the earth is going to melt with firmed feet. A commotion. A commotion. What will happen
then? What will happen then? Our God
is coming, isn't He? Our God is coming. And He tells
us in verse 4 and 5, look at this. When He comes, He shall
call the heavens from above and to the earth that He may judge
His people. And He says in verse 5, gather
My saints together to Me, those that have made a covenant with
Me by sacrifice. And the heavens shall declare
His righteousness, for God is judge Himself. He is speaking
here of the church, the saints. And He says here, gather them
together. You know, as you read the New
Testament, you often see this gathering together. Gathering
together. The Son of Man shall send forth
His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things
that offend. and them which do iniquity, and
they shall gather the wheat." That's the sheep. That's His
children. "...and to His barns. And then
shall the righteous shine." A gathering together. Listen to how the Apostle
Paul tells us about the coming of Jesus Christ our God. He said,
"...we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and are gathering together unto Him. Gather, my saints,
together unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be
troubled. I would not have you ignorant,
brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not
as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, them which sleep in Jesus will God bring
with Him. He is coming, isn't He? The Lord
is coming. Our God is coming. This we say
unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain
shall not go ahead of them which sleep. For the Lord Himself shall
descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of the archangel,
and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise
first. And listen to this, we which
are alive and remain shall be caught up together, caught up
together with them to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall
we ever be with the Lord. Comfort one another with these
words. Paul said, if in this life only
we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. Hope
has to do with the future, doesn't it? Hope has to do with a world
that's to come. God is coming. This mighty God
who has spoken and created all things and upholds them by the
Word of His power, He is coming again. God is coming. And He is going to gather all
the saints unto Him. And then what is going to happen?
The heavens shall declare His righteousness, for God Himself
is Judge. I love what he says here in verse
5. And the only way I know how to
take this is through a representative. Notice verse 5 again. Gather
my saints together to me, those that have made a covenant with
me by sacrifice. Now let me ask you a question,
dear saint of God. Have you ever made a covenant
with God? If you did, on what basis did you make that covenant?
I've never made a covenant with God, especially by sacrifice. What would I offer Him? All I've
got to offer is the praise of my lips. But I tell you somebody
who did make a covenant with our God by sacrifice, and that's
our substitute, that's our representative, Jesus Christ the Lord. Look over
here in Psalms with me right quickly. Hold Psalms 51 and just
look over to your right. In Psalms chapter 89, look at
this. Psalms chapter 89, and look in
verse 2. Here's one that has made a covenant
on behalf of all that believe on Him. Made a covenant with
His Father. In verse 2, For I have said,
Mercy shall be built up forever. Thy faithfulness shall be established
in the very heaven. I have made a covenant with My
chosen. I have sworn unto David My servant. This put Christ in there. This
is the greater David. This is Jesus Christ. Look over
now in verse 19. When thou speakest in vision
to thy Holy One, that's Christ. I said I have laid help upon
one that is mighty. I have exalted one chosen out
of the people. I have found David my servant,
Christ my son. With my holy oil have I anointed
him with whom my hand shall stand and be established. My arm also
shall strengthen him. Look in verse 24. But my faithfulness
and my mercy shall be with him. And in my name shall his horn
be exalted. I will set his hand also in the
sea, his right hand in the rivers. He shall cry unto me, Thou art
my Father, my God, the rock of my salvation. Also I will make
him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy
will I keep for him forevermore, and my covenant shall stand fast
with him." Who's this covenant between? It's between the Father,
isn't it, and the Son. You've made a covenant with Him,
not personally, but in your representative, in your head, Jesus Christ. Remember right before the Lord
Jesus went to the cross, He got His little group of apostles
around Him and break the bread and gave the wine to them. And
He said, Eat, this is My body which is broken for you. And
He gave them the cup and said, ìThis is my blood of the new
covenant.î ìThis is my blood of the new covenant.î Jesus Christ
sealed the covenant with His blood. ìThe God of peace that
brought again from the dead, the Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd
of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant.î
Oh, thatís a blessed thought, isnít it? God required a covenant. And He made it with our head,
our blessed representative who was faithful in all things. In
verse 6 now, verse 6, here's what gives us some hope when
we talk about the judgment to come. The day of judgment. We
see two things declared here in verse 6. Here in verse 6 he
says in our text, look back over in our text again, in chapter
50 in verse 6, The heavens shall declare His righteousness, for
God has judged Himself. Two things that heaven is going
to declare about righteousness. The first one is a righteous
judgment. A righteous judgment. When God
judges even His saints, He will judge them in righteousness.
He's appointed a day which He'll judge the world in righteousness. Even the secret thoughts of men
will be judged. Righteousness. Nobody's getting
by with anything, are they? Nobody's getting by with anything.
We'll all stand before the judgment seat of Christ and all of us
They receive what we've done in our body, whether they be
good or whether they be bad. It's going to be a righteous
judgment. God cannot judge any other way, brothers and sisters.
He cannot. He cannot. And if you're like
me, when you look to that day, you look at it as a day to be
solemn, a solemn day. But I tell you what, I don't
dread that day. I have hope when that day comes.
And here's my hope. Here's my hope of being accepted
in that day and not being condemned in that day. There's going to
be another righteousness declared thereto. Not just a righteous
judgment, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is imputed
to His people. That's a good thought, ain't
it? That's the only way we can stand there. I don't care how
faithful you've been as a child of God. Man at his best state
is a failure, is he not? Then how are we to stand before
God and to be accepted of Him in that day? How can we face
it with any confidence? You've got to have the righteousness,
the perfect righteousness of someone else. That's the only
way we can stand there. shall declare in that day His
righteousness." What said of the church? Listen
to this, what Paul said of the church. Christ will present it
to Himself. Don't you love that? If she presented
Herself, it wouldn't be pretty. But the Lord Jesus says, I will
present her to Myself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle
or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish
before Him. Oh, if He presents us there that
way, then we'll be accepted. Jude said it like this, unto
Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present
you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. Present you faultless. That is
the only way to stand in the judgment. That is the only way
a man can stand in the judgment, is to stand faultless. Revelations
19 and 8, this is what was said of the church. And to her was
granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white,
for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." Where does a saint
get this righteousness? It's imputed to him. It's given
to him. It's the righteousness that resides
in another, Jesus Christ. That's the righteousness that
you and I must have. Paul prayed for those wretched
Jews that they might be saved. And he said, I bear them record
that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge,
because they going about to establish their own righteousness have
not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. For righteousness
to everyone that believeth. I love the old song where we
sang about this. One man wrote this, For who ought
to my charge shall lay, Fully absolved through thee I am, From
sin and fear and guilt and shame. Jesus be endless praise to thee,
Whose boundless mercy hath for me, For me a full atonement made,
than everlasting ransom paid. Oh, let the dead now hear thy
voice. Now bid thy banished ones rejoice. Their beauty this, their glorious
dress, Jesus thy blood and righteousness. That's the way His saints will
stand there. And if they don't stand in the righteousness of
Christ Jesus, they can't stand there faultless. before His throne. Let's change the subject now
and go to this second group just for a minute. Give me a few more
minutes. This is so important. Here in
verses 7 through verse 15 in our text, He addresses these
natural Jews, natural Israelites. Paul said, what profit is there
in being a Jew? He said, much in every way. Unto
them was committed the Word of God. But you know something?
They didn't believe the Word of God. The Word wasn't mixed
with faith when they read it and they didn't understand it.
They had these animal sacrifices and they had the temple and the
holy place and the priesthood and the feast days and these
were given them to teach them of Jesus Christ and redemption
by Him. But listen, they never saw Christ
in those things. They never saw redemption in
those things. They missed Christ in these sacrifices
and they started bringing their sacrifices. for their salvation. They thought it was alright to
bring sacrifices. And they missed the real sacrifice. Jesus Christ, the Lord. They trusted in the things, instead
of the Christ, these things revealed. And the Lord says, your heart
is so far from Me, you don't know Me, you don't love Me, you
don't believe Me. All of these things they were doing didn't
help them at all, but it brought the judgment of God upon them.
In Matthew chapter 23, if you want to turn over there sometime
and remember that and read it, and you can see where the Lord
Jesus pronounced so many woes against this people. He said,
you make broad your phylacteries, you enlarge the borders of your
garment, and you pray long prayers in the streets. You love to be
called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. You exalt yourself above everybody
else. You fast. You pay tithes of men,
and Annas and Cunnan. And you have omitted the weightier
matters of the law, mercy and faith and judgment." And he said,
you are like whitish separators. People look at you and they say,
oh, how beautiful they are. But within, where God sees you,
You're unclean. You're full of dead man's bones
and all iniquity. He wasn't pleased with his people,
was he? I tell you, they were thieves and robbers. Thieves
and robbers. You study the New Testament when
the Lord Jesus is here, and you won't find a more evil group
of people than those Pharisees and those scribes. They were
the strictest religion that you can imagine outwardly. Boy, in
their hearts were God's song. They were wretched. They were
evil. They were vile. They became some of the biggest
thieves and robbers. The Lord Jesus said, You devour
widows' houses, and you make long prayers for a pretense that
you may rob these poor widows, pretending to be their spiritual
leaders. Wayne, you were talking last
night about the tithes you paid in the Worldwide Church of God.
I just wonder how many poor widows Herbert W. Armstrong robbed. Robbed widows' houses. Thieves. They robbed God of His glory.
Robbed men of their souls. Some people said the Jews, those
Pharisees, were seeking to be saved by their good works. Here's
the only problem. Their works weren't good. Their
works were works of iniquity. They were evil people. They were
liars. Paul said you make your boast
of God. Thank your teachers of babes
and guides to those who sit in darkness. He said you think you're
teaching everybody else, but you're not teaching yourself.
You are telling others not to steal and you are thieves. You
are telling others not to worship idols and you commit sacrilege
yourself. You tell others not to commit
adultery and your heart is full of it. Well, I tell you what, the Lord
Jesus leveled charges against them, didn't He? Woe be to you,
Pharisees and scribes and hypocrites, woe be to you. But we bring our
sacrifices. We bring our offerings. And the
Lord said, they stink in My nostrils. Ain't that what He said? Look
over here. Hold your Bible right quickly.
Look in Isaiah chapter 1. Look what He says about them.
This is natural Israel. Look what He says here about
them. Isaiah chapter 1 and look in verse 2. Hear, O ye heavens,
and give ear, O earth, for the Lord hath spoken. I have nourished
and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me.
The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib. But Israel
doeth not know. My people doeth not consider
a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers,
children that are corrupters. They have forsaken the Lord.
They have provoked the Holy One of Israel into anger, and they
are gone away backward." And he goes ahead to tell them the
whole head is sick and the whole heart faints. And look what he
says down in verse 11. To what purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord? I am full of the burnt
offering of rams, and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight
not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs or of goats, when
you come to appear before Me, who hath required this at your
hand, to tread My courts? Bring no more vain oblations.
Incense is an abomination to Me. The new moons and Sabbath,
the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with its iniquity, even
the solemn meetings. Your new moons and your appointed
feasts My soul hates. They are a trouble unto me, I
am weary to bear them. When you spread forth your hand,
I will hide my eyes from you. Yea, when you make many prayers,
I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.
Wash you, make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings
from before my eyes, and cease to do evil." Boy, what a pronouncement
of judgment upon these religious people. Well, there's some good in all
religions. Boy, that wasn't any of this, was it? That wasn't
any of this. The Lord told them in our text,
He said, Call upon Me in the day of your trouble. But you
know something? They never came into any trouble.
Nothing troubled them. They weren't troubled about their
sins. They said, We have none. They weren't burdened because
they sinned against God. Their hearts weren't full of
sorrow. They didn't need the righteousness of another. They
had their own. Call upon Me. No, we won't call
on you. We don't need you. We've got
a religion. We've got a farm. We've got to
sacrifice it. Brothers and sisters, there's
no substitute. Listen to me. There is no substitute
for a heart faith, a heart reverence. a heart and love for God in Jesus
Christ. There is no substitute for it. A man may sit down and read his
Bible. A man may come to worship, go through all of the motions,
and be abomination and rejected in God's eyes. The only way to
worship Him is in spirit and in truth. God is the Spirit and
they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit. They must. You must be born again. The Son of Man must be lifted
up. And if we worship to be accepted,
we must worship God in Spirit. And everything else he says,
away with. I hate it. I hate it. That man with his
little smoking bucket. You know what God said about
that? I hate it. I hate it. It's a stink in my
nostril. But everybody else loves it.
What about it? God hates it. God hates it. I tell you, I'd rather be among
just a little group of people that bows their hearts humbly
before the Lord and seeks His mercy in Christ to be accepted
than among a whole crowd of people This is there for a show and
a pretense, hypocrites. And quickly, and I'll let you
go with this, turn back to our text again, quickly in the 50th
chapter of Psalms. He's speaking here to the same
people. All the way down in verse, chapter 50 and verse 16, These how these people have degenerated.
But to the wicked God said, What hast thou to do to declare my
statutes? Or that thou shouldest take my
covenant in thy mouth? Here were these people that had
all of these sacrifices and all the forms and worship, worshiping
with their lips, worshiping with the little smoking buckets, and
their hearts were far from the Lord. Boy, to look at them. Boy, they look so good and religious,
so clean. But you know something? Boy,
you've got religion without Christ. You're going to degenerate into
all kinds of wickedness. This religion that we've got
today, we've got a church almost on every corner, haven't we not?
We've got every religion. You can shake a stick and they're
like rats, they're running everywhere. Have we ever lived in such a
wicked day? You see some of these, they do
these surveys and they give you the stats on some of these surveys
and they talk about, well, 50% of church members now say it's
alright to be homosexual. That don't surprise me. More
than 40% say it's alright to kill the unborn babies. Religious
people! Perverts! Murderers! You'd be
surprised at the number of religious people that don't believe the
Bible is God's Word. Religious people? Yes! My wifey,
when she worked at the post office, she said some of the most difficult,
meanest, some of the linest people she had to put up with was religious
people, especially preachers. And they get up and they read
their Bible and says, God has said, And he says, who are you,
you hypocrite? Who are you, you hypocrite? You
got your farm? You got your outward show? You're
just a hypocrite, you're a pretender. Who are you to take my Word and
try to teach it to others? You hypocrite yourself. False religion does nobody any
good as far as I'm concerned. It finally degenerates into some
of the most wicked and evil people in the world. They get so familiar
with God, they can just do everything. There's a sinful familiarity
with God in our day. Oh my, it's sad and dangerous. Let me say this and we'll close. He tells them about all that
they did in verse 18. When you saw a thief, you consented
with him. You were partakers with adulterers.
Didn't see anything wrong with it yourself and said it was all
right for others to do it. You gave your mouth to evil and
your tongue framed deceit. You sat and spake against your
brother and slandered your own mother's son. And look at this.
These things hast thou done and I kept silent. I kept silent. Brothers and sisters, it's dangerous
when we sin and God keeps silent. When we sin and we can go to
bed and sleep easy and not have our conscience afflicted, that's
dangerous. There's two reasons that men
go on in sin so often. The Bible gives two reasons.
One is this. Because judgment against an evil
work is not executed speedily. Because when men sin, God doesn't
kill them and make an example out of them. The hearts of the
sons of men are fully set in them to do evil. There must not
be anything wrong with it. God didn't kill them either.
Okay, let's just sin more and more. God must not be looking. He must not be the judge after
all. Oh, He is, isn't He? He is. And here's another reason,
because I kept silent. You did these things and you
continue to do them because I kept silent. And look at this, because
I kept silent, you thought that I was altogether such as yourself. Have you ever had people stand
up to you and say, well, there's nothing wrong with what I'm doing.
God sees nothing wrong with what I'm doing. And what their meaning
is, I don't feel bad with what I'm doing. So God must not feel
bad with what I'm doing. What I'm doing is not wrong.
I don't feel like it's wrong. So it must not be wrong in God's
eyes. God's like me. The way I judge
God is by judging myself. The way I feel is the way God
feels. If I permit it, then God permits
it. He's like me. Boy, that's the battle we're
in in our day, isn't it? On living our lives out, our
daily lives, and on preaching the gospel. People think God's
just like me. He'll accept me on any terms.
That's the way I think. And if that's the way I think,
that's the way it is because that's the way God is. He's like
me. But what did He say? He said, I'm going to teach you
better than that someday. And what He says here in verse
21, He says, I will reprove you. I've kept silent to you. You've
gone on in your sins. You've sinned against Me as you
will. But I will reprove you and I will set them in order
before your eyes." Let's wait to the judgment. We can't convince
this wicked generation that what they're doing now is sin. They
won't hear us. But I tell you on the Day of
Judgment, God says, I will set it all in order before them. I'll start plumbing back here,
and I'll show them the first time they sinned. And I'll bring
them up all through their life, every sin they ever committed,
and the motive behind it, and why they did it, and who it was
against, and who it affected. I'm going to set it all in order
before them. And in that day, they're going
to say, wait a minute, He's nothing like me at all. I excused everything
I've done. He's excused nothing. And then
he says this warning in verse 22. Now consider this. Consider
this. You better stop and consider
this, he says. God is coming. Life's not going to go on as
we know it. Stop and consider this. Consider this eternal mighty
God. He's nothing like you. Consider
what He demands, what He requires. Consider this, lest I tear you
in pieces, and there be none to deliver thee. That's serious,
isn't it? That's serious. You say, Bruce,
why are you hollering? Why are you carrying on? This
is so serious. Is this so serious? Well, you've been patient. Lord
bless you for doing so. Let's pray.