You'll find my text this morning
in Psalms chapter 55. Psalms chapter 55. I'd like to
read this entire psalm to us. If you have a Pew Bible, you'll
find it on page 665. Psalms chapter 55 in verse 1. Give ear to my prayer, O God,
and hide not thyself from my supplication. Attend unto me
and hear me. I mourn in my complaint and make
a noise. Because of the voice of the enemy,
because of the oppression of the wicked, for they cast iniquity
upon me and in wrath they hate me. My heart is sore pained within
me and the terrors of death are falling upon me. Fearfulness
and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me. And I said, O, that I had wings
like a dove, for then would I fly away and be at rest. Lo, then
would I wander far off and remain in the wilderness. Salah. I would
hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest. Destroy, O
Lord, and divide their tongues. For I have seen violence and
strife in the city. Day and night they go round about
it upon the walls thereof. Mischief also and sorrow are
in the midst of it. Wickedness is in the midst thereof. Deceit and guile depart not from
her street. For it was not an enemy that
did reproach me. Then I could have borne it. Neither
was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me. Then I would have hid myself
from him. But it was thou, a man mine equal,
my guide and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together
and walked into the house of God in company. Let death seize
upon them and let them go down quick into hell. For wickedness
is in their dwellings and among them. As for me, I will call
upon God, and the Lord shall save me. Evening and morning
and at noon will I pray and cry aloud, and He shall hear my voice. He hath delivered my soul in
peace from the battle that was against me, for there were many
with me. God shall hear and afflict them,
even he that abideth of old shall because they have no changes,
therefore they fear not God. He hath put forth his hands against
such as be at peace with him. He hath broken his covenant.
The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his
heart. His words were softer than oil,
yet were they drawn swords. Cast thy burden upon the Lord,
and he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous
to be moved. But thou, O God, shalt bring
down them, thou shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction.
Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days,
but I put my trust in thee." My text this morning is found
in verse 22. Cast thy burden upon the Lord,
and He shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous
to be moved. And I want to preach on this
this morning and look at this precious, precious promise. He shall sustain thee, and he
shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Cast thy burden
on the Lord. And that's the precious promise
that those have who cast their burden upon the Lord. He shall
sustain thee. I love the shalls in the Bible,
don't you? And He not only said He shall,
but He said He shall never suffer your foot to be moved. Shall
never, shall never suffer. Somebody says, well, God may
have made a promise too big. He's never made a promise too
big. He knows these promises and what's entailed in keeping
them before He ever makes them. And when He makes a promise,
He has the power, He has the wisdom, and He has the faithfulness
to keep that promise. Not one promise has God ever
made that has failed. Not one has fallen to the ground. Some people say, well, we just
don't live up. None of us live up to anything. But it's not
our living up to anything that secures these promises. The promise
is secured by Him that made it, the faithful God. All the promises
of God in Christ are yea and amen. That's why Peter said He's
given to us exceeding great and precious promises. All the promises
that you and I have. What has He promised to those
who love Him? He's promised them a kingdom.
He's promised them heaven at last. He's promised them forgiveness
of all their sins. He's promised that He'll sustain
them. What a precious, precious promise
this is. And the Scripture tells us, since
we have all of these promises, that we shouldn't be slothful.
Don't be slothful in laying hold of these promises. Embrace these
promises. Keep them next to your heart.
They'll strengthen you. They'll encourage you. Be not
slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience
inherit the promise." Inherit the promise. And dear old Abraham,
God gave him a promise that he was going to have a son. And
the Bible says that Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through
unbelief, but he was strong in faith, giving glory to God. Now listen, being fully persuaded,
that what God had promised, He is able to perform. I don't know how God performs
all of His promises. I can't figure it out. I don't
have the wisdom for that. But I just know this, every promise
He makes, He keeps. He's the one that will figure
out how to keep it. I don't see how a 90-year-old
woman could have a baby, but one did, because she judged Him
faithful who had promised. And here we have this promise
that I want to divide our text up into four different headings.
And the first heading is this. I want to identify the people
to whom this promise is made. Now the promise isn't to everybody,
is it? He didn't say everybody, but
he specified a group of people, the righteous. The righteous. I want to see who they are. Who
is righteous? And secondly, what are some of
these burdens? Cast thy burden on the Lord. And thirdly, I want to consider
the invitation itself. This is an invitation the Lord
Jesus Christ gave. And why would He even give it?
Why would the Lord of glory even send out this promise, cast your
burden upon Me? I want to see that. And lastly,
I want to consider the promise that He made. He shall sustain
thee. So first of all, let's look at
these people. They're called here in our text,
the righteous. The righteous. Notice what He
didn't say. Sometimes it's just as important
to notice what the Bible doesn't say. And He never said, those
who have never sinned. He shall sustain those who have
never sinned. He shall never suffer those who
have never sinned to be moved. If He had said that, it would
have included none of us. Because who among us hasn't sinned?
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's
not a just man upon this earth that doeth good and sinneth not.
But He doesn't say those who have never sinned, but He said
this, the righteous. You see, the righteous aren't
those who have never sinned. What makes a man righteous? What
constitutes righteousness? What are you and I trusting in
this morning that we may set among these who God calls righteous? Is it our character? Is that
what makes us righteous? Somebody says, I'm such a good
man. Well, I'm glad your heart tells you that, but listen, your
heart can deceive you. The Pharisee said this about
himself, Lord, I thank you. that I'm not as other men are. And the Lord Jesus said He was
trusting in Himself that He was righteous. I thank you that I
am indeed a good man. Well, you may be good in the
eyes of man, but we're talking about being righteous in the
eyes of God. Those whom God calls righteous.
Is it our character that we trust in? If it is, then we're not
righteous. We're not righteous. The Lord
Jesus said, except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and Pharisees. You can't enter the kingdom of
heaven. It must not be based upon a man's character. Secondly,
could it be our conduct? Are we trusting in our conduct?
Oh, the heart says to some men, you've conducted yourself very
well. You've did so many good things and you've refrained from
so many evil things. Are we trusting in our conduct? You know if a man is trusting
in his conduct, God has given us a law, a moral law to look
at and to judge our conduct to see how we stand up. He's given
us a holy law to judge our conduct by. And the law just has two
plain points. Love the Lord your God with all
your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength. In other words, love God supremely. Love Him with all you are. Love Him from the cradle to the
grave. Never let your love grow cold.
Never make sure your affections stray. Love Him with all your
heart, mind, soul, and strength. Does anybody here measure up
to that law? You know, we find those saints
of old complaining about, my heart fails me. The strength
of my heart fails me. They complained about being sinners.
They complained about their affections growing cold in me. Are we better
than Daniel who confessed his sin? Are we better than David
who said, I was shapen in iniquity? Are we better than Paul who made
the statement like this, in me dwelleth no good thing in my
flesh? If our righteousness this morning
is in our conduct and in our character, then we are not any
more righteous than the Pharisees. There's only been one man, one
man since the fall of Adam that lived up to the standard of this
law. You know there's only been one
man that loved God with every being, everything in Him, every
fiber of His being, just one man. As we say, from the cradle
to the grave, there's been one man that loved God supremely,
never sinned against God. His love never grew cold against
God. That's the Son of God, Jesus
Christ. Isn't that amazing that anybody
could ever love God that way? Through all of his life, when
he was tempted of the devil, he loved God supremely. When
the crowds come against Him and try to throw Him over the brow
of the hill, tempted Him, called Him all kinds of names, He was
faithful to His God. Even on the cross of Calvary,
when blood was running from His head and His hands and His feet,
and when God had forsaken Him, you know something? He never
ceased to love God with all of His heart and all of His mind
and soul and strength. He breathed out His last and
said, Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit. Even the
death of the cross could not swerve Him from His love to God. He lived up to the law. He fulfilled
its every demand. And listen, in His death, He
suffered its awful penalty, a penalty that He did not deserve. And
here is our righteousness. Our confidence is not in our
character, in our conduct, but our confidence is in the conduct
and the character and the doing and dying of God's Son. It's His work in the days of
His flesh. Our righteousness is Jesus Christ. Brother Wayne quoted it this
morning. I thought about the Scriptures as he was quoting
those Scriptures in II Corinthians 5.21. Listen to this precious
Scripture. God hath made Christ to be sin for us, who knew no
sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God. Can you
believe such a thing? Dear child of God, you are sad
in you this morning, and you feel the working of sin within
you, and yet all of this time God looks upon you, and what
does He see? He sees His own righteousness.
The righteousness of God. But here is where it is. It's
in Him. It's in Jesus Christ. They are
the righteous. Of Him, of God, are you in Christ
Jesus, whom of God is made unto us righteousness. Now one man's
obedience shall many be made righteous. That's one of the
most blessed doctrines in all the scriptures, isn't it? And
it's essential for us to believe. Abraham believed God and it was
counted to him for righteous. So who is this promise to? The
righteous. And who are the righteous? Those
who have the righteousness of another imputed to them, given
to them, put on their accounts. and with His robe of righteousness
on, we're as near to God as God's own Son. Are you righteous this
morning? What confidence do you have that
you're righteous? Is it in another person? Is it
in that person who has already done the work on your behalf
and is seated in heaven? Is Jesus Christ your righteousness? Then this promise, dear soul,
isn't to you. Nobody else. Just to the righteous. He will never suffer the righteous
to be moved. Secondly, and quickly, I want
to look at some of the burdens of these righteous. You would
think if we had the righteousness of God, we'd never be burdened
about anything. And maybe there's things we shouldn't
be burdened about. But we're burdened, aren't we?
Righteous are burdened. And I want to tell you some of
my own experience. I don't like to preach my experiences,
but let me tell you some of my burdens this morning. And maybe
my burdens are some of your burdens. Here's some of my burdens. First
of all, I'm still burdened about the sins of my youth. I still
carry a burden about the sins of my youth. And I'm not ashamed
to say that, though I'm ashamed of the sin of my youth, because
David still bore the burden of his youth. He said, Lord, remember
not against me the sins of my youth. And when I look back upon
my youth, oh, I tell you what, it's a burden to me. My dad and
my mom are now both gone, and I look back when I was a young
teenager, it's sometimes my attitude towards my dad and my dear mother,
I had such a loving mother and such a dad that was good to me,
but so often I was hateful to them. So often I wouldn't mind
them. I talked back to them. I tell you, young children think
that they can live mean lives, be mean to their parents, and
rebel against their parents, and God will never take notice
of it. They better think again. They better think again. Because
the Scripture says, honor your father and your mother. And it's
a sin not to, isn't it? And you know that's the only
commandment. It's the first commandment with
promise. Honor your father and mother
that your days may be long upon this earth. And boy, I look back
at my youth, and I'm telling you what, there's a burden there.
The things that I've said to my mother, the things that I've
fought against my dad, and it's a burden to me. And I've talked
to some of you, and some of you feel the same way. A burden,
the burden of our youth. And let me tell you another burden
of my youth. When I was a young teenager, I made a profession
of the Lord. I professed to know God. I professed
to have received Christ as my Savior. I was baptized in water,
and I didn't know the Lord. I didn't know the Lord. And sometimes
when I think of that, I tell you it's such a burden to me.
You say, Bruce, why would that be a burden to you? Oh, dear
soul, I think of all my open and profane sins that I did when
I was young, but none of them compare to the sinfulness of
the false profession that I made. Some people think there's nothing
you shouldn't even regret or think about. Well, I made a false
profession. To profess God's name and do it as a hypocrite? To profess God's name and not
know Him in truth? Paul said they profess to know
God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable. That's what
I was. I look back upon my false profession
as abominable. And I tell you, it's still a
burden to me. And I remember, and I've told you about this,
and this is a burden to me too, an awful grief to my soul. There
was a time in my late teenage years when I lived thinking that
by my good works, plus what Christ has done, I could be made righteous. And you know what I was saying
by that? Righteousness comes by the law. So Christ has died
in vain. I said that. I said that. By my profession I said that.
And now I bear the burden of that. Oh, the burdens of the
righteous. The burden. And since the Lord
has graciously had mercy upon me and saved me, here's another
burden that I bear. I sometimes bear the sin, the
burden of my backsliding. I can't understand people that
leave their profession of the Lord and go back out and live
in open and profane sin. They quit seeking the Lord. They
quit reading their Bible. I don't understand that. And
they just say, well, we've come back and everything seems to
be so easy. I can't understand such backslidings. But let me tell you about some
of my backslidings. I have backslid in my heart.
There have been times in my life that I look back and my affections
have been so cold towards the Lord Jesus Christ. I have gone
for days lusting and complaining and coveting Him, everything
and everybody, and suddenly just woke up and thought to myself,
I'm like a beast before the Lord. I'm like poor old Asaph that
looked at the wicked and the prosperity and began to think
within himself, boy, I wish I was like them. He was just ready
to leave the Lord and go with the wicked because they were
prospering so. And he came to himself one day
and he realized how backslidden I'd been. And he said, Lord,
I'm as a beast. I've been like a beast before
you. Well, we backslide in our hearts, do we not? You ever backslide
in your heart? And you wake up and realize what
you've been thinking in your mind, what you've been feeling,
the awful thoughts against God? I tell you, sometimes it's years
later, after we've backslid, that we begin to feel the burden
of it, when the Lord reminds us of it. Do you remember when
you thought so long upon this? Remember when you went after
that in your heart? Remember the idol that you set
up? Boy, that's been a burden to your pastor. That's been a
burden to your pastor. Years and years have gone by,
and some of my backslidings, heart backslidings, is still
a burden to me to this day. Oh, there are some more burdens.
We all have these burdens. The burden of this flesh, this
old man, the body of sin. Paul said, we that are in this
tabernacle do groan being burdened It's a burden to us, isn't it?
And you know we're a prison to it. We can't get out of it. These
bones house our soul, and it's like a prison to us. And as long
as we're in this tabernacle, we grow on being burdened, being
burdened. I have fears. I have doubts that
burden me. Let me tell you some of them.
Let me tell you some of my fears and some of my doubts, and they're
a burden to me. Sometimes I fall into such unbelief
that I doubt that Christ loves me. Do you ever experience that
burden? Sometimes I fear that God is
angry with me and I'm going to be shut out of heaven at last.
I'm not bragging about these doubts. I'm not recommending
these fears, but I'm telling you your poor pastor has them
and they're an awful burden to him. I've been in awful dark
places in my life, and I thought I could almost hear the Lord
saying to me, Depart from me, you worker of iniquity. I never
knew you. Oh, what a burden. What a burden.
Did you ever have anything like that? The ministry is a burden
to me. And I'm not talking about just
my public ministry, but my private ministry. I have a private ministry
just like each of you do. And you know what a concern has
been to me in my private ministry? Am I pure from the blood of every
man? My neighbors that I talk to,
my co-workers that I used to be around, my friends, my relatives
that I sometimes speak to, am I pure from the blood of all
men? Oh, I tell you, that's a burden. Paul was concerned about that,
wasn't he? Boy, he was leaving the Ephesian church and he said,
I take every one of you to record, that I am pure from the blood
of every man, for I am not shunned in declaring to you the whole
counsel of God. There used to be a song that
we used to sing. When in a better land, before
the bar we stand, how deeply grieved our souls would be, If
any lost one there would cry in deep despair, you never mentioned
him to me. I don't know how that would work.
But I know this, I don't want to have another person's blood
on my hands because I was ashamed or I was afraid to tell that
person the truth. Is that a burden to you? Can
you see people in the way and have an opportunity to speak
to them? But you don't. You don't recommend
Christ to them? You don't give them the truth
that He has put within your heart? Oh, that's a burden to me. When
I think of my poor children, bone of my bone and flesh of
my flesh, that I love, that I've instructed and warned, that they
may die in their sins and perish forever in a lake of fire. That's
a burden to me. Sometime I can almost see one
of my sons falling off into hell. And it makes me afraid. It makes me burdened. I love
my children. You love your children. And to
imagine them going to hell and suffering forever. Why, we see
them here. If one of our children here get
hurt, somebody call and say they got hurt on the job. Oh, we rush
to the hospital. Everything we were doing has
to be laid aside. My child is hurting. Oh, what
would it be for one of our children to be put into hell to suffer
forever? Isn't that a burden to you? That's a burden to me. Cast your burden upon the Lord. Oh, the righteous have all kinds
of burdens, don't they? They have sickness of body. Sometimes
I complain when people complain about being sick. Sometimes people
complain and I get leery. I just get weary hearing them
complain. Some people take too much medication, to my opinion,
and yet when I get sick, I start complaining. When I get sick,
I'm seeking some medicine to make me well. That's a burden. And if somebody is not complaining
about being sick, they're probably just not sick enough. Oh, I tell you what, sickness
can be a burden. He whom thou loveth is sick. And look how He'd upset that
household. And the sisters were still weeping
days after He died about it. Oh, sometimes finances. I tell
you, we hear so many of these TV preachers preaching on finances,
we don't say anything about it. But I tell you what, finances
can be a burden to us, can't they? Some people wasted what
the Lord had given them, and they've added this burden to
themselves. But others are hurting financially from no fault to
themselves. And it's a burden. It's a burden. A burden can be a good thing
if we remember our text. Can it not? If you have a burden,
here is an exhortation to you. Cast your burden on the Lord. Take your fears, take your doubts,
take your sins, and whatever burden it is, and cast it upon
the Lord. Cast in all your care upon Him,
for He careth for you. And I say this fully recognizing
that this is not as easy done as said. That's why we continue
to carry these burdens, is it not? I was reading a little story,
a man was in some foreign country and he said he was sitting across
in front of this church in a restaurant eating and he kept noticing these
people come by and they had burdens on their heads and burdens on
their back and they'd stop at this church and take all their
burdens off and go into the church and pray and come back out and
they'd put all the burden back on their head and all the burden
back on their back and go their way. And he said, that's the
way I am. We're that way, aren't we? We unload ourselves and go
to the Lord and say, Lord, I'm casting this upon You. We turn
around and put it back on and go on our way, all burdened.
It's not as easy said or done as said. Cast your burden upon
the Lord. Some people say this word here
could mean roll. Roll your burden upon the Lord.
And sometimes when you roll it upon Him, it rolls right back
on you, doesn't it? So you have to roll it right
back. Roll it back. Keep rolling it back upon Him.
Our burdens. Our burdens. Cast your burden
upon Him. Thirdly, consider this with me.
Why would the Lord of glory even invite us to do such a thing? To cast our burdens on Him? Mr. Baker is always telling me,
Bruce, do you need anything? Anything I can do for you? And
I know when he says that, there's a limit. There's a limit. Just let me call him every day
and say, Larry, I need this. Larry, do this. After a while,
he'd start looking at his ID on his phone. I think I'll call
him back sometime. But you know, there's no limit
to this, is there? Cast your burden upon the Lord.
What is your burden? What is it? He doesn't say, does He? And
I'm glad He doesn't. Because whatever it is, bring
it to Him. How many burdens do you have?
It doesn't matter. Bring it to Him. Is it a light
burden? Bring it to Him. It may get heavy.
Bring it to Him. But why would He even invite
us to do this? Well, I'll tell you why, brothers
and sisters. He is such a gracious, He is such a kind. He is such
a tender. He is such a gentle Lord. That's why. And you know something? You know why He came down from
heaven? One of the reasons He came down from heaven and was
made in our likeness, that He might experience what you and
I experience in our humanity. Listen to this. In all things
it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might
be a faithful and merciful high priest in things pertaining to
God. For in that he himself hath suffered,
being tempted, he is able to secure them, to aid them that
are tempted." I tell you, when I get in trouble, you know what
kind of person I want to sympathize with me? Somebody that's been
where I've been. I don't want somebody to come
to me and say, well, you must be in a bad place, but I have
no idea what you're suffering. You know, I can sit here and
listen to you. I want somebody to come to me and say, Bruce,
I've been right where you've been. I have felt what you're
feeling right now. I can tell you how you're feeling.
That's the person I want. He can sympathize with me. And
this is the kind of high priest we have. He can be touched where
the feelings are very affirmative. You say, Bruce, I'm in poverty.
So was he. You say, I'm tempted. So was
he. You say, I feel that God has
forsaken me. He experienced that. Everywhere that a saint treads,
Jesus has been there before him. And I tell you the reason He
says, cast your burden upon Me, because He is so tender. He's
so good. He's so kind. And He says, come
and do it. Everybody. All you righteous. All you righteous. What a strong
Lord He must be. What a strong Lord. Can you imagine
the righteous people that's in this world right now? I know
we think, well, they're just right here, you know. This is
all the ones that's left. But you know, there's righteous
people all over the world. And if every one of them God,
every burden He had and cast it upon the Lord Jesus Christ,
He can bear it. That's how strong He is. Sometimes
we say, boy, that young man, he don't know his own strength.
He's so stout, he don't know his own strength. The Lord is
so stout and He knows it. He knows His own strength and
it's immeasurable. Cast your burden upon Me because
I care for you. I don't care what you're bearing
this morning, dear soul. I don't care what you're bearing,
what your burden is. Go right to the Lord Jesus and
put it upon Him. Tell Him what it is and just
put it upon Him. And if the devil says to you,
you have no right to be here, tell him this, Jesus Christ gave
you this right. For He told you to come and cast
your burden upon Him. Psalms 55, read it sometime,
and you see here it's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ,
Him being betrayed by Judas, His familiar friend. And there
in verse 4 and verse 5, just look at that. That's the Lord
Jesus speaking. And you realize He suffered everything
that you and I could suffer that He might sympathize with us.
Fourthly, and lastly, and quickly, Two things about this promise. He shall sustain thee. This word sustain, Webster says
this about it. It means to bear and it means
to uphold, to support. He said as a foundation supports
a superstructure or as pillars sustain an edifice or as a beast
sustains a burden. It means to hold to keep from
falling as a rope sustains a weight. So sustain doesn't always mean
he removes the burden. Sometimes he removes the burden.
But you know, brothers and sisters, sometimes burdens are good for
us. It's good for us. It's good for me that I look
back in my youth and remember how I treated my parents. That's
good for me. It helps me to advise young people,
don't do this, don't do what I did. And I tell you, it keeps
me low. It keeps me down. That's good,
isn't it? I'd rather stay low with the
knowledge of my sin than get lifted up because of my grace,
wouldn't you? It's good. Sometimes these burdens
are good, and when they fulfill their purpose, you'll take them
away. He'll take them away if He's
so pleased to, but if He doesn't literally take it away, He'll
sustain you under it. He'll hold you up under that
burden. Paul went to Him with that thorn,
but the Lord didn't take it away, did He? But He said, My grace
is sufficient for you. He sustained him. Paul had a
burden about his ministry. Man, he was in a burden over
his ministry. But you know the Lord didn't take the ministry
away from him. But He said, He stood with me and He helped me. I tell you, this morning I dreaded
to come to this pulpit. I dreaded to leave the house
and drive down here and I was sitting here dreading to come
up to the pulpit. And I thought, if there's any way I can get
out of this building, I would. I'll be honest with you. Sometimes
it's an impossible task to face. And then I'm preaching to the
masses of people here anyway. It's scary. But you know what? The Lord has never failed to
sustain me, to uphold me. And that's the promise. That's
the promise. He's not saying He's going to
remove all these things. Boy, this old sin that's in us,
this jailhouse that we're in, He's not going to remove this
until we die. And then the burden's gone. The
time of our release has come. Sustain thee. That's the promise. I'll carry the burden of my poor
lost children, hoping and praying the Lord will save them. But
you know what sustains me in that burden? He's going to do
what's right with my kids. He's going to do what's right
with them. And that sustains me. There's a lady that had her
son killed during the Vietnam War. She had her son killed.
And she came to Brother Mahan there in his stud, and she said,
Pastor, I don't know what to do. This has grieved me to death. My son died, and I'm afraid you've
died lost. And Henry made this statement
to her that really calmed her heart. He said, Sister, God will
do what's right. Boy, that's good, isn't it? That
sustained her, and that sustains me. He'll do what's right with
me. He'll do what's right with my
kids, my neighbors, my loved ones. He'll do what's right.
They called me yesterday morning, my sister did, and said, You've
lost your nephew, a dear nephew. I've known him all of his life. And I'm afraid he perished. I'm
afraid he perished. But you know what sustains me
thinking that? God will do what's right. He'll
do what's right with my nephew. And that sustains me. And the
second part of this promise is here. While He sustains the righteous,
He says here, He will never suffer them to be moved. He will never suffer. No, I've said that wrong. He
shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. What does that sound
like to you? Don't that sound like that blessed
old truth that you and I love, the perseverance of the saints?
He shall never suffer the wrath. You say, Bruce, what if they
cease to be righteous? Well, how would they cease to
be righteous? Well, what if their conduct gets bad? What if their
character goes bad? But their righteousness is not
in their conduct and character. For their righteousness to change
and cease, He would have to change and cease in heaven, would He
not? Because that is their righteousness. And as long as they're righteous,
God will never suffer their feet to be moved. I like that, don't
you? I want to show you. Leave Psalms
and come over to Job 17, and we'll close with this. Job 17. Job says almost the same thing.
It's amazing how you find this doctrine in the Scripture, isn't
it? The perseverance of the saints. He shall never suffer their feet
to be moved. I was reading some offshoot of the Church of
God. I can't even think of his name
now. I'd tell you to stay away from it. But he was talking about
this perseverance of the saints, he said. It's straight out of
hell. That's what he said. Straight out of hell. Well, that's
bold, isn't it? But that's what he said. But you know what? This doctrine is straight out
of heaven. It's straight out of the Bible, isn't it, Greg?
And you know what? These ancient saints believed
it. And that's why we believe. David
believed it because he said he will never suffer the righteous
to be moved. What's he saying? The righteous
will never be turned away from the hope of the gospel. And Job
believed the very same thing. Look at Job 17 and verse 9. Look at this. The righteous also
shall hold on his way. I don't know how old the book
of Job is. Randy, I think, may have told
us one time, but we know it's one of the oldest books, if not
the oldest book, that he was before Moses. Maybe the most ancient saint
that ever wrote a book. And what did he believe? The
perseverance of the saints. That's his doctrine. If Job believed
it, I'm going to believe it. And you know something? Boy,
it will sustain you when going gets rough. It was not only Job's
doctrine, but I tell you, he proved it in his life. When trying
times come, He held on His way, didn't He? When somebody that
was very dear to Him said, curse God and die. Why are you holding
your confidence in God? Look what He's done to you. Job
said, you speak as a foolish woman. I don't believe any such
thing. I believe the righteous shall
hold on their way. Well, let's see, Job. Let's see. Let's see how much you believe
this. Let's see how much confidence you're going to take in. Job,
your children just got killed. The righteous shall hold on His
way. Job, they just took all your possessions and they killed
your servants. The righteous shall hold on His
way. Job, what's those broils on your
body? The righteous shall hold on His
way. Oh, that's a confident doctrine,
brethren. That's a confident truth when you get in trouble.
when it seems like God Himself has turned against you. Go to
this promise, this precious, precious promise that cannot
fail. He will never suffer the righteous to be moved. Job lost everything he had, didn't
he? But he never said, My stuff won't be moved. Kingdoms of men are going to
be moved, aren't they? Even heaven and earth is going
to be moved. But I tell you this, the righteous
will never be moved. The righteous are in a kingdom
that can never be moved. Death can't move it. And death
won't move you. You may be like your poor pastor.
You may fall into some unbelief and doubts and fears and tremble
just to think about death. Some of you go to the hospital
next week and they say, you've got terminal cancer. We're not
even going to do treatments on you. You are the same as dead,
man. And you may fear and tremble,
but listen, if you are righteous, you shall not be moved. There is nothing between you
and heaven that will move you. You are going to leave this world
with what you came in it with, nothing. But you are going to
leave it with yourself, your soul. And if your soul shall
not be moved, And you're going to go up to heaven to be with
Christ in that eternal home and never be moved? Who could ask
for any more than that? Say ye to the righteous, it shall
be well with him. God bless His Word. Let's pray.