You relate with that hymn when
it says, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the
God I love. What's the hope that the Lord would take and seal
it? Seal it for the courts above. Let thy goodness like a fetter
bind my wondering heart to thee. Oh, to grace, how great a debtor
daily I am constrained to be. I can relate to that. I can relate
to that. Tonight we're gonna be in the
book of Proverbs, if you'd like to turn there. Proverbs chapter
six. Proverbs chapter six. By inspiration of the spirit,
Solomon is reminding us of the same lessons, the same warnings,
the same instruction that he's been doing since chapter one.
And somebody might say, well, why doesn't he change the message?
Because the message never changes. We just need to be reminded more
often. That's the truth of it, isn't it? Prone to wonder, Lord,
I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.
I need to be reminded. And that's what Solomon's doing again. He's
reminding us how quickly we forget. We get caught up in this flesh.
Call up an unbelief, we forget. We take our eyes off of our Lord
and we begin to sink like Peter did or maybe matters are in our
own hands. We've taken them in our own hands
and start messing something up again and Lord leaves us to ourself
just for a moment long enough for us to have to throw our hands
up and say, Lord, save me. Lord, save me. That's a good
place to be. It doesn't feel good at the time,
but that's a good place to be. When you're crying out for mercy
from the Lord, that's a, he's put you there. That's a good
place. Well, here's the message. Here's the message tonight. If
you want true rest, if you want true rest, it has to come from
God. You can't buy rest, you can't merit rest, you can't earn
rest, but if you want true rest, you can have it in the Lord Jesus
Christ. You can have it. It's not in
what we see, and that's where we often get it wrong. It's where
men get it wrong. And it's by God's grace we don't
get it wrong. Wanting rest is something everyone really wants.
Some people don't realize, maybe they don't realize they won't
rest in peace, but we all won't rest. We all want peace. The
only way to have that is through and by the finished work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's not by what I do. And it's not by what
you do. It's not by what I don't do.
And it's not by what you don't do. It's by what he accomplished
on the cross of Calvary. That's the only way we can have
rest, his finished work alone. Well, let's read this together.
Proverbs chapter six, verses 20 through 26 says, My son, keep thy father's commandment,
and forsake not the law of thy mother. Bind them continually
up in thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest,
it shall lead thee. When thou sleepest, it shall
keep thee. When thou wakest, it shall talk with thee. For
the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light. and reproves
of instruction, or the way of life, to keep thee from evil,
from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of the
strange woman, of a strange woman. Lest not after her beauty in
thine heart, neither let her take thee with her eyelids. For by means of a whorish woman,
a man is brought to a piece of bread, and the adulteress will
hunt for the precious life. The believer's greatest temptation
It's not some horrible sin. And I was reminded recently,
I don't pronounce that right. Sin. That's okay. You forgive
me, won't you? Sin. Not some horrid sin. That's not
the believer's greatest temptation. Did you know that? It's not some
ugly, terrible thing. No, the believer's greatest temptation
is to take our eyes off of Christ, take matters into our own hands,
not regarding salvation necessarily, regarding circumstances, regarding
circumstances, to look to self and to trust what you see rather
than look to Christ and believe. We're guilty of that, aren't
we? We're all every day. Every one of us are guilty of
looking at what we can see rather than looking to Christ and believing
immediately. We'll be reactive. I'm guilty
of this too. I'm reactive. I hear, get a phone
call or something that's frightening. I'll be reactive to it. Well,
I can do this and this and this and this rather than seeking
the Lord's face. It's the human nature, the natural response.
I can handle this myself. No, we can't. Not if the Lord
leaves us to ourself, we can't. He's got to enable us to be able
to deal with the issue at hand. I'm not saying be slothful in
business. I'm not saying be complacent
and don't do anything, but I'm simply saying our greatest temptation
is to take our eyes off of the Lord, just like Peter, just like
Peter. Rather than looking at the master
and the maker of the storm, we're looking at the waves and we're
looking at the wind. Think about that. How often do
you find yourself noticing the waves in the wind rather than
the maker of the waves in the wind, rather than the master
of the storm, rather than the one that brought it by his good
providence for our good and for his glory? Guilty. Guilty. I do this. I do this often. And
how sad it is for us in our unbelief when the Lord leaves us to ourself,
but oh, how glorious it is when we get to see his darling son. and realize, fear not, I've put
away your sin. You shall not die. You shall
not die. I've titled this message True
Rest. True Rest. And the only way you and I can
have true rest is not in what we do, and not in what we say,
and not in where we go, and not in what we don't do or don't
say or don't go, wherever it may be. True rest comes through
and by one source. the Prince of Peace, the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the only way we're going
to have rest, is through the Lord, by Him, according to His
choice. If you want true rest, you will
only have it by looking to Christ. That's the only place you'll
have it. You'll never have rest looking to self. Now, we may
convince ourself that we've done certain things that are not,
or that would, if we're left to ourself, we may look at ourself
and say, we've done things that maybe are not that bad, or maybe
we've done some good things. But the true believer knows that
there is none righteous, there's none that do with good, there's
none that seeketh after God that we're just wretched and vile
and everything that we do, we need a substitute. We need a
substitute. What grace there is to know we
have a substitute, Jesus Christ the righteous. He's our mediator.
He's our advocate with the Father, not ours alone, but all the Lord's
elect, all the Lord's people. Only God's chosen people are
made to look, made to look to Christ alone. Now here the writer
says in verse 20, the first thing I want you to notice is he says,
my son, he's speaking specifically to as a father would talk to
a child, and that's the physical, but also we can look at this
as the spiritual. He says, my son, keep thy father's
commandment and forsake not the law of thy mother. Well, what
is the father's commandment? Well, this is my beloved son
in whom I am well pleased. Hear him, hear him. Don't hear yourself. Don't listen
to yourself. Don't listen to your own instructions,
because our hearts deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked. You hear me say that often. It's true. Listen to him. What does thus sayeth the Lord?
I want to know the truth about what God says. That's the only
thing that's going to bring me rest. That's the only thing that's
going to bring me hope. I'll convince myself that I'm not
that bad if left to myself. But if the Lord is the one doing
the convincing, I'll realize I need a savior. I'm a sinner
by nature, by practice, by choice. I need a savior, and his name
is Jesus Christ. Don't fear the voices of doubt
and fear inside your mind and your heart. Do not look to the
law for righteousness. That's what this strange woman
represents, going to the law for righteousness. We've already
established that before, but if you won't rest, believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's not only
a commandment, that's a promise. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. There's no other name given,
no other means to have peace with God, no other means to have
rest, but in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. You're not gonna find
it in your circumstances. You're not gonna find it in your possessions.
You're not gonna find it in the world that we live in. The rest
that when you lay, and he's talking about laying his head on his
pillow at night, when he says when you sleep, When you sleep, when
thou goest, it shall lead thee. When thou sleepest, it shall
keep thee. What's gonna keep you during that moment? Whenever
you lay your head on your pillow at night, what if it was your
last night? What if your heart stops beating and your breath
leaves, the Lord takes it back? What then? What's our hope? What's my rest? What allows me
to go to sleep at night? Is it what I do? What I don't
do? Or is it what he has done? What he accomplished on the cross
of Calvary. He satisfied God's demands. He
satisfied the law that I could not satisfy. He put away my sin. That's my hope. There's my rest.
He put away your sin. That's our rest. So that means
God made peace with God on our behalf. That's what that means.
The Lord Jesus Christ made peace by the death of his cross with
the Father for his people. There's no other peace other
than the peace that Christ made on the cross when he satisfied
God's law, his judgment for everyone he died for. It's rest, it's his rest. I didn't
write this in, but we have looked at this recently, but it talked
about how entering into His rest as the Father did on the Sabbath
day. We enter into the Sabbath, that's the rest of God, that's
the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we're unable to enter
into that rest, the Lord's the doer of it. You and I can't just
decide to rest when it comes to salvation. It has to be the
Lord that draws us, the Lord that shows us, the Lord that
reveals His truth, and the Lord that makes us. I like what David
said in Psalm 23. He maketh me lie down in green
pastures. What is he doing? What do you
do when you lie down in green pastures? You're resting. That's
true rest, isn't it? If the Lord makes you lay down,
you're resting. And what are you resting in?
The Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord's Sabbath. We'll look at the next lesson
here in verse 20. The second part says, forsake
not the law of thy mother. Well, who is the mother? Who's
the mother talking about here? That's the church. It's the Lord's
church, that's who it is. So you have the father and the
mother, the Lord himself and the church that the Lord's established.
What's her law? Is it the law of taste not, touch
not, handle not? Oh no, it's the law of love.
It's love that constrains us. It's love that causes us to,
well, we love God because he first loved us. That's the whole
point. And somebody had mentioned to me recently, you remember
the verse over in John where it says, if you love not the
brethren, this is how we know we pass your death unto life.
You love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother that he
has seen, how is he going to love God that he has not seen?
And the question arose, does God require love from me? I said,
no, God requires love from him, but he gives it freely to you
by his grace. Everything God requires, he has to provide.
Everything God requires, in order for me to love you, he had to
put that love there. In order for him to love you,
or in order for you to love me, it's the same way around. The
Lord's the doer of all of this, and therefore he gets all the
glory. That's why there's so much rest here. That's why this
is true rest, is we're not looking for something to do, we're looking
to the Lord Jesus Christ And the scripture tells us that he
makes his love perfect in us. Explain that to me. That's glorious,
isn't it? He said it. He said, let's turn
to Romans chapter 13. Romans chapter 13. Look at verse eight through 10
with me. Oh no man anything but to love
one another for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. He that loveth another hath fulfilled
the law. For this thou shalt not commit
adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt
not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, and if there
be any other commandment is briefly comprehended in this saying,
namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill
to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. The fulfilling of the law. Why
is it the fulfillment? because God's only pleased with
what he produces, and he only accepts what he provides, and
it's his love. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory. It's his love shed abroad in
our hearts. It's a gift of grace. Like everything
else that comes from our Lord, it's given freely by his grace. This love is from him. John 13,
34 says, Lord of speaking, a new commandment I give unto you,
that you love one another, as I have loved you. that you also
love one another. Now we're still talking about
the law, the law, forsake not the law of thy mother. Well,
this is the church. This is the law that the Lord's
given us. It's not the law of do, but it's the law of it is
finished. And everything that the Lord, everything that we
see throughout scripture regarding the Lord and his church revolves
around love, one for another and love for the father. Everything
we see around the father and the son, we see it revolved around
love, the love that the son had towards the father and obedience
under the sacrifice of death and the father's love for his
people and the election that he did. See, it's all, and that's
the love that he gives to you and I together. And he calls
that the fulfillment of the law. Why is it the fulfillment of
the law? Because If you take the first five of the 10 commandments,
you'll realize it's what we do to God. Thou shalt have no other
gods before me. Thou shalt not take the Lord
thy God name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy
and so on. But if you love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
mind, soul and strength, then you're going to keep those laws.
Well, how? In Christ alone, we can't keep
the law. The Christ is the only one that
could keep the law, but yet he sheds that love abroad in our
heart and we really love God. Flesh doesn't love God, but we
really are made to love Him. Isn't that glorious? Second part
to that is love thy neighbor as thyself, summed up the other
ones we just read. What's that about? Well, that's what Christ
said. The second is like unto the first,
love your neighbor as yourself. First one is love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength. And the second
greatest law is like to the first, love thy neighbor as thyself.
And the only way I can do that Is if the Lord gives me love
for you, the same love wherein he loved us. That's that's it.
That's it. We love one another because we
are in Christ and it's Christ's love that shed abroad in our
heart. It's not something we generate or something that we.
work up, but that's the law of the church, I believe. That's
the rule for the church. We love one another. First John
2.5 says, but whoso keepeth his word in him verily is the love
of God perfected. Hereby we know that we are in
him. The love of God is perfected
if we keep his word. Well, what's his word? Look to
Christ. Look to Christ. Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. This is the word spoken. This
is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Hear him. Don't
listen to yourself and your own advice or others' advices. Look
to Christ alone. That's the only way. Don't take
matters into your own hands. Look to Christ alone. Herein
is love perfected in the Lord's people. You're not gonna see
it, but your brethren will see it. I love that too. If we could
see it, we'd have something to boast in, wouldn't we? We would
look at ourself and say, boy, I'm really doing a good job loving
you all, you know? I'd take a fool to say something
like that. No, I wish my Lord would increase our love one towards
another. Knit our hearts closer together. That's my hope and
prayer. You keep his word. That's the
Father's commandment that we mentioned a minute ago. Look
to Christ and not self. And his love, he'll make his
love perfect in you. I love the freedom that the Lord
gives his people. By his grace, this, You know,
that's why the scripture says His commandments are not grievous,
because if He requires me to keep them, He's going to have
to provide me not only the ability, but He's going to have to keep
them for me. And that's what Christ Jesus did on the cross. That's
the whole point. So now we are free in Christ, free from the
law of sin and death. This isn't the law of do something
for salvation. This is the law of love. The
motivation is love, not for righteousness, but because of righteousness,
because Christ gave righteousness to his people. That's the reason
we love one another. By His grace, bought by the blood of Christ
for His elect, the Lord gives us freedom. We never do this
as part of our righteousness. We do it because He worketh in
us that which is pleasing in His sight. That's scripture. He worketh in us that which is
pleasing in His sight. I love that. I don't see Him
working in me, and you don't either. You don't see Him working
in you. He's doing it. He's working out all things according
to the good counsel of his will, according to his own purpose.
He's causing his people to bear his fruit. I love that. We can't
see it. If we could, we would have something
to boast in, but this is what he says. This will bear his fruit. That's right. Turn back to Proverbs
with me, Proverbs chapter six. This is why this is true rest,
brethren. It's all him to his people. It's
by grace, by grace alone. That's it. Verse 20, Proverbs
6, my son, keep thy father's commandment. Forsake not the
law of thy mother. Bind them continually upon thine
heart and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall
lead thee. When thou sleepest, it shall
keep thee. When thou wakest, it shall talk with thee. For
the commandment is a lamp and the law is light and reproves
of instruction are the way of life. And this is why, to keep
thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of
a strange woman. You that desire to enter into
the Lord's rest, to have true rest, do not look to yourself
as any part of your salvation. Do not look to your works as
any evidence of your salvation. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the message here. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ
and his finished work and you will have true rest if the Lord
enables you to look to him. That's where true rest is and
that's the only place true rest is. Trust him, look to his finished
work by faith bestowed. Look at verse 22 again. When
thou, if you are able to do that, when thou goest, it shall lead
thee. When thou sleepest, it shall keep thee. When thou awakest,
it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp
and the law is light and reproves instruction are the way of life. Now here's the difference. Those
that seek righteousness outside of the Lord, they don't have
rest when they lay their head on their pillow at night. They
don't have rest when they go out and work the works that they
do during the day. They don't have rest because
they don't have Christ. Those that do not have Christ
do not have rest and therefore they don't have peace because
they haven't been given grace. But those that are the Lord's
people, they're given grace Therefore, they're given peace with God,
and they're given the greatest ability in this life, and it
is to rest in the finished work of Christ alone. It's to rest. You can take, well, the scripture
calls it boldness. We can come boldly to the throne
of grace. Boldness is complete confidence. If we have complete
confidence and assurance by the Lord's spirit, the Lord's given
us faith to believe him, then we're resting. I can rest in
the finished work of Christ. I know that there's nothing more
for me to do. I know that there's nothing more for you to do. If
Christ didn't accomplish salvation on the cross, then none of us
will be saved. But he successfully redeemed everyone that he died
for on the cross of Calvary. He successfully regenerated them
in his appointed time. Lord Jesus Christ was successful.
Rest, that's true rest. The opposite of not having Christ
or seeking rest outside of Christ, that means you're in darkness.
He says here, if we keep these, then the commandment is a lamp
and the law is light. Well, if you don't have that,
you're in darkness. You have not Christ. You're in darkness. And what is it? You ever staggered
around in darkness before? It can be nighttime, you're up
in the middle of the night, you're walking through the house. I
mean, I've stubbed my toe, I've hit my knee, I've done all kinds
of things walking in darkness. You need the light to be able
to see where you're going or what you're doing. And the only
one that has, he's the light giver. He is light. He is the
light. John chapter one. He is our light. He is our life. And if we want
to have the light, we have to have him. We have to have him.
Having not Christ is having not light. He gives us the most predominant
example of being in darkness and he calls her the strange
woman again. The strange woman represents this very simply.
This isn't complicated. It's law plus grace. That's what it represents. Law
plus grace. That's the strange woman. That's
the strange woman. And that equation will always
equal work. Work. Law plus grace will not
bring rest to anyone. And as a matter of fact, if you
choose to work for any part of your salvation, if the Lord does
not enable you to rest in Christ alone and you're working for
your salvation, then you have not been given grace and therefore
have not been given peace in the Lord Jesus Christ to rest. You're absent of all those. Absent
of all those. But if the Lord gives you grace,
you're gonna believe on the Lord Jesus Christ alone. I'm gonna
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ alone. And we are going to have
peace with God. We're going to have rest, true
rest in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Oh, the law plus grace
just equals turmoil and confusion and fear and doubt and unrest. God's not the author of confusion,
the scripture says. And what did he say about love?
Perfect love casteth out fear. That's how our fear dissipates.
We look to Christ and the love that he had. His perfect love
towards the Father and redeeming his people. That's what we see. That casteth out fear. He's not
looking to me to hold up my end of the bargain. He's not looking
to you to hold up your end of the bargain. He finished the
work given to him. There's true rest. The only place
it's ever gonna be found. And look at the end of those
who are made to rest, verse 26. For by means of a whorish woman,
a man is brought to a piece of bread and the adulterous will
hunt for the precious life. They're just Your substance will
be completely consumed in so much that you'll be happy with
just a piece of bread. And I'm reminded of the Seraphimician
woman that desired a crumb from the master's table, but that's
not what this is talking about. The Lord gave her the crumbs.
This is an individual that doesn't have anything. They just want
something, but they're never gonna find it looking in the
darkness that they're looking in. They're never gonna find
it with the strange woman mixing law and grace. They're never
gonna find that rest that they want. Only the Lord's people
get to feast upon the bread of life because they're resting
in his finished work alone. He's the doer of that. He's the
doer of that. It is our one piece of bread,
and I'm reminded of the prodigal son. He worked for his father,
lived there, and he said, Father, the time's come. I want my inheritance.
And the father sent him, gave him his inheritance, and sent
him on his way, and he went and he wasted his living, he wasted
his sustenance, his substance, that's the word, substance, with
riotous living, the scripture says. He was eating, drinking,
and being merry. And you bet he had friends then,
probably, a bunch of buddies coming around. You got, somebody's
throwing money around, you bet you're gonna have friends. It's
just how it is, until it ran out. Once it ran out, he couldn't
be found with any friends. Where would they find him? Where'd
he find him at? Well, he found, scripture says he came to himself
whenever he was feeding hogs. Now to remind you, the Jews,
saw the hogs and pigs, they're unclean animals, according to
the Levitical law. So for him to be down with them
was very, it's not only embarrassing, but it was just almost tragic. I mean, it was just something
that was unspoken of. And it said he would have feigned
filled his stomach with the husks that the pigs ate. Yet he came
to himself and he remembered his father's house. Now, that's
a picture. of mixing law and grace. That's all you'll ever have is
husks that do not feel. And it will be with the hogs,
not the Lord's people, not the Lord's sheep. It'll be with the
hogs, the unclean animals. See, the Lord's people, and it's
not by works of righteousness we have done, but according to
his mercy hath he saved us. The Lord's people are no longer
unclean. The Lord's made us clean by the blood of Christ. That's
our hope, that's our rest. These hogs represent the unclean.
It's a church, do you understand? It's, put a name on it. It doesn't
matter what name you want to put the church on, but they're
feeding the hogs, the husks. And he found himself as a Sunday
school teacher or a deacon or something like that at a church.
And he remembered where the bread was. Remembered his father's
house. And this is the message that
Solomon's giving us also. Don't chase after the strange
woman. You'll be desirous of bread. You won't have anything.
No substance before God whatsoever. No sustenance for life before
God. You will be empty, craving just
one morsel of the Lord's bread and never get it and never get
it. Well, he went back to his father's
house, didn't he? And think about the mercy and grace in this.
This is what God did for us, his people. He gets back there
and he said, well, if I could just become a servant, my father's
servants have it better than I have it down here with these
hogs. He makes it back and the father comes running to him.
I just love that. Didn't wait for him to come to
him. He didn't have arrogance and pride. Oh, it's about time
you got back. No, nothing like that. He embraced
him. He loved him. And what did he
do? He took his robe off and put
it on his back and his ring on his finger. He said, my son has
returned. He said, kill the fatted calf. We're going to rejoice.
And I'm reminded that the scripture says there's more rejoicing in
heaven over one that needed repentance over 99 that did not need repentance.
What does that mean? That means whenever the Lord
brings a sheep in or reveals to them that they're in, I guess
I should say, they're rejoicing in glory. They're rejoicing in
the presence of the Lord for that lost sheep, just as there
was for the prodigal son returning. But it's the Lord that does the
returning. Do we see that? It's the Lord that brings us
back. reminds us of the scripture, the gospel, reminds us of where
the bread of life is, remind us of the truth, remind us of
where can we find our rest. Well, it's not in what I can
see, and it's not in what I can do, and it's not in where I can
go, but I can rest in Christ. That's the only place you can
rest. That's it. Scripture tells us this, and
we heard Sunday, we cannot have peace unless our salvation be
all of grace. The scripture tells us this,
if it's of works, it's not of grace. And if it's of grace,
it can be no longer of works. That's pretty simple, isn't it?
There is no mixing of the two. And this is the warning from
Solomon. He's telling us, look to Christ. love one another,
and if you're in Christ, you will love one another. And then
he says at the end, stay away from, don't mix law and grace.
That's exactly the, it's the simplicity of it. That's the
simplicity of it. And the good news is this, brethren,
he makes us to know how utterly sinful we are and keeps us from
ever looking at the strange woman. He keeps us from trying to mix
law and grace. He does. He does. Our rest, if
I was to ask any of you your confession about what your only
hope is for salvation, you're not gonna immediately say, well,
it's the blood of Christ and I did this. None of you will
say that. I'm confident in that because you believe the gospel.
And in believing the gospel, the Lord's the doer of that first
and foremost, but in believing the gospel, there is no room
for anything else. No, I see myself as utterly sinful. A believer really believes in
the chief of sinners. I'm not just a little bit bad.
Behold, I'm vile from the top of my head to the bottom of my
feet. I'm a sinner that's undone. Somebody sent me a text today
describing us by nature that we're nothing but a dunghill.
And I said, yeah, that's about right. That's accurate. But the
Lord Jesus Christ was the one that redeemed us to himself,
causing us his prized treasure, his prized possession. Think
about that. He makes us to know we're utterly
sinful, there's nothing good in us. We say with Paul in me,
that is to say in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. And that makes
us have no confidence in this flesh whatsoever. So no, we do
not mix law and grace. We know better. The Lord has
taught us and he teaches his people. We don't run to the law
for righteousness. Our biggest temptation is to
take our eyes off of the Lord because of circumstances. When
it comes to salvation, you can ask any believer at any time,
a true believer, what's your hope? Christ is all. Christ is
all. Christ is all. And that's the
truth. And it's by faith. It's not made up. That's exactly
what they believe. Well, anytime someone does mix
law and grace, they'll soon discover there's no true rest, only iniquity
and judgment. But God's elect are made to have
true rest in Christ. Not because of what we've done,
but because of what he's done. It's only found in Christ. See, he endured the wrath, do
us. If you're mixing law and grace,
you're gonna face the wrath of God. I'm gonna face the wrath
of God, but the Lord Jesus Christ endured that wrath for his people.
If we're trying to keep the law's demands, we'll find quickly that
all we're doing is working iniquity, but the Lord hath laid upon him
the iniquity of all of God's people, all of God's elect. That's the good news of the gospel.
Oh, he satisfied the law's demands on our behalf, didn't he? He
put away sin for his people. We died in him and the law has
nothing to say against the elect of God. Christ was successful,
therefore we have true rest in him. Rest, brethren. rest in Christ, rest in his finished
work, rest to approach the throne where there's plenteous grace
and plenteous mercy, plentiful, abundant. The Lord said he's
able to do exceeding abundantly above all that you ask or think.
You know why? Because there is exceeding abundantly above more
grace and mercy than I could possibly fathom, infinite supply. True rest. We have true rest
in our Lord. We can rest as Solomon was saying
here, whether so ever we go, north, south, east, or west,
wherever we go, we can truly rest because of Christ's finished
work. And when we go to lay down at nighttime, we know if that
was gonna be our last breath that we would draw, we have rest,
knowing Christ successfully redeemed his people. We have true rest
in Christ alone. Let's pray. Father, we ask that
you would take these words and bless them to our understanding
for your glory, cause us to rest in you alone, in Christ's name,
amen.