Proverbs chapter three. In that
song, it said prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it prone to leave
the God I love. Here's my heart. Oh, take and
seal it, seal it for the courts above. Why is it that we need
to be reminded? Why is it that we're so prone
to wonder? We're so prone to leave the God
that we love. Our battle, our warfare, is not
the grotesque sin that we're tempted with each day, that we
live in fear of this grotesque sin because we think that perhaps
we'll one day give in to it. No, our warfare is unbelief. That's the sin. Unbelief. We need to be reminded because
of unbelief. We need to be reminded because
we are prone to wonder. Our flesh does not want, our
flesh does not like this good news. It doesn't like the good
news of the gospel. Our flesh wants to add to or
take away if it could. The warfare is internal. We wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers. against rulers of the darkness
of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. And
Paul says, wherefore taken to you the armor of God. Well, every
bit of that armor is the Lord giving, isn't it? It's the shield
of faith. Where does faith come from? The
helmet of salvation. Where does salvation come from?
Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. It's
his gospel, isn't it? All this, we need to be reminded. We can't fight this battle. We
can't fight. The good news is the war is over
though. This may be a warfare that we
think that we're fighting. We already know the end result,
don't we? Think about all the wars that's
happened. Each side wanted to win, thought that they were going
to win. At some points, maybe one side
said, hey, we're winning this. The other side said, no, we're
winning this, like a tug of war. God's not playing tug of war
with the devil. God's not playing tug-of-war
with your flesh or mine. He's seated as the successful
redeemer of his people. The war is over. Christ Jesus
accomplished the war on the cross of Calvary. He got the victory
for his people. We need to be reminded of that,
don't we? Because our flesh at every moment tries to look to
self-sufficiency or to circumstances, tries to look and hope in something
other than the blood of Christ. That's what our flesh does. The
reason, as we know, is the flesh is enmity against God. We must
be reminded, told again and again, Christ is all. It is finished. Christ is all. It is finished.
Now let's read our text here in Proverbs chapter three, verses
one through four. My son, forget not my law, but
let thine heart keep my commandments. For length of days and long life
and peace shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake
thee. Bind them about thine neck. Write
them upon the table of thine heart. So shall thou find favor
and good understanding. in the sight of God and man. First thing we notice is he says,
my son, as he said many times, this denotes who he is speaking
to. This is not written to everyone. This is a particular audience,
isn't it? It's God's chosen people. It's
God's adopted sons and daughters found in Christ. My son is what
he's saying here. These are the ones that were
predestinated according to his own purpose for his own glory,
his own will. He says to his elect these words,
forget not my law, forget not my law. This is not the law of
the Ten Commandments that was given on Mount Sinai to Moses. That's not what he's talking
about here. This is the law of his truth, the law of his word. The word law here means his word. Remember my word, forget not
my word, my instruction. It translates the same as instruction,
the law. He's not saying run back to the
10 commandments here. Don't forget to do your part
and keep the 10 commandments. That's not what he's saying here.
He's saying, no, forget not the gospel. of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I've titled this message,
Forget Not. Forget Not. Because you and I,
we forget. We, day after day, we can be
thinking, and you know it's true, we can be rejoicing with the
Lord giving us the sweet dove of peace for a brief moment,
and then a few minutes later, something can happen and we've
completely forgotten about the gospel. We've not, we've taken
our eyes off of him. We start sinking like Peter did
all over again. And then the Lord leaves us to
ourself just enough to where he draws out that confession,
Lord save me, Lord save me. We need to be reminded, don't
we? He's not saying, remember or
forget not the law of Moses. This is the standard law, the
gospel set forth by the Lord, the scale which we cannot measure
up to. He's saying, forget not the scale. Forget not my standard, forget
not my truth, forget not the good news that Christ fulfilled
the law. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness. This is what must be declared.
Christ is the only one that measured up to God's standards, isn't
he? You and I, if we were to be measured or to be weighed,
it would be the same thing as Belshazzar when he had his party
with the Lord's cups and the vessels that came from the temple.
He was mocking the Jews, and he said, I'm God, just like their
God. I can drink out of the same vessels.
And what did the Lord say? He said, thou hast been weighed
in the balance and been found wanting. If you and I were to
be weighed in the balance of our own merits, of our own will,
of our own attempts to please God, we would be found wanting. We wouldn't measure up, would
we? The Lord Jesus Christ did measure up. He's the only one
that measured up perfectly to God's law. He's the only one
that measured up to God's will. He's the only one that measured
up to God's standard, and he satisfied justice. Forget not, brethren, that it's
not your power that saved you. It's the Lord's power, kept by
his power as well. Forget not that it's not in our
power to accept or reject him. It's his choice. It's his salvation. It's his calling and it's his
keeping. Forget not that he is seated as the sovereign successful
redeemer of his people. Forget not that salvation is
all of grace. It's all of grace, not 99.9%
grace. Because if you add that 0.1%
of works to it, then it's no longer grace at all. Salvations
of grace. Your salvation, your hope or
eternal life is 100% of grace or it's not salvation. Forget
not. For by grace are you saved through
faith. Not of yourself. I love that
part, don't you? It's not of yourself. That means
you can't mess it up, and I can't mess it up. That's good news
if you see yourself as a sinner. Not of yourself, it's the gift
of God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast. Men and women will hear this
and say, but you have to do this, and they fill in the blank. That's
not good news, is it? The gospel's good news on how
the Lord saves sinners, not on how I've been given a chance
to save myself. Peter didn't say, Lord, if you'll
throw me a lifeline, I believe I can save myself. Peter's only
hope, Lord, save me. That's it, isn't it? That's it,
Lord, save me. He's saying to us here, forget
not the gospel. That the Lord does all the choosing,
all the saving, all the calling, all the keeping. It's not by
us, it's not according to our will, it's not according to our
power. We have no power, do we? We have no power. I mentioned
this a couple weeks, maybe Sunday too, but if we were there with
the Lord on the day that the earth was created, what would
we have done to contribute? What would we have contributed
Him? Would we said, let there be light and something would
have happened? Why do we think by nature, and
we do, that we contribute something? That's what our flesh longs to
do. I just gotta have part. Our flesh just likes messing
it up, doesn't it? Gotta have some part. There's nothing we
can do in the first creation, and there's nothing we can do
in the second creation. It's all of grace. It's all of
grace. Forget not. He's the one that
caused the day to burst forth out of darkness just by saying,
let there be light. Light existed. He did that. Forget not. He commanded the
earth to be hung on nothing. Think about that. The earth hangs
on nothing. It's in the outer space. I understand
how it works, kind of. But it's really hung on nothing.
Think about it. There's no string holding it
up. What keeps it there? God does. And he doesn't have
to try to keep it there. It stays there because God put
it there. This is, remember this. He's seated. He's God. He alone
has the power, the authority, not only of the living, but of
death, of hell and the grave of the inhabitants of heaven
and all the inhabitants of the earth. He reigneth. Forget not. Forget not his law, his instruction. What is his instruction? Well,
what's his commandment? That's what he says next. It's
the same. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
saved. That's his instruction. That's
his commandment. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. When he says, let thine heart
keep my commandments, that's incline thy heart. Incline thine
heart to keep. Now, is he telling you and I
that we need to keep the commandments, the 10 commandments? No, no. Keep, not as in doing something,
keep as in a treasure that you keep. We keep, some of us may
have family heirlooms. Well, you keep those heirlooms.
You keep them separate from other things. You protect them, you
treasure them, you value them. This is what he's telling us.
Keep the Lord's commandment. You that heard his voice, keep
it in your heart. Know that it's him that gave
it to you. Treasure it. Treasure the word of the Lord. And the Lord's people do, don't
we? Certainly do. When he says incline thine heart
here, let thine heart keep my commandments, I'm reminded that
the writer of Hebrew says it this way. He says labor therefore
to enter into that rest. Labor, it's a labor to enter
into rest. Why? Because we constantly want
to do something. We constantly want to take matters
into our own hands. It's a labor to rest. Our flesh doesn't want to rest
when it comes to salvation. Our flesh wants something to
do. The writer says labor therefore to enter into rest. You know
what labor means? Hasten. Hasten, incline your heart to
rest. Look to Christ. It's all the
same wording, isn't it? It's impossible for our flesh
to rest. The reason our flesh is so full of
unrest is because it can't see the result. It can't see what's
going to happen. There's too much uncertainty.
But when it comes to faith, faith just believes the Lord's word.
Faith just believes God. It believes the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our flesh can't see it, so our flesh don't believe it. We're prone to wonder, aren't
we? Prone to fear. That's our unrest. We're prone
to worry. You ever worried about anything
before? It's unbelief, isn't it? You worried about something
today? Yes. One thing? No. Probably a lot more than that.
But we're no different than our forefathers in the scripture.
What about Abraham? The Lord said, Abraham, I'm gonna
make you a great and mighty nation. He talked to God face to face. Think about that. He saw him
face to face. And the Lord said, I'm gonna
make a great nation out of you, of the stars of the heaven, of
the sands of the sea. Abraham believed God, the scripture
says. He believed God. But in the fullness
of time, as time went on, he started noticing what he could
see. I'm old, he thought. Sarah's old, he thought. Well,
what are we going to do? Well, let's help God out. Now,
is that not what our flesh loves to do? We've got to help God
out. We've got to do our part somehow. Somehow, we've got to
do our part. And what happened? Well, you
know what happened. Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham and
she had Ishmael. And boy, we shake our head at
that and think, man, what an idiot. Don't we? I mean, we do. We think that. And then remember,
we have four fingers pointing right back at us thinking, well,
we're the exact same. We're no different than Abraham.
What was the difference? Abraham believed God because
it was accounted unto him. It was reckoned unto him. for righteousness. Abraham believed
God because he was given faith to believe God. He wasn't any
better than you and I are. He wasn't some great man that
just completely had no doubts or fears ever. No, he took matters
into his own hands just like you and I do. But the good news
is the Lord gave him faith. Gave him faith. He was made the
righteousness of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. There's good
news in that, isn't there? And that faith that he was given,
he just believed God. He believed God for salvation. Every chance we get, we're like
Abraham, God needs our help. No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't. No, forget not, he doesn't need
you and I. Doesn't need our help, doesn't
need our contribution, doesn't need our opinion. Boy, we like
to give our opinion, don't we? Certainly do. We like to say
why. Why is this happening to me?
When in reality, we should be thankful that much worse has
not happened. Brethren, we deserve hail and
nothing less. Eternity in hail. That's what
we deserve. Anything other than that is mercy
and grace. And what did the Lord say? He
has taken our hail upon the cross of Calvary and given us his righteousness,
thereby guaranteeing that we will be with him in glory. in
peace and in joy and in harmony with him, worshiping him forever,
this is what he's done. Unless the constraining grace
and the restraining grace of our Savior is given to us, there
go I, just like Abraham. You know it's true. Let's read verse one again. My
son, forget not my law, and let thine heart keep my commandments. Forget not my word, what he has
spoken, what he has commanded, what he has said. He will perform
it. Forget not that he is faithful. He is faithful that called you.
He will perform it. Forget not that he cannot lie.
He promised, and He cannot lie. It's He that hath made us. It's
He that hath made us, and not we ourself. None of us had any,
anything to do with our first birth, did we? None of it. The
Lord did that. Same with the second birth. It's He that hath made us, and
not we ourself. We are His people, and the sheep
of His pasture. The good news of the scripture
says, can a mother forget her suckling child? The Lord won't
forget his people. The Lord won't forget those that
he loved. He never will abandon them. He said, I'll never leave
you nor forsake you. He became forsaken on the cross
so that he would never have to, never will forsake us. He became
forsaken so that we wouldn't be. Forget not that the Lord cannot
forget his people. He promised not to leave us to
ourself. What gave David the courage to
face Goliath? Turn with me to 1 Samuel chapter
17. I would remind you of the scenario
that's taking place here. David has came down to his brothers
who are in the army of the Israelites. On one side of the mountain or
a hill, there was the children of Israel. On the other side,
it was the Philistines. And the Philistines sent forth
their champion named Goliath, nine foot something guy that
came out there taunting the children of Israel, cursing their God,
our God. and said, send your best champion
out here to fight me. Whoever wins, they'll win the
battle. They'll win the war. We'll be
the servant to you. If you win, you'll be the servant to us if
we win. Well, to the man's natural eye,
he's a shoo-in to win. He's nine foot something. He's
a big man. David goes up after hearing all
of this, comes before Saul and says, send me to fight him. Nobody
wanted to fight Goliath. David said, I'll fight him. Now
what my question was, why did David choose to fight Goliath? Well, it definitely wasn't the
fact that David thought, you know what, I've been really practicing
this sling and I've got it down pat. If the wind stays course
right now and the sun beams from the right just as it's doing,
and I just whirl that sling really hard for 30 seconds and let her
fly, I believe I can drop that giant. That's not why David fought
the giant. Why did David fight the giant?
He believed God. He believed God. God gave him
faith to believe. Now we're talking about the same
man that became a murderer later on and an adulterer, don't forget
that. We're talking about that we are only saved by grace. There was nothing in David that
David could find confidence in in and of himself, but he remembered
something. He remembered something. Look
here in verse 1737. I just wanna read this one verse. David said, moreover, the Lord
that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the
paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.
And Saul said unto David, go and the Lord be with thee. And
I've never seen this before, but I want to understand what
he just said. The Lord delivered him out of the paw of the lion
and out of the paw of the bear. He didn't say that the Lord will
deliver the Philistine to me. He said that the Lord will deliver
me out of the hand of the Philistine. Have you ever seen that before?
That's different. What did that mean? That that
Philistine couldn't do anything to David unless God let him do
it. And he knew that. He had confidence
that God was not gonna leave him to himself. He had confidence
that the Lord was gonna keep his promise because he cannot
lie. He said, I may not, and you know
this is how we would be. I may not be able to kill him,
but I know the Lord not gonna leave me to myself. He promised.
He promised he's gonna deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said to David, go and
the Lord be with thee. Brethren, when we face things
in this life, we don't charge forth saying, I know that God
said all I have to do is claim it and it's mine. That's not
biblical. No, but we know that though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil. Why? Thou art with me. That's
the difference. The Lord will deliver us from
the hand of our enemies. He didn't die on the cross of
Calvary to let us figure out the rest of it throughout life.
No, he's seated, it's all finished. Even the life that we're living
now is all finished, being ordered and sure, just as much as he
is certain, just as much as he is seated. Our lives are ordered
and sure. The Paul of the lion here represents
our adversary, Satan. Paul of the bear represents the
law that comes up against us to say accuses us. That's what Satan uses to accuse
us also. And this giant represents our
flesh. The Lord's the one that delivered
us from the hand of our adversary. He's the one that delivered us
from the law by fulfilling the law's demands on the cross of
Calvary. He's the one that put away our sin, thereby defeating
our flesh, which we could not do, chopping its head off. That's
what he did to Goliath, wasn't it? How did he do it? Well, he
took five smooth stones. What's five? It's the number
of grace. It's the number of grace. That's
how the Lord saves his people. That's how the Lord saved his
people, grace alone. He delivered us from our flesh.
say things like that, and we know it's true because the scripture
says it, but I'm still in the flesh, and so are you, and we're
still fighting, it seems like, and we're still full of unbelief
and doubt. So how is it that he delivered us from our flesh?
Well, we just believe it. We just can't see it yet. We
haven't experienced it yet, but it's happened. It's already happened.
The Lord's people's already with him in glory. One day we'll get
to experience that, won't we? When this corruptible shall put
on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality, then
the glory that's Christ in himself, he's going to reveal what he's
put in his people, his own glory, wherewith he glorified them. I go back to our text in Proverbs
3. Verse one, my son, forget not
my law, but let thine heart keep my commandments. This is where all false religion
derails. This is where all false religion
gets it wrong. When he says, keep my commandments. I've already expressed this to
us tonight, but I want to reiterate this. He's not saying to perform
the law. He's not saying to perform the
works thereby. He's not saying keep the ordinances
of the law. He's talking about treasuring
the Lord's commandment and the Lord's people do that. You that
have heard the Lord say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You
that have heard the Lord say, come unto me and I will give
you rest. Do you not treasure those words?
Do you not treasure the Lord's voice when he speaks tenderly
to the heart saying, seek ye my face? That's his commandment. It's not a request, is it? He
never says to you or me or his people, he never says, I'm gonna
encourage you to seek my face. I'm gonna give you an opportunity
to seek my face. I'm gonna give you a choice.
That's not what it says. Seek ye my face. And what does our heart say?
David said, then my heart said, thy face, oh Lord, will I seek.
Why? You were commanded to. We're
commanded to. His commandment is believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. His commandment is to love one
another. If you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you're going
to love the Lord's people, aren't you? Why? It's cause and effect.
He gives us, it's his love that he gives us. We love one another
because he first loved us. It's the same love. You've passed
from death unto life because you love the brethren. He gives
that love. Forget not that everything required he provided, even the
love that we have one towards another, that's his, he did that. Now here in our text, we see
the next part of chapter three, verse two, it says, for the length
of days and long life and peace shall they add to thee. Now there's
a message that's going forth right now. That's motivation
to people. You want to have a long life,
health, wealth, and prosperity. That's a message that's being
spoken. I went to the doctor recently and I was check up and
she found out I was taking vitamins and I take several vitamins,
I don't care to tell you. She was like, wow, you're really
healthy, and you take all these good vitamins. She's like, I
have a book that you need to read. And I said, OK, what is
it? She said, How Not to Die. that was the name of the book,
How Not to Die, How Not to Eat, and How Not to Live, or something,
I think the last one, I'm not certain on, How Not to Die. And
she said to me, everyone that follows this doctor's formula
normally lives, he has a 90% success rate for them to live
over 100 years old. That's what she told me, she
believed it. My mind, I thought, I don't want
to live to be 100 years old, first of all. But second of all,
how not to die? We're all dying right now. We're
all going back to the dust. There's no hope in a book that
says how not to die. That's a lie. No, it's a lie. Don't forget, the Lord said,
it's appointed unto man once to die, and after this, the judgment.
Don't forget the Lord. The Lord took that judgment on
the cross of Calvary for his people. He by himself tasted
death for his people and absorbed that judgment, the fire of God's
wrath, and extinguished it. Now, this message of health,
wealth, and prosperity, it doesn't give us any hope, does it? We're
pilgrims and strangers, aren't we? We're seeking a home. Will
you ever feel like you're not at home here? Yes. Yes, I feel
lost sometimes. I feel that I have a nice house
to live in. I love being with my family,
but we're seeking a city that hath foundations, whose builder
and maker is God. I have no hope in getting to
be over 100 years old and living life. By then, I mean, what kind
of a life would that be? Anyways, we had hope in this
world only. We'd be of all men most miserable,
wouldn't we? But forget not, we have hope
in the life to come. We have hope in the Lord Jesus
Christ, in his life, what he accomplished for his people. We're not talking about a physical
long life here, we're talking about eternal life. That's what,
for length of days, you worried about the number of days you
have left on this earth? No, I need eternal days, there's
length. There's length, eternal days,
and long life. How about eternal life? How?
He tells us, peace, peace. How are you gonna have peace?
Well, turn with me to Colossians 1. How are we gonna have peace? The only way to have peace is
to be found in the Prince of Peace. Colossians 1, 19 through 23 says
this. For it pleased the Father that
in him should all fullness dwell. And having made peace through
the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto
himself, by him I say whether they be things in earth or things
in heaven, and you that were sometimes alienated and enemies
in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. in the body of his flesh through
death to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in his sight. If you continue in the faith
grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the
gospel, which you have heard and which was preached to every
creature that is under heaven. Wherefore, I, Paul, am a minister."
Now, is he saying if we continue in the faith grounded and settled,
then we'll be presented as wholly unblameable and unreprovable.
No. And yes, I'll explain. The only
way you and I are going to continue in the faith is if we've been
given faith. If we fall away from the faith, if we leave this
gospel, it will be because we were never going, we're never
conformed to his image. We were never holy. We were never
unreprovable. The cause and effect is that
the Lord gives faith and we believe. Not that we believe, so the Lord
gives faith. The Lord washes us and we're
presented as holy and unblameable. It's not that we do something,
and that one lyric in that song we sung, it says, I will wash
my garments in the blood of Calvary's lamb. Is that what it says? And
I don't necessarily, we don't wash anything, do we? No, the
Lord does the washing. The Lord does all the washing.
No, he's not saying here that if we continue in faith, then
we're going to obligate God. He's saying here, if we continue
in the faith, it's because we're kept by his power. He's going
to present us unprovable, unblameable because he's the one doing the
keeping. He's the one doing the keeping.
We made us to believe by faith and that faith doesn't change
or diminish. That's why we can't fall away
from it. It doesn't. It's not up and faith is not
up and down. We are our unbeliefs up and down. Some days we we
don't struggle with unbelief as bad as other days. Perhaps
it's always there. Our faith is not wavering because
of the source. God doesn't waver. God doesn't
falter. He doesn't change and he gives
that faith to his people. No, this continuing the faith,
that's the only outward evidence, brethren, that we have one towards
another, not enough ourself, but that's the outward evidence
we have one towards another that we're in the faith is because
on our deathbed, our confession is still Christ is all. That's
the only outward evidence that we really have. We don't look
at that, but we see it in each other, don't we? We don't continue
in the faith to obligate God. No, it's God that keeps us if
we continue in the faith, therefore, Those given faith will continue
looking to the Lord as their righteousness. Why? Because Christ
hath made peace on his cross for his people. He had made peace. Even though we were alienated,
even though we were enemies in our mind by wicked works, he
hath reconciled. He's done it all by his death. By his death. Now let's turn
back to Proverbs 3. We'll look at these last two
verses briefly. Verse three says, let not mercy
and truth forsake thee. Bind them about thy neck, write
them upon the table of thine heart. So shall thou find favor
and good understanding in the sight of God and man. What does
he mean, let not mercy and truth forsake thee? You mean we're
the ones that keep mercy and truth? Is that what he's saying?
No. The moment that we leave the simplicity of the gospel,
we have forsaken mercy and truth. The moment we leave the simplicity
of the gospel, we have forsaken mercy and truth. And therefore,
mercy and truth has forsaken us. If we can leave the gospel,
then mercy and truth has forsaken us. That's true, isn't it? But
it's the Lord that keeps his people. Mercy and truth will
not forsake us based upon what we do. If we're the Lord's, he
keeps his people in mercy and in truth.