I'm reading a passage of scripture
this morning from the book of Psalms. This passage is taken
from the 8th Psalm, verses 3 and 4. Now, here's my subject. Four
Great Fears Removed. Very easy to remember. Four Great
Fears Removed. Now, here's the text. David wrote,
O Lord, my Lord, when I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy
fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained. What
is man? What is man that thou art mindful
of him?" That's the language of David, but that's not the
language of this day. There's so much overconfidence
and familiarity with God Almighty in this day Everybody seems to
have a corner on God. There's so little fear, so little
reverence, and all of God in our day. But rather most religionists
speak with total confidence, total presumption, not only of
their part in the glorious kingdom of God, but all of them seem
to have a private influence with God and a power with God And
we hear talk like this, God said to me, the Lord told me to do
this and to do that. Now this is not the language
of men who wrote the Word of God. David said, O Lord, my Lord,
when I look round about me at the things which thou hast made,
the heavens declare thy glory, the moon, the sun, the stars,
the things which thou hast ordained, what is man? What am I? Who am I? What is my house that
you should even take notice of me? Moses wrote in Exodus 33
verse 13, Lord, this was the man whom God chose to lead Israel
out of Egypt. This was the man through whom
God Almighty worked to deliver his people from the bondage of
slavery. This was a man whom God selected
to write the first five books of the Old Testament. Listen
to what he says when he's praying one day. He said, Lord, I pray
Thee if I have found grace in Thy sight. If I have found grace
in Thy sight. No presumption there. No familiarity
with God there. No overconfidence there at all.
Lord, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Thy way. Listen to Isaiah. He said, I
saw the Lord high and lifted up. His train filled the temple. And the seraphims cried, holy,
holy, holy, Lord God of hosts. And he said, woe is me. Oh, woe is me. I am a man of
unclean lips. I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips. This is a man who wrote the book
of Isaiah. Listen to Job. whom God said
was a holy, righteous man. Listen to what Job said. How
can man be just with God? How can he be clean that's born
of a woman? On another occasion, he said,
Lord, I've heard of thee by the hearing of the ear. Now mine
eye seeth thee. Wherefore, I hate myself. I repent
in dust and ashes. It is said in the book of Revelation,
when the apostle John saw the Lord Jesus on the Isle of Patmos,
and the Master spoke to him, He fell at his feet as a dead
man. And then Paul the Apostle writing
concerning himself. This is the man who wrote about
13 of the 27 books of the New Testament. Listen to the way
Paul speaks. None of this overconfidence,
presumption, and familiarity with God. Paul said, I am not
worthy to be an apostle. On another occasion he said,
I am less than the least of all the saints. And then in writing
one of his last epistles, he made this statement. This is
a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus
Christ is coming to the world to save sinners of whom I am
the chief. No, this present day confidence,
this present day familiarity with God Almighty is not known
in the Holy Scriptures. These men were men who feared
the Lord. Their hearts were filled with
reverence and awe and fear before God Almighty. And this was not
the language of the great preachers of the past. John Newton, nearly
everybody's familiar with the ministry of John Newton, especially
his hymns. He wrote, Amazing Grace, how
sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but
now I'm found. I was blind, but now I see. But
he also wrote this hymn. We're not quite as familiar with
this hymn as we are the Amazing Grace, but listen to these words.
John Newton wrote, "'Tis a point I long to know, oft it gives
me anxious thought. Do I love the Lord, or no? Am I His, or am I not?' These
men in Scripture, and these great preachers of the past, who knew
something of the holiness and the majesty and the greatness
of God Almighty, who knew something of their own sinfulness, these
men looked to the Lord for mercy and grace in Christ, and they
looked to Him with a humble, broken, and a contrite spirit. And the Word of God declares
that the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite
heart. And the Scripture says, Pride
goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall. Our Lord illustrated this in
the story of the Pharisee and the Publican. He told how a Pharisee,
and all of you are familiar with the Pharisees, you know what
type of men they were. They were religious people. They
were theologians. They were moral men. They were
men who taught in the synagogue. They were rulers over the people
of Israel. Well, the Pharisee went to the
temple to pray. And he went right into the temple
and probably right down to the front at the altar. And he lifted
his hands and his eyes to heaven, and he cried, O Lord. He prayed
thus Christ said with himself, O Lord, I thank Thee. I thank
Thee that I'm not like other men. I tithe, I fast twice a
week, I give alms to the poor. I'm not an extortioner, I'm not
an adulterer, I'm not unjust, I'm not even like that publican
back there. But the publican didn't behave
in this fashion. The publican, Christ said, stood
afar off. He would not even come down to
the front of the synagogue, but he stood afar off. Out of reach
of everybody. Out of sight of everybody. Embarrassed
over his sins. Embarrassed because of his life.
Embarrassed because of who he was. And he would not lift his
eyes to heaven. He would not lift his hands to
heaven. But he smote upon his breast and he cried, O God, O
God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Now our Master said, the Lord
Jesus Christ said, this man rather than the other, the man who was
confident of an interest in God, the man who was confident that
he had a corner on God, the man who was confident that he had
a claim on God, this man was not justified. He was not accepted
and his prayer was not heard. But the man who smote upon his
breast and cried for mercy, And said, in effect, let thy blood
be propitiation for me on the mercy seat. Christ said, this
man went home justified. Now that's the words of Christ
himself. And then another illustration
he gave us. Our Lord Jesus Christ went down to Nazareth, where
he was brought up. And as his custom was, he went
to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. This was the day of worship. This was the day when all the
people went to the synagogue, and they were gathered there
by the hundreds. And they'd come there to hear him. And he stood
up before them and read the Scriptures, Isaiah 61, the part of Scripture
prophesying of his Messianic office. And when he finished,
he closed the book, and he sat down, and he began to speak.
And he said, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your eyes.
But he said, You don't believe. And I've got this to say to you.
I'm going to tell you a truth. I'm going to tell you a solemn
truth. I'm going to tell you a truth that you need to lay
hold upon. You need to hear. And the same truth I'm trying
to preach this morning. He was standing here before this
group of people who felt that they had a claim on God. They
were Jews. They were the nation of Israel.
They had kept the sacrifices and the ceremonies and the rituals.
They attended the synagogue. They had tried to keep the law,
they were moral people, they were there in that synagogue
believing that they were God's people. That they had a hope
in God, that they had a claim on God, that they had a corner
on God. And they sat there and the master said this to them,
I'm going to tell you the truth. There were many lepers in the
land of Israel, among the people of Israel, in the days of the
prophet, and God healed none of them. Absolutely none of them. But he healed a leper who was
a Syrian or a Gentile. And then he said, wait a minute,
there were many widows among the people of Israel, in the
land of Israel, in the days of the prophet. And God fed none
of them. He fed a woman who was a Gentile. And they rose up in anger, and
they thrust him out of the synagogue and would have killed him. And
this is what our Master is teaching, this thing of overconfidence.
This thing of a familiarity with God, this thing of basing our
hope on a heritage, or ancestry, or custom, or religion, or a
decision, or an experience, or a feeling, or something that
we have done or produced in the past, giving us some claim on
God Almighty, gives us no claim to God at all. And Isaiah warned
us about this presumption. Isaiah warned us about this overconfidence
in the matter of judgment. In Isaiah 28, he wrote these
words. Because you have said, we have
made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement.
And when the overflowing scourge of God's wrath shall come through,
it shall not come unto us. Now this is what these people
are saying. We are not afraid to die. We're not afraid of death
at all. We don't want to die, but we're
not afraid to die. And we know there's going to be a judgment,
and we know there's a hell to shun, a heaven to gain, but we're
not worried. We're not worried about hell.
We know some folks are going to die, and some folks are going
to be judged, and some folks are going to hell, but not us.
When the overflowing scourge of God's judgment and God's wrath
shall come through, it won't come to us, because we have a
refuge. We have a hiding place. But God
says, but God said, look at verse 17, Isaiah 28, judgment I will
lay to the line of strict and holy and righteous judgment and
righteousness to the plummet, no margin for error and the hail
shall sweep away your refuge of lies and the water shall overflow
your hiding place. Our Lord warned again in Matthew
7, He said, many, many will say to me in that day. We're talking
about religious people. We're talking about people who
kept up the pretense. We're talking about people who
had a refuge, who had a hope, who were faithful and loyal to
something or to someone. And many will say to me in that
day, many, not a few, not a handful, many will say to me in that day,
in that awful day of judgment, Lord, while we preached in your
name and we cast out devils in your name, And we did many wonderful
works in your name. And then will I profess unto
them, I never knew you. I never knew you. Depart from
me, ye workers of iniquity." What I'm warning us about today
is this, a false hope, an overconfidence, a familiarity with God Almighty,
an assurance that is no assurance at all, declaring peace, peace,
when there is no peace. You say, well, preacher, is there
no assurance? Can a man have no confidence
at all? Is there no hope to be held in
the heart? Can we have no real confidence
in a saving interest in God Almighty through Jesus Christ? Oh, yes.
Oh, yes, certainly we can, and I'm going to show you how. Certainly
we can. But that assurance and that confidence
is not in ourselves. It's not in who we are, it's
not in what we've done, it's not in our works, it's not in
our decision, it's not in our religious experience. That assurance
and that hope and that confidence is in the person and work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that's where you'll find
assurance. You look in your own heart, you'll find no assurance.
You'll only find pride and presumption. You look at your own experience
and your own works and you'll find no assurance whatsoever
and no reason for assurance. But if you can be given eyes
to see Him who loved us and gave Himself for us, and find your
hope and confidence and assurance in Him, you can find real peace
and real rest. Now, if you'll turn with me to
the 8th chapter of Romans. I'd like you to go to the 8th
chapter of Romans, and here we have a foundation for assurance.
You know, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
The object of faith is Christ. But the foundation of faith is
the Word of God. I say these things because God
said them. And anything that I say that
God didn't say, you have no reason to believe. The Word of God is
the foundation of faith, while Christ Himself is the object
of faith. So if we have any assurance,
if we have any hope, any confidence that is of any authority at all,
It's got to come from the Word of God as we look to the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, turn to Romans chapter 8,
and Paul deals emphatically with four great fears. There are four
basic fears I want to give them to you. And Paul removes them
one at a time. Now, these are legitimate fears.
These are real fears, and any reasonable man will have to admit
that he has dealt with these fears at one time or other. If
he hasn't, he will. Now here they are, here's the
first one. And this first figure is the fear of satanic opposition. Now the believer's real enemy
is not flesh and blood, not people, not things. It's the power of
Satan. It's Satan. That's our real fear.
Now listen to me in Romans chapter 8, verse 31. Listen to Paul.
What shall we say to these things? If God be for us, if God be for
us, Who can be against us? What does it matter who's against
us? Who can succeed against us? And who is our enemy? And who
is seeking to succeed against us? And who's going about as
a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour? Well, Paul tells
us in Ephesians 6, he said, we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers,
of darkness. We wrestle against spiritual
wickedness in high places. Spiritual wickedness in high
places. Very high places. And the real
enemy of the believer is a powerful unseen enemy who is subtle, who
is deceitful, who is crafty, who is powerful, and the question
comes, before him who can stand? And I say no one. No one alone.
But if God be for us, you see what Paul's saying? If God be
for us, if God Almighty is for us, then who, whether He's power
or principalities or rulers of the darkness or whoever He may
be, spiritual wickedness in the highest places, who can be against
us? Who can succeed against us? Well,
how has God for us? Well, now, you notice that verse
said this, What shall we say to these things? What shall we
say to these things, if God be for us, who can be against us?"
There's some things he said before he made this statement. There's
some things up above. That's verse 31. But back in
verse 28, 29, and 30, Paul has said some things about God being
for us. And he said, now, what shall
we say to these things, if God be for us, who can be against
us? Well, we'll read how God's for us. Read the preceding verses.
First of all, verse 28. And we know that all things work
together for good to them who love God, who are the called
according to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow." This word
is foreordained. In other words, God is for us
in elective grace. God chose us. God set his love
upon us. Out of Adam's race, he set his
love upon us and made us his own and gave us to his son. He's
for us in election. And then whom he foreknew, he
predestinated, he predetermined that they'll all be like Christ.
God is for us in his eternal purpose. God has decreed that
he's going to have a new heaven and a new earth populated by
a holy people just like his Son, and he's for us in his predestinating
purposes. And whom he did predestinate,
he called. God's for us in regeneration. And whom he called, he justified.
God's for us in substitution. and whom He justified, He glorified
us, God's for us in real redemption, then our assurance in the face
of satanic attack, in the face of satanic opposition, in the
face of all our enemies, is this. Here's our reply. I'm not afraid. God's for me. God chose me. God predestinated I'd be like
Christ. God in mercy called me by His
Spirit. God through the blood of His
Son justified me. Almighty God regenerated me,
and Almighty God has already seated me with Christ in the
heavenlies, and I can reply to any opponent and any enemy and
any opposition. God is for me. Who can be against
me?" Now, here's the second fear in Romans 8.33. And that's this
fear here. Watch it now. Paul said in Romans
8.33, he said, "...who shall lay anything to the charge of
God's elect. It is God that justifies." This
is the fear of our sins. My friends, I ask you something.
Do you ever tremble at the thought of your sins? Think of your sins
even of this day, of your sins of last year, the year before,
the sins of your youth. Are you ever concerned about
your sins? David was. He said, my sins are
ever before me. Against thee and thee only have
I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight." Paul was concerned
about his sin. He said, O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Samuel was
concerned about sin. He said, If a man sin against
another man, the judge will judge him. But if a man sin against
God, who's going to entreat for him? That's a real question,
isn't it? Well, here's your answer and
here's your hope. Verse 32, listen. He that spared
not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall
he not with Christ freely give us all things? What about my
sins? Am I concerned about my sins?
Well, in one sense of the word, I am. I'm sorry for my sins. I grieve over my sins. I mourn
over my sins. I long for the days when I shall
be perfectly holy and just like Christ. But I know this, if Christ
took my sin in his body on the tree, and satisfied the justice
and righteousness of God and paid the debt, it's paid, and
Almighty God will remember my sins no more, and I can say with
the Apostle Paul, who can lay anything to the charge of God's
elect? Who can charge us? No one. If God Almighty justifies me,
I'm justified. And the fear of sin, and the
penalty against sin, is removed only by faith in the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ. He
was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquities.
The chastisement of our peace was laid upon Him by His stripes.
We are healed. Sin? Yes, we've Beg forgiveness
of sin. Yes, we weep over sin. We mourn
over sin. But God Almighty said, I've separated
your sin from you as far as the east is from the west. I'll remember
them no more. Why? Christ paid for them. So
you see, when I want some confidence and assurance in regard to this
matter of sin and the fear of sin, I look not to myself and
say, well, I'll try a little harder. I'll do a little more
good deeds. I'll do this. No, sir, I look
to Calvary. And there my debt was paid. And
there the justice of God was satisfied. Now the third fear,
and that is the fear of judgment and final condemnation. Look
at Romans 8, 34. Who is he that condemned him?
It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. You see, every time Paul looks for confidence and assurance,
he always looks away from himself. away from his religious exercises,
away from his work, away from the law, and looks to God. If
God be for me, who can be against me? That's where my strength
is. That's where my confidence is in Him who is for me. When
it comes to this matter of sin, He knows He has sinned and does
sin and will sin. But when He wants some confidence,
He looks away from Himself to the cross where Christ died for
His sin. That's where our confidence is.
The most dreadful fear that can grip a human heart A reasonable
man's heart is the fear of final condemnation, to stand before
Christ and hear Him say, Depart from me, depart from me, I never
knew you. Oh, well might Belshazzar's knees
knock together and his lorns be loose when he saw the writing
on the wall, thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting.
That's enough to make a man tremble. Paul offered a loving prayer
for his friend. He said, and he could ask no
more, the Lord grant that he may find mercy of the Lord in
that day." What's your hope of mercy in that day? What's your
hope of remission in that day? What's your hope of being cleared
in that day? Well, Paul gives us his in a
fourfold answer. He said, who can condemn me either
here or at the judgment? Who can condemn me either here
or hereafter? I have four reasons for no condemnation. Christ died. Christ died. My Redeemer, my Savior, my Lord,
the God-man died in my place. And not only that, but he's risen
again. And when God raised him from the dead, Almighty God is
saying everything he did I accept. Everything he did I'm satisfied
with. And if he's satisfied with Christ,
he's satisfied with us because we're in Christ. And not only
did He raise him from the dead, but He brought him up to His
own right hand and seated him in the position of acceptance,
in the position of power, in the position of honor, in the
position of love, at His right hand. Christ, our representative,
is at God's right hand, and more than that, He prays for us. He calls our name. He is our
mediator. He is our lawyer. He is our great
high priest. He pleads His case, and He hath
whereof to plead. He has his own precious blood.
So that fear is removed. The fear of condemnation, the
fear of judgment. On what basis? Christ died. He rose again. He ascended to
the right hand of God and he prays for us. He intercedes for
us. There's your hope. Now look at the fourth fear.
Here's another verse which removes another great fear. And that
is the fear of falling away. The fear of departing from the
faith. Now this surreal fear And any
honest person, any reasonable person has to face this possibility
because others have fallen away. Yes they have. The scripture
says from that time many of his disciples went back and walked
no more with him. And the Apostle Paul throughout
the book of Hebrews talks about people departing from the faith.
And John talked about a whole host of people. He said they
went out from us, they left They left us because they were not
of us. But Paul removes that fear, and he removes that fear
by once again, just like in all these other cases, pointing to
the One who is able to keep us from falling. I can't keep myself,
and you can't keep yourself. But he says here, listen to him,
he says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? I am
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord." No
one can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ.
This is our refuge, this is our strength, this is our hope, two
words, in Christ. He is able to keep us from falling
and to present us faultless before His presence With exceeding glory
in Christ, all fears are removed. Yes, we can have assurance and
confidence in Christ. Now, if you want this message
on tape, and one that I'll be preaching next Lord's Day, you
write for it. Send two dollars. That's what
it costs to make the tape and send it to you. And we'll send
it to you. Until next week, may God bless
you.