Let's turn in our Bibles this
evening to Matthew chapter 19. Matthew chapter 19. And it came to pass that when
Jesus had finished these sayings, he deported from Galilee and
came into the coast of Judea beyond Jordan. And great multitudes
followed him, and he healed them there. The Pharisees also came
unto him, tempting, that is, proving him, and saying unto
him, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto
them, have you not read that he which made them at the beginning
made them male and female? And said, for this cause shall
a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife,
and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain,
but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined
together, let not man put asunder. We're not going to study tonight
about God's ordinance of marriage, but I want us to think this evening
about these words that our Lord spoke there in verse six, what
therefore God hath joined together. Looking at several things in
the scripture that God has coupled together, what God has joined
together. And I thought this evening that
we would look at four of these things that God has joined together. And I trust the Lord will bless
the message to all of us here this evening. If you will, turn
with me to Psalm 89 and verse 14. The two things that we see
here that God has joined together is judgment and justice. Psalm 89 and verse 14, justice and judgment are the
habitation of thy throne. If you have a Bible with a marginal
reading, you see that before habitation, there's a marginal
reading, establishment, establishment. Justice and judgment are the
establishment of thy throne. Literally means a place where
one stands, a place where one stands. The truth conveyed to
us, of course, is that the throne of God is founded on judgment
and justice. These two things God has coupled
together, justice and judgment. You might think, well, aren't
they the same? You might say that, but there
is a difference. Judgment is equitable. Justice is righteousness. It could be judgment and righteousness
here. But this tells us, and this is
one of those fundamental truths about God, and this is something,
as we see the foundation of His throne, this is fundamental,
this truth about God, is that all of God's ways, not 90%, not
98%, not 99 and nine tenths percent, but all of God's ways, All of God s thoughts, all of
God s decrees, all of God s works of providence are just. They
re just. All of His ways are just because
He is just. All of His ways are just and
righteous because He Himself is just and righteous in all
of His ways, in all of His doings. There's a verse in Psalm 145
and verse 17 which declares, the Lord is righteous in all
his ways and holy in all his works. It's amazing that many
individuals, men and women like you and I, take it upon ourselves
to say what God should do and what God shouldn't do. That's
not our place. But the one thing that we know,
we may not understand God's ways. Certainly we don't. He said that
His ways and our ways are different. But we know this about all of
His ways, about all of His decrees, about all of His providence.
It's all done in justice and righteousness because He is just
and righteousness. Now, we're not going to look
at the other two things that are coupled together in this
verse here in Psalm 89 and verse 14, but you notice also mercy
and truth shall go before thy face. Mercy and truth, or faithfulness. Mercy and truth, that's faithfulness,
shall go before thy face. Albert Barnes, his comments on
that part of the verse I thought was very good. Mercy and truth
shall go before thy face. His comments were, wherever thou
dost go, mercy and truth shall go before thy face. Wherever,
God, wherever thou dost go, there will be mercy and truth. Wherever thou dost go, there
will be mercy and truth. Wherever God does manifest his
presence, there will be mercy and truth. And then his last
comments were, thy march, thinking of God marching through time,
marching through this world, thy march through the world will
be attended by kindness and fidelity, kindness and faithfulness. And
his comment about God and his march through this world, I could
not help but think about our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
when he came into this world as a man and marched through
this world. The three and a half years that
are recorded, what he did while he was here, publicly in his
ministry. And I thought about this passage
here in Matthew, if you turn back to Matthew chapter eight. Thy march through the world will
be attended by kindness and fidelity. Here in Matthew chapter eight,
we see God manifest in the flesh. He had preached what has been
called, has come to be called the Sermon on the Mount, the
longest recorded message that we have of our Lord, chapters
five, six, and seven of Matthew. Remember, he went up on the mountain
and sat down and began to teach the multitudes. Now, we see when
he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.
You see his march? You see his march. And behold,
there came a leper and worshiped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt,
thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand
and touched him. You see his kindness. You know,
leprosy is a physical sickness. All sickness, we know, is in
this world because of sin. If Adam and Eve had never sinned
and if this world was populated and all of us here tonight were
sinless, we'd never sinned, we would never have a headache,
we'd never have fever, we'd never have appendicitis, there would
be no sickness in the world. Sickness is the result of sin. Of all the sicknesses, of all
the diseases, and there must be hundreds if not thousands
of diseases that man may have, God chose one. He chose one disease
and that's the disease of leprosy to be a picture, a type of sin. It is still an awful disease. In the Bible days, there was
no cure. There's no medicine for leprosy. Today, I know there
is, but at that time there wasn't. But out of all the diseases,
and when a person was proclaimed to have leprosy, he was set out
of the camp. He was cut off. He was ceremonially
unclean. He couldn't come into the camp.
He couldn't come close to the tabernacle. Actually, he couldn't
come near anybody. He had to be separated from his
family. What a picture that is, isn't
it? Of sin that separates us from God. And when a man had
leprosy or thought he had leprosy, he wasn't sent to a physician.
He didn't go to the MD, the doctor. No, he goes to the priest. The
priest. Showing that there was no and
it was a type of sin, and the priest examined him and pronounced
him either clean or unclean. Sometimes there was a spot on
a person's body that might look like leprosy, and the priest
would look at it, and he would say, I'm not sure. You've got
to be quarantined for a week, and we'll come back in a week
and look again. But the point is, Of all the
diseases, sicknesses that man could have, God only chose that
one to be a pitcher of sin. And say a person had diabetes,
for instance. He didn't have to go through
the ceremony of cleansing. He could stay in the camp. But
if a man or woman had leprosy, when they were pronounced clean,
there was a ceremony they had to go through. And I see when
this man comes up to the Lord and says, Lord, he worshipped
him first. He fell down and worshipped him. Lord, if thou wilt. thou canst make me clean. Now,
I said kindness and truthfulness go before thy face. Do you see
our Lord's kindness here? The scripture says he put forth
his hand and touched him. Can you imagine that? The holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, Lord Jesus Christ,
touching this man that was polluted, polluted because of leprosy. I see his kindness. Someone's
mentioned this. I heard someone, it's been several
years ago, they feigned, I believe it was a Hollywood actress. And she feigned to be a person
down and out. a bum, as people would say, a
straight person. And she begged. And she, after
she went through this experiment she was doing, she said the worst
thing that she experienced was that people would not even acknowledge
her as a person. In other words, they would not
make eye contact with her, just like she was a non-entity. She
said that was the worst part of the whole experience that
she went through. The kindness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. There never was anyone too poor,
too sick, too contaminated that he did not willingly show kindness
to. Don't you love him? Don't you
love the Lord Jesus Christ? No one ever cared for me like
Jesus. Amen? And then we not only see
his kindness when he put forth his hand and touched him saying,
I will. I will. And when he says I will, it will. It will happen because he is
the Lord God Almighty in flesh. But then you notice he said,
Verse four, see thou tell no man, but go thy way. Now watch,
show thyself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded
for a testimony unto them. Someone might say, well, why
would the Lord do that? The law of Moses was in effect. He said, I did not come to destroy
the law, but to fulfill the law. And until the Lord Jesus Christ
cried on the cross, it is finished. He was under that law. It was his law, and he obeyed
the law. And he tells this man to obey
the law. You go and show yourself to the
priest and offer that offering that the law required. We know when the Lord Jesus Christ
died that day on the cross inside the temple, That veil in the
temple was separated, wasn't it? From the top to the bottom,
showing that old law, that old dispensation had passed away. And now we have access into the
holy of holies, into the presence of God. Here's another two things
that I wanted to mention. Repentance and faith. What God
has joined together. Look with me, if you will, in
Acts chapter 20. In Acts chapter 20 and verse 21,
Paul is speaking to the elders of the church at Ephesus and
he recounts unto them how he had conducted himself while in
Ephesus. And in verse 21 he said, testifying
both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward
God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. These two graces,
repentance and faith, God has joined together. In the beginning
of the gospel of Mark, in the first chapter, when the scripture
says the Lord Jesus came saying, the time is fulfilled and the
kingdom of God is at hand, repent you and believe the gospel. Paul said these two things was
a summation of my ministry. in Ephesus, repentance toward
God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. These two things
always go together. Repent ye. What is repentance? What does it mean? It's a change
of mind, we know that, but it is a change of mind that leads
to godly sorrow. And it's godly sorrow over sin.
It's not, you know, people can be sorry have feelings of sorrow
in their heart over a number of different things, but this
godly sorrow that accompanies repentance is godly sorrow over
sin. Not just what I have done, that's
included, what I have done, what I'm guilty of, but what I am. What I am that has made me do
the things that I have done. It's a confession of sin toward
God. David, in Psalm 51, that Psalm
of repentance, he said, against thee, and thee only have I sinned,
O God. It's toward God, recognizing
and confessing that we've sinned against God. We've broken His
law, His holy law, His moral law. We've broken it. If not
in actuality, We've broken His law in thought, in desire. And the scripture says to be
guilty of the law in one point is to be guilty of the whole
law. Just to have a jealous thought, an envious thought, a malice,
thought of malice. We're guilty of breaking the
whole law. And we're all guilty, right? We've all done that. And
repentance is, change our mind about sin, confessing to the
Lord that we've sinned against Him. We haven't had the reverence
of God that we should have, the fear of God. That's one of the
things that Paul says in Romans 3, isn't it? There is no fear
of God before their eyes. There's no reverence of God,
no reverence of God. no recognition of who he is and
who we are. Repent, change your mind that
leads to godly sorrow, and then believe the gospel. These two
always go together, don't they? God has connected them together. Repentance toward God and faith
toward the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe the gospel. I believe
that Jesus is a Christ. I believe the gospel. He is the
gospel, isn't he? I believe that Jesus is the Christ,
that he is the son of God. And I believe that when he died
on the tree, that he was made a curse for us by burying our
sins in his own body on the tree. He had no sins of his own. He
died as a substitute for his believing people. He was wounded. our transgressions. He was bruised
for our iniquities, and by His stripes we are healed. That's
not talking about physical healing, is it? It's talking about spiritual
healing. By His stripes we are healed. It's only that I look to Christ
that I find peace, peace in my conscience. If I look at myself,
I read something today by Robert Murray McShaney, and he said,
for every one time we look at ourself, we should look 10 times
at Christ. Every time we look at ourselves,
one time we look at ourselves, we ought to look 10 times at
Christ. I think most of God's people
are sometimes guilty of introspection, and because we know ourselves
better than we know anybody else, we wonder how in the world we
could be saved sometimes. Well, one look at yourself, look
ten times at Christ, at who He is and what He's accomplished.
And repentance and faith is not a one-time thing. It's a way
of life. It's a state of being. I have
repented, I repent, and as long as I'm in this world, I will
be repenting. And the same about faith. I look
to Christ, I look to him today. All right, here's the third group. In Psalm 84 and verse 11, I'll
just spend a minute here. But there's many of these, and
these four just stood out to me. But in Psalm 84 in verse
11, we read, for the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord
will give grace and glory. These two things, grace and glory. God has joined grace and glory
together. And everyone, now listen, everyone
who experiences God's saving grace will experience glory. They're joined together and let
no man put them apart. We, and I speak for myself and
I believe I speak for all of us here tonight, we are not,
absolutely, we are not of those who believe and teach that a
person can be saved today by grace and then somehow lose their salvation and end
up in hell. No, those to whom God gives grace,
they're going to experience glory, grace and glory. They're connected
together and let no man put them asunder. And the last thing, 1 Thessalonians
4, this is the last two that I wanted to mention and I'm not
sure how to say this. in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4
and beginning with verse 14. For if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus
will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the
word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the
coming of the Lord shall not precede them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and
with the trump of God. And the dead in Christ shall
rise first. Then we which are alive and remain
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the
Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with
the Lord. The two things that I see that
are joined together here is the soul glorified and the body also,
the soul and body of every individual. When a child of God, for instance,
if one of us here this evening who know Christ, if we were to
die, our body died this evening, our spirit, our soul would immediately
be in the presence of God. Paul said to depart and to be
with Christ, which is far better. Our Lord said, Verily, verily,
I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him
that sent me, hath everlasting life, hath everlasting life,
and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto
life. We're not to think, well, we're saved, and when this body
dies, that's when we're going to get eternal life. No, no.
No, when God saved us, he gave us eternal life, everlasting
life. The soul will never die. Whosoever
liveth and believeth in me shall never die, the Lord Jesus Christ
said. But now this body, this tabernacle
in which we dwell, it dies and it turns back to the dust. In
Psalm 104, David said, thou takest away their breath. And that's
just another verse of scripture that reminds us our times are
in His hands. Thou, God, thou takest away their
breath. When is a person going to die?
When God has determined. Not a minute before and not a
minute after. Thou takest away their breath. They die and return to the dust. The soul never came from the
dust. It can't return there, it didn't
come from there. The body did. God took some dust
and, as Scott Richardson used to say, out of nothing he made
some dust, and out of that dust he made a body. We're next to nothing. We're
next to nothing. Nothing, dust, body. We're next to nothing. Oh me. But the body turns back to the
dust in the grave. But what I wanted to point out,
these two things God has put together, that is the soul and
the body, because there's coming a day when the body will be raised
incorruptible and enjoy God forever, body and soul. The soul is not
going to be forever without the body. But both body and soul,
God has joined these together, both body and soul shall enjoy
eternity, shall enjoy God forever. What God hath put together, let
not man put asunder. Well, I pray the Lord would bless
this word to all of us here this evening.