And in one of them, I pointed
out that there are five groups of four things, four things that
I called curious things. I want us to look at the group
of four things that is mentioned in verses 24 through 28 tonight. There be four things which are
little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise. The ants
are a people not strong. yet they prepare their meat in
the summer. The colonies are but a feeble
folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks. The locusts have
no king, yet go they forth, all of them by bands. The spider
taketh hold with her hands and is in kings' palaces. In the
book of Acts, we have the history of the gospel being preached,
of the disciples obeying the word of the Lord Jesus Christ
when he said that they would be witnesses unto him in Jerusalem,
in Judea, in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. In the 14th chapter of Acts,
we have Paul and Barnabas preaching the gospel in a place called
Lystra, which would have been the utmost part of the world. You and I, we live in the utmost
part of the world, as it was from Jerusalem. It's a long way
from Jerusalem. Brother Cliff and Marty and Lance
and Rob and minister preach the gospel in a a faraway place,
the ends of the earth. One of the missionaries that
we support, he moved several years ago and he wrote me and
gave me his new address and he said, this place is not the end
of the world, but you can see it from here. Blue Eye, Missouri. Blue Eye, Missouri. But Paul
and Barnabas were preaching there in Lystra. And there was a man
in the crowd who heard the gospel and the scripture says that he
was lame from his mother's womb. He'd never been able to walk. He was sitting there in the crowd
as the gospel was preached. And the apostle Paul, and he
was an apostle. He did have the signs of an apostle. He had the gift of healing. He
said, rise up and walk. He was commanded to rise up and
walk, and of course the man immediately stood up and walked. But the
result of this was that these pagans, these people that were
very ignorant of the things of God, they worshiped many idols,
many false deities, that they said, the gods have come down
to us. And they looked at Barnabas and
said that he was Barnabas was Jupiter and Paul
was Mercury. And so what are they going to
do? They're going to give a sacrifice. They're going to offer sacrifice.
They began to gather wood and a beast to sacrifice to Paul
and Barnabas. And because they did speak in
different languages, at first, I don't think Paul recognized
what was taking place. But just as soon as he did, Just
as soon as he realized they were going to sacrifice to him and
Barnabas under the names of these false gods, he stopped them and
he said unto them these words, the one and only living God had
suffered. Now listen, all nations, all
nations, with the exception of Israel, I might say he suffered
all nations. to walk in their own ways. Now
listen, nevertheless, nevertheless, he left not himself without witness
in that he did good, that is God, he did good. He gave us
rain from heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with
food and gladness. The point I wanted to make is
that God left not himself without witness. All these nations of
the earth, wherever they were, Israel had the word of God, had
the oracles of God, yes, but all these other nations, we would
say pagans in darkness, they had a witness from God. Now, in Romans chapter one, Paul
speaks of this witness as the invisible things of him from
the creation of the world. The invisible things of God from
the creation of the world. In other words, and this is the
way we, at least I usually look at this witness as the sun and
the moon and the stars and these things, the seasons that follow
one after the other, that people could see the wisdom and they
could also see the power of God. that whoever brought this into
being, it didn't just happen. It certainly was not the product
of a big bang. No, no, that this was a product
of wisdom, infinite wisdom, and not only wisdom, but great power. To know God, to know God, men
need more than that revelation, that witness that God had left
to all men. We need, man needs his written
revelation. You're close here, look back
in Psalm 19. Very familiar passage, Psalm
19. In verse three, we are told there's
no speech. Oh, there's all kinds of languages,
right? many hundreds, yea, thousands of languages among men. But there's no language, there's
no speech, no matter where a person may have been born in this world,
where their voice is not heard, the voice of creation. Their
line has gone out through all the earth and their words to
the end of the world. And then he speaks of the sun
as being set as a strong man to run a race. Now that tells
man, that reveals to man the book of creation, the witness
of creation, God's witness. That reveals to all men that
there is a God. But that revelation, that witness
is not sufficient for a person to know God. He may know there
is a God, yes. But to know God, if you look
down further in that Psalm, in verse 7, here it is, the law
of the Lord. We're talking about the written
word of God. The written word of God. is perfect. Now notice converting. That's
what we're talking about. Conversion, salvation, regeneration,
being made a new creature in Christ Jesus, having your sins
forgiven, being reconciled unto God. The testimony of the Lord is
sure, making wise and simple, wise unto salvation, the word
of God. But I brought this out or bring
this out to us tonight because I'm calling these witnesses,
these four little witnesses back in our text here in Proverbs
chapter 30, four witnesses, four little witnesses, God's four
little witnesses. First, the ants, the ants. Let's read those verses again,
24 and 25. There be four things which are little, and that's
the thing that all of these four have in common, they're all little.
They're all little, they're small, they're weak, they're feeble.
There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they
are exceeding wise. The ants are people not strong,
yet they prepare their meat in the summer. Now this witness,
the witness of the ants, I want to say is, prepare to meet thy
God. Prepare to meet thy God. They're little, they're not strong,
but they are exceeding wise. They prepare for the time of
need, a future time of need. In the summertime, everywhere
they look, There's food. There's plenty. Everywhere they
look, there's food. Well, let's just sleep. Let's
just sleep and warm ourselves in the sunshine. Let's eat, drink,
and be merry. They don't do that. Man does. Man does. He thinks everything's
going to continue as it now is. No, no! Man's philosophy is,
you only go around once. Enjoy it, get the most out of
it. The ant's witness, prepare to
meet thy God. Should they not witness to men,
prepare to meet thy God. It's going to happen. People
can deny it, people can put it out of their mind, people can
do everything they possibly can to convince themselves that they're
never going to meet God. But we are. We are. The Word of God clearly tells
us it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment. It's going to happen. The ants
testify, they witness, prepare to meet thy God. One famous preacher that I believe
he preached in the 1700s, he made this statement. He was pretty
famous for it. He said, I preach as a dying
man to dying men. And that's what I'm doing. I
preach as a dying man, and we begin to die as soon as we come
into this world. I preach as a dying man to dying
men. There's only one way to prepare.
It's not like there was a number of different ways to prepare
to meet God. There's only one way. Only one
way, and that way is Christ. He said, I am the way, the truth,
and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by me. In John 10, he said, am come
that they might have life, and have it more abundantly." Brother Milton Howard is a pastor
friend for many, many years, and he has preached in the prisons
for years, federal prison in Louisiana, but he told me one
day that, and you never ask the prisoner how long his sentence
is. That's just something you don't
do. But he was talking to this one prisoner and he said, my
sentence is John 10, 10, life and more abundant. In other words,
life, two lives, three lives he was in prison for. But the
Lord Jesus Christ came that we might have life and that we might
have it more abundantly. The way to prepare to meet God
is, first of all, to turn from our sins and to turn to Christ
and trust Him to wash our sins away. Sometimes people hear that terminology
and they don't quite understand what we mean by the blood of
Jesus Christ, which cleanseth from all sin. You see, His blood
is a precious blood. precious blood, because He is
God and man. And as man, He shed His blood,
and that blood is efficacious, it's powerful. We sing that song,
there's power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb. His death, that's what we're
talking about, His death, but His death in a sacrificial way,
by shedding His blood. There's only one way to prepare
to meet God, and that is to look to Christ, to trust in Him, to
wash away our sins, to cleanse us. And thank God He does. His
blood cleanseth from all sin. Don't you love that word all
there in 1 John 1? Not most of our sins, not many
of our sins, not the larger proportion of our sins, but no, all. And it's cleanseth. The blood
of Christ is ongoing cleansing us as we go through this life.
There's an initial cleansing, no doubt, but it's not once and
then no more. No, He cleansed us yesterday,
He cleanses us today, and if we're alive tomorrow, His blood
will cleanse us tomorrow. Prepare to meet thy God. That's
the witness, I believe, of the ants. be reconciled unto God. That's the way the Apostle Paul
put it in 2 Corinthians 5 when he said to it, God was in Christ
reconciling the world unto himself and then he confessed himself
to be an ambassador for Christ. You know what an ambassador is?
An ambassador represents the president of our country and
other countries. He speaks for the president.
He's the ambassador, and preachers, those that God calls and puts
into the ministry, we too are ambassadors for Christ, and our
message is, be ye reconciled unto God. All right, let's look
at the next little animal that is mentioned. Conies. The conies
in verse 26. The conies are but a feeble folk. Yet make they their houses in
the rocks. Now, if you have a Bible dictionary,
and I hope you do, get a good Bible dictionary. And if you
look up the word coney, you're going to find out we don't know
what this animal was. That's what you're going to find
out. Now there's some conjectures. Some people say it was like a
rabbit, something like a rabbit, but There's reason to believe
that's not so. But the colonies, their witness,
I want to say, is you need a refuge. You need a refuge. You see, they're weak, they're
feeble, but they make their houses in the rocks. Christ is the only refuge for
sinners. He was pictured in the Old Testament
by the cities of refuge. There were six cities of refuge
in the law that God gave through Moses. And you know the story
of a man accidentally killed another man, was responsible
for the death of another person. He was to run immediately. I
mean, he was to take off. Don't go home, pack a bag, grab
a toothbrush or anything like that. Run! Run! Get to the City of Refuge because
until you are in the City of Refuge, the Avenger of Blood
has every right to destroy you, to take your life. But once in
the City of Refuge, if it truly was manslaughter, it wasn't premeditated
murder, it was manslaughter. Then there would be a way to
determine that. And that man would be safe in
the city of refuge until the high priest died. Whoever the
high priest was at that time. Now if he went out of the city,
high priest today, high priest tomorrow, next day, next day,
but somewhere in that time he goes out of the city, the Avenger
of Blood has the legal right to destroy him. He had to stay
in that city. He was safe. He was safe in the
city. It's a city of refuge. And Christ,
the colonies, they knew this. They built their houses in the
rocks. They were feeble. They couldn't defend themselves.
A person could just step on them, probably, and destroy them. But they were wise enough, though
feeble, to build their house in the rocks, to seek a refuge. When we think of the Lord Jesus
Christ as the rock, and He is the rock, their rock is not as
our rock. That's what we read in Deuteronomy,
I believe it is. In other words, their God, their
rock, is not as our rock. Any false god, like Jupiter and
Mercury, Those gods that the Lestonians worshipped, their
god is not like our god. Their rock is not like our, their
rock is small and it cannot support you. It cannot serve as a refuge
when you are called to face God. When I think of Christ as a rock,
these four things, or three things I believe it is, come to my mind.
A rock speaks of strength. I'm not talking about a pebble,
I'm talking about one of these giant rocks you see out in the
western part of our country, or even here in Texas. A rock. You go up there and hit it with
your fist, your fist's gonna bounce off of it. Hit it with
a hammer, hammer's gonna bounce off of it. It's strong, it's
durable, so is the Lord Jesus Christ. All power, he said, all
power both in heaven and in earth is given unto me. Remember what
that king asked Daniel when he came that morning after he had
been put in the lion's den? He said, Daniel, is our God able? Our God, our rock, he's able
to be a refuge from whatever may come our way. Not only strength,
but durableness. That rock's been there since
God created it. We were visiting some people
years ago and they were way into this antique stuff, you know,
collecting antiques. And we walked out on their porch
one day and he said, now look at that rock. He said, that rock
is 2,000 years old. Really? I thought it was older
than that. It's been here since God created
it. It's not an antique because it's
25 years old. It's an antique because It's
durable, because not only durable, but it's everlasting. Jesus Christ
is the rock. He said, upon this rock, I will
build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it. He's a refuge for every sinner,
for every soul that will flee to him, that will look to him.
Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. And a rock
speaks of exaltation. He's a rock, a high rock, and
you cannot get any higher than our rock, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who being in the brightness of his glory and the express image
of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power,
when he had, and don't you love this, when he had by himself
purged, washed our sins, that's what the scripture says, set
down on the right hand of the majesty on high. Look at our
Lord's example. We'll take just a minute to turn
over to Matthew 7, thinking about these colonies in the rock. Matthew 7, beginning with verse
24, very familiar. Passage to all of us here, example. Therefore, whosoever heareth
these sayings of mine, Matthew 7, 24, the Lord Jesus speaking.
Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth
them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his house upon
a rock. And the rain descended, and the
floods came, and the winds blew. And be assured of this, beloved,
the rains are going to come. The winds are going to blow.
The flood, the water is going to rise. I mean, you're not going
to go through this world, live here for any time to speak of
and not have the wind and the rain and the floods, the afflictions,
the troubles, the trials. They that live godly in Christ
Jesus, the scripture says, shall, not maybe, shall suffer persecution. The rains came, the floods came,
the winds blew and beat upon that house and it fell not. Why did it not fall? Was that
house a brick house? And was that house made out of
super materials like these windows we see advertised? You can hit
them with a sledgehammer. They don't break. Oh, no. The
house did not fall because of the foundation, because it was
built upon, founded upon a rock. And that rock is Christ. And
everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not,
shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon
the sand, and the rain descended. The scripture says, as sparks
fly upward, so man that is born of woman has many trials and
afflictions. I'm not quoting that just right,
but you know what I'm saying. The man that built his house
on the rock, the man that built his house on the sand, the rains
came, the rains descended, the wind blew, the water rose for
both of them, the wise man and the foolish man. But the difference
was, the foolish man, he built his house on the sand, on the
sand, not upon Christ, the rock. and his house came crumbling
down. Now let's go back to the third
little witness, and this time it's the locust. Verse 27. The locusts have no king, yet
go they forth, all of them, by bands. Now their witness, I want
to say, is unity and harmony. the witness of the locusts, unity
and harmony. They have no ruler, but they
gather and they keep march step together. They are in unity. And I see in this the covenant
promise, which was given to Abraham, then to Isaac, and then to Jacob
was, in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
Now that seed we know is Christ. And shortly before Jacob died,
he prophesied concerning each one of his 12 sons. And he said
this concerning Judah. Remember, Judah's the tribe from
which the Lord came. He prophesied about Judah saying
Shiloh would come. Shiloh, the peacemaker. And then he said, unto him shall
the gathering of the people be. Now these locusts, they have
no king, but yet they are in unity. And the Lord Jesus Christ
is shallow, and God the Holy Spirit gathers his elect people
to Christ. A lot of people hear the gospel
and it's just like water off a duck's back. It goes in one
ear and comes out the other ear. Makes no impression. But God
has his people in this world. And in the day of his power,
they will be brought. They will look to Christ. They
will be drawn to Christ as their king, as their shallow. We are
gathered to Christ. And in him, now listen, this
is the point, in him, we have union. We're in union with Christ. We're members of his body. He
is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. We have union with
Christ and we have union with all other believers. And we have
harmony. We have peace. God's people are
not given to fighting and complaining and murmuring. God's people are
thankful people, gracious people, grateful people. Seeing what
God has done for us, how could we not be grateful? The church of God is like a mighty
army. Part of the army has already
entered to heaven, and their battle is over. But the church
of the living God is like a mighty army in this world. And the weapons
of our warfare, the apostle Paul tells us, are not carnal. We
don't take guns and bullets and things like that to try to make
people believe. No, our weapons are spiritual. And we go forth fighting superstition,
ignorance, traditions, all kinds of ritualism. And how do we fight? With the truth, with the word
of God. We declare the word of God. Some of us here tonight, all
of us that are saved, if we would look back in our life, we see
how the truth has delivered us from eras, from traditions, from
ritualism, and all kinds of false ideas about God. How did God do that? God did
it, yes, but he used his word. He used his word. And then this
last one, the spider. the spider in verse 28. The spider
taketh hold with her hands and is in king's palaces. Their witness,
I want to say, is faith. Faith. It is with her hands that
the spider takes hold and is in king's palaces. It is with
the hand of faith. The hand is empty too, isn't
it? It's with the hand of faith that we take hold of Christ.
We bring nothing, we add nothing, we receive everything from Him. We take hold of Christ by the
hand of faith as our Savior. And we know as the scripture
says, by Him, by Christ, all that believe, all that take with
the hand of faith and lay hold of Christ, All that believe are
justified from all things from which you could not be justified
by the law of Moses. It's impossible. By him, all that believe are
cleansed from every sin. By him, all that believe. Now
it's not faith that's the savior. Christ is the savior, but faith
lays hold of Christ. John Bunyan. use the spider to
illustrate this truth in the second part of Pilgrim's Progress. Remember in the second part,
we have Christian's wife, Christina, four sons, and the young maid
named Mercy, traveling toward the celestial city. And they
came to the house of the interpreter, like her husband had done before,
And they were shown the same things that he was shown. Remember one of those things
was there was a man on one side of the wall and he was pitching
water. There was a fire in the wall and he's throwing water
on it, throwing water on it. What is that? He takes him around
to the other side and there's someone over here throwing gasoline
on, gasoline on the fire. The picture is that the world,
Satan, will do everything it can to destroy your faith. But
Christ is our Savior. And being confident of this very
thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you, he will perform
it until the day of Jesus Christ. So Christina saw everything that
her husband had seen, but then the interpreter showed her a
few other things. And the last thing that he showed
her He took her and the others with her into this large room. It was the largest room in the
house. It was a stately room. It was a beautiful room. And
he told them, now look around and see if you see anything in
this room. And at first they said, nothing,
nothing. And then Mercy said, I see a
spider. I see a spider, an ugly spider.
I see an ugly spider. And the interpreter said, look
again. And then they saw there was all kinds of spiders in that
room. And some of them had venom that
was much worse, much more deadly than that first spider's venom. But they were all in the king's
palace with the hand of faith on the wall. that through Christ
the message was to show you, this is what the interpreter
said, to show you how full of venom of sin, so ever you be. And my program just won't accept
that word so ever. It must be an old English word. John Bunyan wrote it. To show
you that how full of venom, how full of sin, so ever you be. however, soever you be. Yet you
may, by the hand of faith, lay hold of and dwell in the best
room that belongs to the king's house above." God's four little
witnesses. Everything in this world testifies
to God. If we just had the grace and
the spiritual eyesight to see it, we'd see him in everything. and everything. We'll sing a
hymn and go home.