Freedom From My Fears

34 and BOM 34 has become a favorite
of mine over the last few years. I spent a number of months studying
it with a group that I’m part of and When you do that, oftentimes
things begin to open up that you hadn’t seen before. It takes
some thought and some digging. And I’ve had the opportunity
to preach this psalm. And honestly, I’ve lost track
of how many times I’ve preached it. But this is the first time
I’ve preached it. in this set in this in a church
setting uh might be a little more comfortable if some of you
would just like walk around during the service and you know it’s
kind of the way it usually goes when when i’m preaching it but
uh i’m glad to be able to dig into it a little more deeply
with you today and and address a number of issues that are important
for us to consider and we Trust God for his help. We trust
him to open our eyes to behold the truth of his words. It says
in Psalm 119, and I love that song that we sang, that’s based
on it. Open our eyes that you may behold
wonderful things out of your law. And God gives us his word for
our instruction. He gives us his word so that through the
preaching of it, we receive the gift of faith to begin our life
with God. And that same word being preached
and believed is how we grow, how we continue to move forward
in our Christian lives. Our trust is in the Lord today. The title of my sermon is Freedom
From My Fears. It’s taken from verse four of
Psalm 34, where David writes, I sought the Lord and he answered
me and delivered me from all my fears. Someone was asking
me, what about like mosquitoes or and other things. And we’ll get into that. The
superscription to Psalm 34, it states of David when he changed
his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out and
he went away. The superscription is not necessarily
inspired, but it gives us some insight into the occasion of
David’s writing this psalm. And the event in the life of
David that is spoken of in that superscription is recorded for
us in 1 Samuel chapter 21. In 1 Samuel, The ruler of Gath is referred
to as Achish, but the writer of the superscription uses the
title Abimelech, but both refer to the same man. In this account
and in those that follow in 1 Samuel, it’s evident that David found
his fears to be a powerfully destructive force in his life
and in the lives of the people of God around him. And in light
of the way things turned out for David, Following his lonely
trek to the city of Gath, it’s evident that sinful fear was
David’s unfortunate motivation. And he decided to flee from the
heart of the territory controlled by, or into the heart of the territory
controlled by his mortal enemies, the Philistines. Gath was a city
that was about a 12-hour walk from Jerusalem, and perhaps best
known for being the birthplace the giant Goliath, the same giant
that David had killed. God had, before this time, secretly anointed him to be king
in the place of Saul. And David comes to the forefront
of the national spotlight when he does kill Goliath of Gath. And he not only came into the
national spotlight, but before long, he came under the extremely
jealous gaze of then King Saul. the song of the people celebrating
David’s victory over Goliath and the Philistines, in which
they ascribed more to David than to Saul, enraged Saul to the
point of causing him to determine that David would have to be put
to death. In 1 Samuel 18, we read, as they
were coming home when David returned from striking down the Philistine,
the women came, out of all the cities of Israel singing and
dancing to meet King Saul with tambourines and with songs of
joy and with musical instruments and the women sang as they celebrated. Saul has struck down his thousands
and David his ten thousands. And Saul was very angry, and
this saying displeased him. And he said, they have to ascribe
to David 10,000, and to me ascribe thousands. What more can he have
but the kingdom? And it says that. From that day
on, Saul, I, David, And a harmful spirit from God
rushed upon Saul, and he raved in his house. And he tried to
kill David at that point. He threw his spear at him, and
it said that David evaded him twice. It’s like, all I’m doing
is trying to play some music here. getting these spears thrown
at him. But eventually, things became
so bad for David that he determined that he must flee the land of
Israel to escape the murderous intentions of King Saul. And
he eventually fled twice to the city of Gath. But the first time,
he went all alone. If you get this picture, he leaves
Jonathan, and he goes to the city of Nob, and he’s all by
himself. And he basically makes up a story
as to why he’s there and gets some of the holy bread. And he
also collects Goliath’s sword. And off he travels to the city
of Goliath. Kind of a strange picture, if
you think of it, all by himself, carrying this what was probably
still a quite oversized sword for David. He goes to Gath. He fled to the city, hoping to
find respite from the persecution that he was suffering. But he
nearly ran headlong into the very trouble that he was seeking
to avoid, because He was quickly recognized. He thought, evidently,
that he could fly under the radar, and they wouldn’t notice that
huge sword he was carrying, or I don’t know. But he was quickly
recognized as the one that had been used by God to destroy thousands
of these very same Philistines. And so his life was immediately
in imminent danger of being taken from him. But despite his Unfortunate motivation, despite
his ungodly fear, God did not allow them to harm him. And David
comes up with this plan, this idea to feign madness in the
presence of his enemies. And they fall for it, and he’s
driven away. And then he heads to the cave
of Adelam. But all was not well. David was
observed receiving help from the priests at Nob. If you remember
the story in 1 Samuel, and all of the 85 priests of that city were murdered, along
with their families, who were supposedly conspiring against
Saul. And David was forced to admit
to the lone survivor of the massacre that I have occasioned the death
of all the persons of your father’s house. So this is the background
of Psalm 34. And hopefully it helps us understand
something of the severity of the problem that I believe is
being addressed in this passage. that I am focusing on today. Sinful fear dishonors God and
has great potential, if left unchecked, of causing tremendous
harm to the people of God. Therefore, we should, must, strive
to do everything we can to embrace the only solution to our sinful
fears. That solution is, as John Flavel
says in his book, Triumphing Over Sinful Fear, That solution
is what he calls religious fear. We perhaps could best describe
it in our day as godly fear or reverential fear. So the solution
to this sinful fear is another kind of fear. It’s godly fear. It’s reverential fear. John Flavel
calls it religious fear. The problem is not that we have
a natural fear of danger or harm. It’s not as if we should not
be afraid of stepping out in front of fast-moving traffic
or putting our hand on a hot stove or something along these
lines. Those natural fears are something
God gives us and it only makes sense, right? But the kinds of
fears that are being addressed in this psalm, when he said,
I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all
my fears, the kind of fears that he’s talking about, the kind
of fears that we need to seek freedom from, are the kind of
fears that arise when God says something like, go up and take
the land that I have promised to give you. And people say,
no thanks. The people say, in effect, we’re
not really sure. We can’t really trust you, Lord,
to do what you say you will do. The obvious example of sinful
fear, when they sent the spies out into the land, and how many of them came back with
an evil report? The vast majority. And it says
it’s in. The passage about that, that
the people grumbled against the Lord, and they even wanted to
stone Moses and Joshua and other people. All the congregation
said to stone them with stones when they were trying to say,
look, don’t be afraid. Don’t don’t rebel against the
Lord. Don’t fear the people of the
land, for they are bred for us. Their protection is removed from
them. And the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. And what was
your action going to take you out? You know, you’re trying
to put us into a really bad situation. But. In this psalm, we have four elements
to which I want to call our attention today. First of all, we have an invitation. In verse three, David calls the
people of God to join him in magnifying the Lord with him
and exalting the name of the Lord together. So magnify the
Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together. He’s giving an invitation and
in verse eight, we have a further development of that invitation
when David writes, so taste and see that the Lord is good. Right. We will return to each of these
elements. after I give a little bit of
a brief outline here. Next, we have a clear reference
to the incarnation of Christ, who is our refuge from sinful
fear, both in verse 7 and in, of course, the end of the psalm
in verses 19 and 20 and 21. In verse 20, David writes of
the righteous that the Lord keeps all of his bones, not one of
them is broken. We’ll talk about that more. Verse
seven speaks of the angel of the Lord who surrounds and protects
God’s people. And as we will discuss shortly,
this must be a reference to Christ himself. Then we have the introduction
of David’s instruction concerning the fear of the Lord in verse
11. And finally, we have an indictment of the wicked in verses 16 and
21. I’ve kind of tried to do a little
alliteration here. We have invitation, incarnation, instruction,
indictment. Hopefully, it will help. Maybe
we could summarize it in this psalm in one sentence. We have in Psalm 34 an invitation
to magnify the Lord. to experience the glorious freedom
from all our fears that comes through the incarnation, along
with instructions on how to properly respond to that invitation and
an indictment against those who refuse the same. So let’s go
back to the beginning of this text and read verses one through
six. Psalm 34, verse one. I will bless the Lord, At all
times, his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes
its boast in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad.
Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord and he answered
me and delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried,
and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.” The Lord, David, under the inspiration
of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, begins by making the declaration
that the praise of the Lord will be continually in his mouth,
and that he will bless the Lord at all times. I see in this a recognition that David in those times of sinful
fear was not really doing what he now determines to do more
than ever. He was not really blessing the
Lord or praising him when he gave in to his sinful fears. That will bless the Lord at all
times. Perhaps he was looking forward to the day when his mouth
would be continually filled with God’s praise, On that day, he’s going to be
fully and finally freed from all the effects of being a fallen
creature in a fallen world. But even now, he’s determined
that his soul should make its boast in the Lord. his acknowledgement that the
Lord is his all in all. He knows that only those who
have a similar understanding of their natural state before
God are going to really be able to rejoice in his words of praise
to God. And so he adds, let the humble
hear and be glad. My soul makes its boast in the
Lord, let the humble hear and be glad. The apostle Paul says
in his letter to the Corinthians, let him who boasts, boast in
the Lord. who is our wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. Because God has chosen the foolish
things of the world to shame the wise and the weak things,
and God has chose what is low and despised and the things that
are not to bring to nothing, the things that are that so no
human being might boast in his presence. David follows this
great invitation. Oh magnify the Lord with me and
let us exalt his name together. By saying. He’s going to make
his boast in the Lord to bless the Lord to rightly praise him
to make our boast in him is to magnify him. And what a great
thing it is when God becomes bigger and bigger in our thoughts
and lives and our fears and troubles that accompany our fears become
smaller and smaller. So David is inviting the humble
of the earth to a life of praise that is both continual and communal. Continual speaks to the necessity
of our proclamation of the glory of God being day by day whatever
else we’re doing kind of thing. Think of the fact that we’re
admonished to pray without ceasing. So this blessing and praise of God should
go beyond a mere inward disposition, but it is a continual thing.
I will bless the Lord at all times. He also says it’s communal. Magnify the Lord with me, speaks
of the necessity of joining together with others to raise the anthem
of God, exalting worship. It is something that if at all
possible we should be doing together, right? The church is a gathering
of the saints that occurs regularly. It is a gathering where we’re
endeavoring to do what David is talking about here in Psalm
34. But this is not something that we should merely do or could
merely be done inside the confines of our first day of the week
gathering. Oh, magnify the Lord with me.
Let us exalt his name together. David goes on to say in verse
four, I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered me
from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant
and their faces shall never be ashamed. This poor man cried
and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. So praise should be continual,
it should be communal. It’s something that we do together. David’s invitation is a call
to seek the Lord and to look to him and to cry out to him
as David himself has and experienced this amazing deliverance from
his fears and his shame and from his troubles. David had a real
experience with the Lord’s amazing grace in his own life. And so he calls us, he calls others to join him in
experiencing that grace. And as he says in verse eight,
oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who
takes refuge in him. And Christian faith is not just
intellectual assent. to a set of propositions, but
it’s a very real experience of God’s transforming power at work
in our lives. It’s something that you must
taste and see for yourself, something that you must experience
for yourself. So first, we have this invitation.
We also have the incarnation in this psalm. Verse 7, the angel
of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them.
Who is this angel of the Lord? He’s not only revealed here,
but in a number of places in the Old Testament. For instance,
when Samson’s parents were told about the coming birth of their
son, the angel of the Lord spoke to them and received an offering
from them. It was that angel of the Lord
who asked, why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?
And at the end, Manoah and his wife, they marveled that they
had seen God and not died. The angel of the Lord is no mere
creature. When it says the angel of the
Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them, it’s
not at all unreasonable to believe that it is speaking here of the
Lord Jesus Christ himself. If you think about the fact that
angels are not omnipresent. Angels, unlike God, are in one
place at a time. But the angel of the Lord encamps
around all those who fear him and delivers them, and not be
a mere created being. This is speaking of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Son of God is revealed in
the Old Testament as not only The judge, he says, oh, taste
and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that takes
refuge in him. He’s revealed as the judge of
the whole earth, right? But he’s also revealed as the
refuge from that judgment. And David is calling people not only to
come and worship, but to come to the refuge. The Lord encamps around those
who fear Him and delivers them all. Blessed are all those who
take refuge in Him. In Psalm 2, we read that of the
Son, that all must show reverence to Him, because He’s not only
the judge of the earth, He’s going to break the nations, the
rebellious nations with the rod of iron, but that He’s a refuge
from the judgment, from the wrath. We read in the last verse of
Psalm 2, blessed are all those who take refuge in Him, in the
Son. So we have the incarnation in
this Psalm 34. We also have the incarnation
towards the end of the Psalm where it says, many are the afflictions
of the righteous, but the Lord delivers Him out of them all. He keeps all of His bones, not
one of them is broken. Up to this point, He’s spoken
of the righteous as a group, but here he speaks of a singular
man. He keeps all his bones. He delivers him out of all the
afflictions, and we know that this is quoted in John 19 or
as being fulfilled at the crucifixion of Christ when his bones were
not broken, though it was the normal way of doing things when
it came to the death of crucified men at the hands of the Romans.
And in fact, John records that the Jews requested a Pilate that
the legs of all three men on the crosses that day might be
broken in order that crucified men might not remain where they
were slowly dying as the Sabbath approached. And the soldiers
did break the legs of the other two men, but when they came to
Jesus, they ascertained that he was already dead, so his legs
were not broken. His legs were not broken, his
bones were not shattered, because he was the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of all those who take refuge in him. even as the legs of the Passover
lambs were not to be broken, but their blood was to be shed
and placed upon the lintel in the doorposts of the house so
that the Lord would pass over their households on the night
that the Lord took the lives of all the firstborn in Egypt. And it’s my understanding that
when Jesus died, it was at the very time that the Passover lambs
were being slaughtered. No coincidence, no happenstance. So we have in this psalm an invitation
to magnify the Lord and to experience the glorious freedom from all
our fears that comes to us through the incarnation. But we also
have instruction. instruction on how to respond
to that invitation. That instruction is specifically
about what is meant when the Word of God talks about the fear
of the Lord. First, I think it would be helpful
to talk about what it does not mean. The fear of the Lord is
not the same thing as the fear of negative consequences. It
is not identical to the fear of punishment or even the fear
of hell. For one thing, Psalm 19 tells
us that the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. You imagine that you’re going
to be in fear of punishment and in fear of hell in heaven forever? Hopefully not. The fear of the
Lord is something that’s different than the fear of punishment or
even the fear of hell. The book of Hebrews, in the book
of Hebrews chapter two, we read that Jesus took on flesh so that
through death he might destroy the one who has the power of
death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through
fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. This is a pretty
amazing passage. Can’t get into it too far this
morning, of course, but It tells us that one of the purposes of
God in the incarnation of Christ was to set free those who, all
their lifetimes, were enslaved through, I would say, sinful
fear. In this case, that simple fear
is identified as the fear of death. And if this fear of death
was merely a natural fear or a component of godly fear, We
would not have been enslaved by it, and we would not have
needed to be delivered from it. So the fear of the Lord is not
the same thing as fear of negative consequences. Does that make
sense? It’s something different. I mentioned
John Flavel’s book, Triumphing Over Sinful Fear. And I know
that some of us are somewhat familiar with that book, because
we went through it together in our small groups not too long
ago. Was that, I want to say, last
summer? And if you haven’t read it, you
can get it online fairly cheaply, or you could probably get a hard
copy. And in Flabel’s book, he lists
12 remedies for sinful fear. In the last of those remedies,
he says, to conclude, in order to subdue your slavish fear,
you must exalt the fear of God in your hearts and let it gain
ascendancy over all other fears. He said, you must exalt the fear
of God in your heart and let it gain ascendancy over all other
fears. So we’re set free from fear,
from this type of fear, to another type of fear. There’s a vast
difference between servile fear and the fear of the Lord that
is taught in the scriptures. I looked up the term, the fear of the Lord,
and there’s a number of places that It comes up, but in the
book of Proverbs, it’s very strongly represented. I’m just going to
read some passages out of the book of Proverbs that speak about
the fear of the Lord very briefly. In chapter one, verse seven, the
fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise
wisdom and instruction. 129 says, because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord. Would none of my counsel
and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the
fruit of their way and have fill of their own devices. So the
wicked do not choose the fear of the Lord. The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It says, In chapter 2 of Proverbs, if
you seek wisdom like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the
knowledge of God. In Proverbs 8, it says the fear of the Lord
is the hatred of evil. In Proverbs 9, it says the fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. In Proverbs 10, it
says, the fear of the Lord prolongs life, but the years of the wicked
will be short. In Proverbs 14, it says, in the
fear of the Lord, one has strong confidence, and his children
will have a refuge. Again, in Proverbs 14, the fear
of the Lord is a fountain of life that one may turn away from
the snares of death. In Proverbs 15, it says, better
is a little with fear of the Lord than great treasure and
trouble with it. Again, in Proverbs 15, the fear
of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom. In Proverbs 16, by steadfast love
and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for. And by the fear of
the Lord, one turns away from evil. Proverbs 19, the fear of
the Lord leads to life. And whoever has it rests satisfied.
He will not be visited by harm. Proverbs 23 says, let not your
heart envy sinners, but continue in the fear of the Lord all the
day. So there’s a lot there. Unless we tend to believe that
the fear of the Lord is an old covenant concept, now superseded
under the new covenant. I don’t know if you’ve heard
that before. Like, well, yeah, we’re old covenant, fear God.
Now we don’t need to fear God. I’ve certainly heard that. The
prophet Isaiah says of Christ that the spirit of knowledge
and of the fear of the Lord shall rest upon him and that his delight
shall be in the fear of the Lord. We’re also told in the book of
Acts that the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria
was multiplied walking in the fear of the Lord. not merely
an Old Testament concept, my friends, something that continues
as we quoted, the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. Amen? Hopefully we can begin
to see that the fear of the Lord is a very important aspect of
our relationship with God. Remember verse seven in our text,
the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and
delivers them. So David goes on in this instruction
portion of Psalm 34, verse 9, he says, O fear the Lord, you
his saints, for those who fear him have no lack. The young lions
suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good
thing. Come, he says in verse 11, Oh
children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of
the Lord. So this is the instruction. What man is there who desires
life and loves many days that he may see good, keep your tongue
from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn away from
evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. The
eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward
their cry. Here, David tells us that there
is a correlation between seeking the Lord and fearing him, that
those who do so have no lack. They lack no good thing. This
is echoed in Jesus’ teaching to his disciples in St. Matthew,
chapter 6, where he says, do not be anxious about your life,
what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body,
what you’ll put on. But rather, seek first the kingdom
of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be
added to you. Don’t be anxious, don’t be fearful. Fear God, seek God, and all these
things will be added to you. There’s no lack to those who
fear him. But David says, you want to understand the fear of
the Lord? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking
deceit. How important in all of this
are our words? They are very important. By our
words, the scripture tells us we will be justified and by our
words we will be condemned. We must come to the God of truth
with the truth on our lips. We must come to him with the
genuine sincerity that he alone can supply. How easy it is for us to slip into
speaking in ways that are not consistent with what we know
to be the truth. As James says, the tongue is
a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members,
staining the whole body and setting on fire the entire course of
life and set on fire by hell. And he goes on to say, no human
being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of
deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and
Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness
of God. So David says, keep your tongue from evil and your lips
from speaking deceit. But how do we do that? Since
no human being can tame the tongue, how do we keep our tongues from
evil and our lips from speaking deceit? In another psalm, David
says, Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the
door of my lips. Do not let my heart incline to any evil. And
in Psalm 19, he prays, Let the words of my mouth and the meditation
of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and
my redeemer. So it’s Not within our ability
to tame the tongue. It’s not within our ability to
do what David is talking about here. But it is not outside of God’s
ability. As in verse 14, turn away from
evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. How
do we turn away from evil? How do we seek peace? None of
this is even remotely possible apart from the fact of that which
we read, that which we see in verse six. This poor man cried,
and the Lord heard him and delivered him out of all his troubles. Recognition of our ongoing spiritual
poverty is the key to, at least a key, to understanding what
the Holy Spirit is communicating here through David. In these
latter verses, the poor man is identified as being among those
who are counted righteous. In verse 15, it says, the eyes
of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry.
In verses 17 and 18, it says, when the righteous cry for help,
the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The
Lord is near the broken heart and saves the crushed in spirit.
And in verse six, it says, this poor man cried. And the Lord
hears and delivered him out of all his troubles. And then in
the lighter part, he says, the righteous cry. So the poor man
is identified with the righteous because it’s the recognition
of our lack, of our poverty, of our inability, of our falling
short of God’s perfect standard that opens the door of heaven opens the door of God’s
grace to us. And the way we talk is not always
consistent with that, is it? The way we talk about ourselves
and about other people, either blessing people, blessing God, cursing people,
right? The way we talk oftentimes is kind of a, well, thank God
I’m not like those bunch of people, way of talking and thinking,
isn’t it? I mean, that’s our natural tendency. It’s so easy
for us to. not keep our tongue from evil
or our lips from speaking deceit, but it is a big part of overcoming
sinful fear in our life. Label talks about the fact that
when we don’t know our neighbors, we tend to be afraid of them. And knowing our neighbors is
not necessarily going to make us assume that they are inherently
good people, right? Because we know that scripture
does something different. But the more we do what God says
to do in relation to our neighbors, the less we’re going to fear
them and the less we’re going to be tempted to despise them,
right? The recognition of our ongoing
spiritual poverty is a key to understanding what David is saying
here. The poor man is identified with
the righteous. He’s identified with those who
are being counted righteous. It says that the thighs of the
Lord are toward the righteous and the ears toward their cry.
Even as Abraham was counted righteous by faith, so these two that he’s
speaking about are those counted righteous by faith. But we need
to move on to the last of the four elements. that I mentioned in my introduction.
So far, we’ve talked about the invitation to magnify the Lord
with David and to exalt his name together. We’ve talked about
the incarnation of the Lamb of God, also known as the angel
of the Lord. We’ve talked about the instruction
concerning what the fear of the Lord is and is not. And now we
must talk about the indictment against those who refuse the
invitation. Verse 16 says, the face of the
Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the memory of
them from the earth. In verse 21, affliction will
slay the wicked and those who hate the righteous will be condemned. If you’re putting your hope in
the idea that God is all loving, We’re all forgiving this morning.
I hope you will take a moment to reconsider. If you are taking
comfort in the idea that we’re all sinners and all sin is basically
the same, I sincerely hope that you will reconsider. We are all
sinners, that’s true enough, but not all sin is the same because
we are not all unrepentant sinners. There’s a sin that leads to death,
and as a great preacher named Charles Spurgeon has said, of that sin, of the sin that
leads to death, of the sin that put you in the category of those
whom God is going to remove the memory of them from the face
of the earth. Spurgeon says of this sin, he
said, you could roll all sins into one mass. You could take
murder, and blasphemy, and lust, adultery, and fornication, and
everything that is vile, and unite them all in one vast globe
of black corruption. And they would not equal even
then the sin of unbelief. that this is the monarch sin,
the quintessence of guilt, the mixture of venom of all crimes,
the dregs of the wine of Gomorrah. It is the A1 sin, the masterpiece
of Satan, the chief work of the devil. If we’re tempted to believe that
God is all-loving, all-forgiving, We totally disregard what he
has to say about the subject. He says that he is also just,
he’s wrathful, and he’s angry against those who continue in
unbelief. And we believe that faith is
a gift from God, but it does not alleviate any of us from
the responsibility to respond to the truth that we know. And no one is going to be able
to blame their unbelief on anyone other than themselves in the
final analysis. The problem is not that people
have a natural inability to run to the refuge that is found in
Christ alone, but those who will be ultimately condemned will
be condemned because they have a moral inability. In other words,
they don’t want to do what they should do. So on top of the fact
that he said, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent
me draw him. People don’t want to come anyway.
People don’t want to come on their own. People don’t want. to listen to what David is saying
here. There’s a great invitation. There’s
an invitation that goes out to the whole world. Whoever will
may come and take the water of life freely. The problem is no
one naturally wants to come. We do what we want. We don’t
do what we don’t want. And so God must change our hearts. The wicked have such a high opinion
of their own goodness that they have no desire to hear the good
news that is proclaimed to the inherently undeserving. The good
news is not just that God loves you or has a wonderful plan for
your life, but that Christ is the Savior. of all sorts of people, especially
those who believe. There’s no barrier based on anyone’s
ethnicity or education or intellect. The only barrier lies within
our own hearts. So the call, the invitation,
magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. to let the humble hear their
oven be glad. To respond to this invitation,
you must have a change of heart. You must recognize something
about yourself that, up to that point, you have not wanted to
recognize. And for us that are trusting
in Christ, that struggle is not one that is completely finished. The fact that you have come to
Christ does not mean that you do not need to keep coming to
Him, that you do not need to keep trusting in Him, that you
do not need to keep recognizing your need for Him. And the problem
for all of us is, It’s the same problem, really, that we don’t
see ourselves in light of Scripture. The prosperity preacher can hold
up his Bible and say, this is my Bible. I am what it says it.
But they’re only looking at one aspect of it, a narrow aspect.
They’re not looking at what all of God’s Word says, what God’s
Word says about me and you, my friends. is that we are people
in great need, in great need of deliverance from our fears,
deliverance from our unbelief. And in Christ, we have that deliverance. But we must continue to come
to him. We must accept the invitation. Come to Him with sincerity. Come
to Him in truth. And it’s our prayer that that
would happen more and more for all of us. And if you’ve heard
it 1,000 times, or maybe you’re hearing it for the first time,
may God open our eyes more and more to the truth. Amen. All right. Thank you, Lord,
for this day and for the blessing of being able to be here and
to proclaim your excellencies, to magnify you together. Just thank you for your work in our lives and in
the lives of all those that we know that are in Christ, those
that are not yet in Christ. Thank you for your Your amazing
work. The truth that sets us free,
Lord. In Jesus’ name. Everybody said? Amen. God bless
you all.