Latest / Reformed Thinking / Fashioned by God, Taught by His Word (Psalm 119:73–80) | Charles Spurgeon

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Fashioned by God, Taught by His Word (Psalm 119:73–80) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reformed thinking. Yes, so glad you're joining us
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  today. I want you to picture a
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  priceless centuries old masterpiece painting.
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  Like the Mona Lisa or something along those lines.
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  Yeah, precisely The Mona Lisa. Or maybe a breathtaking
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  Renaissance fresco. OK, I can picture that.
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  Now imagine someone breaks into the gallery in the middle of the
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  night and, well, throws a bucket of highly corrosive acid right
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  onto the canvas. Oh.
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  Man, that is a horrifying thought.
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  It really is. The acid just eats through the
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  paint. It melts the canvas and
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  completely obliterates the image.
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  Right. There is nothing left.
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  And the next morning the curators come in and see the
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  ruin. You cannot just hire a
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  restorative painter to touch up the edges.
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  Or, you know, apply a new coat of varnish.
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  No, the image is totally gone. Yeah, the very material it was
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  painted on is structurally compromised.
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  So a touch up won't cut it. Not at all.
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  If you want that painting back, you need the original master
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  artist to somehow step out of history, bring entirely new
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  materials, and recreate the masterpiece from absolute
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  scratch. That makes a lot of sense.
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  So for you listening, our goal today is to conduct a deep dive
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  into the source material that tackles this precise concept
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  regarding human nature. Yeah, we are looking at Psalm
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  119, specifically verses 73 through 80.
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  And in the structure of the Psalm this section corresponds
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  to the Hebrew letter Jode. That is right.
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  To analyze this text, we have excerpts from Charles Spurgeon's
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  The Treasury of David, along with a vast collection of
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  historical Puritan commentaries. And that analogy of the ruined
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  painting sets up our overarching framework perfectly.
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  It really does. The 8 verses in the stanza offer
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  a master class in understanding divine Providence, human
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  inability, and the absolute necessity of grace.
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  Which is heavy stuff, but so necessary.
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  Yeah, it is. Our mission for you today is to
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  examine how the psalmist handles affliction, relies on God's
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  sovereign decrees, and finds consolation in the Word.
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  So that you can apply these truths to your own life.
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  Right. And we approach these texts
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  through a distinctly reformed theological lens, standing
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  firmly on the principles outlined in the Westminster
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  Confession. Which means we recognize God's
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  total sovereignty over all things.
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  Yes, including our trials, our total depravity outside of
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  Christ, and our complete reliance on His irresistible
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  grace for any spiritual good. We are going to look at the
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  mechanics of how God recreates A shattered human mind.
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  And how that recreated mind processes the heavy, often
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  painful Providence of a sovereign Creator.
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  So let us start right at verse 73, OK?
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  The psalmist begins by looking at the very origin of human
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  existence. The text reads Thy hands has
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  made me and fashioned me, give me understanding that I may
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  learn thy commandments. He points directly to the hands
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  of the Creator there. But based on our open and
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  premise, he is not just stating A biological fact about where he
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  came from. No, not at all.
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  He is making a massive theological confession.
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  William Cowper has a really interesting commentary here.
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  Yeah. Calper is incredibly insightful
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  on this from a Reformed perspective.
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  The first creation you know, being made perfect by God's
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  hands in the Garden of Eden, was completely lost in the fall.
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  Right, the acid hit the canvas. Precisely.
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  Cowper points out that by nature, it is actually a
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  terrifying reality that we have, in his precise phrasing, mismade
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  ourselves. We have lost God's image.
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  Yes, the privileges of our first creation are gone.
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  Therefore, when the psalmist says Give me understanding, he
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  is not asking for a slight intellectual upgrade.
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  No, he's not asking for a tutor to help him grasp a difficult
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  concept. He is pleading for a second
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  creation. He needs a spiritual
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  understanding that only the Creator can grant.
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  It requires the same divine force that spoke the universe
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  into existence to recreate a fallen, hostile human mind.
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  I have to pause here and ask a question on behalf of the
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  listener. OK, when we talk about having
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  mismade ourselves and losing the image of God, a lot of people
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  might bristle at that. Oh for sure, it is a tough pill
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  to swallow. Right, because people look
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  around the world and see unbelievers doing charitable
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  things, loving their children and creating beautiful art.
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  Which is all true. So if we are completely ruined
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  by the fall, what we call total depravity, how do we account for
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  the good we see? That is a very fair quantum.
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  Why is the mind considered so broken that it needs a literal
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  second creation just to understand a Bible verse?
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  That is a crucial distinction to make.
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  When Reformed theology speaks of total depravity, it does not
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  mean that every human being is as thoroughly evil as they could
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  possibly be. Right, they're not all like,
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  super villains. Exactly.
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  The Westminster Confession acknowledges common grace, which
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  is God to restraining the full manifestation of human evil so
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  society can function. So people can have natural
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  affections and civic virtues, yes.
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  But total depravity means that sin has corrupted every part of
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  our nature. Including our intellect, our
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  will, and our affection. Spot on.
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  It means we are completely unable to choose God or
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  understand spiritual truths on our own.
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  Our minds are actively hostile to the holiness of God.
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  Yeah, we might understand the grammar of the Bible, but we
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  loathe the God it reveals unless he acts a first.
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  So the psalmist just as acknowledging his total
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  spiritual inability. He recognizes that he who made
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  us to live must make us to learn.
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  Horatius Bonar offers a striking visual for how this creator
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  interacts with us in this state of inability.
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  I really appreciate his perspective.
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  He says God's greatness fits our littleness, just as the ocean
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  fits a drop of water. Or the air fits into all parts
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  of the earth. Yes, we often assume that the
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  sheer magnitude of God's sovereignty makes him distant.
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  We think of like a cosmic CEO who is too busy running the
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  universe to care about the individual drops of water.
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  But Bonar argues the complete opposite is true.
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  His infinite nature is precisely what allows him to intimately
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  encompass our absolute littleness.
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  And Albert Barnes provides A fascinating historical detail
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  about the structure of this Psalm that reinforces Bonar's
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  point. What did Barnes find?
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  Well, this section is governed by the Hebrew letter JOD, which
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  is the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet.
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  It is the jot that Jesus refers to in the Gospels.
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  Right. It shows God's attention to the
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  most minute details of our lives.
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  God's Providence does not just cover the rise and fall of
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  empires, it covers the jots and titles.
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  It covers the specific neural pathways firing in your brain
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  and the exact circumstances of your daily frustrations.
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  That is incredibly comforting. It is.
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  Let me bring up a practical scenario for the listener
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  regarding this need for understanding.
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  OK, let us hear it. We live in an era of
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  unprecedented access to information.
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  You can download a dozen Bible translations on your phone in
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  seconds. Yeah, access is definitely not
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  the issue anymore. There's an assumption that if we
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  just read the text, with enough discipline we will grasp it.
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  Which is a very common misconception.
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  Right, But Richard Stock uses an incredible analogy to dismantle
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  the idea that bare text is sufficient.
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  I love this analogy. He compares the Scriptures to an
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  apothecary shop. The Bible is a divine pharmacy
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  containing cures for every sorrow, antidotes for every
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  temptation, and remedies for every spiritual disease.
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  But imagine a dying stranger walking into an ancient
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  pharmacy. Yeah, the shells are lined with
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  thousands of jars, but the labels are in a language he
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  cannot read. He does not know where the
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  medicines are, what dosage to take or how to mix them.
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  He might be standing inches away from the exact cure for his
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  disease, and he will still die on the floor of the shop.
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  That analogy perfectly captures the human condition.
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  We have the text, but without the pharmacist, meaning the Holy
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  Spirit granting that second creation of the mind.
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  We are just wandering the aisles of the apothecary blind.
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  The word is entirely sufficient, but our natural minds are wholly
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  deficient. John Gill notes that the
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  psalmist is not seeking rope memorization or mere theoretical
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  knowledge. Right, the Pharisees had that.
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  The psalmist wants an enlightened judgement so he can
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  obey from a principle of supernatural love.
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  A man without grace is, as Spurgeon notes, a sad perversion
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  of a mind. We absolutely need God to
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  administer the medicine. So true.
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  Now if God does step in, the Holy Spirit acts as the
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  pharmacist and administers that grace.
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  It obviously changes the individual.
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  Without a doubt. But what happens next?
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  Does that spiritual recreation stay isolated in a single
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  person's head? Well, verse 74 suggests it
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  spills over immediately. Yeah, that's almost right.
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  They that fear thee will be glad when they see me, because I have
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  hoped in thy word. This introduces the concept of
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  the covenant community. Grace is never meant to be
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  entirely private. When a single believer is
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  sustained by grace, they become a living monument of God's
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  faithfulness to others. Thomas Manton quotes a beautiful
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  Latin phrase here, Aspectus boniviri de Lectad.
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  Which translates to the very look of a Goodman is delightful.
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  There is a visible, tangible quality to a life sustained by
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  the Holy Spirit. I think everyone listening can
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  point to an experience like this in their local church.
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  Oh, absolutely. When you are going through a
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  brutal season of life and you sit across the table from an
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  older St. who has been beaten down by unimaginable grief.
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  Maybe they lost a child or they have battled chronic illness for
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  decades. Yeah, yet they are still
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  standing, ending firm on the promises of God, without
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  bitterness. Watching them does something to
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  you. It fortifies your own soul.
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  You realize that the grace holding them up is real, which
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  means it can hold you up too. It creates a massive ripple
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  effect of assurance. The commentators point out that
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  the Godly's are encouraged when they meet with experienced
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  believers who have weathered the storm.
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  God does not just sustain you for your own individual comfort.
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  No, He sustains you so that you become physical proof of his
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  reliability to your brothers and sisters.
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  You become an epistle of Christ, written to illustrate the truth
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  of the Gospel to anyone who sees your steadfastness.
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  The flip side is also true, which is why hypocrisy is so
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  damaging. People who profess religion but
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  constantly spread doubt, complain endlessly about
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  Providence, and drag everyone down into despondency actually
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  damaged the faith of those around them.
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  The. Theological detail behind The
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  Joy of the Steadfast Believer is staggering here.
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  John Trapp highlights the Vulgates translation of this
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  verse, which is really interesting.
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  Right where the English says I have hoped in my word, the Latin
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  uses the word super sporafi. Which translates to.
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  I have overhoped. The psalmist is hoping in all of
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  God's decrees, and this is where the Reformed perspective becomes
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  sharp and challenging. He is hoping even in the decree
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  of affliction. Which is a wild concept.
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  I have to stop right there, hoping in the decree of
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  affliction sounds like absolute madness to the flesh.
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  It really does. No rational human being hopes
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  for pain. If I get a flat tire or lose my
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  job or get a terrifying medical diagnosis, my immediate reaction
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  is to pray for the affliction to stop.
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  Of course, that is the natural response.
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  How is over hoping an affliction different from just being a
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  glutton for punishment? It is the difference between
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  loving pain for the sake of pain, which is pathological, and
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  trusting the surgeon who is holding the scalpel.
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  That makes sense. The believer does not delight in
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  the suffering itself. Right.
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  They delight in the sovereign goodness of the God who ordained
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  it. They trust that whatever God has
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  decreed from eternity past, even if it brings severe temporal
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  pain, is designed for their absolute eternal good and His
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  glory. This unnatural, grace driven
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  perspective is what leads directly to the psalmist
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  startling confession in verse 75.
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  I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are right, and that
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  Thou unfaithfulness has afflicted me this.
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  Brings us to the absolute core of the reformed view of
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  suffering. We need to dissect this
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  carefully. How do we categorize these
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  judgments? Robert Sanderson provides
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  exceptional categories for understanding this.
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  He distinguishes between two types of judgments.
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  Let's walk through this. 1st If you have judicia oris, the
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  judgments of God's mouth, which refers to his written word, His
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  statutes, and his commands. OK, that's clear.
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  Second, you have judicia operus, the judgments of God's hands,
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  which refers to His works, His Providence, and His active
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  corrections in our lives. Sanderson points out that both
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  are perfectly right. Yes, when the psalmist says thy
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  judgments are right, he's primarily talking about the
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  judicia operus, the afflictions, and the rod of correction.
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  He knows without a shadow of a doubt that God's Providence is
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  flawless, even when it leaves bruises.
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  Thomas Manton highlights a distinction here that we
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  absolutely cannot miss. What does he say?
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  He says God is not faithful despite the affliction.
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  God is faithful in sending the affliction.
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  Oh wow, I want you to think about how violently that
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  collides with modern sensibilities.
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  It goes against everything we naturally want to believe.
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  We are conditioned to believe that a loving God exists to
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  maximize our comfort and minimize our pain.
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  Right. So if things go wrong, we assume
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  God is distant, angry, or perhaps not fully in control.
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  But Manton argues that the cross you carry is not an exception to
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  the covenant of grace. It is a vital branch of covenant
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  administration. That is a harsh truth for the
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  modern, but it is intensely comforting once understood.
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  If God loves his elect, he loves them too much to let them sin
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  without a rebuke. If he left you entirely alone to
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  wander into destruction without ever sending a storm to turn
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  your ship around, that would be the highest form of
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  unfaithfulness. William S Plumer frames it with
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  a parental analogy. Which is very relatable.
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  He says when a father disowns A rebellious child, he corrects
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  him no more. He lets the child do whatever he
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  wants. So if God let someone go
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  unchastened, if he allows them to prosper in their sin without
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  any painful consequences, it is a terrifying sign of
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  abandonment. Affliction, therefore, is the
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  proof of adoption. Isaac Barrow provides A
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  phenomenal analysis on why we should never want to choose our
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  own lot in life. We all secretly think we know
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  what is best for us. Oh, definitely.
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  We think, well, if I just had a little more money or a better
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  job or better health, I would be a much better Christian.
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  But Barrow argues that if the choice of our condition were
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  left to us, we would make foolish, disastrous elections.
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  Because of our total depravity, we would choose things that feed
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  our flesh and starve our souls. Barrow's examples are incredibly
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  convicting. He says if we chose wealth, we
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  would become lazy, proud and forgetful of God.
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  If we chose applause and human approval, we would become vain
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  and sacrilegiously deprive God of His honor.
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  If we chose high positions of authority, we would get dizzy
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  and fall from the precipice. God knows the exact corruption
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  of our individual. Hearts.
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  Therefore, he prescribes what Barrel calls wholesome Wormwood
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  instead of pleasant honey. Let us unpack that medicine
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  metaphor a bit. Sure, Wormwood is famously
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  bitter. It makes you gag.
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  Honey is sweet and goes down easy.
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  We always want the honey. Naturally.
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  But God operates as a perfect physician.
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  He sees a spiritual cancer growing in US.
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  Maybe it is the cancer of self-reliance or pride or
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  idolatry of our family. Honey will not cure cancer.
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  It might make us feel good for a moment, but we will die.
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  So God prescribes the wholesome Wormwood.
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  He sends the financial ruin, the relational heartbreak or the
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  physical illness. It tastes awful, but it kills
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  the cancer. He allots A suitable mediocrity
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  to us, so we neither starve for want nor surf it with plenty.
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  And the Believer, recognizing this through the lens of that
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  second creation we talked about earlier, accepts the wholesome
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  Wormwood as a necessary prescription.
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  But we have to be realistic here.
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  Knowing the medicine is good for you does not make it taste any
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  less bitter. The believer still requires
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  supernatural sustenance to endure the treatment.
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  This brings us to the sequence of mercy and true life in verses
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  76, 77. The psalmist pleads, Let I pray
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  thee, thy merciful kindness, be for my comfort, according to thy
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  word unto thy servant. Let thy tender mercies come unto
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  me, that I may live, for thy law is my delight.
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  Charles Bridges makes a brilliant observation about
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  these verses. Notice what the psalmist
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  deliberately omiss from his prayer.
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  He does not ask for the affliction to be removed.
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  He submits entirely to the justice of the trial.
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  All he asks for is consolation under the trial.
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  He essentially says, Lord keep the rod on my back if that is
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  what I need to kill my sin, but please give me the comfort of
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  your presence while I bear it. That is a staggering level of
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  submission. It truly is.
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  William Cowper walks us through the progression of mercy seen in
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  these verses. He identifies 3 mercies, right?
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  Yes. The first is mercy to forgive
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  sins. The second is mercy to comfort
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  and trouble. The third is mercy, to amend our
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  lives and live well. Calper notes a tragic reality
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  about human nature, though. Many people desperately want the
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  first too, but they completely ignore the third.
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  That is a psychological reality we see all the time.
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  People want the pardon, they want to get out of hell.
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  Free card. And they want comfort when their
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  life falls. But they have absolutely no
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  desire to actually amend their lives.
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  They want God to save them in their sin, not from their sin.
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  They rebel against the idea of walking in actual holiness.
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  Precisely. But the true child of God,
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  operating under the influence of irresistible grace, begs for
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  that third mercy. They pray that I may live a holy
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  life. They delight in the law and.
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  Notice the directional language the psalmist uses in verse 77.
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  Let thy tender mercies come unto me.
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  I want to camp out on that word come.
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  Why does Mercy have to travel to him?
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  Thomas Manton reasons that our sins build up barricades and
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  partition walls. By our own rebellious actions we
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  raise thick mists and clouds that intercept the light of
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  God's countenance. We shut ourselves in a dark room
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  and lock the door from the inside.
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  Therefore, mercy has to aggressively come to us.
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  This is a beautiful picture of effectual calling.
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  We do not just meet God halfway. We do not unlock the door and
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  invite him in. Mercy, it has to breakdown the
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  obstacles we build. It acts as an effectual
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  application of grace. We are too weak, too broken, too
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  stubborn to journey toward the Mercy.
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  So the Mercy must travel all the way across the cosmos to our
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  shattered hearts, breach our defenses, and resurrect us.
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  But while the believer is delighting in God's law and
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  experiencing this internal spiritual resurrection, there's
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  an external reality that cannot be ignored.
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  The world does not sit idly by while the believer pursues
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  holiness. The reprobate, those who remain
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  and hardened against God, actively oppose this work.
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  This introduces verse 78. Let the proud be ashamed, for
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  they dealt perversely with me without a cause.
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  But I will meditate in my precepts.
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  The term proud here is a specific theological category
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  for those who persecute the Church.
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  Manton gives a comprehensive list of why wicked men are
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  characterized this way. First, they shake off the yoke
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  of their maker. They refuse to submit to any
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  authority higher than their own desires.
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  Second, they are grunk with worldly Felicity.
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  They are so comfortable in their financial prosperity and social
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  standing that they think they will never face a divine
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  reckoning. 3rd they love pomp and ease, despising the
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  simplicity of God's people. And 4th they hold an insolent
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  carriage toward the righteous. They demand respect and
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  obedience that conflicts with a believers conscience.
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  I have to ask a very direct question about how the psalmist
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  responds to them. Sure, he prays an imprecatory
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  prayer, but the proud be ashamed.
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  Right. For a listener raised on the New
• 19:31
  Testament command to love your enemies and pray for those who
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  persecute you, asking God to shame your enemies feels like a
• 19:39
  contradiction. It can definitely feel that way
• 19:41
  at first glance. Are Christians allowed to pray
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  like this? Is not this just petty personal
• 19:47
  vindictiveness? It is a vital question, and the
• 19:50
  Puritan sources handle this with great care.
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  It is critical to clarify that this is not personal revenge.
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  The psalmist is not angry because someone insulted his
• 19:59
  haircut or cut him off in traffic.
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  Exactly. It is a desire for the wicked
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  anti God machinations to fail. The psalmist wants their plots
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  against the truth to be disappointed so that the
• 20:09
  righteous are not trampled upon and God's name is not blasphemy.
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  William Gernell uses a fierce military analogy to describe the
• 20:17
  prayers of the Saints in this regard.
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  He calls them murdering pieces. In 17th century warfare, a
• 20:22
  murdering piece was a heavy artillery cannon used to break
• 20:25
  sieges. Gernell says the prayers of the
• 20:27
  Saints are heavy artillery that unravel the policies of the
• 20:31
  wicked. He points out that Esther's
• 20:33
  fasting in prayer brought about Haman's ruin.
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  Hezekiah's prayer fetched an Angel from heaven to slaughter
• 20:40
  Sennack ribs army. When a believer prays for God's
• 20:43
  justice against those who try to destroy the church, it is a
• 20:46
  terrifyingly effective weapon it.
• 20:48
  Is a plea for God to vindicate his own holiness yet?
• 20:52
  While the believer utilizes the heavy artillery of prayer, look
• 20:56
  at the psalmist's personal physical action in the
• 20:58
  second-half of the verse. But I will meditate in my
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  precepts. He.
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  Leaves the vengeance entirely in God's hands and turns his own
• 21:05
  mind to holy contemplation. He refuses to fight the proud,
• 21:09
  using their own carnal weapons of falsehood, slander and
• 21:12
  political maneuvering. Manton offers an analogy
• 21:15
  regarding meditation that is incredibly helpful here.
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  He says carrying a candle rapidly through a dark room
• 21:21
  gives you no full survey of the objects inside.
• 21:23
  You only see brief shadows and flashes of light.
• 21:26
  If you want to see what is actually in the room, you have
• 21:28
  to stand still and hold the light steady.
• 21:31
  A sudden passing glance at biblical truth gives no real
• 21:34
  benefit. Steady, prolonged contemplation
• 21:37
  is required to baffle the enemy. You cannot just Sprint through
• 21:40
  the apothecary shop, you have to stop over the jars and study the
• 21:44
  remedies. That steady meditation fortifies
• 21:47
  the soul against the attacks of the proud.
• 21:49
  However, withdrawing from the proud to meditate does not mean
• 21:53
  withdrawing into complete isolation.
• 21:56
  Right the psalmist immediately seeks the right kind of society
• 21:59
  In verse 79, let. Those that fear thee turn unto
• 22:01
  me, and those that have known thy testimonies.
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  Matthew Henry provide some vital historical context for this
• 22:07
  plea. He suggests that this Psalm
• 22:09
  might reflect the period after David's grievous sin with
• 22:12
  Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah.
• 22:15
  Because of his horrific public sin, intelligent, godly people
• 22:19
  grew strange to him. They pulled away.
• 22:21
  They enacted a form of church discipline by withholding their
• 22:24
  fellowship. So this verse is a desperate
• 22:26
  plea for restoration to the Communion of the Saints.
• 22:29
  David realizes he cannot survive as a solitary monk.
• 22:32
  He needs the Church. And notice the two specific
• 22:35
  characteristics he looks for in his companions.
• 22:37
  Those who fear God and those who know His testimonies.
• 22:41
  Fear and knowledge, these are the twin pillars of a mature
• 22:44
  believer and Manton formulates the relationship between them
• 22:48
  brilliantly. What happens if a person only
• 22:50
  has one of those pillars? That is a great hypothetical.
• 22:53
  What if they just have massive theological knowledge but No
• 22:56
  Fear? Manton explains that knowledge
• 22:59
  without fear breeds presumption. You become an intellectual
• 23:02
  actual iceberg. You can parse Greek verbs, you
• 23:06
  can debate the nuances of superlipsarianism, but you have
• 23:09
  no reverence or practical holiness.
• 23:12
  Your theology makes you arrogant rather than broken.
• 23:14
  On the other hand, fear without knowledge breeds superstition.
• 23:18
  You have blind zeal. You are terrified of God, so you
• 23:21
  invent arbitrary rules to appease Him.
• 23:23
  Manton compares it to a horse full of metal but blind.
• 23:26
  It runs fast but constantly stumbles into ditches because it
• 23:29
  cannot see the road. True, vibrant religion requires
• 23:32
  a happy mixture of both knowledge directing the fear and
• 23:36
  fear seasoning the knowledge. William Bridge offers some
• 23:39
  intensely practical advice based on this verse.
• 23:42
  He tells the believer, go to God and beseech him to choose your
• 23:45
  company for you. You cannot force people to be
• 23:48
  your friends. You cannot bend men's hearts to
• 23:51
  like you. But God, in His absolute
• 23:54
  sovereignty over Providence, governs all relational dynamics.
• 23:58
  He brings people into your life for either judgement or mercy.
• 24:01
  So we should pray that God would bow the hearts of godly,
• 24:05
  knowledgeable, God fearing people to turn toward us.
• 24:08
  That is a brilliant application of Providence.
• 24:10
  But seeking good company is entirely useless if the core of
• 24:14
  your own soul is rotting. You can be surrounded by the
• 24:16
  most faithful believers, sit under the best preaching and
• 24:19
  participate in all the sacraments, but if you are a
• 24:22
  hypocrite, their company will not save you this.
• 24:25
  Brings us to the final most crucial plea of the stanza,
• 24:28
  verse 80. Let my heart be sound in my
• 24:30
  statutes, that I be not ashamed. Everything he hinges on this
• 24:33
  concept of a sound heart. Manton defines the soundness
• 24:36
  using 4 strict criteria. First, an enlightened
• 24:39
  understanding free from the contagion of fatal error. 2nd An
• 24:43
  awakened conscience. I love how he describes the
• 24:46
  conscience. He calls it a domestic chaplain
• 24:49
  preaching in the night. A secret spy in your own bosom
• 24:52
  that warns you of duty and screams at you, and you toy with
• 24:54
  sin. Yes, and the tragedy of the
• 24:57
  false heart is that it fires the domestic chaplain.
• 25:00
  It sears the conscience so it can sin in peace.
• 25:02
  Minton's third criterion is a rightly disposed will
• 25:06
  steadfastly purposing to walk with God.
• 25:08
  It is not a will that just flirts with obedience when it is
• 25:11
  convenient. It is anchored.
• 25:13
  And 4th purged affections cleansed from carnality.
• 25:17
  You actually love what God loves and hate what God hates.
• 25:21
  If any of these four are missing, the heart is not truly
• 25:24
  sound. Thomas Hooker delivers a highly
• 25:26
  memorable analogy to illustrate the difference between a false
• 25:28
  heart and a sound heart. Hooker always has the best
• 25:31
  analogies. He says a false heart operates
• 25:33
  like a mere innkeeper. Think about A roadside motel.
• 25:37
  The innkeeper takes any man's money and welcomes any guest, no
• 25:40
  matter how wicked or disruptive they are.
• 25:42
  As long as the guest pays, the innkeeper lets them stay.
• 25:45
  A false heart treats Jesus like just another guest at the motel.
• 25:48
  He can have a room, but so can greed, lust and pride.
• 25:52
  But a sound heart is like a favorite subject receiving a
• 25:55
  sovereign Prince into his home. When the Prince arrives, the
• 25:59
  host does not just give him a spare bedroom, he resigns all
• 26:02
  control and command of the entire estate to the Prince
• 26:05
  alone. A true believer hands over the
• 26:07
  master keys to the property. And the consequence of lacking
• 26:10
  that soundness, of acting like the innkeeper, is severe.
• 26:14
  The commentators discussed two types of shame resulting from a
• 26:17
  false heart. First, shame before God.
• 26:20
  If your heart is not sound, you lose that holy familiarity at
• 26:24
  the throne of grace. You cannot approach God with
• 26:27
  confidence because your conscience, that domestic
• 26:30
  chaplain is accusing you of harboring rebels in the end. 2nd
• 26:34
  is shame before men, which is the inevitable exposure of
• 26:36
  hypocrisy. William Spursta warns that
• 26:39
  religion begun in hypocrisy will certainly end in apostasy.
• 26:42
  You can fake it for a while. You can learn the vocabulary,
• 26:44
  attend the services and mimic the behaviors.
• 26:47
  But eventually the pressure of affliction that wholesome
• 26:50
  Wormwood we talked about will squeeze you and.
• 26:52
  Whatever's actually inside you will come spilling out.
• 26:56
  The bubble of false profession will burst and the resulting
• 26:59
  shame will be catastrophic. Gathering the threads of this
• 27:02
  deep dive into the source material, it is striking how
• 27:06
  this microscopic Hebrew letter Jode encompasses the massive
• 27:10
  scope of the Christian life. It maps the entire sequence.
• 27:13
  Created perfectly by God, broken completely by sin, requiring A
• 27:18
  miraculous second creation of the mind.
• 27:20
  We are then afflicted by a faithful God for our own good,
• 27:24
  prescribed bitter medicine to cure our spiritual cancers.
• 27:28
  We are driven to the word for comfort rather than asking for
• 27:31
  an escape hatch. We seek the fellowship of Saints
• 27:33
  who balance fear and knowledge, and we plead above all else for
• 27:38
  the total sincerity of a sound heart.
• 27:40
  I want you to Mull over a final thought as we close, building on
• 27:43
  everything we have analyzed today.
• 27:44
  We love to have our theology neatly organized on paper.
• 27:47
  We love to build charts and graphs of God's sovereignty.
• 27:50
  But if God's faithfulness is proven most clearly in our
• 27:53
  painful afflictions. And if that bitter affliction is
• 27:55
  his chosen mechanism to make us learn his commandments.
• 27:59
  Then perhaps our clearest, truest vision of God's
• 28:02
  sovereignty occurs precisely when our own self-sufficiency
• 28:06
  has been utterly shattered by the rod of His Providence.
• 28:10
  We return to the ruined painting or the shattered watchmaker's
• 28:13
  clock. You cannot fix yourself.
• 28:15
  You must submit to the hands that first fashioned you,
• 28:18
  trusting that the master knows accurately how to put the pieces
• 28:21
  back together. Even if the process of
• 28:23
  rebuilding involves the severe heat of the forge.
• 28:25
  Especially them. Thank you for joining this deep
• 28:28
  dive into the source material on reformed thinking.
• 28:31
  Keep your eyes on the Word, submit to the hands of the
• 28:34
  faithful physician, and may your hearts be completely sound in
• 28:37
  His statutes.