Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "Faithful Unto Death: Don't Overlook These Jewels: The Psalms and Proverbs" by Roger Johnson

Transcript

"Faithful Unto Death: Don't Overlook These Jewels: The Psalms and Proverbs" by Roger Johnson · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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Made the mistake of leaving our handout for tonight in
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another room, and Mike Thomas has run
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over to retrieve tonight's handouts. He'll pass them out as soon as he
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gets back. So a couple of you guys, maybe Landon on this side
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and Hoosung on this side over here. Justin, maybe if you'll help
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get those passed out when, when Mike Thomas gets back with them momentarily.
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I don't have them, Landon. Mike Thomas is bringing them.
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So I'll get started. I don't think it'll
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set us back hardly at all. We've been talking this
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quarter about faithful unto death, being faithful
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throughout life. The title I've chosen for tonight's lesson is
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Don't Overlook These Jewels from
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the Psalms and Elsewhere in the Bible. And on your handout
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I've got 6 points. At the very start of that handout
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are the things that we covered last week. I intended a
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week or so ago to go over those a little bit as kind of a
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refresher because they kind of lead into what
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I consider part 2 of a 2-part lesson. But for the
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sake of time, I'm not going to go over those, but they're in enough detail
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that if you were not here last week, you will
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be able to read those carefully at a later time and it
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won't be any loss of continuity at all tonight.
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The Psalms have much to say about God's faithfulness.
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And really, when I started doing some research after I decided I wanted to go
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this route, I started doing a little research in the scriptures, especially in the Psalms.
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And I initially looked in Proverbs as well and
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a few other places. I found a number of texts
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that had something to say about the faithfulness
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of God. And what I was looking for instead
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was our faithfulness toward God. And I kind of
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looked at it in terms of,
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well, what does it say about us and our relationship
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with God? It's a two-way thing. God's faithful to us. He never lies. He's not
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going to go back on his word. There's no hitches in
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that relationship going that way, God to us. But sometimes
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there's a hitch in the measure or degree of
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our faithfulness to God. So what do the scriptures tell us that we can
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learn and maybe help us avoid those hitches.
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I came up with initially, I think it was 7
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or 8 passages I wanted to study.
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And after reading those a couple or 3 times, I decided there was
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no way in thunder in about a 40-minute class I
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could cover all of those. So I had to do a little cherry picking,
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I guess. So I am telling
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you first that the 4 or 5 passages that
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we're going to study tonight are by no means exhaustive
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in providing what the Scriptures, especially the Psalms,
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have to say about our faithfulness to God. I want
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you first, if you've got your Bibles with you, to turn to Psalms 1,
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the very first Psalm. It's a Psalm of an unknown
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author. And it's not very long, so I'm going
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to read it all to you. And by the way, I will have
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to respectfully say that if you have a question or comment tonight,
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you're going to have to be really loud. My hearing aids are on the blink
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and I don't have them in. And I've learned in the last couple
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of days or so that can sometimes be convenient, but it won't be tonight.
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So, if you have a comment, you're going to have to be really loud or
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I will not be able to hear you. Psalms 101. This is— I'm sorry,
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Psalms 1. This is the author laying
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out a contrast between 2 ways to walk.
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And he calls those the way of the righteous and the wicked. And I'm going
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to read this to you. And if you'll follow along now, so that we have
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time to cover everything, my inner Hiram is going to
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come out. So I'm going to read fast. So you're going to have to follow
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me closely. But please pay attention.
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Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands
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in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight
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is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and
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night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its
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fruit in its season, and its leaf does not
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wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked
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are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
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Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners
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in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
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but the way of the wicked will perish. I want
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to kind of break that down a little bit. Let's look back at that first
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verse, and the first thing I want you to notice about that
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text is that there is a progression.
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As a matter of fact, there are 2 progressions. Let's look at those.
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In verse 1, he says, blessed is the man who walks not And
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then he says, nor stands, or does not stand, nor sits.
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When I'm walking along with somebody, I feel like
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that's the way it's expressed here. I feel like that's a casual approach. I'm walking
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along somebody, I'm just keeping somebody company, not trying to accomplish anything.
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I'm just their company and they're
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my company. And then he says,
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nor stands, in the way of sinners.
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When I'm walking and I stop and stand, it's usually because
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something has caught my attention. So I pause
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to reflect on it. And then the third part of
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that progression, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
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I go from walking to
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standing, to sitting. I've gotten pretty comfortable.
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And I believe what this author of this good psalm is saying,
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don't let the progress that you're making any day
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get you close to where you really don't want to be. But there's
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another progression there in the same text.
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This man is walking not in the counsel of the wicked.
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It didn't say the person is doing something wicked. It says he
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is wicked. If I'm walking along with somebody,
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I might not even know that they are wicked. If I stand
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and get more comfortable with them, pause or sit,
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then I should learn. I might learn they're more— they
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are wicked, and they might even get
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me involved in wicked things.
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Wicked itself is like a posture or a disposition.
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He says, standing in the way of sinners. That's the
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wicked person doing something that's in conflict with the Word of God.
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And then he goes on to bring the scoffers in there. To scoff is,
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of course, is to speak to someone about something in
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a mocking way or a derisive way.
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And in the context, I think he's talking about ridiculing the people who
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are trying to be a friend of God, be in God's
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house. Don't let ourselves be caught up in
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that progression with those people. Verse 2,
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his delight, in contrast, instead of walking or
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standing or sitting, his contrast is that his delight,
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this person's delight, is in the law of the Lord. That is, he regularly
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engages in the study of scriptures. To the point that
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he delights in doing that. On his law he meditates day
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and night. That's not saying that 24/7 he's thinking
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about the Scriptures or reading the Scriptures, but he's
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doing it on a frequent basis. He's keeping his mind right
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by spending his time in the things that
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are important. And then he follows that with a— what I think is
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a pretty interesting metaphor. And I'm sure I've read Psalms 1 more
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than a few times. I don't think I've read it as carefully as
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I have in the last few weeks or so. He's like
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a tree planted by streams of water. What's the benefit of a tree
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being planted by the streams of water? What's the benefit?
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It's never going to— it's never going to be dry. It's never going to be
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in need of water. Yeah. That yields its fruit in season.
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The fruit of a tree, of course, if it's a fruit tree, we understand
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that. But the fruit of any tree, what would it be? It provides the shade,
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or it does what trees that are well watered does— it grows,
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and its leaf does not wither. Well, okay, if he's—
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if that's a metaphor and this person is like a
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tree planted by the streams of water, so we
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are that tree. What is the stream of water
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that keeps us alive like the streams of real water would
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keep the tree alive? What is that Water.
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I heard it. The Word of God. The Word of God. The Bible. Yes.
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It yields its fruit. What's the fruit? Now, we know what the fruit
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of the tree is. What's the fruit that this person is going to bear?
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What is it? Disciples. Discipleship.
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Now, I'm not saying that every opportunity you
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have to make contact with a person is going to lead to that person becoming
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a— at least a committed disciple of Jesus.
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But I believe that I can favorably or accurately
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say that you can favorably influence anybody
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toward Christ. Its wither does not— its leaf does not wither.
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In all that he does, it prospers. How do we prosper?
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How do we prosper? I can think of 2 ways. 2 ways.
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How do we prosper? So you got to be loud.
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Spiritually and specifically spiritually. He prospers.
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How do we prosper eventually? I'll throw that out there.
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We're going to wind up spending time with God in eternity. But another
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prospering is we prosper because we
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are involved in influencing people and perhaps making disciples of
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others. And then verse 5— verse
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4 and 5, the We know if you've ever
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harvested wheat, and I can't say that I've done that, I've been around wheat harvesters,
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but we know that that waste product just
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kind of blows away in the wind. And that's what the writer here is
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saying happens to that chaff. It's worthless refuse,
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and the wicked are just like that. They're not going to be around in harvest
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time. They're of no use when the harvest time comes.
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They're just discarded. And he tells how they're discarded.
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The wicked will not stand in judgment, nor sinners in the congregation
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of the righteous. There's not going to be any place for the wicked people or
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sinners. And to me, that's a little redundant, but maybe not so.
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But they won't be able to gather with those who delight in the law of
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the Lord, verse 2. And then he closes, the Lord
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knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
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2 ways, only one of which leads us to God according to
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Psalms 1. That reminds me of something else
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in the Sermon on the Mount. What's that on the Sermon on the Mount?
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What does Jesus talk about?
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Does he talk about 2 ways or maybe
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2 paths? Yeah,
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yeah. There is a wide gate, there's a narrow
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gate. A path leads to each one and we choose which gate
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we want to go through, and that puts us on the path that we're going
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on. Maybe sometimes people choose a path that leads to a gate.
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The focus on Psalms 1 to me is
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pretty clear. We must learn God's
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Word. We must meditate on it. It's got to be a habit.
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It's got to be our goal to remain faithful, always choosing
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to push back, get away from anything that's in conflict
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with God's Word. Some time ago, George Strait had a song about
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if you wanted to remember something, what did you do? You put— made a note,
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and where'd you put it? You put it on the refrigerator door
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so you could see it all the time. Now, and I think the
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point George was trying to make is you don't want to forget what's on that
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note. We don't want to forget what the psalmist is saying about
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the 2 ways to go, the way of the righteous and the way of the
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wicked. We must remember that.
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Well, another thing that
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the Bible says about faithful living is
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that we should exercise integrity in our daily living. I want
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us to turn now to Psalms 15. Flip over 6
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or 8 pages, I guess, to Psalms 15. And before I read
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that quickly, I will say that I believe I mentioned this last
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week: integrity is more than the foundation on
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which faith is built. It's a daily practice. It's a lifestyle
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choice. For folks who choose to be faithful.
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Psalms 15, just verses 1 through 3.
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This is from the New King James Version. O Lord, who may abide
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in your tabernacle? Who may dwell in your holy hill?
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He who walks uprightly and works righteousness and speaks the
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truth in his heart. He who does not backbite with his tongue,
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nor does evil to his neighbor, nor does he take up a reproach
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against his friend. That's a psalm of David.
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David is taking a position. And now we all understand,
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I believe, that— I guess I'll call
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it relative righteousness is understood. Nobody has
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perfect absolute righteousness. We all sin.
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We all come short. Jesus said, Matthew 6:33,
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I believe it is, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
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and all these other things will be added to you.
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For Jesus to say to seek it, that means there's some measure of it that
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I don't have yet. I need to work on that. No matter what
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progress of faith I am, there's a step above that I need to be
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working on right there. In all of our conduct,
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nobody is perfect, but we work on it. 1 Peter 1:15,
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the great gospel writer, great writer there tells us that
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In all of our conduct, we must be holy.
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And I don't think there's a conflict there between
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what Jesus said, seek righteousness, and what Peter says, be holy
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in expectation of holy. I think they're really saying the whole thing, the same thing.
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We've got to work on it. We become holy
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by seeking righteousness, and faith is an avenue by
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which we seek righteousness. We lead obedient lives
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that are characterized by moral courage and
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uncompromised integrity, 2 things that we talked about last week.
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Here I think the focus in these 3 verses of Psalms 15
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is we have to understand
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that spiritual agility— spiritual integrity involves agility.
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We've got to think clearly. We've got to make the correct decisions.
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Based on the scriptural guidance in the time when we're confronted
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with a decision that needs to be made. We have to have our conduct day
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by day, step by step to be beyond reproach, and we have
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to make sure that our character is not less
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than it should be because we will and we do and we are influences
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on other people. These are key ingredients
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in faithful living: our conduct, our influence, our agility,
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to think spiritual, pure thoughts.
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It's the definition of a person who's good and faithful and
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worthy to draw near to God now and to dwell in his
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presence in eternity. David saw the need for that,
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and we do too. Flip over more than a few pages
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now to Psalms 101, and here
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we're still talking about a psalm of which David
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is the author. David makes
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a promise to God, or promises to faithfulness,
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and he stands firm in his commitment to both being
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spiritually pure, of great integrity. He also
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mentions God-approved leadership of others. David was in a position
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of great leadership. Not all of us can say that. David was a king.
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Of course, we don't have kings anymore, but we all are
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in positions of influence, if not leadership. And then David closes
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with a statement that says, I have zero
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tolerance on those who are ungodly.
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Psalms 101: I will sing of mercy and justice to
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you, O Lord. I will sing praises. I will behave wisely in
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a perfect way. Oh, when will you come to me? I will walk within
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my house with a perfect heart. I will set nothing wicked before
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my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away. It shall
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not cling to me, a perverse heart. Shall depart from me. I will
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not know wickedness. There are a few more verses in that psalm,
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but I want to focus on just those 4,
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I believe. That first phrase there,
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first verse, I will sing of mercy and justice, O Lord. I will sing praises.
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David starts by lifting up compliments
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to God, praise to God. I'm reminded of that song,
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Worthy Art Thou. Don't ask me to sing it. Don't ask me to lead it.
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But there's a great song, it's in our songbook, Worthy Art Thou. I grew up
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in a small church and that song, we only had a couple of song leaders
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and they only had 5 or 6 songs apiece and that came up pretty often.
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And I sung it a lot. It's a great song. And maybe some of our
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gifted song leaders will cue that up sometime. I'm also
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reminded of what John said,
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Revelation 5:12, worthy is the Lamb who was
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slain. David recognized that long
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before John, through inspiration, penned those words.
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In verse 2, when will you come to me?
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A deep desire David has to be in God's presence.
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I hope that it's in my thought
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process to always think as David is thinking here. God, I want
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to be in your presence. When am I going to be into your presence?
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And that takes me over to what centuries
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later James said. How do we get God to draw near
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to us? What'd James say? Draw near
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to God and he'll draw near to you. Yeah, yeah,
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James 4:8. David also says,
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I will set nothing wicked before my eyes. An essential ingredient
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in remaining faithful is an absolute refusal
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to pushing back of anything that
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makes it acceptable or normal to
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compromise spiritual integrity. If God finds it disfavorable,
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that's got to be in my DNA. I've got to get it there.
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David says, I hate the work of those who fall away. It shall not cling
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to me. And then a perverse heart shall depart
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from me. I will not know wickedness. Somebody that's got a perverse heart, David doesn't
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want him in the room. With him. I won't know anybody like that.
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Back in the '90s, I guess early '90s, Vince Gill and Reba McEntire
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had a song, The Heart Won't Lie.
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I remember that song well. It was a great song and a great
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video. The point that they were making was a romantic
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point. My heart won't lie. I love you and you love me and the hearts
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aren't lying. David is saying something different
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that. He, he's saying that a perverse heart doesn't lie. What's a perverse heart?
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Well, uh, that, that's one that, uh, thinks about
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things that are inconsistent, uh, with what, um, uh,
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God is, uh, expecting of us. They're stubborn. They're deliberately
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conducting themselves in a manner that God does not
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approve. In context,
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in David's time Kings were not subject to
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any law. We know that. We know that from David. He transgressed God's
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law on an occasion or two.
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But there are many other— if you read the stories of the kings of Israel
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and Judah, transgressing God's laws and doing things
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their own way was a very, very common
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practice with a few notable exceptions.
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David is saying, I am not going to rule my kingdom in
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this manner. What I think this passage says to
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us, your kingdom is the realm in which you
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roam. It's your neighborhood, as Mr. Rogers would say.
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Take the same posture that David had. Don't let
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your neighborhood be what David is saying he
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doesn't want his kingdom to be. A Christian cannot remain
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faithful throughout life without controlling
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his or her own hearts and Their thoughts, their actions.
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David wouldn't rule his kingdom this way. And I
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read sometimes— most days I read 4 newspapers a day,
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and I don't just read the sports pages.
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Sometimes I read stuff and think, how can people do that?
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What is wrong with people? How close are we today to
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being like the people in the time of the judges?
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They just did what they wanted to. And we can't do that.
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We've got to have, if we want to stay on a path
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of faithfulness to God, we've got to have as our core
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knowledge, our understanding, not just a rudimentary
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understanding of the Scriptures, but as deep as we can get into them.
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We've got to know what God expects of us.
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Psalms 119. Let's jump over there,
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please. That's just a few pages over.
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This is— 119 is the longest psalm. Is that right?
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Yeah, 119. It's also one of the anonymous
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psalms. And I want to
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look at verses 9 through 16.
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It's like the author here is saying that we ought
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to have some kind of spiritual tether, I guess it's called,
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you know, something tied to us that doesn't let us get too far
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away. And I'm not talking about something that's got elasticity
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in it, you know, it can go out so far and somebody like God maybe
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has got to pull us back. I mean, there's only so far away from
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paths of righteousness that we can possibly stray because
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we have our own self-restraints on there.
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I'm told that Psalms 119 has 8
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separate words that are used to refer to God's law.
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And I know from these— what is that, 7, 8 verses—
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that Psalms 119:9-16 has 6 separate
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words that refer to God's law, and they're used a total of
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9 times. Those words— and I won't—
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the ones that aren't used, I believe, are law and promise.
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The other ones that are used are commandments, judgments, precepts,
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statutes, testimonies, and word. So let's
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read those verses first. And it starts out with, how can a young man cleanse
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his way? And I think in the context of what the author is saying,
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yes, he's talking about how can a young man cleanse his way, but I think
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he's talking about young men in the faith, young men of a few years.
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But the same principle certainly could apply to a man
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or a woman of any age. How can a young man cleanse his way?
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By taking heed according to your word and With
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my whole heart I have sought you. Oh, let me not wander from your commandments.
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Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you.
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Blessed are you, O Lord. Teach me your statutes.
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With my lips I have declared all the judgments of your mouth. I have rejoiced
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in the way of your testimonies as much as in all riches.
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I will meditate on your precepts and contemplate your ways.
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I will delight myself in your statutes. I will not forget
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your word. Going back up to the start of that,
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seek with the whole heart. Seek with
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the whole heart. With my whole heart I have sought you.
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Why do we do that? Why do we seek God with our whole heart?
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What does the author here say we're doing that? The answer is, I believe,
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in verse 11. What does verse 11 say?
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That I may not sin against you.
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Yeah, yeah. Now,
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The way David sought God in his whole heart,
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I think, is try to get familiar with what David had said, the old law.
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He tried to understand that better. We certainly have that
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same law, but we also have the New Testament, which gives us the new covenant
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under which we are bound now. So,
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I would say that if we want to cleanse
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our way, we take heed to what the whole Bible says and
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we seek God By studying the scriptures, understanding the
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scriptures, for the very same reason that David
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did, that we might not sin against God.
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I've hidden it in my heart. I— that's a phrase that I
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won't say troubles me, but it's a little bit of a mystery with me.
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I've hidden it in my heart. And the only thing I can think about that—
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he's talking about hiding it in my heart. I know it so well that
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I don't have to dig deeply into my heart to bring it out.
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I understand it. Ongoing help from God is
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necessary, but I think every thought and every
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action has to be done simply
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because we know it. It's deep in our heart. That's where it's planted.
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That's where it's stored. We know it very,
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very well. I spent some time last week talking
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about the wisdom of which James wrote.
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And how I believe that James is saying something
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more, that when we're in a crossroads and we don't know what to do spiritually,
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a decision has to be made. God's not going
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to, through some kind of magic powers, a dream,
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or some other means, he's not going to tell us the answer, go this way,
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go that way. I think it's the process of wisdom is
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important. We must learn to become wise. We study the Bible
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so that when we hit those bumps in the road, we know the direction that
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we should go in.
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With my lips I've declared all your judgments.
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Self-condition ourselves so that we're talking about God's judgment.
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Yes, the Bible talking about it and teaching us. It must
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be done openly and it must be done freely. We don't hesitate. We have an
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opportunity to speak about God's Word. I'm the one that's most guilty of
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that. Spent some time in years gone
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by when I probably had great opportunities to speak more
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forcefully, more directly about God's Word, and I didn't. Of that I'm ashamed
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now, and I'm not going to let that happen anymore.
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Verse 14, I reject— I rejoiced in the way of your testimonies
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as much as in all riches. That reminded me when I read
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that the second or third time, I guess, praying this, it reminded me of
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a verse in the Sermon on the Mount. As much as in all riches.
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What did Jesus say? Do not lay up for yourselves treasures
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on heaven— lay up for yourselves treasures— don't lay
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them up on earth, lay them up in heaven. For where your treasures are,
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your heart will be also, of course.
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I will meditate on your precepts and contemplate your
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ways. Meditate contemplate are the key verbs
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there. Continuous devotion to knowing God's Word. It's an
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anchor to which we can cling. It's going to keep us grounded. We're not
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going to drift. A boat without an anchor is going to drift.
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If we understand and meditate upon God's Word and
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contemplate his ways, that's going to be an anchor that's going to keep us
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where we need to be.
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How do we remain faithful throughout life? I guess I'm
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singing the same song again. We follow God's Word continuously.
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We rejoice in doing it. We have meditation. We have delight.
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It gives us a clean path. That's what verse 9 says. We have
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it as a storehouse where God's Word is kept.
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It's cataloged in our hearts. We have
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a view of God's Word being valuable than any riches.
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We're in a position where we are delightful to
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study it. We have a high degree of satisfaction and joy and peace
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of mind. Becoming faithful requires—
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I won't say it's an altogether intense familiarity
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with God's Word, but it has to be a process of all
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of our adult lives gaining familiarity. We're never too old
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to learn. I'm 78 years old, almost 79,
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and when I prepared this
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lesson, I learned some things and saw some things more clearly than
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I'd seen before. Let's all study to show
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ourselves approved. We're going to have our weak moments,
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but we endure because we will have a reservoir
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of knowledge that's built up over a period of time, and that
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reservoir of knowledge helps us in the exercise
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of faith that keeps us on the right path that
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we need to be on. Okay,
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let's quickly look— stay in Psalms 119 and flip
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over maybe the next page, Psalm 46 through 48, 3 verses there.
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Tells us how we can strengthen our guard against unfaithfulness.
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Again, this writer is anonymous. He says, I will speak of your testimonies
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also before kings and will not be ashamed. That sounds like David,
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but This psalm is considered
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to be one that we don't know the author of. Verse 47,
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I will delight myself in your commandments which I love. My hands
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also I will lift up to your commandments which I love, and I will meditate
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on your statutes. Living faithfully means we continually do that with great
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devotion. We don't
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stand before kings like David perhaps did
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or did, But being bold
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should not strike us as hard. It didn't strike David as
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hard, and this author says it shouldn't strike us
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as hard either. Never be afraid to discuss God's Word with somebody.
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Speak of God's testimonies every chance we get.
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For those of you who are younger— and I see
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a few of you, most of you are gray hair
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or no hair like me. But whether
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we've got one day left or many days left,
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let's don't let it be said of us,
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I could have done better. Let's start the process
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of doing better now. And I want
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to conclude really these 2 lessons with a kind of
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a compound conclusion, I guess. One of which was
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in the lesson as it was first prepared, and it was on your
32:32
handout. So I'll cover it briefly. The other parts
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of it are new in the last 48 hours from my
32:40
study. In order to remain faithful
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in whatever time God gives us, whether it's many days or
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only a few, we've got to have a profound respect for God's Word.
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We've got to know it. We've got to demonstrate it. We've got to teach it.
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Not just teach it to others orally in a sit-down study
33:00
session, but we got to teach it in how we live, in what we say,
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what we do, and the folks with whom we
33:08
associate. If we haven't done that well in days gone by, it's not too late
33:11
to start doing that. We engage in prayer. We read the
33:15
Scriptures. We dwell on those Scriptures. We dig into them, try to figure out exactly
33:19
what the lesson for us is. And I want
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you, like me, to always,
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always be thankful for how well
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we're spiritually fed at Cumberland Trace.
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I'm not complimenting the elders, especially this elder,
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but folks, I cannot remember a
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Sunday morning lesson or a Sunday evening lesson that wasn't
33:49
moving, that didn't make me want to study the Scriptures
33:52
more. And some of those are worth
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revisiting from time to time. We are spiritually
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fed very, very well here. But let
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it not be said that the only spiritual food that
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goes in my body is what comes from that pulpit up there. It needs to
34:13
come from my own hand, my own mind, Feeding my spiritual body.
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I closed last week with
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a quote from Brother Brent Pollard, and I don't
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have that handy with me. Well, I do actually, but I'm not
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going to revisit it. It was in a publication that he
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gets at his blog. This week I want to close with another Pollard,
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Neil. Most of you, at least many of you, get the Daily Bread, and the
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September 28th Daily Bread, that's just a what, 3 weeks ago or less.
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Neil wrote this: Clearly,
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it matters what I do. I need to guard my actions so
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I will be bidden to enter into heaven. I also need to be
35:00
careful about the impact my actions will have on others,
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especially those in the family of God. I couldn't
35:07
agree more with that. But friends,
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in order to guard our actions and in order to be careful
35:16
about the impact of our actions, I have to know what
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God approves and what God does not approve.
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The only way I do that is to feed myself and be fed by
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others, of course, from the Scriptures.
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I want to add this— I guess I'll call it an epilogue— from about
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48 hours ago, closing my 2 weeks in this
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12, I think, week study on Faithful Unto Death.
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One step at a time.
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One day walking in a path of faithfulness at a time. That's all
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we've got. That's all any of them got. I can do the best I can
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today, and if tomorrow comes, I'll repeat it. Whether I've got
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a long walk left or a very short walk. Not many steps left in my
36:03
walk. I need to do that.
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In preparing this lesson, I was reminded—
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it's not the first time I've been reminded— of a gentleman that I
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think only 2 people in this room now will know when
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I say his name. Bob, David Ferguson was married to your
36:23
aunt, I believe, wasn't he? Brother David Ferguson. Joyce remembers David Ferguson
36:27
as well. When I was growing up,
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David was an elder at the Franklin Church of Christ.
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I heard him pray scores of times. He had
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that rich, deep voice, didn't he?
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And I don't believe I ever heard him
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lead a prayer where he failed to say,
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Because we know it's not within man to direct his own footsteps.
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I heard that over and over, and it was— it's on
37:10
my hard drive now. I didn't know then, but I know now
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that he was referring to Jeremiah 10:23,
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where the great prophet says, O Lord, I know
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the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man who walks,
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direct his own steps. If we're trying to live on
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a path of faithfulness, we've got to understand that we do not
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in and of ourselves have the inherent wisdom to do that
37:40
successfully. We have to depend upon God to
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guide our steps in a faithful walk. At the time Jeremiah
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wrote that, through inspiration of course, Judah was
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relying on political and alliances instead of relying on God.
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They paid a price, namely Babylonian exile.
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They failed to realize at that time that they needed God's help.
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Let's don't fail to realize that we need God's help,
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but we've got to help ourselves.
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Similar to that verse, in my study
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at least, is Proverbs 14:2.
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Solomon pens this: He who walks in his uprightness
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fears the Lord, but he who is perverse in his
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ways despises him. Perverse in
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his ways refers to deliberately turning away from God
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and God's standard of what's right and wrong.
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And walks in his uprightness means living
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a life that's marked by moral integrity,
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honesty, and a straight path that always lines up with the standards
38:53
of God. He who walks in his uprightness fears the
38:57
Lord— respects the Lord, fears the Lord— but he who is perverse
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in his ways despises him.
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And then finally, I want to go back to Psalms again. You don't need to
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turn there. It's just a couple of short verses where the The
39:13
author says, the steps of a good man
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are ordered by God, or by the Lord,
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and he, that is God,
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delights in his ways. Though he fall, though the man fall,
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he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord
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upholds him with his hand.
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The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delights in
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his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down,
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for the Lord upholds him with his hand.
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Living a faithful life is something that we all are going
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to find challenging, but it's not an impossible
39:59
task. We study, we learn, we teach,
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we live good examples, and all of us,
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all of us can do some portion of that.
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Some of us can do some of it and even most of it very,
40:14
very well. Be the kind of person God
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wants you to be, and you do that by understanding
40:22
the Scriptures, knowing the Scriptures, planting them in your heart,
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and then let each step on your path to
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a faithful life be marked by what God expects of
40:34
you, and let that be your guide.
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I appreciate the opportunity to teach these 2 classes.
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It's— the hard part for me has
40:45
been trying to condense the thoughts on
40:49
the first day or 2 or 3 days that I prepared for this,
40:53
trying to condense this down into 40 or 45 minutes.
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I wish we could go over all that I read and studied
41:00
in order to do this, but we just don't have time in this. So I'm
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going to wish you well and charge you nothing
41:08
different than what the Scriptures themselves charge you to do.
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Study. Be prepared in season and out of
41:16
season. And lastly, I will
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say, mind how you go.
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Eyes are upon you. Thank you for your attention.