SUNDAY SERMON - The Blessings of Obedience (Part 3) ｜ Psalm 19
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Length
1 hour and 20 minutes
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182.61183
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Misogyny
1
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29
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22
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Summary
In this episode, we continue our sermon series on the book of Psalm 19, where we see God revealing his glory as judgment to the wicked, joy to the righteous, and a sermon of praise to the saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.
Transcript
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Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.
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We're continuing in the Psalter, our sermon series through the Psalms.
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We've preached at this point through Psalm chapter 1,
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Psalm chapter 2, Psalm chapter 8, Psalm chapter 16.
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and now we've spent the last couple weeks in psalm chapter 19 this is our our third week in
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psalm chapter 19 we spent one week one lord's day on psalm chapter 19 verses 1 through 6 where we
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saw god revealing his glory as judgment to the wicked for those who are not in christ and as
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joy to the righteous for those who've been saved by grace through faith in christ and god revealing
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this glory perceived as judgment by the wicked and joy by the righteous and the avenue the agency
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the means by which god reveals his glory in psalm 19 verses 1 through 6 is natural revelation general
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revelation by what he has made and more particularly what david emphasizes in god's earthly creation
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his physical creation that reveals his glory is the sky david is speaking of the heavens but he
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is speaking of the physical heavens not spiritual but physical heavens he's speaking of the sky and
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all that is above all that can be seen in the sky above the sun the moon the stars the clouds
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the rain the lightning the thunder all of these things david says in psalm 19 1 through 6 that
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god speaks he is constantly speaking and he's not just he's not just speaking but he's constantly
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speaking and not just to one group of people in one place but God is speaking to all men both
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believer and unbeliever alike in natural revelation he's speaking to all people in all places at all
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times God is speaking God is preaching we could even say through what he has made by natural or
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general revelation namely more specifically the sky but the problem is as we see in Romans chapter
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one, natural revelation is not sufficient. It is preaching. It is God speaking as it were. It's
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God's communication, not just to his people, but all people, but it is not sufficient for salvation.
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Natural revelation, the revelation of God's glory through what he has made is only sufficient to
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condemn, not to redeem, not to save. Romans chapter one says this, Paul says that what can be known
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about God is clearly seen, it's clearly perceived, not just displayed by God, not just shown or
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revealed, but it's interpreted, it's received, it's perceived by man, not just Christian men,
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but believers and unbelievers alike. But Paul highlights two specific characteristics or
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qualities of God. So it's not exhaustive. He doesn't say all that can be known about God is
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seen in natural revelation but he highlights god's eternal power and divine nature what what
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natural revelation what god has made what it communicates about god this is god truly speaking
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and not just to his people but all people in all times in all places but but the question is what
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is god saying about himself and and the reality is god is saying something but it's limited
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But what is not being said through natural revelation by the skies and the sun and the moon and the stars
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is that I have a son named Jesus Christ who came and lived a perfect life
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So we have natural revelation that can be seen,
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Namely, his existence, his power, his worth, his divinity.
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And all this is sufficient really to only do one thing, to strip all men of any excuse.
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You, O man, therefore, are without excuse, is what Romans 1 says.
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So God speaks through natural revelation in a way that we can see.
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and that particular sermon if you will the sermon that god speaks by sight by what he has made in
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natural revelation is a sermon of condemnation it's a sermon of judgment and it and it strips
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all people of any excuse so that no one can stand before god on that final day and claim to be
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innocent by virtue of ignorance because no one is ignorant every man knows that there is a god in
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heaven and that he is worthy of our worship and we have all failed to do so so so that's natural
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revelation that's psalm 19 verses 1 through 6 and we use a lot of romans 1 in order to
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exegete that that scripture right we want charles spurgeon no martin luther i believe he said that
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the best interpreting tool of scripture is you guys probably know it scripture that's right best
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way to interpret scripture is scripture so psalm 19 1 through 6 natural revelation the whole the
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whole portion is about how God speaks about himself by what he has made well the best way
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to understand that is to go to another place that talks about God speaking by what he has made in
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more depth namely Romans 1 so that's what we did now what we're doing and finishing Psalm 19 three
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weeks right first week first six verses God speaking through natural revelation revealing
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his glory as joy to the righteous judgment to the wicked through natural revelation what we can see
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what god has made now what we're doing in psalm 19 7 through 14 the remainder of the chapters
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we're seeing god again speaking but this time not um in a way that we see in natural revelation what
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he has made but in a way that we hear through special revelation what he has said i'll say
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that again so so natural revelation it's god speaking about himself by what he has made and
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what we can see. In special revelation, it's God, again, speaking about himself, not by what he has
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made, but by what he has said and what we hear. So Romans 10 is a great, a great scripture to use
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to exegete the second half of Psalm 19. So the first half of Psalm 19 really corresponds, we
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could cross-reference to Romans 1, what Paul says about natural revelation. The second half of Psalm
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19 verses 7 through 14 really cross-referenced as well not with Romans 1 but with Romans 10
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namely verse 14 and the corresponding verses after that that says what does it say it says
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that how will they believe unless they hear not see but hear because faith cometh by hearing and
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hearing by the word of God we do not walk by sight but rather we walk by faith and faith
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faith in special revelation in in the gospel is is what god has communicated uh by his word
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not by his deeds not by what he has made so god communicates his eternal power and his divine
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his eternal power and his divinity his divine nature by what he has made that we perceive by
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sight but god communicates the gospel of his son jesus christ by what he says and what we perceive
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by hearing and faith in the gospel saving faith comes by hearing because because what we need to
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receive is special revelation the gospel doesn't belong to natural revelation it belongs to special
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revelation and the means the medium of special revelation if you will is is not God's doing
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in a way I mean obviously there is the work of Jesus Christ his life death and resurrection
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but it's not what God has made and can be seen it's what God has said and can be heard and so
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that's Psalm 19 verses 7 through 14 what we did last week we took this even the second half of
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Psalm 19 God communicating who he is through special revelation and we're breaking this up
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into two sections now what what David emphasizes with natural revelation the first six verses of
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psalm 19 is the sky now there's other other pieces of natural revelation right you can look to the
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earth or the sea you can look to the birds of the air well that would kind of be sky i guess but you
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can look to the fish of the sea and and one of the chief pieces of natural revelation of what god has
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made that you can look to to see that there is a god in heaven who is worthy to be praised is the
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pinnacle of his physical earthly creation, namely mankind. The only piece, the only creature in
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earthly creation that was made in the very image of God. And yet David doesn't speak about seeing
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God or hearing God or God communicating something about himself through people. So we have natural
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revelation, but the case study, if you will, the primary example that David cites as a piece,
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a portion of natural revelation is the sky now in the same way take that same principle concept
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with psalm 19 7 through 14 he's shifting gears from natural revelation to special revelation
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and in the same way with natural revelation david focuses on one element namely the sky
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now with special revelation david focuses on one element namely the law does that make sense
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that doesn't mean that the law is the exhaustive special revelation of god it means that the law
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is a portion now what's another what's another example in the same way we could say the sky is
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an example of natural revelation but so is the sea so is the ground so are the beasts of the field so
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are mankind human beings made in the image of god we could cite a number of examples of natural
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revelation a way that god speaks to all people something about himself by what he has made and
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what we can perceive by sight what we see in the same way what's another example we should beg the
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question what's another example besides the example that david lands on namely the law of
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special revelation right there's multiple examples that the sky the sea mankind well here we have the
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law that's david's chosen example but we would also say something else another example of special
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revelation that we hear is the gospel the gospel now that's not however what david selects and so
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So although I believe in gospel-centered preaching, before I believe in gospel-centered preaching, I know this sounds bad, but trust me, I believe it's right.
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Before I prioritize gospel-centered preaching, I prioritize Bible-preaching preaching.
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And there's a way of centralizing the gospel in preaching at the expense of the text.
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And that's what we see in a lot of gospel-centered churches today,
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is the particular text is merely used as a springboard
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to get to their same gospel proclamation that you hear every single week.
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And what happens in gospel-centered preaching when it's done incorrectly,
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when it's truncated, because I believe in gospel-centered preaching,
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but what happens in truncated, careless gospel-centered preaching
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is all the sermons actually sound the same, right?
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Because the sermon is not contingent upon the text.
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So each week, the only thing that's changing is the text, right?
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a very monotonous gospel message week in, week out.
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And so what we want to do in faithful preaching is we want to always, because Christ says, all the scripture points to him.
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So that's why we believe in gospel-centered preaching, because there is no sense in which a portion of the scripture, a book of the Bible, doesn't ultimately esteem and center on the person and work of Jesus.
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So all scripture points to Jesus, and Jesus is his work, his person is the gospel.
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The gospel is the proclamation, the good news about Jesus.
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So because all Scripture points to Jesus and the gospel is the good news of Jesus, then we could say that the gospel can and therefore should be preached from every text in Scripture.
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However, the gospel shouldn't be preached the same way from every text in Scripture.
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We're always trying to get to the gospel in preaching.
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But it's kind of like the old adage, you know, all roads lead to Rome.
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Well, in every text, what we have ultimately is a different avenue, a different path, a different road to the gospel, to Christ.
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I was reading this week, I was in the Bible reading with the Robert McShane plan that a lot of you guys are doing.
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And one of the texts was talking about, it was really interesting because I'm doing an in-depth study right now just personally for my own benefit.
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And, well, and it'll usually come out, so I'm sure it'll be for other people's benefit too.
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But I'm doing a study on degrees of murder from the Bible, right?
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Because we have first-degree murder, second-degree murder, third-degree murder, manslaughter.
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And we have two degrees of manslaughter, depending on what state you're in, involuntary and voluntary manslaughter.
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And so I'm doing an in-depth study on what the Bible says about murder.
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And what I can find so far is there's no such thing as first and second degree.
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The Bible says there are those who lie in wait, right?
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Numbers talks about, I think it's, I believe it's chapter 35.
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Meaning they didn't lie in wait, but they became enraged in a moment, right?
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And what I mean by that is the penalty is the same.
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Murder, the cost of murder, the price of murder
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what we would refer to as second degree murder,
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Meaning, if you grabbed, it actually says verbatim,
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an iron object, if you struck someone with an iron object,
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you just meant to harm them in a moment of rage,
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a crime of passion, but the person was in fact killed
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It's treated the same way as first degree murder,
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So whether you lie in wait with a lethal weapon, with the intent, the premeditated intent of murdering someone, or whether you get enraged in a moment, a crime of passion, and strike someone over the head with an iron object trying to harm them, but not actually even meaning to kill them, but they do in fact die, your penalty is the same.
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So in biblical terms, it's not first degree, second degree, third degree.
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It says iron object, if you kill them, you didn't mean to.
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But there was enmity, you meant to at least harm them.
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But you selected an iron object, and they die, you're a murderer.
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If it's a wooden or stone object, it's very specific, God's law.
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But if it's a wooden or stone object, then it has to be brought to the judges.
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And the judges have to determine if that substance, because it's not as deadly, it's not as strong and hard and heavy as iron, stone and wood have to be brought.
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The object that was used and the person ended up dying, but you didn't intend to kill them.
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But in rage, in enmity, you ended up causing their death.
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That object that you used, if it's wood or stone, something other than iron, it has to be brought to the judges.
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and the judges will deliberate among each other
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So for instance, if you killed someone with a wooden spoon
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because you were angry, you meant to harm them,
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but not intended death, but you just, a freak accident,
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just got very, very lucky, or we should say unlucky,
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That wooden spoon would be taken to the judges, they would deliberate, and they would say,
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yeah, this object doesn't ordinarily cause death.
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What you would be guilty of, though, in that particular case, is the other category of
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killing, unlawful killing, not just war theory or those kinds of things, but unlawful killing
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in biblical terms, which is manslaughter, which is referred to in Numbers 35 as the
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That's what the King James, the King James says man killers or manslayers.
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So in our culture, we have first degree, second degree, third degree murder.
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Even that gets bifurcated into involuntary or voluntary and involuntary.
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In biblical terms, it's murder and manslaughter.
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And although there are different degrees of murder, the punishment is still the same.
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Whether you lie in wait or whether there's enmity in your heart in the moment, crime of passion, even without the intent to kill.
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But you did kill and you used a particular tool that could kill, that had the capability of killing.
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you use an item that couldn't actually ordinarily kill someone
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You intended harm, you had enmity in your heart,
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Well, you go to prison and people pay taxes to support you.
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because we don't treat people like pets, right?
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We don't take someone who's a criminal and then actually punish everyone else who's not a criminal by taking their money to support the one who does evil.
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And then just give them a food bowl and a water bowl and on a leash with a fence around, let them out for some rec time outside.
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You talk about, all the time you hear liberals make the argument of, you know, Christians don't really care about the sanctity of life.
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They're against abortion, but they're pro-death penalty.
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We care so much about the sanctity of life that we see the only fitting punishment for someone who would pervert the sanctity of life and take a life is their life.
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And it all supports a point, but it's really interesting.
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there are six cities in Israel at that time that were set apart to be cities for the manslayer
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that they could run to. And all these cities, one of the things that's unique about them
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is that all these cities were Levitical cities. So in terms of inheritance, who got what piece
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of land, what city, what inheritance, each of the 12 tribes of Israel had certain apportioned
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inheritance. God spoke through Moses and more particularly through Joshua when he superseded
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Moses and Moses died. Now the six cities that were refuge cities or sanctuary cities for the
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manslayer that he could run to were all Levitical cities and they were strategically placed. They
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were spread out in such a way that Matthew Henry, the late great Puritan, I'm going to quote him at
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the end of the sermon today, but Matthew Henry in his exegesis of Numbers 35 and the manslayer
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and these six refuge cities, they were Levitical cities. And so what Matthew Henry says is this,
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And then Numbers 35 goes even further and says that the person who runs to one of these refuge cities, the avenger of blood, right?
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The avenger of blood would be the next of kin for the person who was killed in this accident, manslaughter.
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So the person who was killed, their next of kin had rights to actually kill the person who killed their relative, the next of kin.
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But the avenger of blood could not harm the person, even though the person was guilty,
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the manslayer who committed manslaughter, if they were within the bounds of one of these cities of refuge,
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which was a Levitical city, a city of the priest, where they had sanctuary.
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They were absolved so long as they stayed within the bounds of the city.
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And so too, as long as sinners stay within the bounds of Christ,
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so long as we stay hidden within the rock of ages, we have absolvement from guilt.
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And it's not merely Satan, brothers and sisters.
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your brother's blood cries out from the ground.
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who you murdered by striking him with a stone.
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And I hear his blood crying out from the ground.
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the blood of Christ also cries out from the ground.
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And it speaks a better word than the word of Abel.
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but rather the blood of Christ cries out from the ground
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for mercy for forgiveness and we see christ in a sense a type of christ all throughout the
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scripture and even in these levitical cities these six levitical cities strategically placed
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all over israel to where the manslayer who is guilty of killing someone would have refuge from
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the avenger of blood who was well within their rights according to god's holy law they were
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within their rights to come and kill this person, to do to them what this person did to a close
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relative, to someone they loved. But there was a refuge. There was a rock. There was a hiding place
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that they could go and be covered and be protected. And it was the city of the Levites. It was the
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Levitical city, the priestly city where they would find refuge from the one who was crying out for
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vengeance and further even than that matthew henry goes on in numbers 35 goes on and says that the
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only way this individual if they ever stepped out of the balance of the city they were doing so at
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their own peril at the risk of their own peril because the avenger of blood if they took one
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step outside the boundaries of a refuge city a sanctuary city the avenger blood of blood would
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be within their rights under the law of god to strike them dead so the only way they could return
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back to their home to their family to their trade all these kinds of things was if one thing happened
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if the high priest died the high priest these were priestly cities there were lower priests
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the levitical priesthood but there was one high priest who once a year would go into the holy of
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holies and make he would make um sacrifices for sin and it was not until the high priest died
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that all the manslayers in the refuge cities could return to their homes no longer at their
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that we find by grace through faith in Jesus Christ,
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no longer weighted down by condemnation under our sin,
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there's no place in the scripture you can't find it.
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He said, somebody once asked him, you know, is Christ in every text?
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Because again, back to my previous point, there is a sense in which people preach the gospel.
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And sometimes you'll see someone in a text like Numbers or Leviticus.
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you know and you'll see me do that from time to time but my text is one verse it's like this guy's
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going to preach for an hour on one verse oh my goodness and so i have one verse as my text today
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and boom they'll preach christ and the reality is dude yeah all scripture points to jesus but
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like christ is not in that verse if you panned out if you know if you took out your text 20 verses
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you know and that verse was one of them and you took a chapter that's what spurgeon is getting to
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then yeah we could see christ in the same way the matthew henry i i showed you how matthew henry
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showed us Christ in the chapter of Numbers 35, right?
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and the judges determined that it wasn't able to kill,
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then you're treated as a manslayer and not a murderer
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And then all of a sudden you say, well, and the wooden object reminds me of Jesus who died on a wooden cross.
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I don't know if you've ever heard that, like, like gospel, gospel, ridiculous preaching.
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It's like, it's just like, all right, that's, that's, you know, like, I appreciate the sentiment.
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I appreciate your intention to preach Christ everywhere.
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So all that being said, all that being said, Christ is in every text.
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But there's a way of preaching Christ at the expense of the text.
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And there's also a way of preaching the text at the expense of Christ.
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Good preaching, Bible preaching and gospel centered preaching wants to uphold both faithfully.
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So all that being said, Psalm 19, verse 7 through 14, we're now moving from natural revelation,
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focusing, emphasizing, centralizing on the sky.
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we're moving to special revelation not what's seen but what is heard but it's focusing central
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centering on not the gospel but the law so is christ there yeah i think so um but is that
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the main point no david picks the law and so i'm going to preach the law that's what i preached
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last week i'm going to preach the law again because that's where we are now in the law though
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we do see ultimately our need for the gospel and so we can get to the gospel from the law
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in terms of necessity in terms of the first use of the law which theologians argue is that the law
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reveals the holiness of God the sinfulness of man and thus our need for a savior Spurgeon once more
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he said this a man cannot appreciate the beauty of Christ unless he first comes to see the necessity
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for Christ. There's a lot of people who don't really esteem Christ as beautiful and glorious
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as he truly is because they've never first heard the bad news before hearing the good news. They
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haven't had someone really preach to them from the scripture how holy God is and how sinful they are.
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Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan, the main protagonist, Christian, that character, for a long
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time before he ever gets to the wicked gate and before he ever gets to the cross and and the
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catacombs the the tomb before the the sepulcher is the language the old english language before
00:29:53.640
he ever gets to the cross and the sepulcher the tomb and the burden of condemnation it rolls off
00:29:58.840
of his back into the tomb and he knows it no more and three holy ones angelic beings begin to pardon
00:30:04.760
him of sin, before that ever takes place, the main character modeled after John Bunyan, the author
00:30:11.160
himself, he is weighted down for a very long time by this burden. And the way that the burden first
00:30:17.740
arrives is that he finds in the fields one day, as a farmer, he finds the book of the law. And when
00:30:24.940
he finds the book of the law and he opens and he begins to read it, it's only at that moment that
00:30:29.520
all of a sudden a burden is placed on his back and it's a burden that he can't remove and all
00:30:34.980
the things that used to bring him joy like his children and his wife and good food and celebrations
00:30:39.640
he can't find joy in any of it anymore he's sleepless he's restless he's miserable he can't
00:30:45.420
enjoy his own family he can't enjoy his vocation he can't avoid and enjoy celebration or any of
00:30:50.740
these things he is hunched down burdened and weighted down by by the weight of this burden
00:31:15.520
And he makes his way through the slew of despondency
00:31:21.280
And then eventually he starts going down wrong ways.
00:31:26.520
hey there's an easy way to pry that burden off your back it's legalism he sends him to the city
00:31:31.540
of morality where where you can talk to you know mr worldly wise and this guy and that guy and
00:31:36.780
they'll give you all these different solutions to remove the burden from your back and christian
00:31:41.180
listens he listens to them he begins to go in the wrong direction and he's on this path on his way
00:31:46.320
to the city of morality and there's a mountain hanging over him and it looks like at at any
00:31:50.740
moment the rocks of this mountain like it's about to crumble and fall on him and all of a sudden
00:31:57.980
who had already found him before the slew of despondency
00:32:03.780
And Christian made it through the slew of despondency,
0.95
00:32:05.980
but then he listened to false prophets and false teachers,
0.89
00:32:09.260
a false gospel of works and morality and worldly wisdom.
00:32:19.640
And it's right when Christian is about to be crushed by the mountain.
00:32:32.360
where Christian, he's beat over and over and over
00:32:36.640
And he'll get up and try to throw the man off by force
00:32:45.320
And Christian asks another character in the story,
00:32:55.320
I would try to escape him and he would just beat me and beat me and beat me.
00:32:58.520
And the man that he asked, he responds by saying, that was Moses.
00:33:06.940
And so it's the law of God, Mount Sinai, hanging over Christian's head.
0.94
00:33:10.920
It's Moses who beats him but will not aid him or help him.
0.92
00:33:14.360
All of this points him towards ultimately the wicked gate.
00:33:17.340
And then furthermore, the cross and the sepulcher, the cross and the tomb,
00:33:36.580
He is free at last from condemnation and guilt.
00:33:42.820
he modeled this whole story off of his own life.
00:33:45.880
John Bunyan, the great Baptist preacher and writer,
00:33:57.100
And it took seven years for him to eventually be able to preach his heart,
00:34:02.280
as other Puritans said, from a clock to a flame.
00:34:05.480
To preach his own heart in the preaching of the gospel of grace
00:34:09.700
to eventually gain the confidence that he had assurance in Christ.
00:34:18.900
And my point is to say that there are so many in the evangelical church today who don't see the beauty of Christ because they've never wrestled underneath the law.
00:34:31.580
They don't see the beauty of Christ because they don't see the necessity of Christ.
00:34:35.640
And they don't see the necessity, the need for Christ because they don't see the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man.
00:34:43.340
It's in the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man
00:34:55.560
And the reason why we want to preach the law again and again and again
00:35:09.920
and how we can experience happiness and peace in this life
00:35:16.000
living in God's world according to God's rules.
00:35:22.740
the reason why we want to preach the law again and again and again,
00:35:35.180
And this is not for the Christian to produce condemnation.
00:35:38.580
See, the wider that gap gets in your heart, the more you hear about the holiness of God,
00:35:44.040
you sit under preaching of the law, preaching of the holiness of God,
00:35:47.280
and you see by the conviction that the Spirit supplies your own sinfulness, your lack of holiness,
00:35:53.960
In your mind, not in real terms, not in objective terms, but in your mind subjectively,
00:35:59.180
you gain a deeper perception, a more accurate perception of the gap between a holy God and your sinful self.
00:36:07.380
And the wider this gap is, the more you love God.
00:36:28.000
then the gap between God and you becomes small.
00:36:35.380
And if you perceive the gap between a holy God and your sinful self to be small, then what Christ did at Calvary is small.
00:36:45.380
But when you see God is holy, I am sinful, the gap in between us is infinite, and Christ did it all.
00:36:58.960
then what you see in seeing more of the holiness of God and more of your own sinfulness is you see
00:37:03.220
more of the mercy of God, the grace of God, the love of God. And when we see more of God's love
00:37:08.400
for us, we cannot help but respond with more love for him. First John 4.19, we love because he first
00:37:15.440
loved us. And if we have more love for him, the next thing that happens is as Jesus says, those
00:37:20.760
who love me will obey me. So you want to grow in obedience? That's how to do it with law and gospel.
00:37:27.300
law and gospel preach the law to yourself and sit under good law preaching from from others
00:37:33.480
and in the preaching of the law see the holiness of god see your own sinfulness let this gap get
00:37:39.640
wider and again not an objective term see for the christian you're being sanctified progressive
00:37:44.700
holiness you've been justified declared perfectly righteous because of the righteousness of christ
00:37:49.680
received by grace through faith okay so that that's objective now in in progressive holiness
00:38:10.660
is actually getting smaller in objective terms.
00:38:31.140
progressive holiness in terms of sanctification,
00:38:35.580
positional righteousness in terms of justification.
00:38:42.400
of being made more and more into the image of Christ
00:38:44.920
in objective terms, you're getting better, not worse.
00:38:48.320
And therefore, in objective terms, in a technical sense,
00:38:51.280
the gap is getting smaller, if anything, not wider.
00:38:53.700
but for the christian the way that the gap is getting objectively smaller is because it's
00:38:58.840
getting subjectively subjectively bigger meaning the gap you're actually becoming more holy in
00:39:04.900
objective terms but you're becoming more holy in objective terms because you're realizing in
00:39:09.980
subjective terms in terms of perception you're realizing how much holiness you lack
00:39:14.980
and as you realize more and more how much holiness you lack and how much holiness infinite holiness
00:39:21.260
god has you're seeing a bigger gap but when you see a bigger gap don't let that cause you despair
00:39:27.180
discourage you the bigger the gap the bigger the gospel that bridges the gap so as you see more of
00:39:32.480
the holiness of god and more of your sinfulness you see a bigger gap that needs to be bridged
00:39:36.520
by christ and it has been bridged god so loved the world it's his love he so loved the world he
00:39:43.600
sent jesus to bridge that gap that whoever has faith in him shall not perish but shall
00:39:48.600
shall receive eternal life. So as you see more of God's holiness and more of your sinfulness,
00:39:52.860
you see a bigger gap, a bigger need for Christ. You see the work of Christ in the gospel as larger,
00:39:59.840
not smaller, meaning you see more of God's love through the person and work of Jesus on your
00:40:04.220
behalf. And as you see more of God's love for you, 1 John 4, 19, we love because he first loved us.
00:40:10.700
If we see that he first loved us more than we previously thought, then we respond with more
00:40:15.300
love for him and if we love him more we'll obey him more that's the progression of how we become
00:40:21.840
obedient and it takes both law and gospel law and gospel the law is the scalpel it slices us open
00:40:30.360
and begins to remove like tweezers begins to forceps begins to remove uh cancerous tumors
00:40:38.020
and growths from inside but then the gospel is like the sow it's it's it's what heals the wound
00:40:46.340
and the necessary surgery procedure has taken place.
00:41:02.660
and sit under faithful preaching of law and gospel,
00:41:18.100
I want you to see this, not just the rightness, if you will.
00:41:25.460
but not just the rightness, the moral perfection
00:41:29.120
or correctness of God's law, but the goodness, the benefit.
00:41:33.500
Okay, there are six benefits, six purposes of the law,
00:41:58.200
It has no flaw, and therefore it revives the soul.
00:42:07.520
We think we're weary because God demands so much.
00:42:13.500
and I'll give you rest. Why? Because if you come
00:42:17.220
He has no law? He has no commandment that you should
00:43:09.380
The law of the Lord is perfect, that is, it's morally perfect.
00:43:12.240
It is without any moral flaw, and therefore it revives the soul.
00:43:17.040
Because what it does, it's like a scalpel, it slices us open,
00:43:21.320
and the perfection of the law begins, it begins to detect and diagnose
00:43:25.940
and identify imperfections, moral imperfections in us.
00:43:31.360
Now the gospel ultimately is the only device, the only tool,
00:43:34.400
the only remedy or medicine or or solution that removes those faults in us but but what the law
00:43:41.740
does is it detects them the law works like an mri machine it doesn't cure someone but it finds
00:43:47.720
things that are killing you namely your sin and so the law is perfect and because it's a perfect
00:43:54.120
tool it discovers without fault without fail it discovers moral imperfections in us and then by
00:44:02.240
the grace of the gospel, those moral imperfections are removed. And the moral imperfections, namely
00:44:08.200
your sin, is the real culprit for your weariness. And so therefore, when your sin is detected by the
00:44:14.080
law, removed by the gospel, the very thing that made you weary, namely sin, is now removed. And
00:44:21.300
therefore, your soul is revived. That's the first thing that the law does. The testimony of the Lord
00:44:26.680
is sure making wise the simple sure meaning credible reliable trustworthy so it's not just
00:44:33.340
right but because it's morally right it can be trusted and because it's trusted when it's trusted
00:44:39.960
it makes wise even the simple if we trust the law of god we don't just salute it we don't just
00:44:45.780
acknowledge it as morally perfect but we we submit ourselves to it we give ourselves over to this this
00:44:53.560
law that we see as morally perfect we trust it we we don't just salute it but we trust it because
00:44:59.340
we see it not only as right but as sure as as credible as trustworthy it produces wisdom and
00:45:06.620
not just that it makes the wise wiser no the law is so perfect and so sure it makes even the simple
00:45:13.600
wise even the simple those who would never be described but as wise previously become wise
00:45:32.840
How do the precepts of the Lord rejoice the heart?
00:45:42.000
for unchanging principles of good and evil in the world.
00:45:50.260
which perfectly details exactly how God designed the world
00:45:56.660
So in short, the law of God reveals how life actually works
00:46:02.460
Therefore, if we submit to the rightness of God's law,
00:46:05.580
we see it as right, as the right rule by which we should live,
00:46:10.160
our hearts are gladdened because we begin to live the right way.
00:46:17.080
and his rules are right because the one who makes the rules when we acknowledge God as the rule
00:46:22.620
maker the one who who gets to make the rules for this world because he made the world itself
00:46:28.340
then then we recognize when we recognize that God's rules are right for this world and all
00:46:33.140
his creatures because God made this world and all his creatures then we submit ourselves to his law
00:46:38.400
because we see this is the right blueprint blueprint this is the right equation this is
00:46:43.280
the right formula i have my ideas but but my ideas are folly in comparison to god and his wisdom so
00:46:49.680
god made the world therefore it logically stands that god would know how we should live in the
00:46:54.960
world so his rules are right not mine and when we come to that conclusion that his rules are right
00:47:00.960
then we begin to live by his rules and when you live by his rules life goes better it does and
00:47:07.020
you might be saying but but that joel that that discludes that that that fails to acknowledge this
00:47:12.220
this category over here of of those who are persecuted for for faithfulness aren't there
00:47:18.220
people who live according to the rule and law of god that is right god made the world he has rules
00:47:23.540
for living in the world and when you live you're saying when you live by those rules that things
00:47:27.300
go better well what about the christian in china what about the christian in north korea i'm not
00:47:32.260
saying that there are no exceptions i'm saying as a general rule of thumb to live by god's law
00:47:37.880
will go better and it always without exception goes better in an eternal sense by living by
00:47:45.000
god's rules which are right it does rejoice the heart in this life and in the life to come in
00:47:52.100
terms of our eternal reward because this is not ultimately our home so even for the christian in
00:47:57.880
north korea living according to god's law that may produce human consequences temporary earthly
00:48:03.740
consequences because of an oppressive pagan regime they may temporarily experience heartache
00:48:09.700
and consequences for their faithfulness to the truth it still rejoices the heart as paul and
00:48:16.000
silas were able to rejoice in prison singing praises to god because they knew that they had
00:48:20.660
a sure and greater reward in the life to come but ordinarily ordinarily in a nation like ours
00:48:41.460
and meaning that when you see God's law is right
00:48:54.980
there's a sense in which when we live by God's law
00:48:58.120
things don't just work out eternally they work out temporarily unless unless there is the variable
00:49:04.640
of someone else's sin impeding upon us and the reason why i say that is again because
00:49:10.720
within the evangelical church i'm trying to correct certain things right so because we have
00:49:15.980
the prosperity gospel right just um have faith and you'll be healthy and wealthy and wise
00:49:21.920
well that's a heresy right so i want to condemn the prosperity gospel but but in evangelical
00:49:27.980
calls condemnation of the prosperity gospel, I think there's been an overcompensation in some
00:49:32.260
instances, where we have the introduction of what I would call the poverty gospel, where all of a
00:49:38.020
sudden it's like suffering becomes the badge of God's approval on your life. So in the same way
00:49:43.840
that you're saying, okay, you know, the prosperity gospel, you know, you've got prosperity false
00:49:48.960
teachers saying, you know, my $67 million jet plane is the badge of God's approval that he's
00:49:53.860
pleased with me but then all of a sudden you say the fact that i have cancer is proof that god's
00:49:58.720
pleased with me neither are biblical the fact that i'm poor means that god's god's really proud
00:50:04.820
of me no where do you get that in scripture that's that's not biblical see see what happens
00:50:11.200
the prosperity gospel have faith in jesus and you'll live forever and never get sick and you'll
00:50:16.440
you'll be a millionaire false um have faith in jesus and you'll suffer and be miserable but one
00:50:23.020
day you'll be in heaven it'll be great also false also false that could be the case you know what's
00:50:29.380
pointed to what's cited as the evidence for that is jesus and the apostles well jesus was faithful
00:50:33.460
look what happened to him he was crucified peter was faithful he was crucified upside down paul
00:50:38.820
was faithful he lost his head you know i mean all the apostles that yeah that's that's true in rome
00:50:44.220
you have to think of the concept in rome with an oppressive monarch that was pagan and hated god
00:50:52.780
But what about a nation that was founded on biblical principles
00:50:55.660
and has a constitution that has these biblical principles at play
00:51:03.940
What happens when you're faithful in that context?
00:51:08.100
Well, what happens is what's happened in our nation historically
00:51:14.260
doing benevolence and acts of good to nations all over the world.
00:51:26.300
Because we have people who are trying to make America the worst
00:51:39.220
Because it's right and because of the eternal reward.
00:51:42.260
But I don't want you or me or anyone else to have a theology
00:51:45.240
that says obedience to God only produces suffering.
00:51:50.960
because what that does is even if it's subconscious in our minds and we never verbalize it,
00:51:55.760
what that gets us to believe is this, that God, even though he made the world and he's the one
00:52:00.480
who sets the rules for living the world, God ultimately is either foolish, lacking in infinite
00:52:06.340
wisdom, or even worse, we can believe that God is cruel, that God knows how to live that would
0.96
00:52:12.480
produce more happiness, but he told us something else. Let me give you one example of that,
00:52:16.720
the cultural mandate be fruitful multiply there are many in the church who legitimately have
0.99
00:52:22.580
bought into the secular pagan stupid view that we're the world is overpopulated and we're all
0.98
00:52:29.460
going to die right the whole climate crisis because of overpopulation well think about that
1.00
00:52:34.460
real quick in theological terms what does that mean what does that mean well it means if you buy
00:52:39.120
into that as a christian what it means is that god commanded humanity to do something in the
00:52:43.940
cultural mandate be fruitful multiply that god knew would actually be the very thing that if
00:52:49.100
humanity obeyed him humanity's obedience to the cultural mandate would seal humanity's own demise
00:52:54.600
and god just kind of laughing i told him to be fruitful multiply and i know that there's finite
00:53:00.880
resources in this world and i actually set it up in such a way that there wouldn't be enough so
00:53:05.300
the more faithful they are to obey me the more people will start like say if you if you're
00:53:10.960
logical you have to it says something about the character and nature of god so if you're claiming
00:53:16.280
to be a christian saying that god is good but then also saying that the world is overpopulated
00:53:20.680
and if we don't start driving electric cars everybody's gonna burn up in 10 years then you
00:53:25.980
are making a theological statement you just haven't logically connected the dots but the
00:53:30.140
statement that you're making is this god is either ignorant god is in process he's learning as we
00:53:35.100
learn and go along so he had the cultural mandate but now he's like oh actually we fulfilled it and
0.84
00:53:38.800
I didn't know how the world would work and overpopulation.
00:53:41.460
I didn't know how climate worked, even though I made it.
00:53:43.480
And, you know, so now God's in process and he's rechanging.
00:53:50.840
Or you can say that God is not so much a lack of knowledge or expertise,
00:54:00.480
He set it up to seal our own demise by virtue of our obedience.
00:54:10.040
How dare we ever come up with any kind of concept or theology or thought process
00:54:15.120
that would say that people are penalized by faithfulness.
00:54:19.580
No, people are only ever penalized because of sin.
00:54:23.020
And even the apostles who were faithful or Jesus who was faithful,
00:54:27.560
their faithfulness is not what caused them earthly consequences in this life.
00:54:31.160
It was the sin of others penalizing them for their faithfulness that caused the consequences.
00:54:37.860
Consequences in this life, suffering, difficulty, persecution, all these things,
00:54:45.620
And when we say that they're the result of faithfulness or the result of obedience,
00:54:49.280
then we're ultimately saying they're the result of obedience to what?
00:54:53.520
So what we're saying, whether we realize it or not, is that God's law is not perfect.
00:55:00.740
it's flawed. And if you follow it, these blueprints ultimately lend towards building a building with
00:55:06.900
an unsure foundation that will eventually topple and kill everyone inside. That's the view of many
00:55:12.640
Christians of the law of God today. Because they bought into the poverty gospel as an overcorrection
0.97
00:55:19.440
to the prosperity gospel. That's wrong. If you obey God's law, will you have a jet plane and live
00:55:26.640
forever? No. But if you obey God's law in an environment that's not led by pagans who hate
00:55:33.840
God's law, like North Korea, like China, then yes, things not only will be well for you in an
00:55:40.420
eternal sense, and your heart rejoiced in a spiritual, eternal sense, but things will go
00:55:45.700
well for you temporarily here on earth in a practical sense. Obedience brings blessing.
00:55:58.980
would even subconsciously hold to that doctrine.
00:56:13.280
No, our theology just has to be better than that.
00:56:19.280
Sometimes people who are obedient are persecuted.
00:56:21.820
Sometimes you obey God and a child dies in a car accident.
00:57:21.840
So if you look at verses 10 through, what is it?
00:57:31.300
I'm not going to read the text, but this is the text.
00:57:39.100
He's ultimately taking the throne from his father, David.
00:57:46.680
the lord visits him in a theophany as it were in the night through a vision and and the lord gives
00:57:53.880
him kind of like almost like a genie in aladdin scenario in the cave of wonders um and he gets
00:57:58.760
one wish instead of three he says you know ask me the lord says ask me anything you want uh and i'll
00:58:04.040
and i will give it to you and solomon rightly asked for wisdom and and he asked for wisdom
00:58:08.540
notice this he asked for wisdom because of humility humility and wisdom are tied two peas in a pod
00:58:14.400
There's no such thing as an arrogant, wise person.
0.99
00:58:17.020
And there's no such thing as a humble fool.
0.98
00:58:29.980
Solomon asks for wisdom because he has humility.
00:58:33.120
Which means he already has some measure of wisdom.
00:58:37.940
You won't ask for wisdom if you're a complete fool.
1.00
00:58:40.240
So he has some wisdom because he has some humility.
0.99
00:58:42.620
therefore he asks for even more and what humbles him is this he's he's now the king over israel
00:58:47.700
and he says this great people it's such a great people and i i'm a youth how can i lead them make
00:58:53.020
me wise but what i want you to see is this first kings chapter five or chapter three verse five
00:58:58.660
through 14 god gives him wisdom but then god also says because you didn't ask for long life or
00:59:04.600
riches or this or that i'm going to give you that too and what i want you to see is this god says
00:59:09.900
because you ask for wisdom, you ask for what is better,
00:59:12.200
I'm also going to give you this other thing over here.
00:59:22.220
By asking for wisdom, of course he's going to be rich.
00:59:34.780
being God's covenant people, also being the nation,
00:59:37.100
the nation um and solomon is the king of that nation no one's going to oppress him he's not
00:59:43.020
under mao or stalin or hitler right he is the the supreme monarch as the king of israel so nobody's
00:59:50.420
going to be able to oppress him and impede his faithfulness and inflict consequences because of
00:59:56.840
their sin he's the guy he's the man so if he's faithful to the law of god what's going to happen
01:00:02.120
of course he's going to be rich so when he asks for wisdom god says i'll give you riches also
01:00:06.720
But really what's happening is this, Solomon asked for wisdom, and by virtue of God giving him wisdom, by default he becomes rich.
01:00:14.940
Because wisdom produces that wealth, produces those riches.
01:00:19.860
Wisdom lends towards prosperity and pleasure, certainly in a spiritual and eternal sense,
01:00:25.840
but ordinarily, apart from oppressive sin of others impeding faithfulness,
01:00:31.900
apart from that ordinarily wisdom produces prosperity and pleasure blessing in this life
01:00:38.820
as well in this life as well all right another text second uh chronicles chapter 9 verses 1
01:00:45.500
through 7 this is where we see the queen of sheba come and visit solomon right she heard the reports
01:00:51.120
from all all over her kingdom that solomon was so wealthy and so wise and she comes to him and
01:00:57.000
begins to sit with him for hours is the implication and just just starts grilling him with question
01:01:02.060
after question after question about life and how things work and weather patterns and all these
01:01:06.900
kind of precipitation how does that work and the rising of the sun and all these different things
01:01:10.720
and and not one thing was hidden from solomon the text says god revealed to him the answers to all
01:01:16.300
of her questions he was so wise and she responds by saying this i heard the reports of your wisdom
01:01:21.640
and wealth but truly not even the half of it was told to me you're wiser than i thought
01:01:34.160
In fact, they failed to do justice to the real truth.
01:01:51.600
no longer saying, you're wise, you're wise, you're wise.
01:02:11.280
who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom.
01:02:22.500
with so much wisdom and righteousness and equity
01:02:25.760
that even your servants and even your 700 wives,
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which ordinarily you would think would be very unhappy
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but in the case of Solomon, even his wives were happy.
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That's why I wanted to show you 1 Kings 3, 5-14.
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that's when we see wisdom lending towards wealth riches but we also see wisdom in second chronicles
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nine one through seven lending towards pleasure happiness and again a guarantee godly wisdom for
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those who are righteous by grace through faith in jesus for the christian godly wisdom that is
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available to any christian who asks that's what james says if any man lacks wisdom let him ask
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God who gives without finding reproach. Meaning what? The implicit point in that James passage
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about asking for wisdom is God gives without finding reproach. Well, guess what? God always
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finds reproach for those who aren't in Christ Jesus. So the implicit thing is that for those
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who ask for wisdom, he's not just talking about any man, all of humanity. He's talking about one
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portion of humanity, the redeemed. Because the only portion of humanity that God would give
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wisdom to and not be able to find reproach are those who have no reproach because they've
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been covered by the righteousness of christ not by works unto the law so that no man may boast but
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rather by grace through faith in jesus so for the christian they can ask for wisdom and god will
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grant it and for the christian who has wisdom they see the law of god is good and they are seeking
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to apply they're seeking to obey god's law for that christian they will have prosperity and
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pleasure guaranteed in the life to come and ordinarily and some measure in this life barring
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the the exceptions that the the variables of an oppressive authoritative regime that penalizes
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faithfulness to god's law like north korea am i making sense so it's not prosperity gospel
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see last thing i'll say is this on this point then i'll read the conclusion from matthew henry
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an analogy or an illustration of the prosperity gospel would be this if i teach my daughters
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um hey you can be rich and all you need to do is when you reach the legal age you just need to buy
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every single day go to the convenience store nearest convenience store and buy a lottery ticket
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that's the prosperity gospel that's to illustrate as an example the prosperity gospel
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if i tell my daughters however and it'd be better in this illustration if it was son so i'm going
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use sons as an example. If I tell my hypothetical sons that the Lord will give me one day, we'll see.
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If I tell them, not if you buy a lottery ticket, you'll be rich, but rather I tell them, if you
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keep your vows, if you don't have children outside of wedlock, and you wait till marriage to have
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children, and you don't divorce, right, because you want to lose half of your equity, half of
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your wealth, that's a great way to do it. Divorce literally makes you poor. It does, right? There are
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real tangible concept so you marry a woman you remain faithful to that woman you never leave
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her or forsake her as christ has promised never to leave or forsake you you have children after
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marriage not before you parent them according to god's word and you practice integrity and hard
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work you will be i can't guarantee billionaire but you will be ordinarily wealthy you will
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you will be reasonably wealthy over the course of your life if america doesn't start penalizing
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hard work and rewarding laziness which for whatever reason they're dead set on doing right
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now if you do nothing you'll receive a reward if you work hard we'll steal it right so as america
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continues to turn its back on biblical principles by turning its back on god then that won't or
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and then all of a sudden it's North Korea, China, right?
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Solomon was wise and rich, came along with it, riches,
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So all that being said, this is how David ends our text, right?
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There were six of them, and I know I kind of stopped
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Then he talks about not just these are the purposes
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but also he says and this is what it produces what the law produces prosperity and pleasure
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guaranteed in life to come ordinarily in this life barring those variables of oppressive regimes
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penalizing faithfulness but then he finishes by this presumption and prayer so we saw prosperity
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and pleasure here's presumption and prayer in the last three verses of our text 12 13 and 14
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after recounting all the many benefits and advantages that come by submitting to the perfect
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law of god david's only remaining desire is that he might experience even more of these benefits
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and advantages by following the law of god more closely so by meditating on the perfection and
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goodness of god's law david learns to call his sins errors that's that's the the language that
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he uses in the text look verse 12 who can discern his errors declare me innocent from hidden faults
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of using language to minimize the severity of his sin.
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because there is a sense in which our sin is an error that's what i want you to get david gets
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it we need to get it all right that's what the text says we need to understand our sin as error
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but but notice this it's not in substitute to viewing our sin as cosmic treason against our
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loving savior but it's an addition so our sin is first and foremost it's a betrayal against the
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god who loves us and we have to understand our sin first and foremost like that or we won't
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experience godly sorrow leading unto repentance which leads unto life so first we need to to
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experience and and perceive the full extent of the severity of our sin by seeing our sin in a
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relational capacity as a betrayal an affront an offense against the god who loves us that's first
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not in substitution to that view of sin but in addition to that view of sin we should also see
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our sin as error as a miscalculation as as being off the mark see david comes to recognize every
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one of his transgressions of the law as an error meaning grounded upon a mistake or a miscalculation
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or a misjudgment what he means by that is this david rightly understands that every wicked
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practice takes root in some corrupt principle or faulty premise all sin is a deviation from reality
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the perfect rule by which we are to live so david sees it all of his sin in some sense first it's
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betrayal against the god he loves and who has loved him but secondly all this sin is a misjudgment
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a miscalculation a an error in the sense that in this area this particular sin i got off of the
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blueprint i i got off of the roadmap i like i was going to a certain destination i was following
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You know, I was listening to Siri or the iPhone, you know, I had Google Maps up, and I thought it said this, but I took this exit, it really meant the next one, I got off.
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And so he realizes that all sin, ultimately, it is rooted in some kind of alternative principle to God's principle.
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Some alternative rule for living other than God's rule of life.
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Meaning it's rooted in something that ultimately is a formula that's corrupt.
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And ultimately, because it's a corrupt formula,
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And every other law, every other rule for life is corrupt.
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It's a foundation that's shattered and splintered and cracked.
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And if I continue to do this, life will go poorer.
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furthermore by meditating on the perfection and goodness of god's law david also learns that his
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sins are so many he can't even begin to comprehend the sheer number of them not only is david
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incapable in and of himself apart from grace and the work of the spirit of writing all of his
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wrongs david is incapable of even detecting all his wrongs and that's the end of our text it says
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this verse 13 keep back your servant from presumptuous sins let them not have dominion
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over me then i shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression let the words of my mouth
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and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight o lord my rock and my redeemer
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it's actually in verse 12 look at verse 12 who can discern his errors declare me innocent from
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hidden faults all right matthew henry this is where i want to close i think he does great justice
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to verse 12 of the text he says this david rightly recognizes that all men are guilty of many sins
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which through our carelessness and partiality to ourselves we are not aware of many we have been
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guilty of which we have forgotten so that when we have been even ever so particular so thorough so
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careful in our confession of sin we must conclude our prayers of confession with an etc so even when
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we're doing confession or repentance in prayer. Father, I confess this before you, I confess this
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before you, I confess this, and etc. I think that's profound. That's what David's getting at.
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My hidden faults, my errors that I can't even see. Matthew Henry goes on, for God knows a great deal
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more evil of us than we do of ourselves. In many things we all offend, and who can tell how often
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he offends? It is well that we are under grace and not under law, or else we would be undone.
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So David takes occasion, hence, to pray against sin.
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All the discoveries of sin made to us by the law,
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to pray, as David does here, for pardon and mercy.
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lord cleanse me of my secret faults now notice this his secret faults are not secret to god
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for none are nor are they just merely those secret faults to the world so when he says my secret
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faults he's not just saying that the secret sin because we all often use that phrase secret sin
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to describe the sin that we know about but other people don't so no sin is secret from god he sees
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it all we use the phrase secret sin to say we know it's not secret from god it's also not secret from
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us. We're aware of it, but it's secret from others. But David's not praying even about that.
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He's not praying about your known secret sin, known to you, but not known by others. No, he's
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saying this. He cries out, Lord, cleanse me from all my secret faults, not secret to God, so none
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are, nor even secret, just those that are secret to the world, but even those sins in my life and
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in my heart that are secret to me that were hidden from his own observation of himself
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the best of men have reason to suspect themselves guilty of many secret faults and to pray to god
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to cleanse them from that guilt and not lay it to their charge aka you're worse than you think you
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and God is holier than you perceive him to be which means that if you're in Christ
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God's grace for you is bigger than you ever imagined that's the point it's not you're worse
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than you think you are go home that's the whole sermon hope you're depressed no you're worse than
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you think you are I'm worse than I think I am right we're all worse than others think we are
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It's not just, man, if people actually knew who I was,
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and sent his son to die for you so you're worse than you think you are he's holier than you think
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he is which means the gap between you and god is wider than you've ever perceived it to be
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but christ still died for you meaning that christ loves you more than you realize god loves you more
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than you know that's how theologically that all that little statement god loves you so much more
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than you know that's the theological framework for what makes that statement true god loves you
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more than you know so today i hope that through the preaching of god's law and also the gospel
01:16:54.920
you would come to an awareness of a greater sense of your guilt your sin but also a greater sense
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of god's holiness and therefore a greater sense of his love and mercy in the gospel of jesus christ
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causing you to see more of his love for you which first john 419 causes you to have more love for
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him which according to jesus should bring about obedience to the law and obedience to the law
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produces as a guarantee prosperity and pleasure in an eternal spiritual sense the life to come
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but ordinarily in a nation like ours assuming that biden doesn't ruin it prosperity and pleasure
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It is beneficial for those who trust you and obey.
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as the only means of salvation and forgiveness of sin,
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but your word, your law, trusting it, it's sure.
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The law of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
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I think of what Paul says in his letters to the Corinthians
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but the law of the lord is sure making wise the simple and they just had that childlike not
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childish but childlike trust in the law of god not as a means for salvation they weren't legalists
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they trusted the gospel for salvation but they trust and submitted to god's law as the rule of
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life and look at how much they did without while still being simple in a sense many not many were
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wise by worldly standards they were simple some of these guys in this church covenant bible church
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they didn't have a college degree they didn't have this they didn't have that but they just had
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they had the good book had the bible and they actually had the audacity to believe it and to
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apply it and look at what god did let that be lord if it be your will let that be the legacy of this
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church and many other faithful churches throughout our nation and the world we pray these things in
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jesus name for your glory amen thanks so much for listening but real quick before you go do us a
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small favor take a moment and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show this is undoubtedly
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