Now in Psalm 25, it starts out with a really famous passage. Who has sung this song before?
Put up your hand if you know the song of Psalm 25. It's a really, really famous song.
You know, unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. And they do it in rounds and everything.
Only a few of you have heard that song. Yeah, we sang it as a kid. It was a really popular song.
So consequently, I pretty much have the first four verses just automatically memorized from my youth.
Because I've sung that song so many times. But it says, unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
O my God, I trust in thee. Let me not be ashamed. Let not mine enemies triumph over me.
Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed. Let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.
Show me thy ways, O Lord. Teach me thy paths.
Now, I want to talk a little bit in the first three verses here about being ashamed, not being ashamed.
What does God mean by that? Well, keep your finger in Psalm 25 and I'm going to take you to Romans 10.
Go to Romans chapter 10. Because here's a part of the Bible here in Romans 10 that's sometimes misunderstood.
And I want to see if I can clear it up for you a little bit.
But in Romans chapter 10, a passage that I've preached on a few times lately, in verse 9.
We'll start in the famous verse in verse 9 where it says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
For the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek.
For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Now the part there that I think a lot of people misunderstand is the part about being ashamed.
Because when the Bible there says, for the scripture saith, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
Take that in the context of the next verse where he says, for there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek.
For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Now a lot of people take that verse and say, well if somebody is ashamed of the fact that they're saved,
or ashamed of Jesus, that they're not really a believer.
And that's not really true because if you remember Peter, he was ashamed at a certain point.
You remember how he basically cowered in fear when they were saying,
are not thou also one of them? Was thou also with him?
Also in the book of John it records a lot of the chief rulers, the politicians as it were, believed on him.
And I believe the Bible when it says they believed on him.
And yet they would not confess him openly for fear of the people because they loved the praise of God more than the praise meant.
When the Bible is talking about being ashamed, basically if you compare that what we're reading in Psalm 25, it's pretty clear,
it's talking about God letting you down.
Basically, if I were to say to somebody, oh man, you should see Garrett.
He can lift a lot of weights and I said he can bench press so and so the amount.
And then basically I got a bunch of people around and said, come see Garrett, do it, come see him do it.
And then basically he couldn't do it.
You'd be ashamed. They'd be like, what are you talking about? You said that he could do it.
I choose Garrett because he can bench press a lot of weight.
But I don't want to pick on some of you other guys. No, I'm just kidding.
But anyway, but we all got schooled on Sunday night.
Some of you were here, but mono just, this guy's just got 225 pounds on the bar.
That guy's pretty strong.
But the point that I'm making is being ashamed here in the Bible and Psalm 25 and in Romans 10, it's talking about being let down.
And basically what he's saying, whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
He's saying you're not going to believe on Christ in vain to where he's going to let you down.
He's not going to save you.
He says there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek.
The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.
And anyone who believes on him will be saved.
He's not going to let you down is what it means to be ashamed.
Psalm 25, keep your finger in Romans 10, where he says unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
Oh my God, I trust in thee.
So notice, David is trusting God to physically deliver him, right?
He's saying I'm trusting you, God, don't let me down.
That's what he's saying.
He's saying I trust in thee, let me not be ashamed.
And how would he be ashamed if his enemies were to triumph over him?
Let not mine enemies triumph over me.
Yea, let none that wait on thee, waiting on thee.
He's talking about relying on these, what he's saying.
Let none that wait on thee be ashamed.
Let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.
And so the Bible's not saying in Romans 10 that if somebody's not willing to just preach it from the housetops or come down an aisle, that they're not really saved.
That's not what he's saying.
He's saying whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed, for there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek.
You have to understand that when he says, for the scripture saith whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
You've got to look at all the Old Testament scriptures on being ashamed and not being ashamed.
You see what I'm saying?
Instead of just taking that verse and just reading it and saying, well it says they won't be ashamed.
Well go back to the it is written, see where this is coming from in the Old Testament.
People talking about believing on God, trusting in him for earthly needs, not just salvation but deliverance from physical enemies.
And he's saying don't let me be ashamed, meaning don't let my enemies triumph over me.
He's not saying don't let me be ashamed.
I don't want to be shy out there on the battlefield.
He's basically saying I don't want to be ashamed like I don't want to be let down.
And so I just wanted to clarify that in Romans 10 because I know when I first read that, I read it and at first I was thinking,
is it saying that they're not going to be ashamed if they believe?
And then I started thinking about it, I was like, you know, for there is no difference for whosoever,
I was thinking that's why they're not going to be ashamed because they'll save anybody who calls upon them.
So anybody who believes on them and calls upon them is not going to be ashamed in that they're not going to be let down.
That's what that means.
But go back to Psalm 25 now.
That's why it's good to kind of let the Bible interpret the Bible instead of maybe just run into a dictionary and say,
oh, that's what ashamed means.
Well, ashamed can mean a few different things.
And if you study the Bible meaning of ashamed, you'll see this concept very clearly.
And if you understand it the other way, it's really a contradiction because you see places where believers were ashamed in our sense of the word ashamed.
But has there been anybody who came to him that was cast out?
Absolutely not.
Jesus said, him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.
It's the same concept.
So back to Psalm 25.
I hope that helps clear that up a little bit.
But it says, unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
Oh my God, I trust in thee.
Let me not be ashamed.
Let now mine enemies triumph over me.
Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed.
Let them be ashamed which transgress without cost.
Show me thy ways, O Lord.
Teach me thy paths.
Lead me in thy truth.
Now I want to show you something that keeps being repeated in this chapter.
Look at the word in verse 4, teach.
First he says, show me thy ways, O Lord.
Teach me thy paths.
Verse 5, he says, lead me in thy truth and teach me.
Jump down if you would to verse number 8.
It says, good and upright is the Lord.
Therefore will he teach sinners in the way.
Verse 9, the meek will he guide in judgment.
The meek will he teach his way.
Down to verse 12, what man is he that fearth the Lord?
Him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose.
Verse 14, the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.
And he will show them his covenant.
Do you see how repetitious this is all throughout this chapter?
God teaching you.
I mean again and again, God's going to teach you.
God's going to teach you.
God's going to lead you.
He's going to guide you.
He's going to show you things.
He's going to direct you.
He's going to lead you.
That's the main theme of this chapter is being taught by God.
Being taught by the Lord.
Being taught by the Holy Spirit.
Look at verse 4.
Show me thy ways, O Lord.
Teach me thy paths.
Lead me in thy truth and teach me, for thou art the God of my salvation.
On thee do I wait all the day.
Now this is a prayer.
And so this tells me that we ought to be praying to God that he would teach us.
We ought to be praying and asking God to teach us.
When you open the Bible to read it, you should pray and ask God to guide and direct you.
To teach you.
To show you what the Bible means.
To show you what it says.
I spend a lot of time memorizing the Bible and also reciting back what I've memorized.
That's my favorite way to study the Bible is to memorize chapters of the Bible.
And when I memorize chapters of the Bible, I always ask God to show me things.
Show me what it means.
So that I'm not just chanting words.
But I always ask God to open my eyes and to fill me with the Spirit and to show me things in the Bible.
There have been so many times when there was something in the Bible that I struggled with.
To this day, I don't understand everything in the Bible.
Otherwise, I'd be God if I did.
Because the Bible is as infinite as God is.
It's God's Word.
It's so deep that it can never be searched out.
And there have been so many times when there was something in the Bible I struggled with.
A scripture that didn't seem to make sense.
Or I didn't know what it meant.
I couldn't figure it out.
So many times I prayed and asked God to help me.
And sometimes it took days or weeks of praying.
Studying other passages.
But I prayed and I prayed and I prayed.
And God showed me the answer.
And today I'd look at those same passages and say,
Wow, you know, I can't believe I ever struggled with that.
It's so clear.
So simple.
Once I saw it, it was just, bam.
My eyes were open and it was, there it is.
Wow, it's so clear.
Now I see why God wrote it that way.
I'm thinking like, you know, why did God write things a certain way?
Is he just trying to confuse me?
You know what I mean?
You read things in the Bible and you're like,
Why did he put it this way?
It's almost confusing.
But then once you study it and learn and ask God,
you'll say, thank God it's written that way.
That's the way it ought to be written.
That makes perfect sense.
I was just mixed up.
I've been taught something wrong or I had a preconceived idea.
That's what was confusing me.
Now I'm seeing it.
Now it's really clear.
Now it's making a lot of sense to me.
And so you've got to ask God to be your teacher.
Today it's so easy to run to Google,
to run to Matthew Henry commentary or Strong's Concordance or whatever.
Instead of doing the diligent work of praying and reading.
Praying and reading, okay?
Look if you would at Galatians chapter 2.
Flip over to Galatians in the New Testament.
Galatians chapter number 2.
Now this is a little bit of a different scenario obviously
because Paul was an apostle.
And obviously Paul actually physically saw Jesus Christ
after he rose from the dead.
According to 1 Corinthians 15 he was basically the last human being
to which Jesus Christ was revealed in his resurrected form.
You say well John saw Jesus,
but John had already seen Jesus resurrected.
And he saw him again on the Isle of Patmos.
But Paul was the last person to be classified as an apostle
according to 1 Corinthians 15
because he was the last one to see Christ.
He said, last of all me, I'm the least of the apostles
as one born out of due time.
He's listing off those that saw the resurrected Christ.
Obviously there's a difference here of the fact that Paul was an apostle,
I'm not an apostle, you're not an apostle and so forth.
Paul was revealed a lot of God's word through divine inspiration
where he wrote down these books of the Bible.
But still I want you to get the truth here
that still applies.
Look at verse number 15.
It says, but when it pleased God,
I'm sorry chapter 1, 15, I didn't mean chapter 2, I'm sorry.
Galatians 1, 15, but when it pleased God
who separated me from my mother's womb
and called me by his grace to reveal his son in me
that I might preach him among the heathen
immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.
Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me,
but I went into Arabia and returned again into Damascus.
So then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter
in a bowl within 15 days,
but other of the apostles saw I none,
save James the Lord's brother.
Now the things which I write unto you before,
I'm sorry, the things which I write unto you behold,
before God, I lie not.
Now, what am I trying to show you here?
Is that, you know, when Paul was going to preach,
he decided that God had called him to be the apostle to the Gentiles.
You know, he's going to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.
This was revealed to him on the day that he got saved.
Because when he got saved and baptized,
Ananias passed on the message to him
that he was going to be sent far hence to the Gentiles
and that he would preach the gospel among the Gentiles.
He's told that the day that he got saved,
the chosen vessel, that he would suffer for Christ.
You see, the first thing he did was not to confer with flesh and blood,
but rather to confer with God.
Now obviously that's a little bit different than our situation.
We're not an apostle and so forth.
But I don't believe that when he was in Arabia for three and a half years
that he was just talking to God audibly and so forth
just because he had things that were revealed to him through the Holy Ghost.
You know, he was out there studying his Bible.
He's out there praying for three and a half years.
He was doing things that would strengthen him in the Spirit,
not just a conference with man.
Not just immediately conferencing with man.
Oh, I'm going to preach. Oh, what do I do?
Oh, I've got to write a sermon.
Okay, what do I preach? Let me talk to you.
Let me go to Bible college. Let me ask this guy.
This guy's going to teach.
We ought to not have this attitude of just immediately conferring with flesh and blood all the time
when we need to know something out of the Bible
or we want to understand something or preach something or do something
or we have a decision in our life to make.
Instead of picking up the phone, you know, pick up the Bible if you have a decision to make.
Get on your knees. Pray.
And we need to get to the point where we have a direct access to God
and not where we're always going through others or talking about God
or talking about the Bible or asking people about the Bible.
Ask God about the Bible.
Let God be your teacher.
I don't want to be your primary teacher of the Bible.
I want to be more just an...
What's the word that I'm looking for?
I want to complement your Bible study.
I want to be something that augments what you're already doing on your own with God in the Bible
because you should be doing most of your learning from the teacher who is the Holy Spirit, God Himself.
Not just coming to church and learning 90% at church
and then every once in a while you find something on your own in the Bible.
You should be finding stuff on your own in the Bible all the time.
You should constantly be reading and praying and seeing things and learning things on your own
because the things that you learn on your own are the things that you retain more.
When you hear something preached, even if you're listening very carefully,
if you don't use it or if you don't study it yourself or meditate upon it yourself, you will forget it.
How many times did I sit in church growing up?
I mean, how many? Thousands of sermons.
I can think of a particular church I went to for seven years,
but how many sermons could I tell you from that time that I was there?
You say, oh, you were a little kid.
Well, when I was a teenager, I went to a few different churches when I was a teenager.
I can name for you maybe three sermons.
It's not that I wasn't listening because I was listening,
but it's that I wasn't studying the Bible on my own and I wasn't using it.
I wasn't doing any soul-willing. I wasn't doing any preaching.
Therefore, I wasn't really putting into practice what I was hearing.
Therefore, if you don't use it, you lose it.
The things that you delve in and find on your own,
I can still to this day remember tons of things that I learned on my own during my teenage years.
Now, I wasn't exactly reading the Bible as much as I should have,
but I did read it on a daily basis growing up.
I would only read a few verses because to me it was more just a religious ritual
where I basically just said I must read the Bible every day.
So I paused the video game just long enough.
Seriously, I'd pause the video game, turn off the music just long enough.
I got to read the Bible.
I'd pull it out, and this is the only thing I would usually read.
I would either read 1 Timothy or Titus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, only the red letters,
or the book of Proverbs.
I would always hear preaching that said,
read it until you get something out of it.
I'm like, I know I'm going to get something out of that.
If Jesus is talking or if it's Proverbs, I'm going to get something right away.
So I would just flip open my Bible and just read a few verses,
think about it, okay, you know, got it, done.
You know, that's not enough Bible reading.
You're not going to grow spiritually, and I wasn't growing spiritually like that
until I started reading cover to cover.
But it's amazing how I can still, even with that anemic Bible ration that I was on,
I still remember much more than I learned on my own
in those little five-verse little reading sessions
than I learned in church that whole time
because there's something about learning things yourself from God
where God teaches you and you have the Bible in front of you
and you looked at it and you learn, nobody is teaching you except God
that it sticks with you more.
And that's why this chapter mentions this like, what, 10 or 15 times
that God needs to teach you.
God will guide you, God will show you things, God will lead you.
And so you've got to rely upon God to be your primary teacher,
not church, not a school, Christian school.
I went to Christian school.
I sat in class, life of Paul, you know, just for like a year.
Every missionary journey, all the maps, you know,
showing you where he went and all this stuff,
I don't even remember any of it.
The only thing I know about the life of Paul is where I stayed on my own later.
I couldn't tell you Troas from Pamphylia, you know, until I studied it on my own.
So, you know, but, you know, they spent hours teaching it to me.
But, you know, it just goes in one ear and out the other, let's face it.
And so you've got to let God teach you.
And in order for God to teach you, in order for God to show you,
you have to open your eyes with the Bible in front of you.
You've got to have God's word in order for it to be shown.
How's God going to show you something?
You know, you're not looking.
He's not going to show you in your video game.
You know, he's not going to show you in your comic book.
He's not going to show you on TV.
He's not going to show you anywhere else except when you're reading the Bible, you know.
And I'm not saying that all hobbies are wrong, but you know what?
Get your priorities straight and spend an ample amount of time in this book every day
to give God a chance to teach you.
Don't say, oh, I already heard it in church.
It's great today, but five years from now you'll forget almost everything I'm saying right now.
It's true.
All forget it and I'm the one saying it.
I mean, I've gone back and listened to my sermon from three years ago
and I'm learning new things, you know, because you're going to forget it.
That's why you have to keep reading, honestly.
That's why you've got to read it this year, again and again.
Oh, yeah, I read it a while back.
You forget it. You've got to keep reading it. Keep reading it.
That's why you read the Bible over and over again.
Keep refreshing it.
It's like the cow that has four stomachs, you know.
He chews on it for a while, digests it, chews on it again, digests it.
That's how you've got to be with God's word.
It's a continual process.
You don't just say, well, I learned it 20 years ago, so I'm good to go.
You'll forget what you've learned.
And so let God teach you by doing a lot of reading, a lot of studying in the Bible.
Said in verse 5, lead me in thy truth and teach me,
for thou art the God of my salvation.
On thee do I wait all the day.
Now, that's interesting that, you know, the whole day long,
does it sound like David had God in his thoughts
or that he just kind of gets with the Bible in the morning
and then just goes throughout his day.
No, it sounds like the whole day long he's cognizant of God and His word.
He's saying, on thee do I wait all the day.
Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses,
for they have been ever of old.
You see, God does not change.
He said God's mercies and lovingkindnesses have been ever of old.
Ever of old is going back basically to infinity.
Forever in a past tense. Ever of old.
That's what he means. They've ever been here.
They've always been around.
And so therefore, don't get this idea,
well the God of the old, and this is what ignorant, foolish people think,
the God of the Old Testament was filled with wrath and vengeance.
You know, the God of the New Testament is all sweetness and light.
In reality, if anything, the opposite is true.
If anything.
I mean, there are more harsh passages in the New Testament than in the Old.
But it doesn't matter because Jesus Christ is the same.
Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever.
He's always been loving and kind.
It's not like the God of the Old Testament has no love,
or has no kindness.
No, His lovingkindness, as David's talking about in Psalms,
he said it's always been like that.
You say, oh now we're living in the age of grace,
and people interpret this as we're living in the age of anything goes.
Oh, we're free in Christ.
The age of grace.
And they think that means no rules.
Oh, we're not under the law, we're under grace.
You know, I preached on this when I went through the book of Romans,
because that's where that phrase comes from,
that we're not under the law, we're under grace.
You know, he's talking about being saved.
He's not sitting there saying, forget God's law.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Man, it's grace.
Thou shalt not steal.
What, are you living in the Old Testament, brother?
Why are you trying to bring me back into bondage?
Tell me not to steal.
You know what I mean?
I'm free in Christ.
You know, don't bring me back into bondage,
tell me not to take God's name in vain.
I mean, this is ludicrous.
But I think people just don't really stop to think it through.
And you may not know what I'm talking about,
but if you've been in the New Evangelical movement at all,
like I was for five years as a teenager,
you know what I'm talking about.
You'll try to show somebody in the Bible something,
and they'll say that's legalism.
We're under grace.
You know, under grace, that's legalism.
You know, it's just about a relationship with Christ.
Rules don't matter.
It's not do's and don'ts.
I mean, who's heard stuff like that?
Oh, man, this is huge.
It's huge.
I mean, if you go to the typical rock and roll NIV church,
that's what you're going to hear a lot, a lot.
I mean, I literally went to church one time
and they told me that Jesus was at a party
where people were drunk in John chapter 2,
and then he gave them more to drink
after they were already drunk,
because that's what the NIV says.
It says they were drunk.
He said they drunk too much.
The King James doesn't say that, okay?
And so they get it all mixed up,
and basically they want to teach this permissive living
and say we're under the age of grace.
Let me tell you when the age of grace started.
With Adam, because when Adam died, okay,
the day that he ate the fruit and he spiritually died,
his spirit died, his body died later.
But the day that he ate thereof, his spirit died.
That day when God offered Adam salvation, okay,
and began to expound unto him the plan of salvation
by slaying the lamb and putting the coats of skins...
Remember how he made the apron of fig leaves,
which is a picture of him trying to cover his sin
with his own works?
So he made his own fig leaf apron.
And by the way, an apron doesn't quite do the job
to cover you.
I hope you don't go out of the house
and just an apron, you know?
But that's a picture of how stupid man's attempt
to justify himself before God.
He puts on an apron and says,
is this enough, you know?
And made of fig leaves.
And then God showed him the plan of salvation.
He explained to him in Genesis 3.15
about how the seed of the woman
would bruise the serpent's head,
you know, the famous verse.
And then he made him the coats of skins.
He slew the animal, you know,
put on the coats of skins,
a picture of the covering of the blood of Jesus and so forth,
the robe of righteousness,
all these different analogies there.
That's when the age of grace began.
Because when Abel died and went to heaven,
he went by grace.
Because he didn't deserve to go to heaven.
He was a sinner, just like I'm a sinner,
just like you're a sinner.
And so therefore, he did not deserve to go to heaven,
therefore he went by grace.
And so to say that he went any other way is garbage.
You know, you say, oh, yeah,
people in the Old Testament were saved
by keeping the commandments.
Well, then they're all in hell.
Because no one's ever kept the commandments.
You know, nobody's ever kept.
There's not a just man upon the earth
that doeth good and sinneth not,
is what Solomon said.
It's got to be by grace.
And so God has not changed.
It's the same God of the Old Testament.
God is angry with the wicked every day.
Back then, now,
he pours out his wrath.
He has judgment and fiery indignation.
He had it then, he has it now.
He has loving kindness.
He had it back then.
Okay?
So notice that.
That's a key verse where it says,
for they have been ever of old.
Okay?
That's talking about no beginning there.
For God's mercy and loving kindness.
Okay?
Look at verse 7.
Here's an important verse.
Remember not the sins of my youth,
nor my transgressions.
According to thy mercy,
remember thou me for thy goodness' sake.
Now, do you remember how Job,
when he was greeted by his three friends,
and they began to accuse Job wrongfully?
Even though Job had not done anything wrong.
All these bad things had happened to Job,
and these men, Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad
came to him and basically said,
if you were right with God,
this wouldn't be happening to you.
You know, you must be in sin here,
because otherwise this would not be happening.
And then he tried to tell them,
hey guys, you know,
I didn't do anything wrong.
I've been living a righteous life.
And then they accused him of saying like,
oh, well you think you're sinless.
You know, he's like, look,
you know, this is what the whole book of Job is,
kind of a conversation between these people.
And he basically says,
look, I'm not saying that I'm totally sinless.
I'm just paraphrasing the whole thing.
I'm not saying that I'm completely without sin.
I'm just saying I didn't do anything wrong
to cause all this bad stuff to happen to me.
And, you know, he's going back and forth.
He's arguing.
Well, they're falsely accusing him.
And remember, Job brings up in one of the scriptures,
he says, you know,
thou makest me to remember the sins of my youth.
I forget exactly what he says.
That's a paraphrase.
He's like, you're throwing stuff in my face
from when I was a kid, you know,
trying to dig deep and find something I did wrong.
You're making me to, you know,
own the sins of my youth, basically.
That's what he's saying here.
He's saying, remember not the sins of my youth.
You know, how would you like to have done something wrong
when you were a kid, a teenager,
and you can just never live it down?
I mean, wouldn't that be ridiculous?
Like, let's say you're 40 years old,
and when you were 15, you did something,
and people just will not let you live it down.
I mean, isn't that just ridiculous?
You know, you've got to give people a pathway
to living something down.
You know, this is what I don't agree with
about our justice system in America at all,
is this thing of having a criminal record.
Totally unscriptural concept.
Completely unscriptural.
Because in the Bible, it is said that if a person
is found stealing or whatever,
if they pay back fourfold, which is the punishment,
that it should not be mentioned to them again.
That they paid their dues, they paid the crime,
or whatever the crime it was,
once they paid for it, once they've been punished,
if they received their stripes, you know,
they got their beating, they paid fivefold,
whatever the case may be,
that it should be over at that point,
and they can move on.
And it even says it will not be mentioned to them again.
And yet today, people have this thing
called a criminal record where if they commit a felony
or misdemeanor or whatever,
they have to put that on their job application.
So let's say somebody steals,
and then now they want to live a clean life and go straight.
They can't even get a job,
or they have a hard time getting a job.
And then what do you think they're going to do?
Probably just go back to stealing.
You say, well, criminal records are important
because, you know, we don't want to have
these wicked people around children
like pedophiles or rapists or violent criminals.
No, God has the answer for that, too.
It's called the death penalty.
You wouldn't have to do a background check.
You'd do an underground check.
You know, it's not a background check.
You look underground.
Oh, yep, there they are.
He's a pedophile.
Yeah, he's a rapist. He's a murderer.
That's what the Bible teaches,
and so you wouldn't have that problem.
You wouldn't have all these weirdos on the loose
where you'd have to, you know,
put an ankle bracelet on them or whatever,
make sure you know where they are at all times.
You wouldn't need a sex offender registry.
It's already being kept down at the morgue.
It's perfect.
You're killing two birds with one stone.
They already have records down at the mortuary.
And so this is what's wrong with our injustice system in America.
And I'm a little bit upset about it
because I've been treated unjustly by our justice system.
You know, speedy trial, huh?
Tried within six months, huh?
You know, it just goes on and on and on and on,
you know, for my bogus charges
that have been brought against me,
misdemeanors for, you know, standing up for my rights in America
not to be searched and seized without a warrant.
And so, no, I'm not impressed by it.
I'm not impressed by a system that, you know,
somebody steals something
and they basically have to never live that down for the rest of their life
and then the pedophile gets out in four years.
You know, look at Kent Hovind.
Kent Hovind?
You know, whatever you agree with or don't agree with about him,
you know, I'm not some big Kent Hovind fan at all
by any stretch of the imagination.
But at the same time, you know, it's not right,
the fact that he's sitting in jail
for nine years in federal prison,
okay, for so-called tax fraud,
okay, because, you know, you just didn't give them
a big enough piece of the pie
that they already took from him his whole life.
You know, he's in the federal prison for nine years
and he, you know, with no possibility of getting out early
and yet these bunch of violent criminals
and pedophiles get out after four or five years.
I mean, this is the country we're living in.
And it's almost just at the caprice of a judge to just,
I don't know what they do, but,
you know, pull sentences out of a hat or whatever.
But the point is that God's way is perfect.
And in God's economy, God's system of justice,
people who are violent criminals,
people who are deviants,
when it comes to carnal matters,
you know, they're put to death.
That's what the Bible teaches,
so we don't have to worry about that.
And then people who commit other crimes,
such as stealing and so forth,
can live that down, okay,
because they can make it right.
They can settle up and live their life
and turn over a new leaf, as it were.
You know, and there's so many other things.
And it used to be if somebody breaks in your house
and you're there, you just blow their brains out
and just be dealt with it.
And then that was easy.
Except they didn't have guns, so they just,
I don't know, swung a sword at their head or something.
Whatever they did, you know, I don't know.
But I'm sure they had a good weapon by the bedside, whatever it was.
But anyway, it says in verse number 8,
Good and upright is the Lord,
therefore will He teach sinners in the way.
The meek will He guide in judgment,
and the meek will He teach His way.
Now, what does it mean to be meek?
Meekness is a very important concept in the Bible.
We've all heard,
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Meekness is the attribute of basically being a humble person.
The opposite of meekness would be
arrogance, pride, haughtiness,
you think you're really cool,
you are lifted up in your heart.
That's the opposite of meekness.
Meekness is not weakness.
It's not walking around being a sissy
or looking at the ground all the time
or feeling sorry for yourself all the time.
I'm such a bad Christian, you know.
Just by the grace of God, I'm over there.
You know, that's not meekness.
Meekness is just having a humble attitude
where you're not prideful and arrogant,
you think you're so cool.
Moses was the meekest man upon the face of the earth,
according to God's Word,
and yet he was a great leader,
yet he was a powerful speaker.
The Bible says in Acts chapter 7,
he was a man mighty in words and deeds.
So he was a powerful speaker.
He claimed that he was not eloquent,
but Stephen, in Acts chapter 7,
when he was preaching, he said he was a man
that was filled with the Holy Ghost.
Stephen was filled with the Holy Ghost preaching
and saying he was a man mighty in words and deeds
taught by the Egyptians and so forth.
And you notice that even though he said he couldn't speak
and Aaron was supposed to be the speaker,
you still read Exodus, it's still him doing the talking.
Once it came down to it, he started piping up.
I was like, I thought Aaron was going to talk.
But he basically just pipes up.
The Spirit of the Lord came upon him
and he was a powerful man.
So it wasn't that he was weak or a little sissy,
but he was very meek.
He was a very humble man
and he was not arrogant, he was not prideful at all.
And therefore, if you remember,
his sister and his brother started giving him a bad time.
And that's when the Bible brings up his meekness.
In the book of Numbers, when they started giving him a bad time
about the woman that he had married,
personally, I believe it was after his other wife passed away.
That's what the Bible seems to indicate.
I don't think he was taking on a second wife.
It was after his other wife had passed away.
They gave him a bad time
and he was real meek about it,
but that's when God stepped in and rebuked them himself
and said, look, Moses is the leader here
and they were trying to basically take away his authority
and say, well, God spoke by us too.
Why can't we lead these people and so forth?
Meekness is an attribute that we all need to have.
If you want to be a great man like Moses,
you want to inherit the Arab,
it's meekness, humility.
God resisted the proud.
Do you want to go through life having God fight against you the whole time?
Like you're trying to swim upstream your whole life?
Because that's what God will do if you're proud.
He'll resist you.
You'll try to go forward and he'll stop you.
That's what resistance is.
And so he said the meek will he guide in judgment.
So you want God to teach you the Bible?
You know, be humble enough to ask God for help
and not think you know it all.
Go to God for the help to be taught.
He said the meek will he guide in judgment and the meek will he teach his way.
The words of the Lord are mercy and truth,
unto such as keep his covenant as testimonies.
For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity,
for it is great.
What man is he that fearth the Lord?
Him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose.
His soul shall dwell at ease
and his seed shall inherit the earth.
The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him
and he will show them his covenant.
The secret of the Lord.
You know, if you look up the word secret in the Bible,
remember in the book of Daniel,
it talks a lot about how God is a God that reveals secrets.
In Daniel chapter 2, that word is used over and over.
Secret, secret, secret.
Talking about the fact that Nebuchadnezzar had this dream,
he didn't understand it,
and the secret of his dream was revealed unto
the children of Israel,
Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, and also Daniel.
You see, the secret things are the basically hidden things,
the unknown things that God will reveal to you.
Revelation chapter number 2 or 3,
I forget one of those two where it goes through the seven churches,
where he says,
to him that overcometh, the church of Pergamos,
so chapter 2,
to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna.
Does anybody remember that?
The hidden manna, and we'll give him a white stone,
and the stone a new name written,
which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth.
The hidden manna, the manna of course represented God's word.
He said, I fed you with manna,
that thou mayest know that man does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God that man live.
And so, the manna represented God's word,
they got up every morning, they gathered the manna,
because that's a picture of the fact that we should be reading God's word every single day.
You know, arise and get in God's word.
God will show you the hidden manna.
God will reveal to you the secrets of his word,
okay, if you fear him,
if you obey his commandments,
if you obey his covenant, if you're meek.
God is the one that will teach you.
The secrets of God's word are not found in a commentary.
They're not found in a seminary, or a cemetery.
They're not found in a university.
They're found with those that fear God.
Quietly, on their own,
in a quiet place, with the Bible,
is where the secrets of God's word are made manifest,
between you and God.
And so, if you really want to go deep in the Bible,
it's going to have to be just you and God.
And you're going to have to keep his commandments,
you're going to have to be a meek person,
you're going to have to follow God's word,
and he'll give you the hidden manna.
He'll show you the secret things.
Now, I personally am not one of these that says,
people say this, you know,
if it's new, then it's not true.
Okay.
Which, I see what they're saying.
I mean, it makes sense.
The Bible's always been around.
There's nothing new under the sun.
I agree with that.
But in Matthew chapter 13, the Bible says,
the kingdom of God is likened unto a householder.
Okay.
Let's go there quickly.
I want to show you this,
because it's an interesting concept for a preacher.
Look at Matthew chapter 13.
It says in verse 52, Matthew 13, 52.
Well, let's read 51 just to kind of get a feel
of the conversation that Jesus had with the apostles.
It says in verse 51,
Jesus saith unto them,
Have ye understood all these things?
They say unto him, Yea, Lord.
Then saith he unto them.
Now, I don't know if they really were answering right there,
because it gives them all these tons of parables
that are really, really deep.
Matthew 13 is a pretty long chapter.
It's all these really deep parables.
So have you understood all these things?
Oh, yeah, we got it.
And then I think that's why he explains them in verse 52.
He says,
Then saith he unto them, Therefore,
every scribe which is instructed
unto the kingdom of heaven
is likened to a man that is a householder,
which bringeth forth out of his treasure
things new and old.
When you study the Bible, when you preach the Bible,
you're bringing out things old and things new.
If the Bible is truly as infinite as God is,
which I believe it is,
it is possible for you to learn something new
that no one else has ever seen in the Bible.
Now, I'm not talking about some new doctrine,
and if it's some new doctrine, some new salvation,
that's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about just little gems from the Bible.
We're not talking about major doctrines on the blood of Christ
and the resurrection and the second coming.
But we're talking about the fact that there's so much in the Bible,
you could preach a sermon,
okay, men that preach,
you could preach a sermon
that could be a unique sermon that's never been preached
in the last 2,000 years of Christianity.
I believe that.
Of course I believe that.
You could say, because the Bible is so deep,
we could be pulling new things out of it for 1,000 years.
Now, I try to make my preaching
a mixture of things new and things old.
That verse is kind of a verse that I use in my preaching.
I think about that verse a lot,
because I've been to some churches
where it seemed like the pastor only wanted to preach new things.
And the problem is you have so many new people coming in,
visitors coming in,
it's like, well, the first year he preached all the main doctrines
and he's never coming back to it.
You know what I mean?
You've got to repeat things, right?
And plus just the fact that things begin to slip
after a year or two years or three years.
You have to repeat things.
But then you don't want to be in the trap
of just a broken record.
Once you've been to Faithful Word for three years,
the sermons start over again.
And so now we're back on the 2006 sermons,
and we're going through them.
You pretty much know what the next sermon's coming,
because I'm preaching through 2006,
and then by the time I get around to 2013,
we're going to be back again.
The same thing.
No, but we need a mixture, a balance of new and old.
We don't want to just hear the same old thing
over and over and over and over.
And I've been to churches like that,
and you're like, okay, okay, I've heard this before,
okay, what else is new?
But at the same time, you don't want to have an attitude
where everything has to be new.
You need the mixture.
You need to be refreshed on certain things.
You need your pure mind stirred up by way of remembrance.
As Peter said, he said,
I know I'm telling you things you already know.
In Philippians, Paul said the same thing, chapter three.
He said, finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.
To write the same things unto you,
to me, indeed, is not grievous,
but for you it is safe.
He said, just to be safe,
I'm going to write to you some of the same things.
Don't be weary of it.
I know you already know it.
It's not a grievance to me to repeat the same thing
because it's safe for you to get this, okay?
And so, yes, there's repetition,
but there's also new things, okay?
The secret things, the hidden things.
There's new truths.
That's what makes the Bible exciting
because if it had all been read,
it's all been preached, it's all been done,
and sometimes I feel that way as a pastor
because I have preached for,
and it might not seem that long to somebody
who has maybe been a pastor for decades or something,
but I preach now in church, that is.
Obviously, I preach hundreds of times
before I was a pastor,
but since I've been passing,
I've preached for four years and three months.
Think about how many sermons that is.
That's well over 600 sermons right here in church
because 150 a year
because there's 52 times three, 156 a year,
times four years plus a few months on there.
We're talking way over 600 sermons.
Sometimes I just look at my wife and say,
honey, have I preached at all?
Like, what's left to preach?
I've said it all,
but thank God I'll never have said it all.
I mean, even after I've gone through every chapter
verse by verse on Wednesday night
after 23 and a half years,
I will not have preached at all
because there's more, it's new,
and it would be so boring
if you just read the Bible and you're done with it.
You've preached it all, you've said it all.
No, there's always something new.
Dig in deep and find the hidden treasures in God's Word.
Find the secret things.
Find the hidden treasures.
They're only found by you.
No one can show them to you
or else they're not a secret.
If I show it to you,
if I preach it, it's not a secret anymore.
Everybody on the Internet heard it.
You'll tell somebody.
You'll ruin the whole secret.
But when you are studying the Bible on your own
and learn something new
that you've never heard me or anyone else say
and you see it and you know it's true,
you got it from God,
hey, that is the secret things.
That's the hidden things that God will show you.
That makes reading the Bible exciting,
finding new things.
That's what I'm looking for when I read the Bible,
looking for something new.
I'm rejoicing in the old things that I read over again
and I'm looking for something new.
But let's hurry up and finish here.
The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him
and He will show them His covenant.
Verse 15,
Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord,
for He shall pluck my feet out of the net.
Turn thee unto me
and have mercy upon me,
for I am desolate and afflicted.
The troubles of my heart are enlarged.
O bring now me out of my distresses.
Look upon mine affliction and my pain
and forgive all my sins.
Consider mine enemies,
for they are many,
and they hate me with cruel hatred.
O keep my soul and deliver me.
Let me not be ashamed,
for I put my trust in thee.
There it is again from the beginning of the chapter.
Let integrity and uprightness preserve me,
for I wait on thee.
Redeem Israel, O God,
out of all his troubles.
And so it takes faith here to rely upon God.
And you kind of sense in this psalm almost like God's
just hearing from David over and over saying,
God, don't let me down.
Let me not be ashamed.
I'm trusting you here, God.
I've done the right thing here.
And sometimes it's not easy doing the right thing,
having integrity and uprightness.
Sometimes by being honest
and having integrity and being upright,
you can put yourself in a dangerous position.
You know, sometimes it's easier just to lie, okay,
and just to take the easy way,
you know, the easy way out,
just by lying, deceiving.
But it takes faith to say,
you know what, I'm going to do the right thing,
and I'm not going to be ashamed
because God's going to come through for me.
You know, God's going to bless me.
God's going to help me.
It takes faith to lean on God.
And so not only should you do the right thing,
but you should pray like David prayed here
because this is God's word.
You should pray and say to God,
don't let me down, God.
Sometimes I like to remind God of his promises
that he's made in the Bible and hold him to it.
So, you know, you say, well, what are you talking about?
Well, that's what the Bible is.
That's what Psalms is so many times.
It's David praying to God and saying,
okay, God, you said that if I did this and this,
you would preserve me.
You would step in and take care of it.
I would not be ashamed.
You would deliver me.
And so, God, I've done A, B, and C.
Now it's time for you to fulfill your end of the bargain, God.
Please step in here and help me like you said you would.
There's nothing wrong with praying like that.
That's what the Bible is teaching us here in Psalm 25,
among many other psalms.
If I were to pray.
Father, thank you so much for your Word, dear God.
And I pray that you would show us all wondrous things, dear God,
and give us to eat of the hidden man I showed you.