Psalm 97-10

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. I see a lot of smiling faces. That's nice. I don't know why I'm so nervous. Anabaptists, such a small group, probably because I know that there's a lot of wisdom and understanding of the Bible, more than what I have, maybe. [00:00:37] But I'm not here to impress anybody. I don't think anybody is here to impress anybody. We want to be open to what God has for us each and every day. And I just want to be used by Him. But one thing, I'm very, you know, I pray and I try to be led by the Holy Spirit and be open to Him. [00:01:07] But, you know, sometimes in my flesh, in my humanness, maybe I interpret something wrong. So, I really appreciate what happened yesterday. Maybe there was a little something said accidentally. No problem. That's great. So, I welcome anybody who has something to fix what I said or whatever. Okay, we're looking at Psalms 97.10. There's a lot to be said, and I'm going to, we could probably go down a couple different roads with this verse. [00:02:00] The verse says, you who love the Lord hate evil. He preserves the souls of his saints. He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. I had to think, you know, if we say that we love the Lord, then we will love truth. Jesus said that I am the way, the truth, and the life. So if we love truth, we will hate evil. [00:02:37] I think King James Version says, abhor evil. I was reading out of New King James. And abhor is the same thing as hate. It means to detest, to loathe, to hate. Romans 12 verse 9 says, let us be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. And if we turn to Proverbs 8, verse 13, it says, [00:03:07] The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate. Now, it's quite obvious from Psalms 97 that we can show our love for the Lord, to the Lord, by hating evil. And that means that we hate everything that He hates. There can be no true love for God where evil is not totally hated in all of its forms. [00:03:42] We cannot be like Christ unless we love what he loves and hates what he hates. I want to turn to Psalms 51, David and his confession. In verse 6 he says, Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom. Here, when David is talking about the inward parts, [00:04:20] I had to think of, David understood that God wanted truth and what is reality in the inward parts. You know, as God speaks truth to us through his word, Do we love that truth that he is speaking into our life, that he is showing us? Even in all of its forms, God desires reality. [00:04:58] Is it reality, our life, that people see the impression that we leave with people? The prayers that we pray, the testimonies that we give, the sermons that we give. Do I lead people to believe that I pray every day when I really pray only six times a week? There's nothing wrong with praying six times a week, but it's my impression to people, and sometimes that can be an accident too, you don't mean to do it, [00:05:28] I think that in my own life, in my flesh, and I know that all of us here have flesh, we are of flesh, we tend to seek the honor of men before we seek the honor of God. And that's all what we're fighting against. And for me, I like to leave a good impression. And sometimes for me it's hard to see that as sin when I want to seek the honor of men before I seek the honor of God. [00:06:07] You know, it can be when we are talking to one person. It can be when we're talking to ten or three hundred. We need to see evil for what it is. We need to hate evil. And as we love the Lord, we will more and more hate evil. And I believe that looking around at Christians today, it's pretty easy to see that a lot of them are not real. [00:06:50] You know that by the fruits ye shall know them. But how do we get there? How do we get that reality with God? God, how can we be real? And that is by loving truth, by loving the Lord, and by loving His Word. You know, I believe that we all here, we want to be used by God. [00:07:28] Do you want to be used by God? Do you want to be His mouth? In your community, first of all, in your families, in your churches, those of you who are ministers, Jeremiah 15 verse 19 says, Therefore, thus says the Lord, if you return, then I will bring you back. You shall stand before me. If you take out the precious from the vial, you shall be as my mouth. If you shall take out the precious from the vial, you shall be my mouth. [00:08:03] What does that mean? I had to think of you know it's not like we're you know those obvious sins adultery fornication stealing murder we wouldn't have any of that that would not be inward even though sometimes we can murder somebody I believe with our thoughts but we need to get rid of that spirit of [00:08:34] The spirit of accusation, the spirit of criticism, backbiting, finding fault, that complaining spirit, talking with unbelievers at work, and maybe it even turns into fellowship with unbelievers at work, and criticizing the boss and other workers and the government. I found myself in that big time. We need to get rid of the garbage, get rid of the sin, take the precious from the vile so that we can be used by God and be upright, hate evil, speak the truth even when it goes against us, even when we're going to lose some money. [00:09:20] I lay ceramic tile and sometimes jobs don't go as good as what I think that they should. I don't make as much money as I think I should, so I want to say nickel and dime them. If I wouldn't charge for something, I'd charge a little more over here. How do we run our businesses? Are we honest? Do we love the truth? [00:09:51] Even if we lose money, if we lose our job, if we would even lose our life, it says if we extract the precious from the vile, then we can be used by God. Is it worth it? Of course it is. And the other thing, I believe that the work of God is suffering [00:10:26] Because there are not many upright people 100% truthful about themselves, about their business When they bill people and their taxes We used to live in Jamaica and so every time we'd go down there We would try and take, you know, we didn't have a whole lot of cold meat sandwiches. Simple things like cold meat. [00:10:57] They had cold meat down there, but it was expensive. So we tried to take all that stuff down there as much as we could. But we knew that we weren't supposed to, otherwise we'd get charged customs. And it's not like we were taking it down to sell it or make money with it. We just wanted to use it. So, we would hide it. And we would even tell people when they would come down, bring us lunch meat, but stick it on the bottom, you know, so that they don't find it. And Jim, we were talking the other day, Jim's did that when they came down years ago. And that's not being honest. [00:11:31] You know, God doesn't have a shortage of money. You know, here we're trying to hide things, be dishonest. And being dishonest is evil. Look at Satan. He was dishonest. He told Eve a lie. You won't surely die. It's dishonesty. So dishonesty is sin. And we need to hate sin. to the point that we'll pay whatever it costs to take meat to Jamaica. [00:12:06] What's the big deal? The problem is that God doesn't have a shortage of money. He has a shortage of upright people. In Hebrews chapter 1, verse 9. Actually, I'll start in verse 8. But to the Son, He says, Your throne, O God. [00:12:41] He's saying to the Son that He is God. I just, I forget where I heard that. That was just a neat, a neat thing to me. The Son is God. Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness more than your companions. What is that oil of gladness? And maybe that would be a nice discussion for afterwards. [00:13:17] What is that oil of gladness? The measure of anointing oil on our heads, and I would even want to say the measure of the power of the Holy Spirit being upon us, depends on the measure in which we love righteousness and hate evil. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness. You know, there's a difference between hating sin and avoiding sin. [00:13:59] I had to think of if there's a thief that's thinking of stealing a car. And around the corner, there's a policeman. So he doesn't steal the car because there's a policeman there. You know, does that mean that he hates evil? That thief hates evil? I don't think so. Doesn't mean he hates evil. He's just avoiding the crime. Doesn't mean he hates sin. When we avoid sin, avoid sin, I don't think that we have reached great heights. [00:14:39] But it's when we hate sin that we know that we are following Jesus. The same way when we do righteousness, we haven't reached great heights. But it's when we love righteousness and we love the truth that we know that we are following Jesus. It's not just speaking the truth, it's loving the truth. In Matthew 7, where we all know the story of in verse 21 to 23, [00:15:15] Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many, I underline that word in my Bible, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. I want to jump over to Matthew 25. I'm talking about the judgment. [00:15:52] Separating the sheep from the goats, the sheep on the right hand, the goats on the left. In verse 34, then the king will say to those on his right hand, come you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Why would they inherit the kingdom? For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. [00:16:31] Now, back in chapter 7 where he's talking about these people who say that they have prophesied, they have cast out demons, and done many wonders in your name. They didn't inherit. It'd be nice to know another discussion topic. What do you think these guys did that was wrong? And maybe it's a couple of different things, but I had to think maybe they were maybe they were saying that they did, but they really didn't. [00:17:10] Maybe they were saying that they had the gift of healing. Maybe they really didn't have the gift of healing. Maybe they weren't being honest where these people over here in chapter 25, all they did was gave them food when he was hungry, gave them a drink naked and they clothed him. And when he was sick, all they did was visited him, encouraged him. So we have to be real. [00:17:42] We have to be honest. Christ, God isn't looking for us to do supernatural things. He just wants honesty. He wants uprightness and he wants us to hate evil, just like Jesus hates evil. We don't need to say, you know, big fancy sermons and big eloquent testimonies that make people cry. [00:18:13] It just has to be honest. You know, he can take just simple words from a simple testimony and God's word will pierce the heart of the sinner and bring him to repentance. That's all that God's looking for is upright people. Another thing I had to think about was in 2 Corinthians, I mean Thessalonians chapter 2. Talking about the events coming up to the day of the Lord. [00:18:49] In verse 9, it says, The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan with all power. With all power, signs and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish. But why? Why are they perishing? Why are they giving in to this deception of wickedness? Because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. [00:19:25] And if you go back to Psalms 97, You who love the Lord hate evil. He preserves the souls of his saints. He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. And here he says, because they did not receive the love of the truth, if they would have had the love of the truth, they would have been saved. And so I think of the emerging church. I don't know that much about it. If you want to know more, you can talk to Brother Leon. I don't know much about it, but I praise the Lord for men who know more than me. [00:20:08] But in order for us to know what is truth, we have to know the truth. We have to love the truth more than even just knowing the truth. We have to hate evil. And so by receiving the love of the truth, we will be able to know what is false doctrine and these false teachers. In 1 Timothy 4, verses 1 to 3, [00:20:44] Now the Spirit expressly says, that's with an exclamation mark, expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies and hypocrisy, Having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. [00:21:17] So we need to be careful. We need to love the truth, hate evil, so that we can know which is false doctrine. I wanted to read a couple of verses in Psalms 119. Verses 129 to 136 [00:21:49] Your testimonies are wonderful, therefore my soul keeps them. The entrance of your words gives light. It gives understanding to the simple. I opened my mouth and panted. I long for your commandments. Look upon me and be merciful to me as your custom is toward those who love your name. Direct my steps by your word and let no iniquity have dominion over me. Redeem me from the oppression of man that I may keep your precepts. Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes. Rivers of water run down from my eyes because men do not keep your law. [00:22:35] I had to think, do I have a burden for lost souls? Do we have a burden for lost souls? Do we hate evil just because evil is done to us? Or do we hate evil and love the soul? Sometimes we hate evil because we were wronged. But I think it's much more than that. We need to love the soul and somehow, and it's only with the love of Jesus that we can do that. [00:23:09] That's easy to say and hard to do, but that is what Jesus commands us. So I pray that the Holy Spirit will lead us and guide us and love the truth that God speaks into each one of our lives. And it's going to be personal things. We cannot be His mouth if we don't. [00:23:41] But it has to start with us first. First as fathers, first as leaders in our homes and as leaders in the church needs to start with us. So may God be honored and praised as we seek him with our whole heart. And I pray that we will become more like Christ as we allow God to speak truth into our lives. Praise the Lord. Thank you.