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Of all whose mercy?
For me.
All day.
I can.
Only dear how many days?
Oh, I hear you.
My.
Right now.
I pray to my name.
Oh no.
Reading John chapter 10.
Chapter 10.
Good Shepherd.
14.
I am the Good Shepherd, know my sheep.
As the Father knows me, Even so know I the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep. Another sheep I have which are not of this whole. Them also I must bring. They shall hear my voice. There shall be one cold, one shepherd. Therefore does my Father love me because I lay down my life. And I think it again.
00:05:11
Verse nine I am the door. I mean, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, shall go in and now find pastor.
Him prayer.
I would like to suggest a passage that we might take up.
It's one that I cannot remember having heard taken up in a reading meeting, but I believe it could be very profitable for us.
Psalm 16.
It brings before us, and I'll just mention this for what my brethren might think of it, but it brings before us, as I'm sure many recognize, the.
Pathway prophetically of our Lord Jesus Christ as the perfect dependent man and ultimately of course as a pattern for you and for me in our pathway down here as also.
Walking a pathway of faith.
Perfectly dependent on the Lord and a pathway which ends in glory.
That be suitable.
Nice.
Chapter 16.
Midstone of David.
Preserve me, O God, for in Thee do I put my trust. O my soul, Thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord. My goodness extended extendeth not to thee, but to the Saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight. Their sorrow shall be multiplied that hasten after another God. Their drink, offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips. The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup.
Maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. Yeah, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless the Lord who hath given me. Counsel my reigns also instruct me in the night seasons. I have set the Lord always before me, because He is at my right hand. I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou will not leave my soul in hell, neither will thou suffer mine. Holy One, to see corruption.
Thou wilt show me the path of life. In Thy presence is fullness of joy.
At thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
Just another remark or true concerning this song.
As we said a moment ago, it brings before us the pathway, ultimately at the Lord Jesus Himself.
He addresses God and addresses.
Him as my Lord and as Jehovah, and so on, taking the position of the perfect dependent man down here.
We live in a complicated world today, getting more complicated and difficult all the time.
For some of us here in these favored lands, we don't suffer the outward persecution that many of our dear brethren in some countries suffer. But Satan is working very hard to turn everything against the believer and to bring everything into line with his that is Satan's thoughts, and so that ultimately we find that it is a more and more difficult world.
In which to live and move.
But the precious thing is that there is one who came right down into this world where we are and went through it.
00:10:09
Experiencing everything that a sinless man could experience in the pathway of faith and went through it in perfect dependence on his God and Father for everything. And now here this is penned for us, I believe.
To encourage you and me to go through a complicated, sinful and difficult world.
Which is ultimately Satan's world and to be able to walk a pathway of faithfulness to the Lord.
Independence upon him and a pathway which, as we see at the end of the Psalm, ends in glory. And so I would suggest that there is something in this Psalm for every one of us, even for children and those that are in public school here, because you are already feeling the complications of the kind of a world in which we Live Today. But what a blessed thing it is to realize.
There is another who has already walked that pathway and marked it out for us, and the only one who had a right to live, if we could say it reverently, independently chose to walk a pathway of dependence in order to market that pathway out for you and for me.
I think the way you explain that is very helpful.
I don't know how many have had the experience that I have had, but you come back to this Psalm. And it's not hard to recognize that the Psalm is speaking about the Lord Jesus since it's quoted in Acts and directly applied to him by the Spirit of God. And we'll get to that further down the chapter. But you come back here to this chapter and you look at what is spoken of and the thought of him putting his trust in God. And even more difficult, what we get in verse two. My goodness extends not to Thee.
You think, how could this be the Son of God? But it helps to understand the Psalm as you've explained it, that it's the Lord Jesus taking his position as a man. And although his perfect man, it expresses a place, a position he took in this world as subject man in this world, and it's viewed that way. And to look at it beyond that.
To see in this Psalm an expression of the Lord Jesus as God would be confusing, even though he is God. But that's not the expression of this Psalm, is it?
Yes, when He came into this world, He did not come into this world exhibiting His Godhead glory. And we say it with all reverence and yet with all truth. Had the Lord Jesus acted in this world in any way other than in perfect dependence, He would not have been an example for us.
Would it have been wrong for him, for example after the temp, or I should say during the temptations in the wilderness?
To change stones into bread in order to have something to eat? No, it would not have been morally wrong, but it would have been stepping outside of the pathway of dependence.
You and I, we say it reverently, could rightfully have said, well, I don't have the power to make stones into bread, I don't have that. So that if I'm hungry, what do I do?
But here was one who depended perfectly on his father for everything.
Perfectly on God as God, and he addresses him as God here in order that he might be the perfect example for you and me in the kind of world in which we live. And so the first thing he says is preserve me, O God, for in thee do I put my trust. And I say to my own heart, that ought to be my prayer every morning when I get up.
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Before I go about my work, before I, in the case of those who go out to work, go out the door.
Before I engage in anything to recognize that as creatures we need the preserving care of the Lord every step of the way. We can't really take one step without being dependent on the Lord, and He doesn't want us to, does He? But if we go independence upon Him, we will find that that trust is never misplaced. Never misplaced.
It's not.
Not to take away from the application that that you've been.
Put before us as the Lord as our example, but it's also true.
That the principle of sin is a will.
Acting in independence of God.
And we know that man started with the very first man. Man failed.
The Lord Jesus came as a man.
And never exercised his will as a man.
He said that.
He's getting come to do my own will, and he said I do nothing but what the Father hath commanded me. So it wasn't just to be our example, but to fulfill God's purpose with respect to the first man.
Otherwise, he could not be the perfect sacrifice.
He had to be perfect as a man.
Order to be the perfect sacrifice for us to take our place in judgment.
So his perfection as a man was essential to his being our substitute.
He never is, brother Bill said. He never stepped out of that place, and you'll notice in the temptation in the wilderness.
Bill, you, you referred to it, if we look at that in Matthew Chapter 4.
See comes to him and he says.
If thou be.
The Son of God.
But he was was the Son of God.
But Satan is trying to get him to act in that capacity.
And to step out of the place of man.
But the Lord's response to him is what?
Man shall not live by bread alone.
As if to say, you want me to take a step out of this place, just for a moment.
And exercise my power is the son of God, but I'm not going to and so he shows I'm here as man. So there was a there was a temptation in the very fact that Satan tries to get him to act in capacity as the Son of God.
He was and he said he was, but he never acted in that capacity. He forever stayed while he was here. He stayed in the place of man, not only to be our example, but because it was essential to him being.
Qualified, you might say, as our substitute.
It's interesting to take those thoughts and then just turn back a page. In Matthew chapter 3, when the Lord came to John at the River Jordan, where he was baptizing those who came in repentance for their sins to wait for the Messiah to come. It was a baptism of repentance. The Lord comes and John.
It says verse 14 forbade him. The Lord came to be baptized and he forbade him. He had nothing to repent of. He was a perfect man.
I have need to be baptized of thee, and cometh thou to me. Jesus answering, said unto him, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him, and when? And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water, and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him in a voice, and lo, a voice.
00:20:11
From heaven, saying, This is my beloved son, whom in whom I am well pleased.
The the beauty of it is this perfect man who needs no repentance comes down and he says what these ones are doing, they're coming and being baptized and repenting. It's the right thing, it's righteous and I'm going to take my place with them and I'm in taking my place. I'm going to stand with them that this is the right thing before God to do.
Though he had no need of such a baptism personally, God opens the heavens and marks him out that He is that perfect man, His well beloved Son. And what's I want to connect with that is when we go back to our Psalm and look at the two preceding psalms that lead up to the 16th Psalm and Psalm 14, we get God looking down from heaven and He's looking for a man.
And in Psalm 14, he says the Lord looked down from heaven to see the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God.
They're all gone aside, they're all together, become filthy. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. And then the question arises in the 15th Psalm. Lord, who shall abide in thy Tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth with his heart, and so on. That was the Lord. He's looking for a man. In Psalm 14 he finds the man.
In Psalm 15, perfect, spotless, flawless man. And then that man identifies himself in Psalm 16 with a faithful remnant, and he takes the place that they have before God, And His expressions are their expressions and His experiences their experience, and He identifies himself with them just as the Lord did at the river Jordan with those repentant ones. Picture of the remnant waiting for the coming of the Son of God.
Another thing to realize too, in the Lord, not in the Lord being a perfect man in perfect dependence on God, is that we tend to think that we should not follow our own will because it's sinful.
That's not the reason we should not exercise our own will and independence of God, because that's not our place.
The Lord's will was perfect, and Bill alluded to this, that the Lord, there's no sin in him, and he was the Son of God. What would be wrong with him exercising his whip?
So it's not a question of whether of our sinful nature or any of that is the fact that God has to be given his place and we have to take our place and we should be the Lord's example is perfect. He had, he had no sin, nothing wrong with his will, and yet he still submitted to God and still laid aside his own will.
Yes, it is always the proper place for the creature to submit to the will of God. And as you say.
The question of sin for the moment doesn't really enter into it. Yes, because I am a fallen creature. My will is characterized by sin, which the Lords was not. But the proper position for the creature is to be submissive to the will of God.
And the Lord Jesus takes that place and will not depart out of it for you and for me. That is our position. Not one that we take voluntarily as the Lord did, but one in which we were born. And thus it is always correct for us to be in a place of submission. And of course.
For the believer, what a wonderful thing it is to recognize that in submission and dependence on the Lord, we can, as we said earlier, we can walk a pathway of faithfulness to Him through this world and honor Him in a difficult world.
In spite of all the distractions, all the difficulties, everything that may present itself to us.
00:25:11
I used to wonder, listening to some old meetings, especially some addresses by Brother HE Hayhoe. I never knew. And he would love to read those expressions in the Gospels where the heavens open. This is my beloved son and whom I have found all my delight. And he would stress that all. And I went looking for it and I couldn't find one of them that said all.
I used to enjoy the way he expressed it, but it it troubled me. Why aren't why does it the the Father say from heaven and whom I found all my delight? Well, there may be more than one answer, but a brother pointed me to Psalm 16 years later and he says verse two reads but to the Saints that are in the earth and to the excellent in whom is all my delight.
Oh, when he has his Saints identified with him, then the Father says, In whom I found all my delight.
What grace that we should be brought into that place, identified with Him in such a way that the Father can look down and say of Him with His Saints, and found all my delight. He are they who have continued with me in my temptation, and moments later they were sucking and fled. That's us. And yet He says whom I have found all my delight. The Father loveth you because you know that.
He believed that I came out from him.
It's a marvel, I think, when you read that verse, to think of ourselves, an application included in that expression of delight.
Just one more comment on the second verse. We notice that the first reference to Lord is in capitals which could and properly should be translated Jehovah, which brings into focus of people in relationship in the Old Testament with Jehovah. But then the next one says, Thou art my Lord.
I say to my own heart, am I willing to say that? Not merely once, as if, well, I've said it. I've recognized God as having lordship over me. I've recognized as the Lord Jesus did the lordship of one over me, and recognize the Lord Jesus ultimately as also my Lord. But do I do that on a steady, regular basis?
Every day of my life is the Lordship of Christ, that which characterizes our lives. Oh, I would only say to my own heart and to each one of us how important that is.
It says in another place, there are gods many and Lords many, and there are many voices in this world today, many of those who want to tell us what to do, many who want to try and direct our lives in various ways and with seeming authority and seemingly knowing what they're talking about.
But there is only one for the believer.
To whom we should say properly, Thou art my Lord. And here was none other, as Steve has been bringing out, than the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
He is God, as we've been noticing, and yet he comes into this world, takes the position of the creature, and says to Jehovah.
Thou art my Lord.
Now of course, in this kind of an expression it gets a bit beyond our human understanding, because was the Lord Jesus Jehovah? Indeed He was, indeed He is, but he, we might say for the moment.
In his earthly pathway, steps out of that place, takes the place of a creature and then says to the Lord, says to God, thou art my Lord. And as a creature he submits as a creature. We get it in the 50th chapter of Isaiah. He recognizes that every morning his ears need to be opened and he says, I, I open my ears.
00:30:15
In order to hear what what the Lord had to say to him.
And so that ought to be your position, and mine Thou art, my Lord. And then to go about whatever the Lord gives us for that day with that thought in mind.
Well, going on with what brother Steve was saying, what a precious thing it is to.
Recognize that the Lord looks down at you and me, and as it says, here he finds.
US.
Nothing but lost, guilty sinners before we were saved, but he calls us the excellent. Now here, of course, we know that ultimately it refers to the godly Jews, the godly Jewish remnant, those who, when the gospel of the Kingdom was preached by John the Baptist, and then later by the Lord himself, came and submitted themselves to that baptism of repentance and confessed their sins.
And took their place alongside the Lord Jesus, separating themselves from a guilty nation that would not and did not recognize Him.
But for you and for me, it's not a baptism of repentance in the same way, but it's taking our place alongside a rejected Christ in this world, isn't it? One who has been cast out and crucified, One whom this world has said about. We will not have this man to reign over us.
That is just the same as it was nearly 2000 years ago when they cast him out. And yet the Lord Himself can look down on you and me in the midst of that kind of a world and say You are the excellent in whom is all my delight. Why is Brother Steve is brought out? Because we are associated with his beloved son. We recognize him and honor him.
What a precious privilege that is in the day of his rejection.
Our brother this morning read that verse in the 110th Psalm. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Oh yes, there is a day coming when the godly ones in Israel will recognize their Messiah and will own Him in the day of His power. But what a precious thing it is to own Him now in the day of His rejection.
Just a little word on that expression. My goodness extendeth not to the, but to the Saints. So on.
I think the thought there is that.
We don't profit the Lord, if I can put it that way. Not that He doesn't appreciate what we do, not that He doesn't want us to serve Him, and so on, but He profits us. He is not dependent upon us, but we are dependent upon Him. And so I think that that's the thought of the goodness in that way.
That.
We're dependent upon Him to receive goodness. He is not dependent upon us to receive.
Anything.
Again, not to discount appreciation on his part for anything that we do for him. That's not the point. But he we need him. It's not so much that he needs us and the and the worshiper in the Psalm. He just owns that freely.
But how would you put that in the context of the Lord expressing this? I think it's when he identifies himself with a remnant, He comes right into their place and and so much so that he can express in his own words, their words.
00:35:00
Maybe there's at least that's how I've enjoyed it.
Yes, I believe it's the Lord Jesus so fully identifying himself as taking the place of perfect dependence himself, and he identifies with those who sought the Lord in such a complete way that he takes it well. You've expressed it well, Brother Steve, he says in that sense.
I am now the receiver of God's goodness to me.
Rather than the one who is extending goodness. Now was he able to extend goodness as God? Indeed he was. And let none ever take away from the preciousness of the fullness of the Godhead. Colossians 2 expresses it in very clear words. In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
We cannot in any way.
Take away from that, but the Lord Jesus, as the perfect dependent man says I step out of that position and in that sense I don't dispense goodness.
In that sense I do it as the one who is perfectly dependent and who represents the Father. And so when he does His good works, he says the Father that liveth in me, He doeth the works. Did the Lord Jesus not have power to do those mighty works of miracles? Of course He did, and He had we say it with all reverence, the right as God to do them.
But he doesn't exert that right. He says my Father, and he does them. How? By the power of the Spirit of God in him. And so in every way he takes that place alongside those godly ones and says, I am not for the moment taking my place as being the one who dispenses goodness, but I am the one who is merely a channel of it.
I would have to say I I've struggled a little bit just because of the.
Where the King James is written here, I think you have the J&D in your mind. But we're reading the King James, aren't we?
Says My goodness extends not to thee, but to the Saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent in whom is all my delight. It almost looks like he's not. His goodness isn't extending to God, but to the Saints. But what you're saying is, I think, more in keeping with the King James or the J&D translation.
If I understand you right, which is my goodness extends not to thee, then he puts a colon, and then there's the break right where now it's God is extending his goodness towards us to the Saints that are in the earth and to the excellent thou hast said in them is all my delight. A very different thought altogether. So I I think it might be helpful for us to go away from the rendering in our King James and see how Mr. Darby has that.
Might say what is written in the Arabic translation.
Maybe another meeting?
Arabic translation.
Say thou art my God.
Thou art my Lord.
Thou art my goodness.
And there is none but.
It says like the Lord Jesus had received God, thou art my Lord, thou art my goddess, and that.
Could you repeat that?
OK.
My goodness. And there is none but the.
Thou art my Lord, my good, My goodness, there is none but.
00:40:01
Interesting, did everyone hear that?
The Arabic reads Thou art my Lord, thou art my goodness, and there is none but thee.
Well, if we go on to the fourth verse, we find other gods brought in, and these were the bane of the nation of Israel right up until the captivity. A very solemn thing.
They continually turned after other gods.
And you and I might perhaps legitimately say, well, I guess we don't have to worry about that. We would never think that putting up an idol made of wood or stone or silver or gold or something and bowing down before it. But the idolatry of the Old Testament, I believe, is the worldliness of the New Testament. And so we are told to flee from idolatry. And I don't believe the apostle was referring to.
Actual idols. John in his epistle says little children are children. Keep yourselves from idols. And I don't believe he meant literal idols. Anything that comes between US and God himself and takes that place before him is another God.
And there are many gods in the world today, aren't there? Many things we have in North America that we might call other gods? Wealth, pleasure, prestige, just to name a few, and many other things that we can pursue after that ultimately become our gods.
This says Hasten after another God, is in italics.
So.
This is this answering to what's in verse two, he says in verse 2.
Thou art my Lord or my Master. Yes. And then here is saying their souls were multiplied. Who would go after another other than the Lord? Is that right?
I think there's an important practical lesson between the end of verse one and the beginning or the contents of verse four. It's around the word trust.
Those who trust in the Lord will not come to harm.
But those who go after the kinds of things that our brother Bill was describing are putting themselves in harm's way in the way of sorrow. We know, for example, that riches make themselves wings and flee away. So you may think you have a nice big bank account, but it can be gone in a hurry. You may think that your friends are going to give you the happiness and satisfaction that you need in your life, but they can turn on you. You may think that your wife or your husband will give you the satisfaction.
That you need in life, but so many of those relationships end up broken.
Especially if we don't keep the Lord Jesus in them. So just like to by way of illustration, I've seen that Father sometimes be able to lift their children to the ceiling.
And as long as the child trusts their father, they'll keep their body rigid and they'll be enjoying the ride as their father maybe lifts them with one hand or two hands towards the ceiling and not afraid of the height. But when they start to think about how high they're going and they stop thinking about their father and the relationship that they have, then they go all limp and try and fall and everything comes down. So by way of illustration, I'd like to just encourage myself like Brother Bill was saying, preserve me. Oh God.
It's an important thing, but it has to do with understanding who it is that is preserving us.
It's not my bank account, it's not my friends, it's not my family, it's not my job, it's my God. Everything that I have, I've received from him. So I need to trust Him with all my heart. And when we start not trusting Him, that's when we start turning away that we have in the fourth verse, and it's a path of sorrow.
Satan will come and offer us a a shortcut to pleasure, won't he?
00:45:06
There's another way that you can be happy.
And that we find also in the temptation. She brought up the. That's the last one, isn't it? He offered the Lord a shortcut to the Kingdom, didn't he? You can have all these, all the kingdoms of the world, if you'll just bow down and worship me. Yeah.
And the Lord says to him, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only.
Shalt thou serve? He wouldn't do it. And so again, he's the perfect example of what's put before us in this verse, isn't it?
There's another kind of God.
As well that's become prevalent. Think of the scripture. God's many, Lords many.
And it's illustrated in the end of the book of Judges. The last few chapters of the book of Judges are moral appendix. There are counts that take place in the beginning of the book, and they give us the reason for the moral decline of the children of Israel. Throughout that book, two things happen. First man named Micah takes a little silver, and he makes a God.
In the end, the tribe of Dan picks up that God and a whole tribe goes into idolatry.
What did he do? He took a little silver. What we know, what Silver speaks of in Scripture, it speaks of redemption.
He takes one attribute, you might say, of God, and he makes himself a God that suits his thoughts, the way he thinks, and he's quite happy. Now he has a God and he develops a whole priesthood around it and so on. The tribe of Dan picks it up and they go on with the whole tribe goes into idolatry.
Not one whisper from the rest of Israel.
Whole tribe goes into idolatry, christened them today, takes a little aspect of Christ or God. God is love and they make an idol and that's the only attribute it has. And my God is love and he would never send anybody to a lost eternity. He would never do this, He would never do that. And they make a God from 1 attribute that they draw and they make a God that fits their mind, that fits their thoughts.
And Christendom is full of Jesus is, if I can put it that way. I don't want to speak irreverently that are nothing but things that are formed from men's minds as to what the Lord Jesus Christ is. And they're not what is presented in Scripture. And that's what they follow.
Evil doctrines attend those things. The denial of his humanity, a spotless humanity, a denial of His eternal sonship, denial of his deity. And they don't have the Jesus Christ presented to us in the word of God. They have an idol.
And Christendom has largely gone after those idols. The next incident that happens is a horribly immoral thing where a concubine is abused, murdered, and then the man who she belonged to cuts her in pieces and sends her out through all Israel. The guilty tribe was Benjamin. All of Israel rises up, they come down and they destroy Benjamin down to just a handful of men. They're outraged against the moral sin.
What about Dan?
What about Dan? Not a word.
We see a professing Christianity Today around us, outraged about moral abuses in this world and occupied with that. But the wicked doctrines that have pervaded Christianity, the disfiguring of the person of Christ, not a word said. Not a word said. It's the root of the moral decline in judges. There are idols as well that are have the name of Jesus on them.
That are not the Jesus presented to us in Scripture.
And we need to be careful we don't follow them, that we are following the Christ that is presented to us in all this completeness in the Word of God, not in man's thoughts.
It's the reason why we need to be continually in the Word of God, where we get to know God, we get to know the Lord. And especially younger believers, if any are led to the Lord, they need to be reading the book of John over and over again.
00:50:02
And by the way.
It's not irreverent to say another Jesus. That's a scriptural term. The Apostle Paul used that term another Jesus. And there's been lots of other Jesus presented to this world, especially in this day of multimedia. They've been movies and religions that bear the Lord's name.
All of them presenting somebody else.
And then the worst thing, and the most ominous thing perhaps, is our own hearts creating our own version of the Lord.
And again, what can preserve us from that is to be going through scriptures constantly back to the scriptures to have our thoughts about Him correctly.
That scripture Two Corinthians Chapter 11 verse 4 where Paul uses that expression.
And so it's very important, as we have said, to see that.
Hastening after something else.
Is, as Rob was pointing out, really a lack of faith, a lack of trust in the Lord.
Do we really trust the Lord for everything in our pathway? One of the things that has been coming in among believers today and.
Steve spoke of Christendom, yes, and we're part of it. We can't take our place apart from Christendom. We're part of it. And one of the things that has been coming in today is the fact that, well, yes, the Word of God is good to have and we need it, but sometimes we need to add human wisdom to it. Of course, that's nothing new. It was going on in the days of the apostles, or at least the beginnings of it, and we are warned about it in Scripture.
But.
To exhibit a lack of trust in the Lord will lead us into what we get in verse 4, hastening to something else, thinking that well, it's a good expression. A shortcut is Tim said to the Kingdom, a shortcut to something and the devil has many shortcuts which look very attractive and if some of us who are older may be permitted to speak this way.
We say to those that are younger, don't be taken in by the devil's shortcuts. They may look attractive, they may look as if they can get you somewhere. Some of the kings tried it in the Old Testament. There was a king by the name of Amaziah who hired mercenaries to fight the Lord's battles and eventually he was told no, send those men home, you don't need them. Let the Lord look after them.
But Oh dear.
What had he done? Spent 1000 talents of silver to hire them and he wasn't going to get it back.
And he says to the prophet, What shall I do for the 1000 talents of silver?
Oh, the prophet's response is beautiful. The Lord is able to give thee much more than this. And so if we have gone after another or another God or something, and maybe there's a price to be paid to get out of that situation.
I say to you, as I say to my own heart, pay the price. It's worth it. Whatever we need to do to get back into the position of trust and dependence on the Lord.
Well worth it.
And there's an expression here, I don't know whether I can explain it perfectly or understand it perfectly, but in the end of verse four it says.
There drink offerings of blood. Will I not offer?
Now drink offerings were not normally made of blood. They were made of wine or of something like that. Blood was meant to be sprinkled on the altar and meant to be sprinkled as we had in the prayer meeting on the mercy seat. It was that which, cleansed from sin drink offering, spoke of the joy with which the Lord offered himself to God.
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And maybe others have further comments on this. The only thing I would say is that.
I believe that whenever we hasten after something else, there is going to be a distortion of the truth of God connected with it. Drink offerings of blood are never mentioned in the Old Testament in legitimate sacrifices, but here it's mentioned. I believe in my own soul anyway. It's mentioned as a distortion of that which God gave.
Which is the result of a lack of trust in God going after something else. And it may look innocent on the surface, but I believe you were bringing it out, Brother Steve, eventually. What is behind it is really bad teaching which distorts the truth of God. Am I right in that?
The psalmist felt a need to separate himself from that. He wasn't going to participate, and he wasn't going to even use the name of whatever God they were following.
And I think there's a lesson for me and that to be separate from the things that.
Would destroy my trust in the Lord.
Not that we can have no money, not that we can have no friends, no family, but don't take it up to the way the world takes it up as the source of your pleasure and satisfaction.
Yes, it's not what we have in this world that makes the difference, but where my heart is, isn't it?
And we don't want to dwell on that, but it's very interesting. If we were to go to Luke's gospel chapter 12, we don't need to turn to it, but we all remember the story of the rich man.
Land and ground brought forth plentifully, and he pulled down his barns and built greater.
And the Lord's remark on all of that was, Thou fool, this night, thy soul shall be required of thee. Not that there was anything wrong with having plenty, or building bigger barns, but he left God out of the picture. But there is a verse there that says, a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possessed possesseth.
If you look in the Darby translation, there's a little different twist put on it, which I believe is very instructive, the JND reads. A man's life does not have. A man does not have to be in abundance for his life to be in his possession, showing us that it's not what we have, but it's where our heart is that counts. A man with very little can be occupied with it more than the man who has much.
And so it's a question of where our hearts are and what we do and the use we make of what we have, not what we have. And so going after things in this world is where the problem is. But if God gives us those things, we can be thankful for them and then seek grace to use them for Him.
But there are always sorrows connected with going after another God.
We could turn to First Timothy 6 for a verse that is well known, but it bears repeating.
First Timothy 6.
It says there.
In verse 9, but they that will be rich, that's the question will be rich.
Fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.
For it should read, The love of money is a root of all evil, which while some coveted after they have heard from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows, and so the sorrows that are referred to here in verse four of Psalm 16.
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Are similar to the sorrows of First Timothy 6 and verse 10.
There are always sorrows connected with going after another God. Yes, it may look good at the beginning, and it may be the pleasures of sin for a season, but eventually it ends in sorrow. Nothing Satan ever gives us gives any ultimate pleasure in its end. It's always going to end in sorrow afterward.
Jesus and from his great Son.
His love is eternal and sweet eternal.
Life.
Walk in the circus of.
Suffering.
And ourselves.