Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth
(Job 40:4). 

 
There is such a contrast in how we see ourselves in the right light before the
Lord. The title of the message I hope to preach from this afternoon is “Whiter
Than Snow.” Here we have Job saying, “Behold, I am vile.”

 
It is so important how we see ourselves according to the Word of God. “Behold, I
am vile” was not the expression of Cain in a remorseful repentance after slaying
his brother Abel. Cain was the first murderer. See how Cain answered the Lord in
Genesis 4:9: “And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he
said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?” He had no remorse.

 
“Behold, I am vile” was not the expression of Judas in a remorseful repentance
after selling his Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, for 30 pieces of silver.

 
These were not the words of an openly rebellious wicked man. These words of our
text, “Behold, I am vile,” are the words of one of whom we read in Job 1:8: “And
the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is
none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God,
and escheweth evil?”
 
The Lord saw two images in Job. The Lord saw that he feared God. The Lord saw
that he loved the will of God and he desired to do the will of God. Job, though,
in his own heart saw, after he had received a revelation of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that he did not measure up to the righteousness we need to enter heaven.
He saw that he needed the righteousness of Christ. He could not enter heaven on
the basis of his own righteousness even though he was a godly man.
 
Was this exclamation of Job, “Behold, I am vile,” his first exclamation of grief
when he received the message that his children were all slain? We read in Job
1:20-21: “Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell
down upon the ground, and worshipped, And said, Naked came I out of my mother's
womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken
away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
 
The Lord did not reveal to Job who he was in his own heart at that point.  
 
Was this exclamation of Job, “Behold, I am vile,” the result of the reproof of
his friends? Throughout the book of Job, and especially in chapter 19, his
friends accused him of every vile affection that one could be accused of. Job
defended his integrity as we see in Job 19:1-4: “Then Job answered and said, How
long will ye vex my soul, and break me in pieces with words? These ten times
have ye reproached me: ye are not ashamed that ye make yourselves strange to me.
And be it indeed that I have erred, mine error remaineth with myself.”
 
Job’s friends accused him of things he had not done. Job at that point did not
confess, “Behold, I am vile.” 

 
When was it that we find this melancholy complaint coming from Job’s lips? It
was when the Lord appeared to him and gave him a startling revelation of His own
perfections. It is when the Holy Spirit opened Job’s eyes to see the perfections
of God, and how far short he came from being able to stand before God in his own
righteousness.
 
We see our text in its context in Job 40:1-2: “Moreover the LORD answered Job,
and said, Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? he that
reproveth God, let him answer it.”
 
When the Lord first began to speak with Job, Job defended himself before the
Lord.

 
Continuing in verses 3 to 5 we read: “Then Job answered the LORD, and said,
Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.
Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I will proceed no
further.”
 
Now I want to show you the significance of our text. This word behold, as it is
found in our text, comes from the Hebrew word hen (hane), which is an expression
of surprise. You and I may walk in a way we believe pleases the Lord, and this
is what Job was doing. Job was walking in a way of righteousness. Job was a
God-fearing man, and he defended himself when his friends accused him. He could
deny that he was guilty of any of their accusations.

 
I want you to stop and see something that happened to David, the man after God’s
own heart, the man God chose to be king over Israel. Nathan the prophet came to
speak to him as we read in 2 Samuel 12:7-9: “And Nathan said to David, Thou art
the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel,
and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul; And I gave thee thy master’s
house, and thy master’s wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel
and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto
thee such and such things. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the
LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the
sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword
of the children of Ammon.”

 
Can you imagine the surprise this was to David? Nathan had told how a rich man
had taken a sheep from a poor man. We read in verses 5 and 6: “And David’s anger
was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, As the LORD liveth,
the man that hath done this thing shall surely die: And he shall restore the
lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.”

 
David did not see the grievousness of his sin until the Lord sent the prophet
Nathan to him.
 
This is what was happening to Job, but when the Lord opened his eyes he saw he
was vile. It was an expression of surprise. He had never thought he was so vile
in the eyes of the Lord. He thought he was a righteous man.
 
You see the same thing with Saul en route to Damascus to imprison Christians as
we read in Acts 9:3-6: “And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly
there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and
heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said,
Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is
hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said,
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go
into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.”

 
See Saul’s expression of surprise. Did he know he was persecuting the Lord? No.
In his own mind he thought he was living a righteous life. He thought he was
serving God.

 
Like Job, his eyes were opened to see his sin and how far he was from doing that
which is pleasing to the Lord. Job was a very religious man. We read in Job
1:4-5: “And his sons went and feasted in their houses, every one his day; and
sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. And it
was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and
sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings
according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have
sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.”
 
Job in himself was a righteous man. Job feared the Lord, but he built the hope
of his salvation upon his own righteousness. The Lord was opening his eyes to
see that he still needed the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, that there
was nothing within himself that merited salvation.  

 
When Job’s children and property were all taken from him at once, he could say
as we read in Job 1:21-22: “And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and
naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away;
blessed be the name of the LORD. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God
foolishly.” 

 
The Lord put Job into Satan’s hand to torment him with sore boils, and to use
Job’s wife to tempt him. We read in Job 2:9-10: “Then said his wife unto him,
Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto
her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive
good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job
sin with his lips.” 

 
What was it then that rent such an expression of surprise as we find in our text
from the lips of Job saying, “Behold, I am vile”? We read in Job 42:5-6: “I have
heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore
I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
 
It is the same with you and me. We may have heard of the Lord Jesus Christ by
the hearing of the ear, but have we seen Him by faith? Have we seen Him in the
Garden of Gethsemane with the eyes of faith? Have we seen Him wallowing in His
own blood to pay the price of our sins?

 
Why do I abhor myself in dust and ashes? If I have any portion in Christ, I must
understand that it was my sins that nailed Him to the cross. My sins caused Him
to suffer, bleed and die.
 
When we are given a faith’s view of God’s wrath upon sin in the sacrifice of
Jesus Christ (as Job received), then we begin to understand those words of
Isaiah 64:6: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the
wind, have taken us away.” 

 
Now we learn to understand the sinfulness of sin and what nailed our blessed
Saviour to the cross. Now we have an eye to see that our best righteousness is
as filthy rags in the sight of God as far as being able to merit salvation. The
only way we can merit salvation is by total perfection, and the only perfection
you and I will ever have is in that imputed righteousness of Christ. When the
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ is imputed to my soul, then I can stand
righteous before God.
 
We never understand these things by nature, but only when Christ’s perfection in
obedience and His atonement are truly revealed as we see what the Apostle Paul
wrote in Philippians 3:8-9: “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have
suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win
Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the
law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is
of God by faith.”
 
This is the same Paul who sent Christians to prison, who saw the light from
heaven, and heard the Lord Jesus Christ say: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute
me?” His eyes were opened, and he was brought to the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Even though he had been brought up as a religious man, he counted all these
things but loss. He could put no merit upon them. He could make no claim of
salvation based on anything that he had done.

 
It is only that atonement, that blessed faith of Christ, where He took upon
Himself to be made sin for us, that makes us righteousness before Him. We read
in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin;
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” We need the
righteousness of God, because our own righteousness comes so far short.


When Asaph went into the sanctuary of God (that is, the place of the sprinkling
of blood as we see in Leviticus 4:6), then he cried out in Psalm 73:21-22: “Thus
my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins. So foolish was I, and
ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.”
 
Asaph envied the proud. Asaph envied those who prospered in their sins. Then he
went into the sanctuary, the place where the blood of Christ was revealed.
 
You and I in our own righteousness stand as beasts before God. We need the
blessed atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. We need the blessed sacrifice, the
cleansing of the blood of Christ. If we think we can come before God in our own
righteousness, then what we need to do is analyze the life of Job.

 
Job walked in perfect obedience as far as the flesh is concerned, yet in the
sight of God his righteousness was not sufficient. He still had to repent in
dust and ashes. 

 
The sanctuary of God was where God revealed Himself as we see in Psalm 63:1-4:
“O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my
flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see thy
power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy
lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless
thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.” 

 
In the sanctuary, the house of God, Christ is revealed to us. This is where we
see the cleansing power of the blood of Christ, which cleanses us from all sin.
Until we learn to see as Job said, “Behold, I am vile,” we will never learn to
see our need of the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ.
 
Oh beloved, when one is truly brought into the presence of the living God, all
that is of the flesh is turned into corruption. Some day you and I, everyone of
us, are going to come into the immediate presence of the living God. What a
blessing it is if we in this lifetime are prepared for that meeting with God.

 
What a terrible thing it would be on the day of judgment if we for the first
time have to say, “Behold, I am vile.” If we learn to see that in our lifetime,
and we come under the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ, we can stand
before Him in that perfect robe of Christ’s righteousness, then we can spend
eternity in His perfection. If we come for the very first time, in the day of
judgment, we would flee from Him because we are unable to stand in His presence.

 
Watch what we see in Daniel 10:8 as Daniel was in the presence of the Lord:
“Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no
strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I
retained no strength.”
 
Daniel was greatly beloved of the Lord. This is the man who was able to go into
the lions’ den by faith. You and I will never be able to stand before the Lord
in our own strength. The only way we can stand righteous before God is in the
perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

 
The Prophet Isaiah was one who had received blessed revelations of the sacrifice
of Christ especially as he prophesied in Isaiah 53. Isaiah was greatly loved of
the Lord. See his reaction when he first saw the Lord in Isaiah 6:5: “Then said
I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell
in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the
LORD of hosts.”
 
When we are brought into the presence of God, then we will say with Isaiah: “I
am undone.” We need that blessed garment of Christ’s righteousness. The Lord
Jesus Christ came to cleanse us from our sins, not only to deliver us from hell.
When we say, “Behold, I am vile,” our vileness, our filth and our corruption
that we have by nature, can be washed away in that fountain that was opened for
all sin and uncleanness. 

 
When we measure ourselves by our fellow creatures we think more highly of
ourselves than we ought. We see this in Romans 12:3: “For I say, through the
grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself
more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath
dealt to every man the measure of faith.”
 
We by nature want to think well of ourselves. This is everyone. This was Job.
This was Isaiah. This was Daniel. This was David. It is not just you and I. We
come by faith to see the blessed atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we see
how He had to sweat in His blood, to pay the wrath of God upon sin. We see how
He was hung on the cross and how His own Father turned His back on Him. He was
made to be sin for us. Then we see the filthiness and the power of sin. We see
that outside of that blessed atonement we cannot appear before God.
 
We see that we must be washed and cleansed, and that is what I hope to speak
about this afternoon out of Psalm 51:7: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be
clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” I want to speak about how that
cleansing takes place.
 
When Daniel came into the presence of God, he said: “For my comeliness was
turned in me into corruption.” Everything about him that had any value was
turned into corruption because we become nothing so Christ can become
everything. This brings us out of our own righteousness unto the blessed
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 
True repentance changes one’s opinion of self when we measure ourselves by the
image of Christ to which we desire to be conformed. Job, Saul, Daniel, David and
Isaiah, everyone of them, when they truly repented, changed their estimation of
themselves. They became vile in the sight of God. We no longer compare ourselves
with ourselves. We do not compare ourselves with others. We start to see
ourselves as to where we stand in the light of how much we are conformed to the
image of Christ. We have a completely different opinion of ourselves. We learn
that outside of that perfect robe of Christ’s righteousness, we are utterly
vile. Outside of that blessed atonement of Christ, we are vile. We need that
sprinkling of His blood to cleanse us from the power of sin.
 
I want you to see what we read about Abraham, the father of the faithful, God’s
friend, when he came into the presence of God in Genesis 18:27: “And Abraham
answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord,
which am but dust and ashes.”
 
If you and I come into the presence of God for the first time on the day of
judgment, it will be like we see in Revelation 6 that we will call for the
mountains and rocks to fall on us and to hide us from the face of the Lamb that
sits on the throne. We must be reconciled to God in this life, and the only way
that you and I will ever be reconciled with God, will be to learn to see that we
need cleansing. We need to be cleansed by that precious blood of Christ.
 
How often we must say, “Behold, I am vile,” in our rebellion against God’s will
when He blows upon all our plans. Do we respond: “Lord, your will be done,” or
does it work rebellion in our hearts? Do we get frustrated? If we do, that is
the vile part of our nature, because if our hearts were in the right place, it
would bring us into total submission to the will of God. We would say, “Lord,
what is your will?”
 
Our vileness reveals itself when we find that our rebellion comes up against God
because our plans do not work, and we become frustrated. This is a token of our
rebellion against God. This is how we see how vile we are. Instead of being
submissive in the hand of the Potter, we become as a young colt that still needs
to be held with bit and bridle.

 
If you take a young horse and put a rope around its neck, it rears up and pulls
back. If you try to break it, and it is rebellious, it may even throw its feet
on top of you. That is the way you and I are by nature.

 
When the Lord begins to train us to be in subjection to His will, we rebel. We
revolt like a young colt.

 
Now in Psalm 32:9, it says: “Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have
no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they
come near unto thee.” This is one who has never been trained.

 
Do not act like a horse that has never been trained and that has to be held in
with bit and bridle. He says, “Do not be that way.” We must be in subjection to
the will of God. We must be able to come before the Lord and ask, “Lord, what is
your will?”
 
You can put a rope and halter on a trained horse, lead it, and the rope will
never become tight. You get up on a well-trained horse and just lean in the
saddle. I used to ride horses a lot, and you can just lean in the saddle and
never touch the reins. Just the little lean of your body and that horse knows
what direction you want to go. It understands what you want and does it.

 
The Lord is telling us: Do not be rebellious. Do not be a horse or a mule
without understanding that has never been trained. Do not have to be forced with
bit and bridle to do everything I want you to do. That is the rebellion that
still remains in you. That is the rebellion in your heart.

 
That is what the Lord is dealing with. What did the Lord do to Job? He brought
Job through great trials. He brought Job through the furnace of afflictions to
show him the vileness of his own heart. Job was a righteous man, but he was
doing it his own way. He was not doing it according to the will of God.

 
The Lord wants us to be submissive. When we can feel the least little leaning
toward this or that direction, we are to obey it. Do not wait until He has to
lead us with bit and bridle.

 
Then when our eye of faith is again fixed upon Him who was meek and lowly, we
must confess with Job in 40:4: “Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I
will lay mine hand upon my mouth.” We see that there is still so much
uncleanness in us, so much rebellion in us.
 
How often our ugly nature wants to raise its head “to make a fair shew in the
flesh” (Galatians 6:12). Have you ever had that problem? I have. We like to make
of ourselves something more than we are. That is our nature.

 
When our eye of faith is fixed upon Christ we can say in verse 14: “But God
forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”
 
Why should I glory in anything of the flesh? Why should I glory in anything that
is of me? Every evil desire of mine, that old man of sin, is to be crucified. We
are to take up our crosses and follow Him. Our vileness has to be cleansed. It
has to be purged. It has to be brought in subjection to the will of God. We
cannot serve the world and serve God.

 
Job was vile in his prayers. He prayed to tell the Lord what he wanted Him to
do. How often do we pray, telling the Lord what to do? Sometimes we pray so
selfishly. We should pray, Lord, what will you have me to do? That is what
happened to Saul on the way to Damascus, when the Lord stopped him. Saul
responded, Lord, what will you have me to do? In his own wisdom, he was
persecuting those who were serving the Lord Jesus Christ. He thought he was
doing God’s service.
 
How often we are vile in our prayers and misgivings in believing God’s Word as
our Master said in Mark 11:24: “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye
desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”
 
What things are these? It is those things we ask according to His will.  
 
Continuing in verses 25 and 26 we read: “And when ye stand praying, forgive, if
ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive
you your trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is
in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
 
This is one of the first elements in having your prayers answered. Is there one
human being on the face of the earth you are unable to forgive? If so, the Lord
will not forgive you. The debt that person needs forgiven is so small in
comparison. We must be in a forgiving spirit. We must forgive all wrong that has
been done against us.
 
How often are we like those unbelieving Israelites of whom we read in Psalm
78:22-25: “Because they believed not in God, and trusted not in his salvation:
Though he had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven,
And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of
heaven. Man did eat angels’ food: he sent them meat to the full.” 

 
We have to examine our own hearts to see where we are vile. If we have an
unforgiving spirit, that is vileness that must be forgiven, that we must be
cleansed of.
 
How often do you and I not trust the Lord, and yet we forget how often He has so
graciously provided for us? To this very day, you and I have had sufficient
food. We have had a place to live. We have had the necessities of life. The Lord
has provided these things even though we are not worthy. Now, can we trust Him
for tomorrow?

 
When our Lord sends us a trial of our faith so that it seems our ship is sinking
in our spiritual journey across those boisterous waves of the seas, how often do
we give Him occasion to say as He did in Mark 4:40: “Why are ye so fearful? how
is it that ye have no faith?”
 
The Lord Jesus was crossing the sea with His disciples, and a storm came up, but
He was in the back of the ship asleep. They cried out to Him: Lord, help us. We
are perishing. They thought the ship was sinking. How often do we think our ship
is sinking? How often do we keep our eyes on our problems instead of looking
away from them and looking at our Saviour?
 
The Lord asked His disciples: Why are you looking at your problems instead of
looking at me? Why do you not let me take care of the problem? As soon as He
spoke this, the sea became calm.
 
In every problem of our lives, when we take our eyes off of ourselves, and when
we fix our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ, then the problem ceases. 

 
Every true child of the King knows more or less to some degree (when they see
how far they come short of true conformity to the image of Christ) what it is to
cry unto the Lord as in Ezra 9:6: “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up
my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our
trespass is grown up unto the heavens.” 

 
We understand how far short we come of God’s perfect will. We know what it is to
say, Lord, I am ashamed, and I blush to lift up my face to you. Even Job,
Isaiah, Daniel, David, these true men of God, when they saw the Lord Jesus
Christ by faith, they had to cry out: Behold, I am vile.
 
If you and I are true children of the king, then we understand what it is to
say, Lord, I am ashamed. So many things in my life cause me to blush.
 
I heard a man say one time, if every sin I ever committed was written on the
wall, I would not dare face myself, much less anyone else. If everything that
ever entered our minds was written on the wall we would be so ashamed we would
not know where to run.
 
Ezra knew the Lord understood every thought of his heart. He understands our
thoughts before we even think them. We understand as Job learned to understand
in Job 42:6: “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
 
We can be very religious like Job was and never understand what it is to be vile
in the sight of God.
 
It was the formal religionists of whom the Lord spoke in Jeremiah 8:11-12: “For
they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace,
peace; when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed
abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush:
therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation
they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.”
 
They were preaching the Lord Jesus Christ, and a way to heaven as a fire escape,
without preaching repentance, without preaching the need to be cleansed from
sin. They had never had their sins pointed out to them. They had never been
brought to the sin that made them vile in the eyes of the Lord. They never
understood their need of being cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. 

 
We will have no peace until we learn to see how vile we are, and until we
understand what it is to be washed from the power of sin and to be cleansed from
sin.
 
When the true bride of Christ has her eye of faith fixed upon her Beloved, the
language of her heart is what we find in Song of Solomon 1:5: “I am black, but
comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of
Solomon.” She is saying: I am vile, but I have been cleansed. I am black within
myself, but I wear that perfect robe of Christ’s righteousness.

 
We read in verse 6: “Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath
looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper
of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.”
 
In other words, do not look at me as such a tremendous example, as being such a
righteous person. Every pastor who is truly God-sent has to complain about this
very thing. The Lord has sent me to keep a vineyard of souls, and yet I have so
often to complain, My own vineyard I have not kept. I cannot come before you in
my own righteousness. I need the righteousness of Christ for my own soul as well
as you do. The Lord Jesus Christ is the keeper of my soul.
 
Is it not true that as soon as the Sun of Righteousness hides His face behind a
cloud, the corruption of our hearts again leads us astray as lost sheep? As soon
as the Lord withdraws His restraining grace, David, the man after God’s own
heart, complained in Psalm 119:174-176: “I have longed for thy salvation, O
LORD; and thy law is my delight. Let my soul live, and it shall praise thee; and
let thy judgments help me. I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy
servant; for I do not forget thy commandments.” 

 
Psalm 119 shows how David longed for the law of God. He delighted in the will of
God, yet he fell so far short. He found that he was vile in his own heart and
that in so many ways he had not done the will of God. He had not turned his back
on the Lord though, but he saw that in himself, in his own righteousness, he was
still vile.
 
Then what a blessing it is that our lovely Saviour seeks us out with such a
reproof as we find in Revelation 2:4-5: “Nevertheless I have somewhat against
thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou
art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee
quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.”
 
The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking here to His dearly beloved church. The Lord
Jesus Christ is our first love. So often our hearts stray from Him, and our
first love is set on something of the flesh.
 
Job was a very religious man, but all his righteousness in his own works had no
salvation in them. When Job’s eyes were taken from self unto the righteousness
of Christ, he had to complain as we see in Job 40:3-5: “Then Job answered the
LORD, and said, Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine
hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken; but I will not answer: yea, twice; but I
will proceed no further.”
 
When Job looked within himself, he saw that he was vile, but when he looked away
from himself to the Lord Jesus Christ, he saw his own righteousness in the
perfect righteousness of Christ.  

 
A faith’s view of Christ’s perfect obedience unto death, even the death of the
cross, leads one to exclaim with Job in Job 42:5-6: “I have heard of thee by the
hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and
repent in dust and ashes.”
 
The Lord willing, this afternoon we want to speak from Psalm 51:7, where David
said, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be
whiter than snow.”

 

 
“Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee;
which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men”! 
Psalm 31:19.   

 
The greatest goodness of God spoken of in our text, “which thou hast laid up for
them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before
the sons of men,” is found in Ephesians 1:4: “According as he hath chosen us in
him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame
before him in love.” 

 
Do you see that blessed electing love? Now, how should our hearts melt in awe
and wonder before Him. Why do you and I differ if we differ? Why do we desire to
serve the Lord? It is because He has chosen us before the foundation of the
world. It is because He has loved us with an everlasting love.

 
What did He choose us to? I want you to think about this carefully. He chose us
to be holy. That is accomplished by the work of His grace in our souls. He has
changed our desires, and we now desire to live holy. Now we have new hearts. Now
our desires and our priorities are straightened out. Our affections are set on
things above. Is this because you or I are smarter than the other man? No. It is
by the grace of God that He has given us to differ. It is only by the work of
the new birth wrought in the heart by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit that
you and I have that new desire.
 
Continuing in verse 5 we read: “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of
children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his
will.” 

 
We are not better than our fellow man. It is because He has loved us from
eternity, and He has worked in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.
 
As we see this godly fear, and as we see this work of regeneration in our
hearts, this becomes our evidence that He has loved us. It is that new man of
the heart. It is that new desire. It is not something we have done, but it is
that which the Lord has wrought in the heart by the work of regeneration.
 
Those who have learned the plague of their own hearts can relate so well to what
Asaph said in Psalm 73:2-3: “But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps
had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the
prosperity of the wicked.”
 
As you and I learn to understand the plague of our own hearts, then we learn to
understand that our steps would have slipped. Our steps would have been no
different than the ungodly. By nature our hearts are no different than the
ungodly. 

 
Asaph gives us such a beautiful illustration of what goes on in the heart of
man, and how old Satan comes in and he wants to reason with us, and the next
thing you know we have a dialogue with the devil, and we start reasoning with
human reasoning.
 
As Asaph continued his dialogue with the devil, see how he reasoned in Psalm
73:12-14: “Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they
increase in riches. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands
in innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every
morning.”
 
Asaph was looking at the prosperity of this world, and he was measuring that as
success, and he was measuring that as the means of how much the Lord had
blessed. See how human reasoning comes against the will of God.
 
Now we see how the Lord takes it in hand, and this is what we have to
understand. It is all from the Lord’s side from the beginning to the end.

 
When Asaph’s eyes were fixed on Christ, he saw his foolishness. We see that in
Psalm 73:17: “Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their
end.”
 
The sanctuary was but a type of Christ. It is a place of safety. It is a place
of refuge. Then he saw that God had placed the evil ones in slippery places.
Then he saw the foolishness of the wicked. 

 
See how Asaph acknowledges that it was God’s longsuffering restraining grace
that spared him from serving the prince of this world. In Psalm 73:22-23 we
read: “So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.
Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.”
 
What did Asaph have to boast about? Why could he boast above his fellow man who
had been left over to himself to destroy himself in the things of this life?
Where was his boasting? Asaph boasted in the sanctuary. He could only boast in
the blessed redemption he had in the Lord Jesus Christ.
  
No. 302: WE SHALL CALL and GOD WILL ANSWER
 
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I
will deliver him, and honour him (Psalm 91:15). 

 
The shalls and the wills in God’s Word are not synonymous with the word maybe.
When the Word of God says shall, it is as firm as the foundation of the earth,
and when the Word of God says, I will, there is no variableness nor shadow of
turning in the will of God. What God wills, He has willed from eternity, and He
will to eternity.
 
Who is this man the Lord is speaking of in this verse? It is the man spoken
about in verse 14: “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I
deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.”

 
This man shall call upon the Lord, and the Lord will deliver him. I want you to
see all the “I wills” in verse 15: “I willanswer him: I will be with him in
trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.” Verse 16 says: “With long life
will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.”
 
If we have the witness of the Spirit in our hearts, that we understand what it
is to set our love upon God, that He is our first love, the foundations of
eternity are no more secure than what we read in our text: “He shall call upon
me, and I will answer him.”
 
I want you to notice as we go through this that the ungodly are not so. Those
who have not set their love upon the Lord, and whose hearts are set upon the
things of the flesh, do not have this promise.
 
The Psalm before us is overflowing with the exceeding great and precious
promises we read of in 2 Peter 1:4: “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great
and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
 
That man who has set his love upon the Lord shall be a partaker of the divine
nature, because setting one’s heart upon the Lord is to hate all evil. These are
those who have been delivered from the power of sin. We do not live in sin and
then have the spirit of prayer. We do not live in sin and then have the Lord
answer our prayers.
 
The first two promises of our text, rightly understood, are so precious that the
human tongue fails for words to express their beauty, “He shall call upon me,
and I will answer him.” Do you understand this? There is no maybe about it.
Those who have set their love upon the Lord shall call upon Him, and He will
answer. As I have explained, those who set their love upon the Lord do so
because God first loved them.
 
The love of God is eternal love. The love of God began before the world was
created. He loved His own in the Lord Jesus Christ before the foundation of the
world.
 
Let me read that to you in Ephesians 1:4-6: “According as he hath chosen us in
him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame
before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by
Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the
praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the
beloved.”



This shows us that the love of God did not begin in time. It did not begin
because He saw something good in us. This is eternal love. He made us accepted
in the beloved by giving us that new man of the heart, by giving us those new
desires, by giving us that Spirit of Christ. He makes us accepted in the beloved
by working grace in our hearts, and by giving us to be Christlike.
 
It is through making God our refuge through prayer that we receive the
blessedness spoken of in Psalm 91:9-11: “Because thou hast made the LORD, which
is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall
thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his
angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” 

 
The Lord is so pleased when He looks upon His own who have placed their love
upon Him. It is because we have made Him our habitation no evil shall befall us,
and no plague shall come near our dwelling.
 
Study Psalm 91 carefully and see the words because and therefore. Verse 14 says:
“Becausehe hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set
him on high, because he hath known my name.”

 
Psalm 91:9-11 is synonymous with what we read in Psalm 34:7: “The angel of the
LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.”
 
That fear of God is so pleasing in the eyes of the Lord, and it is through God’s
fulfilling of the next two promises of our text that we see His answer to our
prayers, “I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him.”
 
Sometimes when we pray, the Lord answers us a whole lot differently than we
thought He would. I have expressed this before and I will say it again, how that
one time my brother said he was praying for our father, pleading that He would
give our father a deeper spiritual walk with God. The next thing he heard was
that our father was sick and in the hospital. The doctors thought they had
diagnosed cancer and that he would not live much longer. Then my brother started
praying that the Lord would heal him. The Lord said: No. Now, you are praying
against what you prayed for the first time. I am doing this to answer your first
prayer. I am now sending these calamities to bring his heart near to me.
 
Notice: “I will be with him in trouble.” This tells us that the Lord uses
trouble to bring us to Him. As long as we are prospering in the things of this
life, we will never be drawn to the Lord. That is against our human nature. The
Lord sends trouble, and in this trouble we cry out to the Lord.
 
Read Psalm 107 and see how often it says: “Then they cried unto the Lord in
their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.”
 
It is so against our human nature to praise God in the fire, that is, to praise
Him for the many troubles He uses to keep us near His side. The Lord is talking
about those who have set their love upon Him.

 
The Lord says in Luke 14:26: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father,
and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own
life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
 
If you look this up in the original it means to love them less by comparison.
 
What will the Lord do? He will put you and me in a trial to prove that we have
set our love upon Him. We are going to be brought into trouble, and we will
praise Him for the trouble He sends to keep us near His side.
 
Psalm 73, which was written by Asaph, is so powerful if you really learn to
understand what I am saying here, when we learn to understand that the Lord
sends us trouble as a blessing.
 
We read in verse 1: “Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean
heart.” These are those who have had the working of sanctification in their
hearts.

 
Continuing in verses 2 to 5 we read: “But as for me, my feet were almost gone;
my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the
prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death: but their
strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued
like other men.” 

 
Asaph was jealous of those who did not have problems and had prosperity. The
other men he speaks of are those who fear God. They have plagues, they have
troubles, they have perplexities on every side.
 
Watch what it says in verse 6: “Therefore pride compasseth them about as a
chain; violence covereth them as a garment.” Their prosperity causes this pride.
When we have trouble, and when the Lord brings things into our lives that draw
us closer to Him and cause our hearts to go out to the Lord, how often can we
thank Him for those problems?
 
Sometimes we have to understand what the Apostle Paul said when he talked about
the thorn in the flesh and the messenger of Satan sent to buffet him. How often
does the Lord send some person to us, and it seems that Satan is in them
harassing us. Can we thank the Lord for this, or does it make us bitter? We
should be thankful that the Lord is doing this because it causes us to draw near
to Him. It causes us to set our hearts and love upon Him, and it separates us
and weans us from the things of this flesh.
 
Those who do not know God do not know peace because they prosper in their
violence. They prosper in their pride. What is the fear of the Lord? To hate all
evil, to hate pride, and to hate arrogance. The fear of the Lord is what brings
us to place our love upon God.
 
Our text says: “He shall call upon me.” This means that the Lord has sent these
troubles. He will send enough weight upon our backs that we will call upon Him.
That is one of His promises. That is one of the blessed promises we have when we
have set our love upon the Lord.
 
God was with Asaph in his trouble. He had lots of trouble, but the Lord was with
him in his troubles, and delivered him. I want you to see how the Lord delivered
him in the following verses. Therefore Asaph could say in Psalm 73:22: “So
foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.”
 
Do you see what the Lord did? He used this trouble to open Asaph’s eyes to see
what a fool he was by nature. You and I by nature are such fools. We will work
out our own destruction, but the Lord loved us before we loved Him, and in His
love for us He works in us to will and do of His good pleasure. He does this by
putting trouble in our way.
 
Continuing in verses 23 to 25 we read: “Nevertheless I am continually with thee:
thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and
afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none
upon earth that I desire beside thee.”
 
Do you see how Asaph’s love was set upon the Lord? It was set upon the Lord by
the trouble he was in. He envied the proud until he was brought into the
sanctuary, until his eyes were fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ. The sanctuary is
Christ. He envied them until his eyes were fixed upon Christ. He saw how Christ
had suffered outside the camp, and how Christ had suffered shame. He was now
walking in the footsteps of his Saviour. He saw how he had been put out of their
company for Christ’s sake, for the sake of his God.  

 
We read in verse 26: “My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of
my heart, and my portion for ever.” This is what we do not see by nature. Until
the Lord opens our eyes to see it, we do not accept the fact that these troubles
the Lord sends upon us were of His sending for our good.
 
Our text says: “I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour
him.” Was Asaph not honored? See the honor that God had now bestowed upon him. 

 
As with Job, many are forsaken of their friends in their trouble. Have you ever
known that? You would think that your true friends would do everything to help
you when you are in trouble, but that is not true. When the Lord sends trouble,
the first thing that happens is that your friends will desert you. I have often
said this about my one brother. Every time I would get into trouble, and it
would seem that I would sink to the ground and totally collapse, my brother
would be notified. I would think, he will get his shoulder under my burden and
help me carry it, but I would just end up with another 220 pounds on my
shoulders. I am not saying this to put my brother down. The Lord teaches us to
run to Him.

 
In my trouble I was not to run to my brother. The Lord showed me this so often.
The Lord wants me to come to Him in my troubles. When I come to the Lord in my
troubles, His word says: “He shall call.” It is not maybe. The weight will get
so heavy we will cry out of despair. The trouble the Lord sends will include
that every friend will forsake you.
 
Watch what happened in the last chapter of the book of Job. We read in Job
42:11: “Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all
they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his
house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD
had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an
earring of gold.”
 
Now they were ready to comfort him, after the Lord had delivered him. In his
trouble, though, every one of them came against him. Now we start to understand
what it means to be in trouble.
 
Then you get to where you are like Hezekiah. You can turn your face to the wall
because no one is left who you can turn to. Even you closest friends, who would
try to and desire to help you, are unable to. The Lord puts you in a place where
you have no place left to go.



Job said in Job 5:6-7: “Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust,
neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; Yet man is born unto trouble, as
the sparks fly upward.”
 
Job is saying that his affliction did not just come up out of the ground. It was
sent by the Lord.  He said in verses 8 and 9: “I would seek unto God, and unto
God would I commit my cause: Which doeth great things and unsearchable;
marvellous things without number.” No longer was Job able to find strength in
any other place. “He shall call upon me.” There is no maybe about it. The Lord
will remove every other support we have. Now we start to understand what it is
for the Lord to deliver us out of our troubles. We understand what it means that
the Lord becomes our God.
 
Prayer is encouraged throughout all Scripture, and the prayer of faith is
answered. Prayers not of faith do not get answered. We read in James 1:5: “If
any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally,
and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” See the shall in this verse. 

 
Verses 6 and 7 say: “But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that
wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not
that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.” Do you know what it
means to ask in faith? It is in a way of submission, in a way of obedience to
the Lord. That means we are going to come to Him according to His will.  

 
You do not come to the Lord and ask for an answer and waver. You are trying to
serve God and mammon. You are going to serve the Lord a little, and you are
going to serve Baal a little. To ask in faith means to ask in total surrender to
the will of God, asking according to His will.
 
Our text not only says, “He shall call upon me [but it speaks of effectual
prayer, our text goes on to say], and I will answer him: I will be with him in
trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.” There is a difference between
prayer and effectual prayer, which is prayer that is answered. If we are
wavering, that prayer will not be answered.
 
The Apostle James speaks of effectual prayer in James 5:14-16: “Is any sick
among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over
him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith
shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed
sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray
one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a
righteous man availeth much.”
 
Verses 17 and 18 say: “Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and
he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by
the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven
gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.”



What is effectual prayer? How powerful is the effectual prayer of the righteous?
Effectual prayer says what we must do. We must confess our sins one to another.
We must confess our faults one to another, and pray one for another that you may
be healed. This is talking about the law of love. Will we walk in the law of
love? Will we admit when we are wrong, and will we confess to our brother that
we are wrong?
 
Some people, who are those some people? I look in the mirror sometimes and I
find them so quickly. It is so easy to be defensive and blame others. How often
can we come and confess our sins, confess our faults? When we have a dispute
with someone, can say: I was wrong? I should not have been so sharp. I should
have been more forgiving. I should have been more loving. I was selfish. I was
proud. How often can we do this?

 
We should not pray in a selfish sense, but we should pray for others. How does
the Lord teach us to pray in the Lord’s prayer? “Our Father,” not “my Father.”
It is a prayer of unity. It is not only praying for me, but praying for us. Now
we start to understand what it takes to have effectual prayer.
 
Jesus taught the key to effectual prayer in Matthew 21:22: “And all things,
whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” Under what
terms will He answer? 

 
It is so easy to take a word that seems so simple and take it for granted what
it means and still misunderstand what Christ was saying. What is the exercise of
saving faith? What does it mean to believe?
 
To rightly understand this word believing, we must see how Jesus explained the
exercise of saving faith in John 15:7: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in
you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” 

 
This is believing. If we say we are asking believing that means we will abide in
His will and that His words will abide in us, that we will hear what He says and
do what He says. That is putting faith into exercise. That is the exercise of
saving faith. If you do that, you will ask what you will and it shall be done
unto you.
 
It is so important to remember what Jesus said in Matthew 22:40: “On these two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” What two commandments were
they? To love God above all and our neighbors as ourselves. It is to love God
with our heart, soul and mind. That word prophets refers to all inspired
teaching. All inspired preaching of the gospel hangs on those two commandments.

 
“He shall call upon me, and I will answer him,” means in conjunction with those
two commandments.
 
We read in Psalm 91:14: “Because he hath set his love upon me.” This is loving
God with our heart, soul and mind. “Therefore will I deliver him.” Can you say
that you have set your heart, your love, upon God while you have a grudge
against your neighbor? No.

 
Are you going to be successful in prayer? All success in prayer depends upon
that commandment of love. We see in Isaiah 58:9-11 that the law of love is a
commandment that is a prerequisite to having the Lord hear you in prayer: “Then
shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say,
Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth
of the finger, and speaking vanity; And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry,
and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy
darkness be as the noon day: And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and
satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a
watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” 

 
I am not just speaking what I believe. I am telling you what the Word of God
says. Do you want to have effectual prayer? Do you want to have the Lord say of
you, “He shall call and I will answer.” The recipe right here in these verses.

 
I want to show you another one. Isaiah 65 sets forth how God separates between
those who serve Him and those who serve Him not. We read in verses 11 and 12:
“But ye are they that forsake the LORD, that forget my holy mountain, that
prepare a table for that troop, and that furnish the drink offering unto that
number. Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to
the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did
not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose that wherein I delighted
not.” 

 
I want to ask you a question. Does it seem right that you and I should call unto
the Lord and He should answer like a bellboy, but when he calls you or me, we do
not answer.
 
That is what the Lord is saying here: Because I called and you did not answer.
How does He call? With His word. With His gospel. He calls to us to repent and
return unto Him.

 
Continuing in verse 13 we read: “Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, my
servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but
ye shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be
ashamed.”
 
What does He mean by “my servants shall eat”? These are those who serve the
Lord. That does not necessarily just mean natural food. That means spiritual
food. That means you are going to be spiritually impoverished because when I
speak you do not answer. You do not hear when I speak, and now you are going to
call, and I am not going to answer either. The Lord is teaching us that there is
a reward in serving Him.
 
We read in verses 14 and 15: “Behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart,
but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit. And
ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord GOD shall slay
thee, and call his servants by another name. The servants of the Lord shall have
blessings and shall have everything. And when they call, the Lord will answer.
But those who refuse to serve the Lord, those who will not walk according to His
ways, the Lord will not answer.”

 
Now our text says, “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with
him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him." 

 
So who is that? Those who serve the Lord with a holy fear have effectual prayer.
When they pray, He will answer.

 
We see this in Isaiah 65:24: “And it shall come to pass, that before they call,
I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”



When those who do not serve the Lord come into trouble and cry aloud, the Lord
says: “I will not hear. I will close my ears to your cry because you refuse to
serve me.”

 
I am not a stranger to that. At times when I was in deep despair and while I was
on my way down on my knees, the Lord spoke to me, and He spoke to me so
powerfully, I could not move a muscle in my body. He came with such power and He
spoke to me with such precious promises. When we are walking in the way of the
Lord, then the Lord answers before we call.
 
We see this in the history recorded in the New Testament how the Lord answered
while Cornelius was “yet speaking.” Cornelius was a man who served God. We see
that in Acts 10:30: “And Cornelius said, Four days ago I was fasting until this
hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and, behold, a man stood
before me in bright clothing.”
 
The Lord sent His angel, and the angel came to speak to him while he was yet
praying, while he was yet speaking. 

 
Continuing in verse 31 we read: “And said, Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and
thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God.”
 
What does that word alms mean? The compassion you have shown your fellow man. I
searched that out in the original. And that word alms means the compassion
Cornelius' had been showing his fellow man. In other words, those who were in
need. The love he had shown to his fellowman. In other words, it  was his
observation of the second table of the law. And He says, “Your alms are
remembered in the sight of God.”
 
We do not realize how the Lord is so pleased when we observe His two tables of
the law, upon which the gospel and the law hang. Cornelius’ compassion to his
fellowman had been had in remembrance before the Lord.
 
The Lord brought it to remembrance, and the Lord not only answered Cornelius’
prayer, but as our text says, “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I
will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.”
 
Cornelius was highly honored of the Lord. The Lord honored him greatly. The
compassion you have had upon your fellowman is now brought in remembrance before
heaven, and I have sent this message for you.
 
God honored him greatly by sending one of His apostles to minister to him.
Cornelius was a Gentile. The gospel at that point had not yet gone to the
Gentiles. The Lord sent Peter, one of his apostles, to minister unto him.

 
We read in Acts 10:44: “While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell
on all them which heard the word.” 

 
The Lord honored him, and He recorded this as the everlasting word of God.
 
Continuing in verse 45 we read: “And they of the circumcision which believed
were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also
was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.” 

 
This was where the gospel first began to be preached to the gentiles.
 
Receiving an answer to our prayers has always been contingent upon an
unconditional surrender to God’s will throughout the Old and the New Testaments.
You will never come before the Lord successful in prayer while your heart is in
rebellion to His revealed truth. The Lord wants you and me in unconditional
surrender to His will.
 
You will see this in 2 Chronicles 7:14, and I want you to see how the verse
begins with the word if. It is contingent upon. “If my people, which are called
by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from
their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and
will heal their land.” 

 
What does it mean to humble yourself? In Philippians 2:8 Paul writes, speaking
of the Lord Jesus Christ: “He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross.”



If you and I really humble ourselves, we become obedient unto death. We can
write death on everything of this life. We can write death on the old man of
sin, on everything of our pride, on everything of this life. We humble ourselves
unto death. Death to the flesh. Death to sin. Death to the world. Death to
everything of this life. In other words, the Lord comes in first place.
 
Our text says he shall call upon Him. If you are one of God’s loved ones, you
will humble yourself. It is not a matter of maybe.

 
I have raised eight children, and just because a child does what I tell him does
not make him a child. He was a child already, but because he is a child, his
will is going to be broken, because he is a child, his rebellion is going to be
broken. I do this because I love him. That is the way the Lord deals with His
family.
 
Now we can see the blessedness of Hebrew 12:11: “Now no chastening seems to be
joyful for the present, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yields the
peaceable fruit of righteousness to unto them which are exercised thereby.”
 
Do you know what that peaceable fruit of righteousness is? It is when that
little child has been disciplined and that little child can put her arms around
your neck and say, “Daddy, I want love.” It is when they can come and confess
that they were wrong and ask Daddy to forgive. That is the peaceable fruit of
righteousness. It is the fruit of chastening love.

If you are one of God’s people, it is not a matter of whether or not you are
going to humble yourself. It is just a matter of how much strapping it takes you
to do it. If you are one of the Lord’s, you will humble yourself. The Lord will
bring you that point, and if it takes much chastening, that is what it will
take.
 
Now the Lord’s family is just like mine. One child needs many stripes to bring
them in subjection, and the other one, all they need is a frown. Some children
only need to know that they have done something to displease you, and their
heart is broken. All the Lord wants is that you humble yourself. That is what He
is saying, and if you humble yourself, then when you pray, I will hear you.
 
This is synonymous with 1 John 3:22-24: “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of
him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in
his sight. And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of
his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he
that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know
that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.” 

 
I want you to see the blessedness of those who keep that commandment of love.
They are in the Spirit of Christ and keep His commandments. We dwell in Christ
and He dwells in us. Then if we call, He answers. He says, “Here I am.” That is
effectual prayer. Effectual prayer does not take place in a state of rebellion.
 
That Spirit is a mental disposition. It is the mental attitude we have. We know
that He dwells in us because we have that Spirit of Christ. We have His mind. We
have His thinking. We have that mental disposition. He has given us that spirit
of absolute unconditional surrender to the will of God.
 
Our chapter overflows with such rich promises: even like we see here in Ezekiel
36:25-27: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean:
from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new
heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will
take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of
flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my
statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”
 
All these promises will be held in reserve until God gives that Spirit of prayer
and supplication to ask for them. We are not going to receive them until we ask.
We are not going to ask until He brings us to where we will ask. He does that by
humbling us.

 
We read in Ezekiel 36:37: “Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will yet for this be
enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with
men like a flock.” 

 
He has already stated all these promises, but now He says: I will yet be
inquired. He does not say: I might be if you decide to. No, “I will be.” How
does He know? He will bring us to where we will ask. The Lord will bring us as a
tender, loving father, and He will take us by the right hand of His
righteousness, and He will lead us in the way whereof a fool can make no
mistakes.
 
Our text says, “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him.” He does not grant
those precious promises to those who have not been given a hunger and thirst
after righteousness. He does not save us in our sin. He saves us from our sin.

 
In Proverbs 27:7 it says, “The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the
hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.” 

 
That is the same thing as Asaph pointed out in Psalm 73. He talks about the
pride of those who have never been humbled.

 
The Lord gives us that true spiritual hunger and thirst by working His work of
grace in the heart. Those things that are so bitter to the flesh become so
sweet. We see that there is honey on the rod. That rod whereby He chastised us,
whereby He brought us into subjection to His will was His token of love. He
loved us as a tender father and He used His chastening hand to break our
rebellion and to bring us to where we are now in subjection to Him to humble us.
The Lord sends trouble to cause us to draw near Him with a hungry soul.
 
Jesus teaches the need for importunity in prayer. The Lord does not just want us
to recite a bunch of words that do not mean anything. A sigh, a groan that comes
from the soul, means a whole lot more than repetitious prayer that can go on for
hours and does not come from the heart.

 
The Lord wants the heart. He wants us to set our hearts upon Him. We see this in
Luke 11:5-8: “And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall
go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; For a
friend of mine in his journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before
him? And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not: the door is now
shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee.

I say unto you, Though he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend,
yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needeth.”

 
Then He says in verse 9: “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you;
seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” 

 
What does this mean? It means asking with a hungry heart, with a hungry soul,
asking with the true desire of the heart. There are no maybes about this. It is
absolute. “He shall call upon me, and I will answer.”
 
After His parable about the need for importunity in prayer, Jesus proceeds to
reason with our logic in Luke 11:11-13: “If a son shall ask bread of any of you
that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a
fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a
scorpion?  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your
children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them
that ask him?” 

 
The Lord God of heaven condescends so low. He comes down to our level of
thinking to reason with us. He wants our logic to understand the logic of what
He is telling us. He is comparing the Father of heaven and earth with you and me
as human fathers. Would a natural father not be more tender and loving than the
father in these verses?
 
How much more will the Father of heaven and earth give you that Spirit of
Christ, that spirit of humility, that spirit of meekness, if you ask Him, but He
wants to be asked. He will not take the precious things of Christ and throw them
before our feet for us to trample upon them. He will not give these things to us
until our hearts and appetites have first been excited to receive them.
 
We must sink in wonder and admiration at the promises found in our chapter when
we see how pleased the God who rules the universe is with those who love Him.
 
I talked to a man who said he was the one who invented the atomic bomb. He said,
if you understood the universe like we do scientifically and then try to tell me
there was a God who created all that, such a God would have never taken thought
of a human being.
 
I told him: That is what David saw too. That is what David said in the book of
Psalm 8:3-4: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and
the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”



He not only took knowledge of man, but He took His own Son and let Him come down
from His throne and become man to save enemies, to save those who have willfully
and deliberately sinned against Him.
 
We read in Psalm 91:14-16: “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will
I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall
call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will
deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my
salvation.”
 
That is such a precious promise. He will show us that salvation, which is “I
will deliver, I will answer, and I will deliver him in trouble.” All of these
things in this life pertain to our salvation here as well as our salvation in
eternity.
 

 
Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set
him on high, because he hath known my name (Psalm 91:14). 

 
We read so often throughout scripture that the Lord will reward every man
according to his doings. Now there’s a great difference between a reward and
something you have purchased or merited. If you were able to do something that
had any merit to it then that is not a reward, but that is something you have
coming by right. A reward is something you have no right to but it is something
that has pleased the rewarder and therefore he rewards you even though you had
no right.

 
Now I want you to take notice of the word because in the beginning of our text.
The Lord is rewarding that which pleased Him—and what was it—having set our love
upon God. Now we can set our love upon God without merit because our best
righteousness are filthy rags in His sight as far as any merit is concerned.
However, the Lord is so pleased when the Lord Jesus Christ is our first love.
 
Take notice what it says in verse 15: “He shall call upon me, and I will answer
him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.”
 
See, the Lord is so pleased to see when our first love is the Lord Jesus Christ,
when our first love is the Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth.

 
Now, it is a great blessing when we may be privileged to have a divine testimony
in the inspired Word that may be applied to our heart as we find in the previous
verses.

 
We read in verses 13 and 14: “Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the
young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his
love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he
hath known my name.”

 
Verse 11 says: “For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in
all thy ways.”
 
Now I want you to turn back to verses 4 and 5: “He shall cover thee with his
feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield
and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow
that flieth by day.”
 
If the Lord comes with His Holy Spirit and the inspired testimony of the author
of that psalm is applied to your heart, it is a great blessing. Now I want you
to see here in Psalm 91:2: “I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my
fortress: my God; in him will I trust.”
 

We have the testimony of the author of that psalm as a witness as the Spirit
applies it in our hearts that we may derive great comfort from.
 
Continuing in verse 3 we read: “Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of
the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.”
 
We can receive tremendous consolation from these promises.  The inspired Word is
a divine testimony of those who have gone before us.

 
Let's take notice, though, of the words of our text, and we that there is a
change of speaker here Now we are not talking about the words of the psalmist,
we are talking about the words of God Himself. Now we are seeing the words of
the Speaker. The Lord Himself is speaking in His own name!
 
This is the Lord speaking: “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will
I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name” (Psalm
91:14). That is the word of the Almighty. Now think of the preciousness and the
blessedness when the Holy Spirit comes and speaks in our soul, Thus saith the
Lord. Now He is speaking to us personally, not only the divine testimony of one
who has gone before us, but now it comes with the power of the Holy Spirit and
it is the word of God spoken to you personally. 

 
Beloved, it is a great blessing in time of trouble or calamity to have the
company of a faithful or compassionate friend. Have you ever noticed, when you
are going through a tremendous trial, and it seems like everyone has turned his
back on you and has forsaken you, but you have one friend who will be a
counselor to you and will share your grief?

 
Such friends are a gracious gift of God. Now you see what love is bestowed upon
you at such a time. This is such personal love because there is a sharing of
calamities, infirmities and weaknesses. You may be in a circumstance where you
are being overpowered and overrun, that you have no might against it. Yet the
Lord sends a friend who may be His instrument to put that enemy to flight.

 
All through this psalm, it talks about how we come under that protecting shadow
of the wing of God. Now, I want you to see this: How that we have such a person
that understands all of our problems. They understand our complaint. They
understand our calamity, and they become so close. Such friends, even though
they are a gracious gift of God, at times cannot help us, as we see with
Hezekiah.
 
The Lord is gracious in granting such a friend. We also see that the Lord sets
his love upon us. The Lord wants to be first place. He wants our love not to be
set on that friend. That friend comes to a place where he cannot help. Do you
know why? The Lord wants our heart to be set upon Him. He wants to be our first
love. He does not want us to make an idol of that friend.

 
Now I want you to see what happened to Hezekiah. We read in Isaiah 38:1: “In
those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz
came unto him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order:
for thou shalt die, and not live.” 

 
And then what happened? Verse 2 says: “Then Hezekiah turned his face toward the
wall, and prayed unto the LORD.” Do you understand what that means? Hezekiah had
to turn his back on every friend who had bestowed love on him. This message
brought him one to one with the Lord. Hezekiah had many friends. He had the
prophet Isaiah as a friend. Now his closest friends were no longer a source of
comfort.

 
When Hezekiah received the message, “Set thine house in order: for thou shalt
die, and not live,” as a basis for his first plea for mercy he pleaded his labor
of love. I want to explain to you something. To plead for the Lord’s mercy to
spare your life is different than pleading for the salvation of your soul.
 
In Isaiah 38:3 we read: “And said, Remember now, O LORD, I beseech thee, how I
have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that
which is good in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept sore.”
 
Hezekiah was pleading the law of love, the love he had for God: loving God with
his heart, his soul and his mind. Now he was not pleading that as the basis of
his salvation, but he was pleading that as the basis of his deliverance from
this trial.
 
He is referring to that reward. Do you see the difference? There is a difference
between that and pleading for our salvation on the basis of merit. He was
pleading for the reward.
 
In Isaiah 38:14 we read: “Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter: I did
mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward: O LORD, I am oppressed;
undertake for me.” 

 
No friend could help anymore. It was one to one between him and the Lord. 
 
Verse 15 says: “What shall I say? he hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath
done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.”

 
He said this because Isaiah had told him: “The Lord will add fifteen years to
your life.” Now he saw the wonder of God in having heard his plea and how that
God had said he would recover.

 
Verse 16 says: “O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the
life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live.” 

 
By what things? By these trials and struggles the Lord brings us through. God’s
dear people, even those who have set their love upon Him, will be in trouble,
yet there is a reward for setting our heart, for setting our love upon the Lord.

 
Hezekiah knew that God would not deliver him for any righteousness in himself,
in other words, for any merit, but he confessed his deliverance was on the basis
of pardoning grace. He remembered he was a sinner—and his deliverance was on the
basis of pardoning grace and for God’s glory. He was pleading that God would be
glorified thereby.
 
I want you to see Isaiah 38:17: “Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but
thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou
hast cast all my sins behind thy back.”
 
He was not pleading perfection. He was not pleading as though he had merited
anything by his walk of life, but he was pleading the reward.
 
Verse 18 says: “For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee:
they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.”

 
Do you see what he is praying? He is praying that the Lord might spare his life
that he might be an instrument for the Lord’s praise, that he might be an
instrument of his glory.

 
He was pleading the pardoning grace of God, and he was pleading that the Lord
would spare him that he might be an instrument of His praise.
 
Verse 19 says: “The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day:
the father to the children shall make known thy truth.” 

 
That was the basis of his plea. That is what we have to examine in our hearts.
Are we living as instruments of his glory? Are we living to the honor and the
glory of God? Is there a basis upon which we can plead that for his name’s sake
that He would deliver, that it would be for his honor?

 
From generation to generation that name of God should be praised because he has
set his love upon Him.

 
Hezekiah had set his love upon the Lord, and because he had walked according to
the will of God, he was able to plead the reward that the Lord would spare him
that his mouth might praise Him.
 
FOR OUR FIRST POINT, let’s consider our heart’s supreme love, “Because he hath
set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him.”
 
What is our first love? Is it the Lord, or is our love set upon the things of
this world?

 
FOR OUR SECOND POINT, let's consider the source from which this love flows, “I
will set him on high, because he hath known my name.”
 
That is the source of that love: the fact that we have known His name.
 
Our text shows how the Lord delights in those whose heart is set upon Him:
“Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set
him on high, because he hath known my name.”
 
There is no merit in our best righteousness, but the Lord is so pleased that our
heart is humble, when our heart is tender in his fear, when our heart’s desire
is to do his will.
 
Such love in the heart of God’s dear children draws out the heart of our
Heavenly Father. I want you to understand: It is a two-way street. The heart of
our Heavenly Father is drawn out to those who love His name. His love is drawn
out to those who love Him.

 
I want you to see how the Father is so pleased with those who fear Him. I have
explained before what it means to fear the Lord, that is, to hate evil, to hate
every evil way, to hate pride, to hate all things that are displeasing to the
Lord.

 
Now, I want to turn with you to Psalm 103:12-13: “As far as the east is from the
west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father
pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.” 

 
He pities those who fear Him, those whose heart is tender for the will of God.
 
We read in verse 14: “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are
dust.” 

 
He knows every evil thought of our heart. He knows all the sin of our heart. He
remembers that we are dust. He remembers we are not capable of being perfect,
but He looks at where our love is set.
 
Is our love set upon His will in the fear of God? Where is our first love?
 
I want to explain to you how this love is a two-way street. One time when my
little daughter was ill, and my love was drawn out to her. Now if everything is
going well, you might go a whole day and never think about that child. Yet, when
that child is in distress, when that child is at the point of eternity, right on
the brink of passing into death, then the heart of a father is so drawn out.

 
It was just in such a case I was standing at the side of the cradle of my little
child, and I did not expect her to live. Then the Lord spoke in my heart from
Psalter 278, which is from Psalm 103.
 
Those words came to me just like they were sung with the angels in heaven: “The
tender love a Father has for all His children dear. Such love the Lord bestows
on them who worship Him in fear.”
 
Now I understood how the love of the Father of heaven and earth was drawn out
for those who worship Him in fear. I was able to stand at the side of that bed
and say to the Lord that I did not deserve for Him to spare her. I had to
confess that I deserved for Him to take her away. He knew I was worshiping Him
in my heart in fear, with a holy reverence for His will. It was so precious to
see how His heart was equally drawn out not only for that little child, but also
for those who worship Him in fear.

 
We do not realize how pleased our Lord is when He is our first love, when our
heart is so united to Him and His will.

 
Several words in Hebrew are translated as “love.” The word love in Hebrew is
translated in one instance “to fondle—to have compassion upon,” in other words,
to have a child in your arms, to fondle that child, to hold that child, to love
it. Another one means, “to have affection for—either sexually or otherwise.”

 
The word love in our text comes from the Hebrew word chashaq (khaw-shak), which
means “to cling to—to join—to delight in.”
 
Now ponder it: our text says, because He has set his love upon me—in other
words, because I delight in God, because it is my delight to do His will,
therefore will I deliver him.
 
He is looking at the state of mind. He is looking at the priority of the heart.
It means to delight in, to join. In other words, He is talking about the
marriage union. He is talking about to cling unto, to cleave unto, that our
heart is not divided. It means that we are not serving God on the one hand and
serving the world on the other hand. It means that we have a delight in God,
that He is our first love.

 
It is the type of love spoken of in Psalm 112:1, which causes the heart of our
Saviour and His sheep to cling to each other: “Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is
the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.”

 
This is that delight that brings that bond, that unity, that oneness of Spirit.
This is the man the Lord is speaking of, the man who has set His love upon God.

 
See what our Saviour said of those whose hearts are set upon upon Him, those who
cling to Him with such love, and how it binds the hearts together in the bond of
unity.
 
In John 14:23 we read: “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father
will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” 

 
I want you to see the bonding effect. I want you to see how it makes that
clinging together in oneness. This happens when our first love is such a delight
in the Lord, when it is to delight in His holy will.
 
The love spoken of in our text is not a mere mild sort of complacency, but it is
the burning coals of love in the heart desiring to know the Father’s will.

 
If you say your love is set upon Him, this is not a second fiddle in case
something else is not tickling your fancy. It is first place. It is that burning
coals of love, delighting to know His will. If we say we delight greatly in His
commandments, we will have a heart’s desire to know His will.

 
Of those who truly fear the Lord, God says, “he hath set his love upon me ...
because he hath known my name.” This is where our affections are set. This is
our first love.
 
In John 17:3 we read: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
 
Now, I have to ask? What does it mean to know His name? If this is such an
essential element, that it is life eternal, then how do I know? I cannot take it
for granted. I cannot take someone’s translation or interpretation of this for
granted. I must know. What does it mean to know the Lord? Does this mean that we
have read about Him in a book?

 
I want to give an illustration; I was raised with a man. My mother and his
mother were personal friends. We got married, and he got married. We visited
each other and spent evenings together. Did I know that man? No. Do you know
why? I had never had any dealings with him. It was not until I started having
dealings with that man that I found out whether his word was good. That is when
I began to find out whether his yea was yea and his nay was nay.

 
Hearing about the Lord does not mean that we know Him. We have to have had a
personal relationship with Him, and we have to have known what it is to receive
His promises. Then we find out that His word is good, and that what He has
promised He is able to perform, and not only able to perform but that He will do
it in the day of His good pleasure. Then we start having a relationship with
Him. Then we can start setting our love on Him because we have had dealings with
Him. We have had an intimate relationship with Him, and we have learned to know
Him by having done business with Him.
 
Then we can say: I cried and He answered me. I set my love upon Him, and He
delivered me. I can tell of times when the Lord has blessed me, when He has
heard my prayers, when He has delivered me. I have learned to know Him by the
intimate relationship I have had with Him.
 
The person God approves is one whose “love is set upon” God and His will—not on
self or the things of this life.
 
The man whose “love is set upon God” can well understand the words of the
Apostle Paul in Colossians 3:1: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those
things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.”
 
Are we risen with Christ unto a newness of life? Where is our heart set? Where
is our first love? 

 
Continuing in verses 2 and 3 we read: “Set your affection on things above, not
on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in
God.”
 
What does it mean to be dead? This means we are dead to self, dead to sin, dead
to the world, dead to everything of the old man of sin. That is what it means to
set your love upon Him. Your affections are set on things above. 

 
Our text says, “I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.” Is that
not precious: because he has known my name, because he has come into that
intimate relationship with God, because he has learned to know what it is to
have dealings with God. 

 
The Apostle Paul spoke of this in verse 4: “When Christ, who is our life, shall
appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”
 
We have known Him and have become like Him. 
 
FOR OUR SECOND POINT, let’s consider the source from which this love flows, “I
will set him on high, because he hath known my name.”
 
Let’s consider the source from which this flows. This setting of God’s dear
children on high is not of anything in us. It is not of anything we have
merited. It is only because of God’s good pleasure. Our love is but the fruit of
God’s love for us.
 
I have set my love upon God because God loves me. He loved me first, and He
worked in me a new nature. He worked by the grace of His Spirit in my heart, and
He worked the work of sanctification in my soul. He worked that work of
regeneration and gave me new desires. He took away the enmity that was naturally
in my heart against God. When I was not able to keep the law of God, I was not
able by any means to do anything that pleased the Lord, the Lord came with His
Holy Spirit, and He worked in me to will and do of His good pleasure.

 
My love for God is only the fruit of His love for me. He loved me. He loved me
from all eternity. He loved me in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the
world, and now in His good time, He worked His grace in my soul, and I have
learned to love Him because He first loved me.
 
I want you to see in John 15:16: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,
and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit
should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may
give it you.”
 
This preaching about choosing Christ is not true. This was all of God’s
predestining love. It was because He loved me that He chose me, and ordained
that I should go forth and bring forth fruit. What is the fruit of the Spirit?
Galatians 5:22 tells us: Love, peace, joy, temperance. Are we missing that fruit
of the Spirit, which is love? If we are, then we cannot say that we love God. If
we say we love God and hate our brother, we are liars. This fruit should remain.
It is not just temporary.

 
This verse is saying that if you have a heart filled with bitterness, the Lord
will not give you what you ask. It would be a contradiction for Him to do so,
and in the Lord there is no contradiction. The Lord will not answer your prayer.
 
Look at Psalm 91:15: “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be
with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.”
 
Compare this with John 15:16: “That whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my
name, he may give it you.” How? When that fruit of the Spirit, which is love
meekness, temperance, starts to come forward. Until that springs forth, we may
not come before the Lord and expect Him to answer our prayers.
 
His love is set upon me, and my love is set upon Him. It is all of grace. It is
all because the Lord loved me, and He chose me, and He gave me the fruits of the
Spirit.
 

In proportion as we are given faith to see God’s wrath upon sin in the atonement
of Christ, we will experience the Spirit’s constraint against the least
violation of God’s will.
 
As the Lord opens our understanding to see His love for us, as the Lord opens
our understanding to see His wrath upon sin, and how grievously sin displeases
Him, our heart’s desire will increase to do what pleases Him. Our heart’s love
will become set upon Him as we grow in the knowledge of His love upon us.
 
Colossians 3:3-7 says: “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in
God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with
him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth;
fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and
covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh
on the children of disobedience: In the which ye also walked some time, when ye
lived in them.” 

 
The children of disobedience, who walk in the things of the flesh, bring God’s
wrath upon themselves. The children of obedience, those whose love is set upon
God, bring His favor upon them. It is a wholly different thing to say we merit
something or to say that God’s favor has been brought upon us.
 
In the state of nature, before God works grace in our hearts, how often we have
to confess the uncleanness of our hearts. Oh how David pleaded before the Lord:
The sins of my youth remember not. As he grew in the knowledge of the Lord, as
he grew in the knowledge and the love of God, of what God had done for him, he
saw how grievous these sins were, these sins of his youth, when his heart was
filled with pride, and with inordinate affections, and with covetousness, and
with adultery. All these sins become so sinful.
 
Our text says, “I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.” Knowing
God’s name is to know Him as a sin-hating and sin-avenging God. God sends forth
His vengeance upon the children of disobedience, and He sends forth His love
upon the children of obedience.
 
This knowledge leads to a deep sense of one’s own personal corruption. The more
we see, and the more we receive the knowledge of God’s avenging hatred against
sin, the more we learn to see the corruption that is in our own hearts. It makes
sin exceedingly sinful and leads to a desire to serve Christ as king. It gives
us such a desire to do His will. It sets our love upon Him.
 
Therefore the Apostle Paul says in Colossians 3:8: “But now ye also put off all
these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your
mouth.” 

 
You and I have these in our hearts by nature. As we examine our hearts from the
past, we see how often we have to look with shamed faces at what was in our
hearts in the way of bitterness toward our fellowman.

 
The Lord sends us a trial. He allows a certain person to do something, and our
heart starts to build with bitterness, and the end result is old Satan has won
the trial. You know what our trial of faith is? It is a trial of obedience. You
know what that is? Bless those who curse you. You know what that word bless
means? Speak well of them. How often do we speak well of those who are
slandering our name? How often do we try to set forth their name higher than
they put forth ours?

 
We read in verses 9 and 10: “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off
the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in
knowledge after the image of him that created him.” 

 
When the Holy Spirit comes into our heart, and our love is set upon the Lord,
then we also have our love set upon our fellow man. Then we will not speak evil
of them even though they may be speaking evil of us. That is the trial of our
faith. That is the fiery trial that the Lord sends upon us as He allows these
people to do these things to us, to try us. Are we going to stand the test of
faith?
 
In the love of one who sees his transparency there is true gratitude,
admiration, a delightful submission to God’s will. I can see by faith how the
love of God is shed upon me, and I can see how He allowed His own Son to suffer
for my sins. I can see how my debt is so great by comparison to the little sin
that my brother has sinned against me. I see the size and the magnitude of the
debt that has been forgiven me. Now the debt I have with my brother becomes so
small.
 
Now I can see that my heart has to come into submission to the will of God. And
what is that? Forgive us our debts as we forgive. Do I want a clean slate? Do I
want my sin to be forgiven without reservations? Then I may not harbor any
malice against my brethren. I do not care what he did to me. It is a trifle
compared to what we have done to God.

 
A heart in holy submission to God’s will is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and
is therefore a house of prayer.
 
We read in Psalm 1:1-2: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of
the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the
scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he
meditate day and night.”
 
Why are they blessed? Our text says, “Because he hath set his love upon me,
therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my
name.”
 
I am not going to sit there and start bringing scorn upon my fellow man.
 
What did I say that word love means? It means to delight in the Lord, and his
delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law does he meditate day and night.
 
You see that meditating in the will of God, upon what would be pleasing to the
Lord. That is what causes us to cling together. That is the meaning of that word
love. Clinging together. That means delighting in each other. I think it is so
precious to see the harmony in the word of God when we start seeing how it
unfolds.

 
His meditation of the heart is what would be the will of God. That is not
legalism. Do you know what that is? That is salvation.

 
Our text says: Because he has set his love upon me. Because he has set his love
upon the Lord, therefore... I think that word therefore is so powerful. That is
the Lord’s deciding factor. Therefore, I will deliver him. I will set him on
high. What does it mean: I will set him on high? I want you to ponder this one.
Because he hath known my name.

 
He will not walk in the way of the ungodly, but the Lord says, I will set him on
high, and where do we see that?
 
In Psalm 1:3-5 we read: “And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of
water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not
wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are
like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not
stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.”
 
Who are the godly? What is the difference between the godly and ungodly? Go back
to the law of love. Loving God with our heart, our soul and mind. That is the
godly. So who are the ungodly? Those who do not set their love upon God.

 
Is our walk of life immaterial? No. Do you have a religion that says that you
can go to heaven and it does not even preach repentance? That gospel comes right
out of the pit of hell. And I am sorry, it makes no difference who it is that
preaches it. He might be one of the most powerful preachers. He might be one of
the most renowned preachers, but if he is teaching a salvation without
repentance, without a person setting his love upon God, he is not preaching the
gospel of Jesus Christ.
 
When we are asked, as Peter was in John 21:15: “Lovest thou me more than these?”
can we answer with Peter as in verse 17, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou
knowest that I love thee”?
 
If we can answer with all our heart, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou
knowest that I love thee,” we must be constantly in prayer for the Lord to keep
us from pride, arrogance and every evil way.
 
Did you know there is such a thing as spiritual pride? Did you know that we can
become so proud of ourselves for being such Christians that we become an
abomination in the sight of God because of our pride? Did you know that you can
become proud of your humility? I saw a man one time who stood up to pray, and he
had a little faucet he could turn on and make his eyes run with water anytime he
wanted to. He would stand there, survey the audience, and make sure everyone was
standing at attention for him because now he was going to give a humble prayer.
That man was so filthy proud of his humility it stunk, not only before man but
before God.
 
When we come to where we know the love of God, we find that pride becomes such
an enemy in our hearts, because it is the natural thing for us after the fall.
Pride is what brought about the fall. Pride is what brought about rebellion.
That ugly monster I wants to stick up its ugly head, even in times when we come
into our most humble place before the Lord  

 
I want you to see the caution we have in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4: “Moreover,
brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were
under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And were all baptized unto
Moses in the cloud and in the sea; And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And
did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock
that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”
 
In other words, they were in the church. They were in the fellowship of the
church. 

 
Continuing in verse 5 we read: “But with many of them God was not well pleased:
for they were overthrown in the wilderness.”

 
Oh that horrible word but. Why was He not pleased? Their love was not set upon
Him. That is why. 

 
We read in verses 6 to 9: “Now these things were our examples, to the intent we
should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters,
as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink,
and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them
committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt
Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.”
 
What an admonition we have there for the church of God, for those who name the
name of Jesus Christ, for those who profess to be the believers of the church. 

 
Verse 10 says: “Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were
destroyed of the destroyer.”
 
Did you ever know that that is a very dangerous thing? You and I have such a
tendency in our hearts to complain about what others do to us. They did not do
anything. They were just instruments of God. The Lord uses His instruments to
humble you and me before Him. The Lord sent His instruments, and He sent His
devices to prove us. Then we become bitter and start to murmur.
 
We read in verse 11: “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and
they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”
 
All of these things happened to the children of Israel in the wilderness for
examples, and they are written for our admonition to test us whether our love is
truly set upon the Lord. 

 
Verse 12 says: “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he
fall.” That is a tremendous admonition.  
 
All of God’s family are tempted with these temptations, but the trial of our
faith is a trial of obedience as we see in the next verse. Are we able, and are
we willing, and is it our desire when the Lord sends these trials to bless those
who curse us. Is that the desire of our hearts? The Lord knows our hearts, and
that is what He is looking at. Is our love set upon Him?
 
Verse 13 says: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man:
but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are
able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be
able to bear it.”
 
The Lord will never allow you to have a temptation that is impossible to
overcome. We will have a way out. We will not be put in positions where we are
unable to resist it. Those temptations, those trials of our faith may become
severe, but the test is a test of faith, and any trial of our faith is a trial
of obedience.  

 
We must daily obey our Saviour’s command that we find in Matthew 6:6: “But thou,
when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray
to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall
reward thee openly.”
 
Just as with Hezekiah, it is a matter of coming one to one with the Lord. We are
to enter our closet and not to pray to be seen of men so we can have an audience
to show how wonderful we can lay out our words. That is not what the Lord wants.
The Lord wants you by yourself, in seclusion, so it is just one to one between
you and the Lord. That is where we must pour out our hearts before the Lord.
That is what the Lord wants. He wants it to be personal between you and Him.
 
Our text in its context reveals how blessedly God’s love is proved to those who
set their love upon their Lord.

 
We read in Psalm 91:1-5: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my
refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver
thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall
cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth
shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by
night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day.” 

 
We know that the Lord has set His love upon us because He delivers us, because
He answers our prayers. He comes according to His precious promises that we see
in His word.
 
Continuing in verses 6 to 15 we read: “Nor for the pestilence that walketh in
darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall
at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh
thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.
Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy
habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh
thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all
thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot
against a stone. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and
the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Because he hath set his love upon me,
therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my
name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in
trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.”
 
That is our evidence. That is our proof that the Lord has heard our prayers.
 

 
“Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips:
therefore God hath blessed thee for ever,” Psalm 45:2.  

 
If you see the context in which our verse is written, you will notice in verse 1
that it is speaking of the king: “My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of
the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready
writer.”


This speaking of the king is a prophetic insight that the psalmist had of the
Lord Jesus Christ in His kingly position, and it points to that blessed
condescension of that King in verse 2: “Thou art fairer than the children of
men: grace is poured into thy lips.” He is seeing the overwhelming beauty in the
grace and tender love that comes forth from the King of kings.
 
Many of the Old Testament writers spoke of the blessedness of our lovely Saviour
in a prophetic way as we see from Song of Solomon 5:16: “His mouth is most
sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend,
O daughters of Jerusalem.”
 
We see such a beautiful parallel between this verse and our text. The writers
see such preciousness and such beauty in the words of the King of kings and in
His loving condescension. 

 
The love of God for His people is eternal, and that has been the source of
drawing His people to Him from eternity. I want you to turn with me to Jeremiah
31:3: “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee
with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”
 
The Old Testament writers saw and understood what had been from the beginning.
This was not a new exposition. It is an eternal love, and they see the
blessedness in that eternal love of God. The word therefore shows that because
of this everlasting love, He has drawn us with lovingkindness. It does not say
that He has driven us. The Lord does not use the law as a whip to drive us to
Christ. He draws us with the blessed revelation of that love. He does not drive
us to Christ out of a slavish fear.

 
The gospel has a drawing love. The love of God draws us to repentance. This is
what gives us a different attitude. I saw a man one time who whip-broke a horse,
and he could crack a whip one time in the corral and a horse out in the pasture
would come running to him and stand there trembling. That is not how the Lord
draws His people to Him. The Lord draws us with the everlasting love of Christ.
 
Our blessed Saviour tells us how sinners are drawn to Him in John 12:31: “Now is
the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” The
prince of this world will no longer sit as king on the throne of your heart. The
Saviour is showing us how He will accomplish this. 

 
Continuing in verses 32 and 33 we read: “And I, if I be lifted up from the
earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should
die.”
 
Much more is to be understood here than just that we see His human body hanging
on a tree. What death did He die? We read the answer in Romans 6:10: “For in
that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.”
If we start to see the love that was in the ignominious death of our dear
Saviour and how He died unto sin, then sin becomes exceedingly sinful. This is
what has to be lifted up before our eyes—that tender love of God, of how He gave
His Son, and that tender love of the Son, how He hung on the cross. It was not
the nails that hung Him there. It was His love.
 
These gracious lips of our Saviour are what makes Him “fairer than the children
of men” to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. He is pleading with
His church. He is pleading with His lovely bride. He is telling them of His
love. He is showing them how He was lifted up from the earth, and how He was
hung there from a motive of love. This is what causes us to hunger and thirst
after righteousness. You and I will never have enmity against sin by the whip of
the law. We will only see the sinfulness of sin and have that hunger and thirst
after righteousness as our eyes are opened to see the love of God. Amen.
 
Jesus is tenderly calling thee home--
Calling today, calling today;
Why from the sunshine of love wilt thou roam
Farther and farther away?
 
Jesus is calling the weary to rest--
Calling today, calling today;
Bring Him thy burden and thou shalt be blest;
He will not turn thee away.
Fanny J. Crosby, 1883