Psalm 119, verse 161 to begin with, and the word reads thusly, Princes have persecuted me without a cause, but my heart standeth in awe of thy word. I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil. I hate and abhor lying. But thy law do I love. And he loves it so much, verse 164, seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments. Great peace have they which love thy law. And nothing, nothing, nothing shall offend them." I add those extra nothings because of what we talked about in Sunday School this morning, how these folks are deconstructing from Christianity because they're offended at what the Word of God says. Well, here's the facts, folks. Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing offends them from the law. And we're using the law here interchangeably with the Word of God. From Genesis to Revelation, that was verse 165, now 166. Lord, I have hoped for thy salvation, and done thy commandments. My soul hath kept thy testimonies, and I love them exceedingly. I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies, for all my ways are before thee." May the Lord bless the reading of His Word this morning. Let me pray real quick. Father, indeed, I know that the forces of hell would not want us to preach anything, let alone a message like this. But I know, Lord, that you want your people to receive knowledge. It's sad that your people perish for a lack of knowledge. And Lord, not so much our church, but oh, there's so many that are perishing because of a lack of knowledge. And, oh, how it breaks our heart to hear these people talk about deconstructing from Christianity. How sad. They never had anything to begin with, and certainly now they have nothing. Oh, Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Bless Your Word now to us. Make it a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path. In Christ Jesus' holy, wonderful name, we ask these things. Amen and amen. I want to use one line of our text this morning as my text and that being the second half of verse 168. For all my ways are before Thee. Now, looking down through there, we hear David speak about or read about how David said that he had kept his testimonies, and he had kept his commandments, etc., etc. Well, don't misunderstand. David would tell you, first of all, if he was here today, that he did his best to keep those things, because even in our human flesh, they are hard to keep. And that's one of the reasons that Jesus came into the world to save us, is because we couldn't keep the law. And He kept it for us. He kept it perfectly. And Him doing so, God applied what Christ did in keeping the law to our account. And so, in that, He did the same thing for David. And David says, as a result of all that He said thus far, For all my ways before thee, knowing for a fact that God does see and know everything about him, and knows that he wants to do the right thing, and means to do the right thing, and that if he fails, Lord, you see, you know, Lord, you direct, you help me. Now you might say, are you adding anything to this, Brother Darrell? No, I don't think so. I don't think so, because you and I both know that this flesh of ours is desperately wicked. We know from the Word of God, it says that the heart of man is desperately wicked. Who can know it? It's so bad. And so, I believe David has set himself in this position before God to do everything that he can to bring himself to that place to where he acknowledges the Lord in his total sovereignty of being omnipresent, to being omniscient, and also all-powerful as it pertains to David's life. And that's what we all need to know ourselves, that we might in every way, in every instance, live for the Lord as we should, so that we would receive the blessings of God for our life here, and the promise of eternal life there. Spurgeon wrote in his Treasury of David that the teachers in his younger days called Psalm 119 David's pocketbook, if you will, because in that pocketbook were all these wonderful doctrinal treatises and all these Christ-exalting statements and these simply satisfying meditations upon the mercies of God that David himself has had. And now by writing it down in his psalm, we get to look in upon And they're designed to focus our mind on the fact that there's nothing more important in our lives as it pertains to a relationship with Jesus Christ than the Word of God and the knowledge of it. That's what this is all about. Yes, it's a single subject concerning the law, but at the heart of the psalm, it clearly presents the entire word of the Lord, which moved the psalmist to be in awe and wonder of it, and desire with all of his heart to not only read it, but to know it. that he might in every way honor God and bring a blessing to God. I can't tell you how sick I am of hearing people say that they go to church so they can get fed. Well, what are you bringing the Lord for Him to feed on? And by the way, I've heard preachers say that God wants happy Christians. No, He don't. He wants holy Christians. And if you're going to be holy, you're going to be happy. That's just a fact. If you live for Him like you ought to, if you give Him His time with your effort, then oh my friends, how wonderful your life will be. Now I want to tell you, this psalm is not for everybody, though everybody could and can learn something from it. But, and please understand what I am saying today, everybody will not get its intent, nor bow to its content. You might ask, why not? Because the psalm is written for a distinctive class of people only, and they are known as the undefiled. Go back to the very beginning of the psalm. No, I'm not going to preach the whole psalm again. It's taken me 20 weeks to get this far. I'm not going to do it again. Now look, if you will, there in verse 1. Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord. The undefiled are a distinct class because they have had all condemnation removed from them. That's why they can be classified as undefiled because of what Christ has done on the cross. All the defilement that was on them has been removed. The sins have been gone. All that are saved, their past sins, their present sins, all their future sins are gone. and applied to them now is the righteousness of Christ. So all the condemnation that was on them is no longer there. Can you say amen to that? John 5 24 writes, or John 5 24 says, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, says Jesus, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death into life. What Jesus is saying there is, on the day you were saved, it began your eternal life. Your eternal life began. You will not pass into condemnation ever. God will not ever condemn you because He has removed condemnation from you and replaced it with the righteousness of His Son. Did you know you're sitting there this morning clothed in the righteousness of Christ? Oh my, you can't find better duds than that. I've got news for you right now. These folks, the undefiled, have escaped that condemnation. And not only have they escaped that condemnation, they have had all corruption removed from them. 2 Peter 1, 4, Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. No more corruption for us. Yes, these bodies are going back into the ground. No question about it. But I got news for you. We're getting new bodies, Ted. Carrie, Kenny, all of you here that have maladies in your flesh and have terrible times with illnesses and sickness in the past, or you buried a loved one, whatever the case may be, I want to tell you today that for those who trust in Christ Jesus, that corruption is gone. This moral will put on immortality. This corruption shall put on incorruption. And we're going to wear a robe and a crown with it and say, Amen. Not only is condemnation gone, not only is corruption gone, but also they are no longer controlled by the law of sin. The law of sin has no merit in them. You cannot be judged ever again for your sin. And you will commit some. You may be sitting there right now thinking, Man, when's this thing going to be through? We've been here since 10 o'clock. I don't know if the visitors realize we're staying until 3 today. But listen to this. Romans 8 verse 2 and 3 says, "...For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh..." In other words, I couldn't keep it. "...God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in His flesh, so that I be free from it." It will never, ever drag me into hell. As a matter of fact, when Jesus died upon a cross and was buried, He went down there and locked the key to hell and death, and took it away from the devil, and it's locked to us. We couldn't break in. You couldn't break into hell if you were a believer today. I don't know why you won't to. Romans 8, 1 gives us the conclusion of the matter then. We have been made free from condemnation, free from corruption. We're no longer controlled by sin. So in Romans 8, we're told that there is now therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk no longer by the flesh but after the Spirit. So undefiled is what these people are in the sense that they are made perfect before a righteous and holy God. You didn't know you were perfect, did you? Well, in this old sinful flesh here, we're not. But by the righteousness of Christ that is on us, God sees us as perfect. But think about it. This perfection that the undeviled has is not their own. They've been given Christ's perfection. If we did have a righteousness, it would be filthy rags. It wouldn't be worth anything. God would not accept your righteousness, your goodness, because it's worth nothing. It's filthy, it's corrupted, it's condemned, and that cannot have any part with Him. But Christ comes into the world and he brings with him an emancipation by his death on the cross. Emancipation means he freezes. He freezes from it all. And then there is a great redemption by an adjudication before God. Adjudication means a court proceeding, if you will, whereby God declares us righteous and drops all the charges against us. What charges? Well, go back through your sins. That's all you got to do. Yesterday's sins will cover it, by the way. This morning's sin, when you and your husband or whoever was cussing each other trying to get to the kitchen sink or whatever, or in the car fussing and fighting and arguing, that's enough right there. But no, this adjudication has taken away our sins, and because of that emancipation and that adjudication, we now have an imputation of Christ's perfection in us. It's His righteousness in us, on us. I wasn't going to do this. Psalm 32. I want you to look there at Psalm 32, verses 1 and 2. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, and read it out loud with me, whose sin is covered. Look at verse 2. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. What that imputed means is that God doesn't charge us with our sin. We trust and believe in His Son. The undefiled are declared righteous, their sin no longer charged to them, having been discharged in the court of Almighty God, who slams the gavel down on the sacred desk of Heaven and says, not guilty. I think about having some t-shirts made up on there that says, not guilty. No joke, not guilty. And put this Bible verse by it. I bet they'd sell. These folks were also granted a new genuineness, if you will. If you go back to Psalm 119 verse 2, we look there and it says, "...blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with their whole heart." They genuinely walk in the Law of God, the Word of God. They genuinely keep His testimonies. They genuinely seek Him with their whole heart, verse 2 says. Verse 3 says, They also do no iniquity. They work at not sinning. How do they do that? Verse 4, Thou hast commanded us to keep Thy precepts diligently. and that diligently means to strive for. So those that are in Christ Jesus, these undefiled, strive to daily to look in the Word. TO DAILY LEARN THE WORD, TO DAILY LIVE BY THE WORD, AND THIS THEY DO BECAUSE THEY HAVE LEARNED THAT GOD IS GRACIOUS IN GIVING ALL THIS TO THEM, BUT ALSO KNOWING THAT FOR CERTAIN WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO HIDE IN THE FIRST PLACE? GOING BACK TO THE END OF PSALM 119, Remember what this text is. For all my ways are before thee. Little Hagar was the handmaid of Sarai, who was Abram's wife. You know, Abraham and Sarah, their names changed when they become believers. And Sarai, who was near 90, couldn't have any children. And Abraham didn't have an heir. So she decided that she would make sure he had an heir and sent little Hagar into Abraham. And she conceived by Abraham and had Ishmael. Well, now that little Hagar had had this opportunity to be with Abraham, she got a little cocky. And the fact that Abraham had done this with Hagar, just got Sarah's goat, even though it was her idea. Let that be a lesson to you men. And so she wants her gone. And Abraham says, she's your handmaid. Do with her as you please. So she sent her away. And the little boy, Ishmael, They sent her away with a cruise of water and some bread and things. And then she gets out there in the desert. All that runs out. She can't find no food. She cannot find any water. So she puts that little baby up underneath a bush and waits away from Him for Him to die and then she's going to die. But God comes to her and begins to talk to her. AND TELLS HER TO GO BACK THAT HE'S GOING TO STRAIGHTEN IT ALL OUT FOR HER. AND ONE OF THE THINGS THAT JUST BLEW HER MIND, IF I CAN BE SO MODERN GENERATIONAL IN MY SPEECH HERE, IS THAT GOD WOULD TALK TO HER. AND SHE SAID, THOU, GOD, SEEST ME. In effect, that's what David is saying here. Lord, you see me. Thou, God, seest me. Here is the great admission from David that indeed God is omnipresent. Here is the great confession that God is omniscient. He's all-knowing. Here is the great admission that He's omnipotent. And so you have this great connection then with God and His people whereby He sees them all the time. There's never been a time in your life, in your existence, that He hasn't seen you. Back when you were nothing but a one cell, Zygote, is that the right word? In your mama's belly, He knew you. But I don't take it any back farther than that. Before the world ever was, God knew you. God being omnipotent, all-powerful, it is His to see and know everything. Turn to Psalm 139. We're going to hurry along here. Psalm 139, and we're going to preach on this entire Psalm when we get there in 2045. Psalm 139, verses 1 through 18. We could read the whole thing, but you read it for yourself. But here is that great omission by David here, that the Lord sees him, acknowledging that the Lord is omnipotent. In other words, all-powerful. Those words, are before thee, is plainly seen here, acknowledges the fact that God has searched him and known him, verse 1. Now look at that. Those words, has searched and known, are past tense. This is an eternal statement, verse 1. Only an all-powerful God can do what David has written in verse 1. Oh Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me. Only an all-powerful God can do that. So when David says, My ways are before Thee, he's saying, I know that you can see me. Psalm 115, The Lord trieth the righteous with the weak, and to him that loveth violence his soul hates. Thou hast proved my heart, Thou hast visited me in the night, Thou hast tried me and shalt find nothing. I have purposed that my mouth shall not transgress, because my ways are before Thee." Now that alone is a sermon, we can go home. But I'm afraid that in our pale, little puny minds, that we often forget the fact that it doesn't matter where we are, What we think we know about ourselves and the things we've done, nobody sees, and yet God in His omnipotence sees all. He goes even farther and makes this great confession that God is omniscient. Hebrews 4.13 says, Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. So verse 2 of 139, David says, Thou knowest my down setting and mine uprising. Thou understandest my thought afar off. He's omniscient. He's all-knowing. He knows all about you. Psalm 114, the Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven, His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men. Psalm 44, verse 21, Shall not God search this out? For He knoweth the secrets of the hearts. Maybe we'll ask, well wait a second, if Jeremiah says that our heart is desperately wicked, who can know it? How can God know it? Because He knows everything. Jeremiah 1710, we have the record, "...I, the Lord, search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings." God sees. God knows. God delivers. And then thirdly, here is that great connection to His omnipresence. That word, are before Thee, those words are before Thee, there in Psalm 119, are there because David says, I have deliberately placed myself before Thee to correct or direct what is wrong. Look at verse number 3 of Psalm 139. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. If that be the case, Lord, and if there's anything in me that's against you, wrong with you, concerning me, fix it. Look down at verse number 23 of Psalm 139. The first words there are, search me, oh God. Search me, oh God. I lay myself before you. You see me anyway. Know my heart. Try me. Know my thoughts and see if there'd be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting. I know you're there. I know you see. Lord, I'm not able to do this on my own. I wish I could, but you can. have thine own way." Man, what a great, great, great connection that we have whereby God is able to take the worst sin and to sponge it from our record. How wondrous is He that no matter what is ailing us, He looks in on and does as He pleases with it to our benefit and His glory. Oh, I think back so many, many times in my life and places where I've been, especially when I was in the military, and I think about how that God saw me. Sometimes doing things I shouldn't have done. Other times, watching out for me so I wouldn't get in too much trouble or get killed. And even today, when we're riding down the highway in our car and people are zipping by us at a million miles an hour, I'm exaggerating, and they can absolutely donald for a moment or get that phone up in their face and kill you, but God's there. All my ways are before thee. Y'all remember my car accident that stole me up pretty bad, my truck accident. I was not even a mile from the house coming home. It just had gotten dark outside. Coming up Fall River Road there or coming out Fall River Road from town, there's a curve right there and then into a straightaway. As I get near the apex of that curve, here comes the car through the curve, and I'm thinking it's going to go up beside me. It don't. It comes after me. And I get over as far as I can, and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs. They couldn't hear me. They kept on coming, and they hit me in my rear tire and spun the truck around over into the weeds there. I got out. The woman kept on going, but I got out and I ran after her. Her car was damaged, and no she didn't. It wasn't able to go too fast. And I got up next to her window, and I looked inside, and she had her cell phone up. It's lit up like a Christmas tree. I said, Ma'am, stop this car. And she kept rolling. I said, Madam, stop this car or I'm going to drag you through the window. And she says, Oh, I'm sorry. I was talking to my son in Iraq. Boy, wouldn't that be something to hear your mama get killed while you text him back and forth on your telephone? But God was watching out for me. He saw me. He sees you. Ain't it good, Ted and Carrie, to know that every time you've gone to the doctor to get your chemo that God's been there with you? Well, why doesn't He stop the chemo-treatments, Brother Darrell? Why doesn't He heal me? I can't answer that. All I know is that God knows best. And whatever His desire and design is on our life, it will work out to our good even if the disease claims us. Because believers, we will go. So I close. Again, looking back at Psalm 119, and that line, my ways, for all my ways are before thee. Sinner friend, all your sins are before him. And someday, unless you embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, He's going to show you every one of those sins in living color and judge you by them. Unless today you say, Lord Jesus, save me from my sins. Save me from the wrath of the Father for my sins. I believe that you came to the world and you died for my sins, was buried and rose again for my sins, ascended back into heaven, and is seated on the right hand of God, very much alive. I believe that. I believe that with all my heart. How many of y'all believe in the virgin birth? How many of y'all believe that Jesus died on the cross, was buried and rose again? And then if you're here today, and you have not ever asked Jesus to come into your heart and save you, why not? You say you believe all that, and that's what's required to be saved. You don't want justice. Well, God ought to be fair, let me off the hook. You don't want fairness, then He will have to judge you. You want mercy. And He is a merciful God. All that call upon Him, He will say. He will save you. He will save you. He will save you now. Come every soul by sin oppressed. There's mercy with the Lord. And He will surely Give you rest by trusting in His Word. Let's stand. Only trust Him. Believe Him. Only trust Him. Only trust Him. He will save you. He will save you. He will save you now.