Thank you, it was very nice of you
to say all those things.
Dr. Tozer was once introduced by a man
who spent about 15 minutes going through his
pedigree and his accomplishments, and Dr. Tozer stepped
to the microphone and said, May the good
Lord forgive that man for what he said.
Well, of course, a chill went through that
huge congregation until Dr. Tozer then said, And
may the good Lord forgive me for enjoying
it so much.
Well, I've enjoyed being here, my wife's enjoyed
it, and I wish we could be with
Brother Vines more often.
He does my soul good, and you do
my soul good.
It just does me good to be with
you friends.
Some years ago, more than I care to
count, I was in a late night prayer
meeting.
Sometimes they have those today, but back in
the days of Youth for Christ when we
were all getting started and trying to reach
a world, we used to have late night
prayer meetings, and in that prayer meeting was
a lawyer from Patterson, New Jersey, whose name
was Jacob Stamm.
Now, that may mean nothing to you until
I say that Jacob Stamm was the brother
of John Stamm, the missionary who was martyred
in China with his wife Betty in 1934.
Jacob Stamm was a great prayer warrior, and
we were praying, Oh God, bless this and
bless that and bless something else.
You know, if you took the word bless
out of our vocabulary, we couldn't talk.
We couldn't pray.
Then Jacob Stamm began to pray, and I'll
not forget it.
Oh God, he said, we have been asking
you to bless this and bless that.
Oh God, what we really need is make
us blessable.
I never forgot that.
God yearns to bless, but he can only
bless if we're blessable.
Now, how can I be blessable?
You see, God blesses us to make us
a blessing.
He told that to Abraham, I'm going to
bless you and make you a blessing.
The greatest thing in the Christian life is
not just to get a blessing, it's to
be a blessing.
Now, some people aren't.
Some people in our churches don't even know
how to spell the word.
They're grouches, they're sanctified obstructionists.
They walk around looking like cheerleaders for an
accident.
As long as they're in the church, you
don't need any fire extinguishers.
They've got enough wet blankets to put anything
out that may start.
But I don't want to be that kind
of person.
I want to be a blessing.
And God says, I'll give you a blessing
if you'll be a blessing.
But you've got to be blessable.
Now, if you want to know how to
be blessable, you find the answer in the
first Psalm.
It's a Psalm we've all memorized.
You memorize Psalm 1 and Psalm 23, and
they do your soul good.
Psalm 1.
Blessed is the man, that word man is
generic, the human being, the person, the man,
the woman, who walks not in the counsel
of the ungodly, nor stands in the way,
the path of sinners, nor sits in the
seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of
the Lord.
And in his law, he meditates day and
night.
He shall be like a tree planted by
the rivers of water that brings forth its
fruit in its season.
Whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever
he does shall prosper.
The ungodly are not so, but are like
the chaff which the wind drives away.
Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the
judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the
righteous.
For the Lord knows, and that word means
takes care of.
The Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
Now in verses 1, 2, and 3, the
psalmist lays down three very simple conditions that
I must meet if God is going to
bless my life and my ministry.
Wouldn't it be an awful thing to be
the husband in a home and not be
a blessing?
Wouldn't it be an awful thing to be
a father in a family and not be
a blessing?
Instead of being a blessing, you're toxic, spreading
trouble.
Wouldn't it be an awful thing to be
an officer in a church and not be
a blessing?
Even worse, the pastor of a church and
not be a blessing.
Condition number one, if God is going to
bless me, I have to be blessable by
being separated from the world.
God does not bless compromising Christians.
Separated from the world.
Now you notice here that the trouble that
this man gets into, he gets into gradually.
First he walks in the counsel of the
ungodly.
Then he stands in the way that sinners
are going, and then he sits with the
scornful, the people who mock God and mock
the Bible and mock the church in Jesus
Christ.
Separated from the world.
Now before we get too far into this
study, we better define what we mean by
the world.
He's not talking about the world of human
beings, because the world of human beings needs
our witness.
We're the salt of the earth, we're the
light of the world.
My Lord Jesus was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners, but he was the friend of
publicans and sinners.
Did you ever notice that Jesus attracted sinners?
The Pharisees repelled them.
The sinners in Jesus' day did not get
up in the morning and say, let's go
find some Pharisees and enjoy ourselves.
And we have the crazy idea that the
farther unsaved people stay from us, the holier
we are.
And my Bible tells me the more I'm
like Jesus, the more I'll attract people because
we are salt and salt makes people thirsty.
By the world, the Bible means this whole
system of things that pressures me to conform.
John puts it this way, love not the
world, neither the things that are in the
world, for if anyone loves the world, the
love of the father is not in him.
And he goes on to say the world
is passing away.
It doesn't look like it, but it is.
People say, boy, it's as sure as the
world.
There's nothing more unsure than the world.
The world is passing away in the last
of it, but he who does the will
of God abides forever.
Notice John's definition begins with the love of
God and ends with the will of God.
If you love me, you keep my commandment.
Anything in my life that keeps me from
enjoying God's love and doing God's will is
worldly.
Anything in my life that keeps me from
enjoying God's love and doing God's will is
worldly.
Even if it's good, it's worldly.
Now, it's interesting to note, according to the
minute testament, that I get into the world
gradually.
Just like this man, he walked and then
he stood and then he sat.
For example, my Bible says in James chapter
four, verse four, do you not know that
friendship with the world is enmity with God?
There's a first step.
Get friendly with the world.
I don't mean being a friend to publicans
and sinners.
I mean, friendly with what the world stands
for.
Sort of neutral.
Friendly with the world.
Now, that gets dangerous because James chapter one,
verse 27, says you keep yourself unspotted from
the world.
If I get friendly with the world, that
is their counsel and their ways, I'm going
to start being spotted by the world.
And that's what the world likes to do.
The world likes to get its arms around
Christians and spot them.
A spot here and a spot there.
And then the next step is we love
the world.
Love not the world.
If you love the world, the love of
the Father is not in you.
And so I start by being friendly with
the world, then I'm spotted by the world,
and then I'm in love with the world.
And the next step is Romans 12 to
conform to the world.
Be not conformed to this world, but be
transformed.
This is what happened to Lot.
Lot lifted up his eyes and he saw
the city of Sodom.
Then he moved his tent towards Sodom.
Then he moved into Sodom, and then Sodom
moved into him.
That's how it happened.
But that's not the end.
The sad part is 1 Corinthians chapter 11
and verse 32.
Condemned with the world.
Everything Lot lived for went up in smoke.
Everything.
By the way, this is what happened to
the Apostle Peter when he denied the Lord.
Let's look at John chapter 18.
I just want to show you something interesting.
John chapter 18.
They've arrested the Lord Jesus and taken him.
And verse 15 of John 18 says, And
Simon Peter followed Jesus.
Now, he wasn't supposed to do that.
I have read eloquent sermons on the text,
and Peter followed afar off.
Peter wasn't supposed to follow at all.
The Lord Jesus said they're going to smite
the shepherd and the sheep will be what?
Scattered.
In other words, men get out of here.
In fact, when they arrested Jesus, he said,
Let these go their way.
And then Peter began to walk in the
counsel of the ungodly, and he followed.
Now you notice verse 16.
Now Peter's standing at the door.
And in verse 18, he's standing by the
fire because it was cold.
I would remind you that on this same
night, Jesus was sweating as though it were
great drops of blood.
He wasn't cold that Peter was.
There are in the Bible only three temperatures.
You're either cold, lukewarm or hot.
I will.
You were either hot or cold.
And so Peter walked in the counsel of
the ungodly.
Then he stands in the way of sinners.
You turn back to the gospel of Luke.
You'll see where it all culminates.
In Luke chapter 22 in verse 55, Peter
sat among them.
Now he's sitting in the seat of the
scornful.
Oh, you say that will never happen to
me.
Let him who thinks he stands.
Take heed, lest he fall.
If God is going to bless me, I've
got to be blessable.
And that means separated from the world.
If there's one thing in my life that
God is displeased with, if I'm following the
counsel that's ungodly, if I'm on a way
that is sinful, if I am sitting lovingly,
enjoyably with the scorners, I'm in trouble and
God can't bless.
Separated from the world.
Well, back to Psalm 1.
The second condition is given to us in
verse 2, but his delight is in the
law of the Lord.
And in his law, he meditates day and
night.
Not only must I be separated from the
world, I must be saturated with the word.
Every once in a while, young preachers stop
me.
It's one of the few advantages of being
old.
Younger preachers will stop you and they'll say,
Oh, one said to me recently, Brother Wiersbe,
what's the one thing that you'd say to
me as I begin my ministry?
I said the same thing that I say
to myself every day.
Without him, you can do nothing.
Doesn't say without me, you're handicapped.
Without me, you'll have a rough time.
No, no.
Zero.
Without me, you can do nothing.
The most important part of our lives is
the part that only God sees when we
take time to be holy.
Some years ago, a survey was made by
one of the missionary magazines among missionaries and
pastors to find out how much time they
spent in their devotional life, reading the word
of God, meditating, praying.
The results were abysmal.
Now, if you want to find somebody in
the Bible who delights in the word of
God, the place to turn is Psalm 119.
So let's do that.
Just turn to Psalm 119.
We're going to be moving in and out
of the sections of Psalm 119.
I want you to notice, first of all,
in Psalm 119, that wherever you find the
word meditate, you're going to find the word
delight.
Verse 15, I will meditate on your precepts.
Verse 16, I will delight myself in your
statutes.
Verse 23, your servant meditates on your statutes.
Verse 24, your testimonies also are my delight.
Verse 47, and I will delight myself in
your commandments, which I love.
Verse 48, and I will meditate on your
statutes.
Verse 77, your law is my delight.
Verse 78, I will meditate on your precepts.
Now, the reason this is repeated is because
I'm a little dense and God has to
say it over and again to get my
attention.
You know what he's saying here?
Whatever you delight in is what you think
about.
Now, some people, their imagination, their memory, their
thinking is a sewer.
They have a secret life of sin in
their imagination, in their mind.
And that's because they delight in those things.
Now, whatever I delight in, I will think
about.
And whatever I think about is going to
die my mind.
My thoughts impregnate my mind.
I've had newly converted people say to me,
you know, my biggest struggle is to clean
out my mind.
One man said, when I got saved, I
lost 75% of my vocabulary.
Now, what I delight in is what I
think about.
Now, if I delight in the word of
God, I'll think about it.
I learned something when I was going to
high school.
I enjoyed mathematics and I took geometry and
solid geometry and trigonometry.
And often I couldn't get my homework, this
puzzle, the problem would be just a little
bit too much for me.
And so I'd go to bed, wake up
the next morning and first thought I had
was the solution to that problem.
I've done this with preaching.
I'm not saying I dreamed I was preaching
and woke up and found out that I
was.
I'm not saying that.
What I'm saying is more than once I
have wrestled with a passage and I've said,
dear Lord, I've done the best I can.
Now I'm going to let it incubate.
And you go to bed and you think
about those those verses.
You wake up the next morning and you
know what?
When you wake up, click, click, click.
There's the outline.
This has happened to me so many times
I.
I may write a book on it.
Now, the psalmist is saying if you delight
in the word of God, you think about
it, you meditate on it.
The Hebrew word for meditate means to mutter.
If you've ever watched our Orthodox Jewish friends,
when they pray and when they read scripture,
they do it out loud.
This is why the Ethiopian Philip knew exactly
where he was in the scripture.
He was reading it out loud.
When you go down to the wailing wall
in Jerusalem, there they are with their with
their scriptures and they're out loud muttering.
That's why God said to Joshua, this word
shall not depart out of your mouth.
So whatever I think about, I'm talking about,
I'm muttering to myself in my mind.
That's what I delight in.
Now, if it's not the word of God,
we're in trouble.
Saturated with the word.
Well, while we're in Psalm 119, we don't
know who wrote this Psalm.
Some say David, some say Jeremiah.
We don't know.
But whoever he was, he was all wrapped
up in the word of God.
Look, for example, at verse 14.
I have rejoiced in the way of your
testimonies as much as in all riches.
Here's a man who would rather have the
word of God than have money.
He's strange.
Look at verse 72.
The law of your mouth is better to
me than thousands of gold and silver.
Look at verse 127.
Therefore, I love your commandments more than gold.
Yes, and fine gold.
Look at verse 162.
I rejoice at your word as one who
finds great spoil.
That's amazing.
I dare say in our average church today,
if there is such a thing, most of
us are so below average.
But if in our average church today, we
were to get up and say, folks, you
can take a choice today.
You either go to Sunday school class and
study the Bible, or if you leave, we'll
give you a $20 bill.
You won't set any records that Sunday.
I once heard Vance Havner say, our churches
are in such bad shape today that you
have to backslide to be in fellowship with
anybody.
That's not always the case.
But it does frighten us.
Here's a man who says, hey, you give
me a choice between wealth and the word.
I'll take the word.
This is wealth that lasts forever.
But I can think of a couple of
men in the Bible who didn't make that
choice.
One of them was Akin.
Joshua said to the soldiers, don't you touch
any of the spoil from Jericho.
It belongs to God.
Akin saw a Babylonian garment and some gold
and some silver, and he said, well, if
you get away with it, it's okay.
And he wrapped it all up and went
and hid it.
The next day the army went to fight,
as you know, and lost the battle.
But God couldn't bless them.
They weren't blessable.
And we still have that phrase, an Akin
in the camp.
He'd rather have the money than have the
word of God.
And he lost both.
And he lost his life.
I'm thinking of King Saul.
Samuel said to Saul, you go fight the
Amalekites.
They're the enemy of God and wipe them
out and destroy everything.
Everything.
Saul comes back and says, I have done
the will of the Lord.
And just then Sam Samuel heard, he said,
what's that noise I hear?
Why should the people save the best of
the spoil?
Now hear me, when God says some things
to be destroyed, there is no best.
The will of God is not a spectrum
that goes from darkness to light and various
shades.
No, no, no.
And so Saul would rather have the wealth
than have the word of God.
And he lost his kingdom.
He lost his crown.
Well, here's a man would rather have the
word of God than have money.
What does it cost us to have the
word of God and delight in it?
Well, this man has some other peculiarities.
Verse 103, how sweet are your words to
my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth,
rather have the word of God than have
food.
You announce a Bible conference in the average
congregation.
You're fortunate if the custodian shows up and
unlocks the door, you announce a banquet.
People are there.
In fact, the word of God is the
best food in the world.
As newborn babes desire the unadulterated milk of
the word.
First Peter two to man shall not live
by bread alone, but by every word that
proceeds from the mouth of God.
Matthew four, four.
This word is our milk and this word
is our honey.
This word is our bread.
It's our meat.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said, I
wish I could feed you with meat, but
I've had to feed you with milk.
This is a complete meal.
And if I can't make a meal out
of milk and bread and meat and honey,
there's something wrong with my appetite.
And one of the problems today is people
don't have an appetite.
We live in the era of fast food
and people want spiritual fast food.
They want to read a verse and a
poem and a prayer and say, I've had
my devotional time.
They want to stick a tape in and
listen to something.
Milk is predigested food, nothing wrong with it,
but it's predigested.
A lot of our people today don't have
any teeth for handling bread and meat.
They just haven't grown spiritually and grown some
molars and some incisors.
And so we try to give them dentures.
It doesn't work.
Here's a man who says, if I had
a choice between a banquet and the word
of God, I'll take the word of God.
I can think of a man who got
in trouble because he rather had the honey
his name is Samson.
Samson was a Nazarite who was never supposed
to touch a dead body.
He was attacked one day by a lion.
He just took the lion and killed the
lion and threw the body off to one
side.
Came back sometime later and there was the
corpse of the lion, but he heard a
buzzing sound.
Now it wasn't ringing in his ears.
Some bees had made a hive in the
carcass of the lion.
Now my book of Proverbs says, let your
eyes look right on.
But Samson began to look off to one
side and he heard the bees and he
saw the honey.
He had to make a choice.
If he ate the honey, he was touching
a dead body, defiling himself.
He lost his consecration, but he got the
honey.
Samson wasn't stung by the bees.
He was stung by the honey, and he
lost his holiness because he'd rather have the
honey than have the word of God.
The world today is so shrewd.
They put a little bit of honey in
some literature, and our professors say, Now you've
got to read this book, you know, there's
some good stuff in it.
But it's honey in the carcass of a
lion.
It's sweetness surrounded by deadness, and worse than
deadness, rottenness.
Movie reviews, my, this is a great film,
it's filthy.
I'm wondering why I own a TV set.
Well, I do know why.
My wife likes to watch the weather.
She was raised on the farm, and the
first thing farmers have to find out in
the morning is what the weather is going
to be.
I couldn't care less.
We live in a state that's too poor
to have weather.
We have to import it from Kansas and
Colorado.
And the church today is feeding on honey
in the carcass of a lion.
And they're defiled.
Oh, but this is the way the world
does it.
Who cares?
Here's a man who's really peculiar.
He'd rather have the word of God than
have wealth.
He'd rather have the word of God than
have food.
In fact, he'd rather have the word of
God than have sleep.
Now I'm really meddling.
Verse 55, I remember your name in the
night, O Lord, and keep your law.
Verse 62, at midnight I will rise to
give thanks to you because of your righteous
judgments.
Girls, aren't you glad you aren't married to
this fellow?
He's padding around the house all night, meditating
on the word of God.
147, I rise before the dawning of the
morning and cry for your help, I hope
in your word.
My eyes are awake through the night, watches
that I may meditate on your word.
164, seven times a day I praise you
because of your righteous judgments.
All day long, all night long, this man's
in the word of God.
He clothes himself and feeds himself and rejoices
himself and encourages himself in the word of
God.
I'd rather have the word of God than
have sleep.
How much sleep do you dedicate to God
so that you might spend time with the
word?
Jesus got up early in the morning and
prayed, talked to the Father and listened to
the word.
I met God in the morning, wrote Ralph
Spalding Cushman.
I met God in the morning when my
day was at its best.
And his presence came like sunrise with a
glory in my breast.
All day long, his presence lingered.
All day long, he stayed with me and
we sailed in perfect calmness over a very
troubled sea.
The wind that seemed to drive them brought
to me a perfect rest.
And then I thought of other mornings with
sorrow on my mind when I too had
left my harbor with my pilot far behind.
I think I've learned the secret.
Learned from many a troubled way.
You must meet God in the morning if
you would have him all the day.
But we don't.
We don't.
If God is going to bless us, we
have to be blessable.
That means separated from the world, saturated with
the word.
I suppose the greatest Bible conference ever held
on this earth was on the Mount of
Transfiguration.
Number two would be when Jesus taught those
two Emmaus disciples.
On the Mount of Transfiguration, you've got Peter
and James and John and Moses and Elijah
and Jesus.
You certainly have three of the finest speakers,
Moses and Elijah and Jesus.
And then the Father speaks from heaven.
You have the greatest glory, the greatest subject.
They discussed his exodus, his decease at Jerusalem.
Greatest subject you can discuss.
And while all this was going on, you
know what the disciples were doing?
Sleeping.
Sleeping through the glory.
That's happened to us.
We just couldn't start the day early enough
to get into the word of God and
let God talk to us.
And then we wonder why God can't bless.
He wants to bless.
He longs to bless.
But we're not blessable.
We don't delight in the word.
That's a third condition that the psalmist gives
us in verse three.
We must be situated by the waters.
He shall be like a tree planted by
the rivers of water that brings forth its
fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall
not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.
That reminds me of Joseph.
Whatever they did with Joseph, he prospered.
Make him the dishwasher in the kitchen, he
prospers.
Make him the steward of the house, he
prospers.
Put him in prison, he prospers.
Situated by the waters.
Now in the Bible, water for drinking is
a picture of the Holy Spirit.
Water for washing is a picture of the
word of God.
Don't confuse the two.
Here is the tree with its root system
down into the hidden brooks of water, the
hidden rivers, and drawing up the resources and
growing and producing fruit.
Now that's the picture of the godly person
God can bless.
A tree.
One of our problems today is we have
a generation of tumbleweeds.
No roots, no fruits, no beauty, no dependability.
People are picking churches today the way they
pick restaurants or theaters.
What's going on?
Situated by the waters.
Fruitful, dependable, beautiful, useful.
Jesus one day cried out and said, If
anyone is thirsty, let him come to me
and drink.
Out of his innermost being, he is referring
to the Messiah.
Out of his innermost being shall flow rivers
of living water.
Let me ask you, are you depending in
your life and ministry on the Holy Spirit
of God?
Years ago I heard A.W. Tozer make
a statement.
I think he was quoting somebody else, but
I don't remember the documentation.
But Dr. Tozer said this, If God were
to take the Holy Spirit out of this
world, most of what the church is doing
would go right on and nobody would know
the difference.
That scares me.
Depending on the Holy Spirit of God.
Acts chapter 1, you find 120 people, which
is about the size of the average church
in America today.
120 people doing everything churches do.
Praying, that's good.
Eating, that's good.
Electing officers, that's important.
Studying the Bible, that's good.
But they're enjoying all of this behind closed
doors and touching nobody.
And then 10 days later the Holy Spirit
came upon them and they became the church
of the open door.
And 120 people ignited by the Holy Spirit,
witnessed and worshipped God, and 3,000 people
were saved.
Now imagine if you're one of those 120
and now you're outnumbered by a bunch of
new converts.
How are you going to run the program?
Somebody comes to Peter and says, Peter, do
you realize we've got 3,000 people who
can outvote us?
He says, don't worry about it, the Holy
Spirit's in control.
And you walk through the book of Acts
and you discover whatever was done, the Holy
Spirit did it.
And He used the most amazing people.
The church in the book of Acts did
not have all of the wonderful resources we
have.
They didn't have radio or television or fax
machines or telephones, publishing.
They didn't have, excuse me, it's the schools
that we have and we're thankful for them.
I teach for four or five different schools.
All these things.
They didn't have budgets.
He said, silver and gold have I none.
Didn't have budgets.
Didn't have any buses.
Didn't even have buildings.
All the things that we have they didn't
have.
But we still have the same Holy Spirit
situated by the waters.
And the interesting thing about a tree is
when that root system goes down and takes
root, the wind can blow, the storm can
come.
That tree is resilient enough to bend.
Some folks just can't take the storm.
I don't know about this town or the
town in which you live, but I know
Lincoln, Nebraska, where we live, we have a
group of people I call the nomads.
The nomads.
They get mad at the preacher, they say
no, and off they go.
The nomads.
They're tumbleweeds situated by the waters.
Everything in nature depends on hidden resources.
Whether it's your flower garden or your vegetable
garden or your arboretum, those roots go down
to hidden resources.
If I'm going to be a tree for
God's glory, I've got to depend on hidden
resources.
Get my roots into the water of the
Holy Spirit and drink deeply of him situated
by the waters.
Now, why does God bless us?
Well, he tells us because there are people
in this world who are ungodly.
And they're like chaff.
Quite a contrast between chaff and trees.
Nobody picks up the Wall Street Journal and
says, I wonder how chaff is doing this
week.
I think I'll put a few thousand dollars
into chaff.
Call my broker.
Nobody wants chaff.
It blows away.
It's done for.
Did you notice what sin does to people?
Well, in verse one, sin controls people.
Where they walk, where they stand, where they
sit.
In verse four, sin cheapens people, turns them
into chaff.
Do you ever notice that the word that
Jesus used for hell was the name for
the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem?
Oh, the devil says, do it my way.
Do it my way.
You'll succeed.
Yeah, you'll succeed in ending up in the
garbage dump.
Sin cheapens people.
I have yet to meet anybody who will
say, I'm a better person because I cheated
on my wife.
I'm a better person because I lied to
my boss.
No.
So sin controls people in verse one and
cheapens people in verse four and condemns people
in verse six.
The way of the ungodly shall perish.
What a strange psalm.
It starts with blessed and ends with perish.
But don't you ever forget that word perish.
You can almost hear the hiss of hell
in that word perish.
You know why God blesses us?
Because there are people out there who are
perishing.
It's our job to reach them.
Here's the tree.
All the unsaved people in the world are
hungry and they're living on substitutes.
You can go to the drugstore and buy
sleep.
You can't buy rest.
You can't buy peace.
You can go to the theater and buy
entertainment.
You can't buy joy.
You can make a phone call and buy
lust.
You can't buy love.
The people out there are living on substitutes.
We've got the real thing.
And he says, now, look, you just produce
fruit and people are going to come along
and say, man, what does that woman have?
What does that man have?
I don't have.
And by the way, the tree doesn't eat
the fruit.
The tree supplies the fruit for other people
to eat.
And we are here to say to this
perishing generation, we got the real thing.
Come on, taste and see that the Lord
is good.
Well, we must close by thinking about another
question.
Why is it that God can bless people
like this?
Here we have three conditions to be blessable.
Separated from the world.
Now, that makes good sense.
Saturated with the word.
That makes good sense.
Situated by the waters.
That makes good sense.
The life of God flowing through us.
But why is it that this kind of
a person is blessable?
Well, the answer, I think, is rather plain.
This kind of a person is like the
Lord Jesus.
Remember what Jesus said?
Blessed is the man who doesn't walk in
the counsel of the ungodly.
Jesus said, I'm the way.
His delight is in the law of the
Lord.
Jesus said, I'm the truth.
Peace shall be like a tree.
Jesus said, I'm the life.
When you're like this, you're like Jesus.
And when you're like Jesus, God looks down
and says, hey, you're like my beloved son.
I'm well pleased with you.
I can bless you.
I can trust you with blessing.
Years ago, Robert Murray McShane, that great Scottish
preacher, whose life you ought to read.
The life of Robert Murray McShane by Andrew
Bonar, one of the godly men, died before
he was 31 years old, I believe.
Godly man.
He wrote a letter to a missionary friend,
and this is what he wrote.
Remember, it is not great talent that God
blesses, but great likeness to Jesus.
Would you remember that?
All across this country, God is using the
most unusual instruments.
One of the greatest choirs in this country
is led by a woman who can't even
read music.
Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir.
Carol cannot read music.
It's remarkable.
God is picking up his instruments and saying,
I can use you.
I can't use you.
You're depending too much on your education.
Nothing wrong with education.
I wish I had more.
But I've met some preachers who are dying
by degrees.
As I get older and realize that I
don't know how many years I have yet
to minister, I realize this.
The important thing is to be blessable.
God will take care of the rest.
When God can look down and see us
and say, uh-huh, I can bless you
and you and you, you're like Jesus.
Separated.
Saturated.
Situated.
Producing fruit so that the unsaved can find
the real thing.
We ask our Father, first of all, that
you'll forgive us for playing with sin, for
neglecting the Word of God, and for depending
upon our own resources.
Now help us to become people who are
blessable.
I pray in the name of Jesus.
Amen.