Teaching the Lord, yet early in the evening,
Wanderers on the mountains away, Come unto me,
yet early in the evening, Where comest thou,
Master, speaking today?
Going afar, How
can I go on, Failing from mercy, Following
Christ from death?
Truly it is wonderful when we seek the
lost, when we point them to the Lord
Jesus Christ, and they find out that their
sins can be blotted out.
The next hymn we are going to sing
is, My Sins Are Blotted Out, I Know.
I hope that each one here this evening
knows that your sins are blotted out.
My Sins
Are Blotted
Out
Are we turning our hymn book to number
90?
My Sins Are Blotted Out Our speaker for
this evening, Dr. Armady.
For our meditation this evening, I'm asking you
to turn again to the book of Psalms,
and tonight we'll take a look at Psalm
11.
Psalm 11.
Notice the title is one we have really
considered before.
Chief Musician, Psalm of David.
I think we've said enough about that too.
Skip over it this evening.
In the Lord that I might trust, I'll
say to my soul, Flee as a bird
through your mountains.
Below the wicked bend their bow, They make
ready their arrow from the string, That they
may privily or in darkness Shoot at the
upright in heart.
If the foundations be destroyed, What can the
righteous do?
The Lord is in his holy temple, The
Lord grown is in heaven.
His eyelids behold, his eyelids cry, The children
of men.
The Lord crieth the righteous, But the wicked
in him that loveth violence His whole soul
hateth.
Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, Fire
and brimstone, and an horrible tempest.
This shall be the portion of their cup.
For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness, His countenance
doth behold the upright.
There are two questions in this psalm which
I want to use as sort of a
starting point tonight.
The one is used by the psalmist himself
when he says, How say ye to my
soul, Flee as a bird to your mountains.
The second question is found in the third
verse, If the foundations be destroyed, What can
the righteous do?
The first question I think is one which
might well be asked by many people today,
especially when we find under the pressure of
life such as we live it in these
days, that people keep suggesting some sort of
an escape.
And some find their escape in one way,
and some find it in another.
And you get all kinds of advice as
to how to escape some of the difficulties
and maybe the realities of life.
Some of course do this very nicely by
giving more time to meditation over the word
of God, or meeting together as we're meeting
here in this conference.
For I can't conceive of a better way
for one to get away from the things
which press upon us throughout our daily lives
and come together as we have this week
to consider the word of God, to have
fellowship with each other, and to learn to
know our Lord better.
But then there are others again who think
they need something besides this.
And so we find them indulging in all
sorts of things, and using tranquilizers, and some
even going so far as to use some
of these hallucinatory drugs such as LSD, and
what not.
All of this is an attempt to get
away from reality.
And here the psalmist is faced with exactly
that kind of a question.
Why don't you get away from it all?
Why don't you flee as a bird to
your mountain?
But you'll notice he puts down in the
first verse the big reason why he doesn't.
He says, And if I were to give
you the very literal translation of that, it
would go like this.
I've already found a place of retreat, you
see.
And this is something that every true child
of God can say.
He can say, And he's sufficient.
No matter how hard the lot may be,
how tough the going may be.
Yes, he's sufficient.
And this is the psalmist's answer to the
question.
Well, but somebody says, yes, but you know
we're constantly being aimed at by the enemy.
That's true, the psalmist knows that.
He says that in the second verse here
when he says, Yes, each
and every one of us as a child
of God becomes a target of the enemy.
You're made to realize that almost from the
first hour of your conversion.
That the enemy is out to get you.
He's a coward, he stands in darkness to
do it.
But he's out to get you.
And the psalmist is fully aware of that
here.
That is, if he is saying these words.
For it may be that those who already
said, why don't you get away from it
all, because don't you know that the enemy
is really out to get you?
He is.
But you know, to be forewarned is to
be forearmed.
And we have plenty of warnings, especially in
the New Testament, concerning our archenemy, the devil.
And not only the devil, but the world
itself.
Saint Paul tells us we're not ignorant of
Satan's devices.
We're not ignorant of his methods.
We're not ignorant of the way in which
he proceeds to undo the life and work
of a Christian.
And Peter tells us he goes about as
a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
So we're aware of these things.
And to be aware of them is to
be forearmed in a way.
Because you don't go around with your head
in the clouds and say, well, everything's all
right, I just can't be tripped up.
That's the kind of a person it usually
is.
But the person who's on the alert, who
knows that he's got enemies to face, and
goes into the presence of the Lord to
be forearmed and protected against this very thing.
But in the second question, which is raised
in the third verse, we get something which
I think is even much more serious.
Because here the question is raised, if the
foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
Now notice, please, that the word foundations is
in the plural.
In the singular, referring to our blessed Lord
and Savior, as we have it in 1
Corinthians, brother foundation can no man lay, and
that is laid, which is Jesus Christ, that
foundation can never be destroyed.
What then do these foundations, what do they
speak of?
Well, it has been suggested, and I agree
with the suggestion, that these refer to those
great fundamental things in our lives, such as,
shall I say, the whole structure rests upon.
The foundation of family life, for example, how
that has been destroyed in a day like
this hasn't.
I couldn't help but think, as we were
consulting with the group of candidates for the
Central American Mission, I might explain here that
I am connected with the Central American Mission,
which was founded by Dr. C.I. Schofield
some 77 years ago, and which operates in
Mexico and Central America, all the republics including
Panama.
There are some 275 to 300 missionaries connected
with this mission, and about that same number
of national workers, and it's been my delight
to be associated with this type of work.
But each year we have a candidate school
when young people who have been approached in
the cities in which they live come together
in Dallas for a time of orientation, and
also for examination, to pass an examination, shall
I say, by the executive council, of which
I happen to be a member, and in
this way to see whether they're really the
Lord's chosen ones to go forth into the
mission field.
This year we had 17, and the biggest
surprise I got, as I think of that
lot of 17 people, there were six couples
making 12, and then there were five single
people.
Practically all of them, with I think one
or two exceptions, came out of broken homes.
To me this was astounding, because most of
our missionary material has come from people who
had strong Christian backgrounds.
But here we had these almost 17 young
people, young couples, telling us that they'd come
out of broken homes.
This is a sad state of affairs.
To me, of course, it was a matter
of deep thankfulness to God that these young
people had triumphed over that very thing, and
were now out to give their lives for
service on the mission field in South America
and Mexico.
But think of this.
This is just a little bit of it.
Then we think of other things in which
the foundations have been destroyed.
Take our educational system, for example.
When we think of what damage has been
done to our educational system, and having been
in this work for some years, I have
watched this thing at close range to see
how the philosophy of men like John Dewey
and others have destroyed the very fundamentals of
our educational work in America.
Of course, somebody will say, yes, but you're
a schoolteacher of five gone days, yes, but
you know, schoolteachers never die, they just fail
to make the grade.
We believe that there's still place for these
old standards, but they've been destroyed.
Take the political foundation of our country.
As we read over the Declaration of Independence,
we read the Constitution, we say these are
tremendous documents, and yet how we have seen,
through one decision after another by the Supreme
Court of the United States, these things being
undermined.
Not only that, but members of our legislative
bodies actually standing up as sinful men.
These things give me pause as an American.
Yes, they do.
The foundations destroyed.
Then there's another way in which this word
foundations could have been translated, because elsewhere in
the Old Testament, the same Hebrew word is
used for leaders.
If the leaders be destroyed, and how the
devil has aimed at these leaders among God's
servants, men who have gone on sometimes for
years in the Lord's work, and then suddenly
something happens.
At least it appears to happen suddenly, but
none of these things actually happen suddenly.
There's always something that leads up to them.
Sometimes when you hear about all these things
that I've been mentioning tonight, you say, well
now, what can you do about it?
What can you do about it?
If the foundations, if the leaders be destroyed,
what can the righteous do?
Well, I'm thankful that the psalm gives us
the answer.
You'll notice please in verse four, and here's
a real change in the tone of the
whole psalm.
Here we get a wonderful truth in this
fourth verse.
It says the Lord is in his holy
temple.
That means, of course, that he's operating there
as a priest.
The Lord's throne is in heaven.
That speaks of his royalty, of his kingship.
And as we were hearing from our beloved
colleague this week, Dr. Thetford, bringing before us
some of those things in the book of
Zechariah, he shall be a priest upon his
throne.
Our Lord Jesus did not come of the
tribe of Levi, therefore he could not be
a priest after the Aaronic order.
But he's a priest after the order of
Melchizedek, the man of whom you read so
much in the seventh chapter of the epistles
of the Hebrews.
Some people actually think that Melchizedek wasn't a
real person.
But he certainly was.
We get notice of him first in the
14th chapter of the book of Genesis.
When Abraham returned from the slaughter of the
kings after he went to recover his nephew
Lot and all his household, you remember that
Melchizedek went out to meet him with bread
and wine.
And Abraham gave to him tithes of all.
Yes, he was a real individual.
As I speak of this, I'm reminded of
an incident that took place in Memphis.
I was ministering the word there and staying
at a hotel, the lovely Peabody.
And one morning, they knocked at my door
while I was working on my book.
I said, come.
And the maid opened the door, and when
she saw me, she said, excuse me, sir.
And back out, I said, come right along.
I said, I'm going to be here a
long time.
You better come in and do your work.
So she did.
She came in and did her work, cleaning
up the room, fixing the bed, rearranging the
bathroom.
And I wondered if she had left the
room.
Suddenly, though, I didn't hear her sound anymore.
There she was standing with her bucket and
so on, standing there waiting.
I said, is there anything I can do
for you?
She said, please, sir.
She said, you look like you're the minister
of the word of God.
I said, yes.
I was glad to hear her using that
expression, the word of God.
She saw my open Bible.
She said, may I ask you a question,
sir?
I said, what would be, what question?
Well, she said, yesterday, our ministry, he preached
us a sermon about Melchizedek.
And she said, I was all mixed up.
I don't know whether Melchizedek was Jesus or
whether he wasn't.
So I said, well, now let's see what
the Bible says about it.
And if you keep your bookmark here, Psalm
11.
Let's turn to Hebrews 7 for a moment.
Seventh chapter of Hebrews.
And I did this with this, dear soul.
We opened up here.
Again, back with Melchizedek in the first verse.
For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of
the most high God, who met Abraham returning
from the slaughter of the kings and blessed
him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth
part of all, first being by interpretation king
of righteousness.
That's Melchizedek, that's the meaning of it.
And after that, king of Salem, which is
king of peace.
Without father, without mother, without descent or genealogy.
This doesn't mean that he didn't have them,
but their names were not recorded for us.
I mean, either beginning of days or end
of life.
This is the last sentence.
I hold this dear soul's attention to this.
That he was made like unto the Son
of God.
Didn't you see this?
Melchizedek was made like unto the Son of
God.
I said, do you understand that?
She said, you can't be made like somebody
what you already is.
She had it.
Melchizedek was made like unto the Son of
God.
In the omission of these details concerning his
genealogy, you see.
So that he becomes a perfect type, shall
we say, of our Lord Jesus, the king
priest.
But now is the importance of this.
While you've got your Bible there open to
Hebrews, turn back to chapter 4 for a
moment.
Chapter 4 of Hebrews and verse 14.
Seeing then that we have a great high
priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus,
the Son of God, let us hold fast
our profession.
For we have not an high priest which
cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities, but with an all points tempted or
tried, like as we are, yet without sin
or apart from sin.
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne
of grace, that we may obtain mercy and
find grace to help in time of need.
You know, here's the truth in these verses,
that a lot of Christians have never looked
at.
Some years ago, I was down here in
the state of Florida.
I was then connected with the Moody Bible
Institute.
And the late Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse was
ministering in a church in the city where
I was also working with the Institute.
I went to hearing one afternoon and he
was preaching on the 7th chapter of Hebrews
concerning the high priesthood of our Lord Jesus.
And after the meeting, the minister of the
church came to me and said, wasn't that
a daring thing for Donald to do this
afternoon?
What do you mean?
Well, he said, what do these people know
about the high priesthood of Christ?
I said, you're the pastor of this church?
He said, yes.
I said, how long have you been here?
He said, 13 years.
And you know, then's when you like to
take advantage of your gray hair.
They were gray then, they're white now.
I said, sir, shame on you!
13 years!
And you've never told these people about the
high priesthood of the Lord Jesus?
Think of what they miss in not knowing
that there's a person on the throne of
God this very night who can be touched
with a feeling of our infirmity.
This is a wonderful thing to me.
I remember as a lad, we lived in
a strong Roman Catholic neighborhood.
And it was quite natural for us to
get to discussing religion with our playmates.
And one day, I thought, well, I'll ask
one of these little friends of mine to
come along to our meeting.
I wasn't saved myself, but I was loyal
to my parents.
And I thought, you get this boy coming
to our meeting.
Well, he says, I'll have to ask my
mother.
So when he came back, he said, well,
my mother says, I can go if you
will first go with me to my church.
Well, I said, I'm going to have to
ask my father.
So, I went and I told Dad what
I had proposed to this boy, this friend
of mine, Bill Waters.
And I said, he wants me to go
to his church and then he'll come to
our meeting.
Dad says, take him up on it.
I was rather surprised that Dad fell in
with the idea like this.
Take him up on it.
So I said, all right, Bill, I'll go
with you to your church.
You know, I was really impressed.
I'd never seen such fine vestments on men
in all my life.
Brought up in a rather plain neighborhood where
brethren didn't dress up too much.
You'd go in there and see these priests
with all those beautiful things on.
Hear bells ringing, see smoke arising from the
incense.
Everything going on in a language I didn't
understand.
You can imagine, little fella, I was really
impressed.
So, when he came out and said, what
do you think of that?
I said, wonderful.
Well, I said, now you're coming with us
to our meeting.
Well, I said, it's going to be a
lot different.
So, sure enough, his mother told him, well,
he went with you.
Now, you can go with him.
So, he came with me one sunny night
to our meeting.
So, when he came out of there, we
sung two or three hymns, you know.
Brother led in prayer and had a good,
forceful, gospel meeting.
In fact, the brother who was there that
night was extra faithful.
You know what I mean?
He saw one in the audience that he
hadn't seen before.
And he was preaching especially to this little
fella.
But, you know, when he came out, I
said, well, dear, what do you think of
that?
Well, he says, I guess it's all right.
You ain't got no priest.
You know, that bothers me.
It bothers me.
I went home in silence, and my father
asked me about it.
And I said, well, listen, this is what
happened.
And I said, he says, we ain't got
no priest, and we ain't.
Well, I said, I've never seen him.
Well, he said, now I'll show him to
you.
And he took me right here to this
fourth chapter of Hebrew.
Right here.
He says, seeing then we have a grave.
Now notice he said that word grave.
Not only a priest, but he's a grave
priest.
He's not only a grave priest, he's a
grave high priest.
He says, it's Jesus, the son of God.
He said, son, that's our priest.
I could hardly wait for the next day.
When I saw my little friend, I had
my little pocket testament that I'd been given
as a boy.
I had it open to this.
I said, Bill, I was all wrong.
I said, we've got one.
And I showed him this.
I'm wondering if everybody present here tonight knows
that.
That we have a grave high priest.
Who can be touched with the feelings of
our infirmities.
This, my dear friends, is the answer to
those questions in that 11th Psalm.
We'll come back to that now.
You notice how these things are put together
in that Psalm?
The questions are raised, and what's the answer?
The Lord is in his holy temple.
The Lord's throne is in heaven.
You've got the high priesthood.
The Melchizedek priesthood of the Lord Jesus.
There he is.
That's the answer.
Let me just say to any dear child
of God here tonight who finds we're going
tough at times.
Here's something for you to lean on.
Something for you to take advantage of.
What a wonderful thing this is.
You know, if there's anything we enjoy when
we're in trouble, it's sympathy.
That's exactly what we get when we come
to the Lord Jesus.
He can be touched with the feeling of
our infirmities.
He knows how to sympathize.
He's been through it all.
You and I haven't had an experience apart
from sin that he hasn't been through.
He knows what it means to hunger.
He knows what it means to thirst.
He knows what it means to be forsaken.
He knows what it means, dear.
He knows.
This is a wonderful thing for us tonight.
Now I see my time is gone.
I'm not going to take very much time
on things which follow here in verses 4
and 5 and 6.
It isn't because I don't think them important.
They are important.
The psalmist is very faithfully bringing before us
those who do not have such a precious
hope as this.
When he says, Upon the wicked he shall
rain snares, fire and brimstone.
This shall be the portion of their cup.
I tell you, friends, those are terrible words.
And they mean exactly what they say.
They mean exactly what they say.
And thank God there's escape from that tonight.
By trusting the Lord Jesus Christ.
And how shall you escape if you neglect
so great salvation?
It may be that you've had this thing
presented to you many times.
But up until now you've never availed yourself
of it.
This is what's ahead.
Oh dear friends.
When you look at this and think of
this as being a future of a Christless
life.
I'm sure that in itself would make you
decide this very night.
Come to the Lord Jesus Christ as your
own personal Savior.
But to pursue the thought with which I've
been occupied most of the time.
Let me come to verse 7.
The righteous Lord loveth righteousness.
He isn't neglecting the righteous side of this
whole thing.
Whatever you and I are enduring, He's taking
note of it.
You may be sure there'll be a righteous
balance in the day to come.
But oh, this last line for just now.
His countenance doth behold the upright.
Just think of this.
That no matter where we go in this
dark sinful world.
We can be sure as believers in the
Lord Jesus Christ.
That His countenance, His face is beaming down
upon us.
And if that is true beloved.
As we have been seeing in a previous
study.
I'm sure there's going to be a reflection
as a result.
Because as you and I with open faith
behold in the glass the glory of the
Lord.
We're bound to radiate and reflect some of
that glory.
We're bound to do it.
Oh the shining face.
The shining face of Moses to which we
referred the other day.
The shining face of Stephen the martyr.
When they beheld his face as it had
been the face of an angel.
The shining faces of dozens of people with
whom I've had to deal in the last
hours of their lives.
In my work in the TV sanitarium in
Albuquerque, New Mexico for ten years.
I know something of what it means to
look into the radiant face of a child
of God.
Yes, just a little over two and a
half years ago.
Standing with my own beloved life partner.
In the last few moments of her life.
To see every line of pain leave the
face.
She looked as though she had had a
perfect facial.
Her eyes opened with great joy and expectancy.
I was certain that she'd seen the Lord.
Yes, this is it.
I was talking along these lines one night
in Old England.
Soon I returned from New Zealand and Palestine
and we stopped off in England.
My youngest daughter, who is now a mother
of five, was just a little girl then.
And she heard me talking about the desirability
of a Christian's face.
Shining.
On the way home from the meeting that
night, she had my hand.
She was a girl about five years up
then.
She said to me, Daddy, I said, what
is it darling?
She said, Daddy, you were talking about shining
faces tonight.
I said, yes honey.
Just girls don't like their faces to shine.
I know the kind of shining I mean.
It isn't that kind.
I said, I don't like that kind of
a shine either.
What I said, I like the kind of
a shine that comes from within.
So I tried to explain to this dear
young child what it means to have a
radiant countenance as you witness about the Lord
Jesus.
Now she's got her five precious little children
of her own.
And I can tell that she's passing it
on to them.
Beloved, you and I have been up here
accompanying with the Lord Jesus.
These have been wonderful days.
To me, this has been a wonderful experience
to be up here on this mountaintop with
you all looking at the Word of God,
fellowshiping around the throne of grace.
You know, every one of us ought to
leave here with a radiant face.
So that people who see us will take
note of us that we've been with Jesus.
Now having looked at our Savior in this
way.
Will you please turn to hymn number 20.
Christ has for sin atonement made.
What a wonderful Savior.
We are redeemed.
The price is paid.
What a wonderful Savior.
Having had just a little warning this morning.
He sent me to my bed for an
hour or more.
I'm going to ask him to come and
lead us in.
Shall we sing?
We are redeemed.
The price is paid.
What a wonderful Savior.
Wonderful Savior.