Third as the last. In God's great creation, as the fount of it all, He makes the fount of day, and the feast for evermore. Till with the gift of goodness, the longing I confess, All right, let's turn now to Psalm 11. Psalm 11. Psalm 11. I hope this message is from the Lord. It's certainly from His Word. But I was literally awakened by this Scripture this morning. I was literally brought awake with this Scripture as if somebody spoke it out loud to me. So I hope this is of the Lord. Verse 3, Psalm 11. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Now, before I begin, let me tell you who the righteous are. The righteous—righteous means holy. are not those who live a perfect life, because no man can. It's impossible. Scripture says there's none righteous. No, not one. That's what it says. All right? The righteous are not those who live, keep the Ten Commandments perfectly. It's impossible. Scripture says, what the law says, it says to everyone, shut our mouths, and that we're guilty. We're guilty of breaking every commandment. Because the law is spiritual. It must be kept, not only outwardly, but inwardly, with a perfect motive, with a perfect heart, and thoughts, as well as deeds. God said, I'm holy. You be holy. The righteous Lord loveth righteousness. The Scripture says, verse 7, the righteous Lord loveth righteousness. All right, who is righteous then? Those that are in Jesus Christ by faith. Very simple. Those who are in Christ by faith. The Scripture says, He is made unto us. Those who simply believe and trust Christ alone, not their works, nothing, but Christ alone. Scripture says He is made of the wisdom righteousness. He's called the Lord our righteousness. So those in Christ by faith are considered by God to be absolutely, perfectly, spotlessly holy and righteous without one fault, without one sin upon them. Now that's who the righteous are. They had nothing to do with their righteousness. Jesus Christ did it all. All right? Not even that faith, not even believing Him, was their work. But that was the gift of God. All right? All right, now, so I need to establish that. This is talking to believers. Now, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? All right? The foundation of a building is the base or the footing upon which the whole structure rests or stands. The whole building, this building that you're sitting in right now, doesn't depend upon the pew you're sitting in, the floor that it rests upon, the walls upon which the floor is added to. but the foundation that this whole building sits upon. Whether or not the building stands or falls depends upon the foundation. This is going to be so simple, so basic. This will be a foundation message. Whether or not a building stands or falls depends upon the foundation. And how it is built up, and you men have ever done any construction, you know that the foundation is the whole key. How the building goes up, if you build it according to the foundation, if the foundation is plumb, the building will go up plumb. from you ladies or whoever, in case you don't know me, perfectly straight up and down. Not leaning, but perfectly straight. If the foundation is square, perfectly square, then the building will be, will be cattywhompus. You know what cattywhompus is? Cockroach. It will be square. If the foundation is level, perfectly level, then the building will be better and you won't be walking down a hill when it happens. Okay? It all depends on the foundation. If you build exactly according to the foundation, and I know this for a fact, all right, you cannot build a building without a foundation. Now, you can try, and it may even look good for a while. It may look good for a while. Some of these old buildings years ago, they just stick a stone on the top of the ground. Look at it. They're sagging and tilting and eventually it's going to fall into a heap. It may look fine for a while, but it will begin to crumble and eventually fall. We read there, all right, the foundation. We read there in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 11. Other foundations can no man lay than that that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the foundation upon which salvation is written. Everything stands or falls according to him. And Isaiah 28, listen to this, and this is also recorded, Peter quotes this in 1 Peter 2. Isaiah 28, 16 says this, and this is God speaking. Behold, I lay in Zion. God said, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tribe stone. In other words, this stone was with God. God's the one who picked it out. Choice, tribe, stone. Perfect stone. A precious corner stone. That is, precious means value. It's not just cement or rock, but pure gold, silver, pearl. A sure foundation. A sure foundation. One upon which you can rest your soul upon. You can rest your heart upon. You can rest everything upon. Jesus Christ. God said, I lay this foundation. Other foundations can no matter than that which is laid. God laid me. And he's a sure foundation. All right, before the foundation of the world, God purposed this whole thing of salvation. If there's anything clear in Scripture, it's this. That God has a purpose for all things. That God has a purpose, God has a predestined, God has willed all things. Acts 15, 18. We've got an omen that God had all his works from the beginning, before the foundation of the world. God purposed this whole thing of salvation, and he made his son who was with him. Jesus Christ. Verse 8 says, I was with him from the beginning. Before ever the world was, I was with him. The eternal son. God purposed salvation, and he made his son the foundation of the gospel. He made his son The foundation that everything would depend upon, that everything would rest upon him, and everything would be built up on him. This is why Paul says in Colossians 3, verse 11, that Christ is all. He's all. Life, death, judgment, everything is in His hands. It's based upon Him, what He did, who He is, what He did, where He is now. Everything is based upon when He came. Did He get the job done? If He did not, your building will fall. Your faith won't stand. Everything is based upon Him. All authority is given unto Him in heaven and earth. Principality, powers, salvation, damnation. Scripture says He has the keys of heaven and death. Everything. Health, sickness, everything is in His hands. Our very breath, right now, depends upon Him. It's all vested in Him. All right. Now our text says this, all right, now what I'm saying is that Christ is the foundation upon which everything rests, everything, from time to eternity, for all time and eternity. Jesus Christ, everything rests upon him. All right, but our text says if the foundations be destroyed, What can the righteous do? Foundations, all right? There are many things which our salvation depends upon. Many things. But all these things, what I'm going to show you tonight, is all these things depend upon Christ. He's the foundation. But these foundational truths, that's what this is talking about, these foundations, these foundational truths, all point to Christ's betrayal. All right, if the foundations be destroyed. All right, there are three, basically three foundations that we're going to look at, three foundations. And this was used of God. These three things was used of God Almighty to awaken a world out of the dark ages, out of idolatry, out of captivity to a religious, corrupt religious system. And some called it at the time the Reformation. All right? The Reformation. God used His Word through men like Martin Luther and so forth to awaken up a world. And they used these three things, it's what God Almighty, these foundational truths, it's what God Almighty used to shape this world. All right? Number one, these foundations, now if these foundations did strong, what are we going to do? What are believers going to do? Number one, the foundation upon which everything stands, it sits right here, in God's Word. Number one. God's Word. Everything depends upon this being God's Word. Everything. If this is not God's Word, I quit. Why are we here? Let's go home. Let's eat, drink, be merry. Tomorrow we die like a dog. If this is not God's Word, everything we believe on this book. Everything we believe we get from this book. Everything. Everything. This is the basis, the foundation, for everything we believe. Right? God's Word. The foundation of our faith. We believe. This is the Holy. And God's Word is holy, there's nothing corrupt, nothing unclean about it. It's holy, it's pure, beautiful. This is a holy inerrant, it is without error. Not only spiritually, but grammatically. Inerrant, infallible, infallible. Word of the Living God of our Creator. This was written, every word in it, was written by God Almighty. This is not the words of men, but in truth, the Word of the Living God. Do you believe that? If not, what are you going to do? If one word of this, Brother Henry, can be disproved, You don't have this foundation, right? You'd have nothing to base what you believe on, if it's just the words of men. Now, as I said, these are foundations, but they all point to Christ. This Word, the whole Book, is the Word of God which speaks of Christ. He's even called the Word of God, isn't it? He's called the Word of God, Christ. He said, they are they. He said, you search the Scriptures. They are they which testify of me. He said, Moses wrote of me. Abraham rejoiced to see my face. Saul was glad. To him give all the prophets witness. He was preaching one time to two of his disciples. All of them heard it. Eventually, but he's beginning with, in the books of Moses, that's the first path, and Psalms and Prophets, that's the whole Old Testament. He expanded on them the things concerning what? Jewish history? No. Concerning himself. He said, all things must be fulfilled which were written of me. This is the word, and that's why God called his son. The Word. The Word was made in flesh and wept among us. I want you to turn to Ephesians 2. Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. I like this. Ephesians 2. The Apostle Paul is the one the Lord used to end this down. And Paul, once I was preaching, he said, that's the way they call heresy. I so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things written in the Prophets." All things, I believe in all things written in the Prophets. They call it heresy. And people in this generation we live in now, you'll find, really, you'll find very few people, I mean very few people, who actually believe, who still actually believe that this is truly the Word of God. I like the words. Very few, including most of the religious leaders. Very few of them. Ephesians 2.20. Look at this. I like this. Ephesians 2.20. Paul says, You are built upon the foundation, the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself. What was the foundation of the apostles and the prophets? That's the Word of God. Isn't that all the Word of God? The prophets, the apostles, the epistles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone upon which all the Word of God is built. You see? All right, now man, if the foundation is destroyed, we're talking about the Word of God, what are we going to do? Man has been trying to do away with literally do away with this book from the very beginning. Man has been trying to disprove this as God's work from the beginning. It started in a garden when there was only one man and one woman on this earth. There was one devil, and what he tried to do disproved God's work. Isn't it? And he's been doing that ever since. Scripture says his ministers, he has ministers, have transformed themselves into angels of light. They're disguised as Bible scholars, but most of the time what that means is they put a big question mark on God's Word. Bible scholar. I sat and listened to a man who teaches in a large seminary, a large religious school, MDiv, D.D., Ph.D., and all those other degrees, and he sat there and said David was a mythological person, that David didn't even exist. And we'll see in a little bit, if you call any part of God's Word a lie, you're calling Jesus Christ a lie. Our Lord quoted David more than anyone. Well, Satan's ministers, they, Scripture says, they twist God's Word, they question it, they resist it. Peter said. They that are unlearned and unstable, who rest the Scriptures to their own destruction, they change it, they add to it in an attempt to destroy the foundation. People, if one word of this is changed, we have no hope. Let me give you an illustration. In a court of law, I wish I had a lawyer in the congregation. He could explain this better than I could. In a court of law, Everything depends upon every single crossing of every T and the dotting of every I. The way it's worded and everything is absolutely, it must be perfect. Because a some slick lawyer can find a loophole, can find some discrepancy anywhere and throw the case out. Just one little comma in the wrong place. You know? That's what the Holy Spirit says. A man's freedom or his incarceration may depend upon it. Want a little description? Look with me at Jeremiah chapter 36. Look at this. You'll enjoy this. Jeremiah 36. Man has tried to literally destroy God's Word from the beginning. Literally tried to do away with it. And now there's too many copies of it, so what they're trying to do now is change it, we'll be translating it. I've asked you this before, have you ever played that game, I forget what it's called, where you whisper something to someone's ear, they whisper to someone's ear, they whisper to someone's ear, And you go all the way around the room through several people, and when it gets back to you, it doesn't even resemble what you said at the beginning. You ever done that? What is happening, see, is each person is interpreting. They may have heard it wrongly, or they've interpreted, I don't like that, so I'm going to change it a little bit. And the time it gets to you, it's not even close to the original. That's what you call translating. or interpreted, interpreted away the meaning. Men have tried to literally do away with every copy of God's Word. As I mentioned Martin Luther, the Lord used men like that to give, to put the Word of God which was in the Latin and so forth that the average person couldn't read and put it into the language of people. And so that everyone could have a copy of it. But look at this in Jeremiah 36. This is interesting. Verses 1 and 2. It came to pass, the fourth year of Jehoiaphim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, that this word came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, against Judah, and against all the nations. Talking about judgment, mostly. Judgment. So I want you to write, you take a roll and write, roll the book and write there in the words that I tell you. Verse 4, Jeremiah called Barak, the son of Uriah, and Barak wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord which he had spoken unto him upon a roll of the book. Alright? God's Word. Jeremiah. This is what you're reading right now. This is what they're talking about. All right, verses 21 and 23, there was a king, there was a king, and he heard about this book, he heard about this book of Job, this robe, which Jeremiah wrote, verse 21. So the king sent Yehuda, Yehuda, to fetch the roll, and he took it out of the Lysima, the scribe's chamber, and Yehudah read it in the ears of the king, the ears of all the princes which stood beside the king. Now the king sat in the winter house in the ninth month. There was a fire in the hearth burning before him. It came to pass when Yehudah had read three or four leaves, or pages, that the king didn't like what he was hearing. He didn't like it. See, it was all repentance, it wasn't peace, peace, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, but he needs you desperately, and he can't do anything without you. It was judgment. It was thou that sinned, repented, or faced the consequences. All right, that's what it was, all judgment. He didn't like that. So what he did was he got him a penknife. They had pocketknives back then. I don't know what it was, I ain't done it. Page XX? Who knows? Penknife. And he cut it with a penknife. And he cast it into the fire. I don't like that, Page. And you read something, I don't like that either. And you read another page, I don't like that at all. And on and on until what? The whole world was concerned about that. He didn't like any of it. He destroyed the whole world. Destroyed the whole world. Or did he? Look down at verse 27 and 28. "...And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah after the king had burned the roll, and the words which Barak wrote at the mouth of Jeremiah, saying, Take thee again another roll, and write in it all the former words which Jehoram the king burned." Write it all down again. That king could keep doing that all of his days, and he couldn't destroy it. Why? Whose word is it? Not Jeremiah's. It's God's word. And God just repeated it to Jeremiah in verse 32. Jeremiah took another roll, gave it to Barak the scribe, the son of Neriah, who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book, which the king burned in the fire. God's word cannot be destroyed. Why? Because the master copy is in heaven. The master copy. Men have literally tried to do it. Started long before this, Brother Ed, but they literally tried to keep it out of the hands of the people. Couldn't do it. Why? Because whose hands is it in? It's God's Word. Scripture says, Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. And after all attempts to destroy God's Word, we have the very same Word, yes, the very same Word, which the prophets and apostles and the Father before us have. You have the very same Word that David sat on a hillside reading. Brother Henry, you're reading the exact same Word that King David read. Yes, you are. You're reading the same Word we read from Job. Abraham read Job. They didn't have much more than that back then. He read what we read. He read what we read, and on and on. All right, now, if the foundation is destroyed, what can the righteous do? You take away one word, you might as well throw it all away. Why? Because if one word is wrong, it's not right. If one word is wrong, it's not God's Word. Listen to our Lord speak. He said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot and one tittle, that's a punctuation mark and it crosses the two, one jot and one tittle shall in no hour pass from the bottom to the top. One job, one tithing. And the Word was made flesh in order to fulfill every job and every tithing. The Word was made flesh. God came down here as a man, Barbara, to ensure that every job and every tithing be fulfilled. This thing is not dependent on man. All right? You'd have to destroy Christ to destroy this book. All right, the next thing. Foundation. Foundation be destroyed. This is God's Word. And as we've noted before, men have tried to disprove the whole book, and they haven't disproved one word of it. The next thing. Salvation is by grace. This is foundation. This is the foundations of our salvation. Salvation by grace. These are the two angles. By grace, are you saved? What's grace? Well, it's sovereign. It has to be if it's grace. Grace is a gift. Every gift, any gift, is sovereign. You understand? If you give something to somebody, you... ...earned it. It's not a great, it's not a great, it's not a gift, it's worse. By grace you get stuff, but gift, and it's sharper. It's in the hands of God. Salvation is not a sovereign in the grace of God. He gives it to whomsoever He will. God decides who is saved, not by spirit. There wouldn't be grace. You wouldn't be saved by grace if it wasn't sovereign. Alright? Sovereign, free. That means it's free. You don't earn it. You don't work for it. Not before or after you receive it. If you listen carefully, and weigh my words carefully, there's good news here. Salvation's free. It's a gift. It's the grace of God. The wages that we burn is thick. But the gift of God is eternal life. Where? Through Jesus Christ our Lord. By His grace are you saved. It's free. We didn't earn it. He didn't give it to us because we earned it. And he won't take it away from us, because we blew it. It's free. It's eternal grace. It's eternal grace. Elect in grace, predestinate. Now this is Romans 8, 1 and 9, follow. Predestinate in grace. Well, when we did 4 and 0, he did predestinate, and he predestinated, he called, called in grace. Saving grace, constraining grace, it's God who's working in us and will. Restraining grace, you're kept by the power of God. You're restrained from all manner of evil by the grace of God. Salvation is not by grace. It's this foundation of each one. If salvation is by works, What are we going to do? Huh? What are we going to do? Scripture says, no unrighteousness. But grace, salvation by grace, righteousness imputed. Righteousness absolutely imputed, charged to the account of all of God's people, the blood of Christ supplied. And grace makes us righteous. You destroy this foundation, and the Lord said, if thou, if he marks iniquity, if the Lord should mark iniquity, this must happen. Why? There is forgiveness. Why? Because of the grace that's in Christ Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Man has tried, now listen, man has tried to destroy this foundation. Subtly and not so subtly. Men have tried and are still trying to destroy this foundation, to make salvation a work, to put men to work. False prophets are trying to put men to work for their salvation, but Christ is the grace of God personified, see it? Christ is our Savior, and men have tried their best to make that a word, but Christ said, I'm the Lord's Savior. Rest. Rest. Salvation, if salvation depends upon anything I do, I'm going to go around. How about you? If this foundation is strong, oh, we're going to live. But listen to God's Word. I want you to listen to God's Word. You've come to know it. I just browse through every epistle, every epistle in the New Testament. Listen to it. Just listen if you want to follow along. Romans. To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints, gracious to you. First Corinthians. To all in every place that call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both there and now, graces be unto you." The second parenthesis, the second epistle. To all the saints in Corinth, which are in all Achaia, graces be unto you. Galatians. To all the brethren which are with me under the churches of Galatia, graces be unto you. Ephesians. To the saints which are Ephesus, to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be unto you." Ephesus! The first word out of your tongue. To the saints which are Philippi, or the bishops and deacons, grace be unto you. Colossians. To the saints and faithful brethren in Colossians, grace be unto you. Thessalonica. To all the saints of Thessalonica which are in the Lord Jesus Christ, grace be unto you. 1 Timothy. Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith, grace be unto you. Salvation's by grace. It's by grace from birth to life. Every epistle, Paul starts with grace, and every epistle he ends with grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Zerubbabel, Lady of Potsdam, cried with cries of grace, screaming, goodness, folks, our day is by grace. It's grace from the minute God calls us, that when we enter into the halls of heaven, we're going to be shouting, grace, grace, time saved by grace. That didn't show it. I don't have a clue. If it's one word, it's dependent on one word, by me. I'm a God man. My best prayers are full of sin. My best worship, I can't sit down and read God's Word without guilty thoughts running through my mind. I can't even dream without sinning. How about you? How about you? This is the foundation. It didn't leave this world. Don't take it. Man, you listen to him. Don't let him destroy your foundation. And it's the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. He earned salvation. He just gives it to us. All right. And here's the last one. Scripture is alone. Grace alone. Turn over to Hebrews 11. Hebrews chapter 11, I'll quit with this. Faith alone. Salvation is by grace, Paul said, through faith. Through faith. And that's how the future is. And what is faith? What is faith? I feel like I don't believe at all. Faith is not... Let's see if I can make this point. Say, faith is not dependent on you growing up believing. I got to believe, got to believe, got to believe. is simply acknowledging from the heart that Jesus Christ is here on the earth. See, faith doesn't look in here and say, well, do you believe in that? Or do you, do you, do you, do you, do you what? Here's faith, did he, did he, did he? Is he, is he, is he? Faith looks to him. No, no. Faith is object. Faith has an object. Faith is not subject. Am I making myself clear? If you look within, you won't find anything but sin. But if you look to Christ, you'll find hope. If you look within, you'll find wickedness and uncleanness and sin and all manner of evil, but if you look to Christ, you'll see your holiness, you'll see your righteousness, you'll see the blood before the Lord, you'll see your intercessor, you'll see your mediator, you'll see your high priest, you'll see your rest, your hope, your peace, your strength, everything, look to Him. This is how, this is what this whole book is about, Hebrews 11, the whole book of Hebrews is about Christ, is it not? And Hebrews chapter 1, it begins, Hebrews chapter 1, it begins, God in His last days has spoken unto us by His Son. And it goes on to talk, which spans ten chapters, to tell us who Jesus Christ is. That He's God. That He's our High Priest, that He's our Lamb, He's our Sacrifice, He's everything. He's all of our salvation, the one we're to look to. All right? Now Hebrews chapter 11 is the story of all these people that look to Him. My father calls it the Hall of Faith, the Hall of Fame. They're famous now, they're famous to us, but they weren't then. But Noah was the laughingstock of the world. He wasn't. He was only famous for being a fool. Right? Abraham too. And so on and so forth. But this is a hall of faith. You know that we, since I've been here, we've preached 24 messages from this one chapter. 24 messages from Hebrews 11 and 11. We've heard two messages on faith. That's just from me. How about all the other fellows that have been here and in other places? Verse 4 talks about a man named Abel. By faith he offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. What was it? A bloody lamb. That's it. A bloody lamb. It wasn't something he did. That's what Cain did. Cain brought his work. Cain brought things that he thought God would be pleased with. He served the Lord. He planted his garden and he brought the best fruits of the ground. The ground is cursed. came, uh, Abel brought what God gave to him, a lamb. Abel didn't grow lambs. God gave him a lamb. They were there when Abel got there. Lambs, both lambs were there before Abel got there. That's where God created Abel first. He had one lamb on his mind to be there before the first sinner. You ever wonder why God retrieved man from the tree of death? Well, there's going to be a lamb before the man gets there. And God says, testified of his gift, that he was righteous. So what'd he do? He just bought an old bloody lamb. God saved his life. Do you have a bloody lamb? You know who that is? Verse five, Enoch was translated. That is, God took him from being a man to being a saint in life. Translated. He should not see death. He was not found. God translated him. Before his translation, he had his testimony. He pleased God. God was pleased with him. How? Why? He believed in him. By faith. Without faith in somebody else. Believe Christ. Verse 6, By faith, Noah. Noah, it says, became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. Here's another righteous man, Noah. Verse 8, By faith, Abraham. Over in the Book of Romans it says, Abraham believed God, and he was what? Counted unto him for righteousness. But all before the Ten Commandments were written, Abraham was holy and righteous before God. 400 years before the law was given, there was no law for him to keep. But God said he's righteous. Well, half, by grace, for a second. God gave him that faith. He was 75 years old, and then God lost her. He didn't let him stand and start believing in a true God. Read the story. God called him. God said, Abraham, Abraham, who is it? Like Saul of Tarsus, he was religious. We're looking around God. Saul, who is it? It's Jesus Christ. And every one of these, all the way down through here, if you want to read something later on this week, this would be a good chapter to read. Sarah, and listen to all these big names. These are a bunch of sinners is what they are. Jacob. I thank Jacob. Oh, happy is he that hath the God of Jacob, the Christian. You sons of Jacob, do not consider me, for thine shall I place thy grace through faith. All of it says, by faith, by grace. Not one time does it say throughout this whole book, by works, so and so was saved. But every one of it says, by faith. Every time, it says, by faith. And faith in Christ. Not just, I believe God, I believe God's work. It's faith in Christ. Because Christ Jesus is a believer, so to speak. Christ is the believer, etc. Christ is the believer, righteous. He has made everything, always has. Not just, I believe God. I believe God's Son. I believe the record God has given concerning His Son, you see. The whole world claims to believe God, believe in God. And though the whole world, James said, believe in one God, they do well. But that's not salvation. Salvation is to believe God's Son, because He said no man comes unto the Father but by faith. All right. If these foundations be strong, we have no harm. But they can't be, because 1 Timothy says the foundation of God stands with you. Stands with you. Why? Because He's the person. And he's right now in heaven. All right, stay with us. Our Father, thank You for this sure foundation, a nail in a sure place, a foundation, salvation by sovereign grace through Christ. We thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, now Him now, to us and in us. I pray that you might build us up on this pure foundation, never let us stray, let us stand on Christ as solid rock. All others sink and sand. All others sink and sand. We will stand in that great day to be built on Christ as one foundation. It's in His name we're met tonight to give thanks and worship. Amen.