Psalm 54. We're going to read this short psalm in preparation for our consideration of the Word of God. May the Lord be pleased to allow us to have hearing ears. Psalm 54, verse 1. Save me, O God, by thy name, and judge me by thy strength. Hear my prayer, O God, give ear to the words of my mouth, for strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul. They have not set God before them. Selah. Behold, God is mine Helper, The Lord is with them that uphold my soul. He shall reward evil unto mine enemies, cut them off in thy truth. I will freely sacrifice unto thee. I will praise thy name, O Lord, for it is good. For he hath delivered me out of all trouble. and mine eye hath seen his desire upon mine enemies. Amen. May the Lord bless his word to our hearts for his name's sake. This afternoon we're taking as our text those words of the seventh verse, particularly the last part of that verse where it says, And mine eye hath seen his desire upon mine enemies. I want us to think during our time today on the Lord's desire for my enemies. May the Lord be pleased to bless His word. Before we consider anything further though, let's turn our hearts to the Lord and ask Him to bless the word to our hearts. Our Father and our God, now we would pray that Thou would use the Word of God to speak to our hearts. We would pray that Thou will do that precious work that You say the Word of God is meant to do within the hearts of those that hear. Lord, we pray that Thou will draw us. We pray that Thou will cause us to hear and to fear the Lord our God. We would pray that thou will help us, O God, to give heed to the message, indeed the summons of the word of God, not only to faith, but also to obedience. Lord, I would pray now that thou was blessed this time. I pray that thou will help. I pray that thou will come in the person of the spirit of God and do thy work in each heart. Lord, fill the mouth of the one who speaks. Lord, fill the ears of those that hear. with truth and Lord may we find ourselves rejoicing in King Jesus for what he does and these things we will pray in his precious name. Amen. There are times when the rendering that we have in the authorized version of the scriptures find help by the reference back to the original language in order to make the meaning of a passage plainer. There are other times when the text meaning chosen by the interpreters does not say what the original language denotes and so clarification is warranted. And then there are times when a scholar might suggest that the original text says something different than what we have in the Authorized Version, but when the underlying message of the text is understood, the meaning of the Lord's Word is the same, though the wording varies slightly. The text that we have taken today is one of the latter. Scholars would tell us that the words in the original really mean one thing, But that one thing really amounts to the same thing that we have before us. Let me explain. David Dixon, the old Scottish covenanter from the 17th century, renders the statement that we're taking as our text this way. He says, mine eye hath seen thy judgments upon mine enemies. You will notice in our text that the words, his desire, is in italics, which would suggest to you that that is not really in the original text. So that's the rendering that Dixon gives to it. He says, mine eye hath seen thy judgments upon my enemies. J. A. Alexander, which was a very fine Hebrew scholar, simply puts it, my eyes see my enemies. My eyes see my enemies. The understanding is my enemies have been judged. My enemies have been destroyed. My enemies have been put away. That which I desired and needed for the Lord to do to my enemies, I see it. These may well be closer to the original than what we have in the authorized version, but I say all that we are missing are the words, His desire. Now to some that may seem like a great difference, but I say not really. Think about it with me. What is in view here in this psalm? What is the psalmist saying? Well again, if you just simply take what they say, the viewing of the psalmist is of a defeated and a powerless enemy. My eyes see the result of the Lord's deliverance. My enemy is put away. Second, we would have to say, from the overall context of what is being said here, that the deliverance, the whole of it, from start to finish, without any exclusion, is of the Lord. It is by the Lord's hand that there is a deliverance. There was no ability to have the enemy vanquished by the power of the flesh. That is clear. It says in verse 5, He shall reward evil unto mine enemies cut them off in thy truth the Lord is the one who does the judging and third we might suggest this if the Lord delivered the reason that he delivered was because he desired to deliver and to judge the enemy So, we come back around to say this, the authorized version is just fine. Now, so the question may be this also, how does the original shape our thinking differently than what we have in the authorized version? Again, I argue that there is no significant difference, so I can take the words that are suggested here in our text and build some thoughts and some conclusions based on what they suggest, and that's what I'm going to do. Mine eye hath seen his desire. What God meant to do, what God purposed to do, what God decided to do with my enemies, that is what my heart sees. That's the statement. Now the question would be, what was his desire? What is God's desire with regard to our enemies? That will be our consideration. And may I suggest this to you as our subject, a proposition, if you will, what I will seek to provide as proof. I want us to think on this. The Lord delivers his people for his own covenant purposes. You might call that his desires. God's covenant purposes are the reason why God delivers. I have two points this afternoon, two questions, if you will. I want us to think about this statement and why it says, mine eye hath seen his desires upon my enemies. So my question at first would be this, why not my desires upon my enemies? Why does not the psalmist say here, the Lord has delivered me by allowing me to see what I have wanted on my enemies? Those people which were against me, or we might even just take it as verse 3 would suggest, those that were the oppressors of the soul. Now I will ask you plainly before I go into my point. Do you have oppressors of your soul? Do they all wear shoes? Most of them? No. Are they real? Yes. Do they cause defeat and sorrow? Yes. Does the Lord deal with those? Hallelujah. Why does He then deal with them as He desires and not as I desire? Well, I'm going to answer that by noting a few things here. First, I want us to consider this. The nature of sin, and may I put it this way, your sinful heart, the nature of sin is that it hides itself. Can you see all the ramifications of your sin? Can you see everything that has to do with the heinous nature of sin? Do you know why sin is so grievous in the sight of God? I could continue my list, but you'll say no to everything that I'm gonna ask. Sin hides itself. It's not easy to discern all the ramifications of it. Sin masks itself to such a degree that it requires the searching eye of the Holy Spirit. before we're able to discern it and the awfulness of our sins. May I also say this, not only does sin hide itself, but when it cannot hide, it becomes chameleon-like and that it will disguise itself to look like something quite different in our eyes than what it is. Let me give you an example. And again, I'm talking about sin. Sin in the hearts, not just of the world, but I would suggest in the hearts of God's people, I'm afraid. A man may justify his action in working for something questionable and the whole time maintain that he needs what he is working for. for his family, for the future, for the obligations of life that he faces. So I do that which is questionable because I've got these reasons. But I said it's chameleon-like because I would suggest to you that oftentimes that when a man is in such a position, he's not doing it for what he says, but he is simply doing it because the real motive when brought to light may be nothing more than covetousness. He wants it. He wants to have it. He wants to do it. He wants to be involved with it. And yet he says, well, this, see, I have to do it because of this over here. No, it isn't the reason. Let me tell you, I'm just using that as an example to set the stage for you. Sin oftentimes in your heart, you would seek to say it's this over here, but it's really nothing but what it is. And that's an offense against God. Let's expand that. How many ways do men hide their sins? Sins of pride? How many ways does a man hide his ways of pride? Sin of anger? Sins of lust? Sins of hatred? Sabbath-breaking? Self-indulgence? And the list goes on. A man does it by citing a contrived need that they can use to justify themselves. When a man is honest and comes face to face with sin, as he stands with the Lord looking at it, he has to say with the psalmist what the psalmist says in Psalm 38 verse 4. For mine iniquities are gone over mine head as an heavy burden. They are too heavy for me. Maybe you're familiar with the words of Psalm 40. For innumerable evils have compassed me about, mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of mine head, therefore my heart faileth me. When a man is honest about his sin, he looks at it and mourns. Or perhaps the honest words of the heart are more akin to those of Peter. when he is summonsed to the side of the Savior after his fishing exhibition." That should be the word, expedition. Exhibition. Did he catch anything? No, it wasn't much of an exhibition, was it? Well, he exhibited his sinful heart. For when the Lord does summons him to His side, what does Peter say? Luke 5 and 8, When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. But coming back to the question at hand, why does the Lord not deal with us after our desires for our sin, but rather judges the enemies of our souls as He desires? Well, the answer I say lies in two parts. First, because we would not deal with our sins as it needs to be dealt with, but will, because of our fallen nature, make sin less than it is. And secondly, I want you to see this, and this is where I really will end up coming I want you to understand that the removal of the enemies and the resulting freedom that we read of even in John chapter 8 today and the purity of God's people is all for Jesus' sake. He will receive the glorious church without spot or wrinkle. He will have his desire for his people accomplished and that takes divine omnipotence to achieve. So again I ask the question, but why not what my desires are? Well, I want to offer a few insights and though I would confess that my list is not complete, I do want to set them before you. Some reasons why the Lord does not follow the desire of our hearts for our sin. And I will just have you, if you would please, to allow these words to echo in your mind as we consider these few points here. I want you to hear over and over through your head the tune from Come Thou Fount. prone to wonder, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. I want you to let that go over and over and over in your mind because I would suggest to you that there are things that we are prone to do that are a good reason why our God does not do as we would have him to do with our enemies. And the first one that I would suggest to you is this, we are prone to redefine. We look at sin and we redefine it. In fact, I will say this, this may perhaps be the most common of all the tactics of the old man with his fallen heart when it comes to the subject of sin. You say, what are you saying? This. It's as if a man would say, the sin was not that I did this, which he really did, but rather that I did that which is far less severe than the first mentioned failure. So you say, well it might be that I did this, well it's not, I really didn't do this, I really did this over here, it's far less severe. Let me say this, children learn to do this right from day one. What is done is not What was done? It was something entirely different. I didn't do this. I did this. No, you did this. No, I did this over here. No, you did the first thing. Let me give you an example. When Saul was confronted by Samuel for his failure to eliminate the enemy of the Lord, this was his exact tactic. Redefine. I didn't really do this, I did this. Think about it with me for just a moment. Number one, what did he do? Saul said to Samuel that the sin that he committed was not really what Samuel was saying, but his sin was really yielding to pressure. You say it was outright disobedience and rebellion. No, I yielded to pressure. Doesn't that sound a little bit less Severe. I yielded to pressure because it's understandable due to the fierce nature of the people of Israel. You know how these people are. What was the real issue with Saul? When everything is uncovered, what was the real issue with Saul? Why did he disobey? Why did he rebel against the Lord? The real issue was, his real sin was this. He coveted the spoil. That was the problem. He said, oh no, it's not coveting. It's not that I want. I was yielding to pressure. The people were so, they demanded. The issue was he wanted what he saw. Let me tell you what, that is the common tactic of the heart. You never want to admit to the sin that it is. Therefore Saul rebelled against the Lord and disobeyed." And you see, even worse than all this, when Samuel confronted him, Saul admitted to the sin, but on his terms. Now Samuel, I did sin, but what I want you to do is come with me now and let's offer our sacrifice. Samuel, I want you to honor me in the sight of all these people. Let me say this. Redefinition of sin. Saying it is not what it is. is a chief tactic of your heart and the devil will help you all he can to think other than what it really is. But let me say this, no man ever comes, no man ever comes to the healing of the Lord when he is unwilling to call his sin what it is. The Lord knows this. And that's why he brings our sins before us and delivers us. But the Lord heals through honest repentance. The scripture gives us a couple of examples of this. Was this not the case with David? David sinned actually and really before God, but David owned the sin. And the Lord healed him. Was this not the case with Peter? Peter owned his sin. and the Lord healed him. Both of these men were useful to the Lord. But again, no man knows the healing of his heart when he is not willing to say what his sin is. If he wants to redefine it, it's not this, it's this. Also, I would suggest this, that we are prone to reduce our sin. The Lord does not follow our desires because we are those who are prone to reduce sin. Again, I say it is not an uncommon reaction of the fallen nature to seek to reduce the severity of a sin, though you have to honestly admit it. There's no way for me to redefine it. It is what it is. So what I'll do is I'll reduce it. I'll make it less than what it is. Now we may see that our sin is grievous and our sin is even made to stink to us, but it is not something that we want to have to deal with as it needs to be. Often the tactic of the heart that is confronted by sin in this sort of a situation is that there is just the resolve, I'll do better in the future. Isn't this Something that our children still do. I won't do it again. I won't do it again. I'm reducing. It's okay. It's in the past. I won't do it again. Let me say this. Our God is merciful. He does not reward us according to our iniquities. We don't get the full desserts of what we are and what we do. He is long-suffering and of great compassion. And He will be very tender to the fallen saint. But the need, I say, of the saint is to have a heart that when sin is realized, it wants to crucify sin. Oh, wretched man that I am! Paul says there was a desire. to die to sin. And I say we don't have that heart so often. We reduce the severity and the offense of our sin to the point that it is no sin. This is how we like to go on with ourselves. Unfortunately is not how we can go on with God. Sin must never be reduced but repented of in honesty. or as Paul says in Colossians 3 and 5, mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth. Die to sin. Another reason I would say that the Lord does not let us have what we want against our enemies is because we are prone to relent. Prone to relent. When it comes to the destruction of the enemies of our hearts and the securing of the deliverance that truly makes free, we are prone to halfway measures. Go easy on sin! I finally finished the book on Jonathan Edwards. That was one of my goals for this vacation and it is finally able to be put back on the shelf, probably for many years before it's picked up again, but it is now finished. But it is amazing to me that the reason, realistically, that Edwards was forced to leave his pulpit in Northampton, Massachusetts, was that there was an insistence on the part of the congregation, and most of them, which I would just simply say were not saved people, There was the insistence to go halfway measures against sin, especially when it came to the Lord's table, those who are welcome at the Lord's table. Many that were in this congregation said, no, we should have anybody who comes should be able to do this, and the Lord will use that as a means to convert them. And Edwards was saying, no, sir, this is not the way it is. There is to be an element of godliness and holiness that is apparent in the life and evidences of true faith before a man comes to the Lord's table. It was a major league controversy and the only reason why I'm citing that is because that is so much the way that men are prone to go. Go halfway against sin. Go light on sin. Don't point out sin. Don't enumerate. Don't make it heinous. Don't make it to be that which is abhorrent. Because if you do that, you're going to scare off people. We act as if we do not have to go to the lengths that God says to make us what we need to be. Another example that you might take of this was Israel when they came into the land. Was Israel successful in completely eradicating the enemy that the Lord said you will not allow them to live among you? You know, one of the saddest commentaries is that you go through tribe by tribe by tribe and you read the comment and they were not able or they did not cast out or they did not eliminate the enemy that was in their midst. And these people became a stumbling stone and worked against them. Or as Joshua 23 and 13 said, but they shall be snares and traps unto you and scourges in your sides and thorns in your eyes until you perish off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you. We tend to go easy on sin. And we may even come to the point where we would look at the delivering of the Lord and say that partial elimination of the enemy is enough. Why? Why? Why would a man say only I need to get rid of some of the aspects of my sin? I think it's like this, and I think if you take Israel as an example, you'll see what I'm saying. I think it's like this. If I eliminate everything, I will look strange to the world that lies around me. If I get rid of the things that God says to get rid of in my life because they are an offense to Him, I will look strange to the world. What is that? What is that? How sad it is that the unspoken motto of so many that call themselves God's people is this, moderate idolatry is to be preferred over radical holiness. I didn't say something that was absurd there. I want you to understand, and I say it's not the spoken motto, but that is the lifestyle of so many. Moderate idolatry is to be preferred over radical holiness. Let me say this. If holiness can be unattractive or radical or worse in today's terminology irrelevant. Where does that come from? If holiness can be unattractive to the people of God, where does that mindset come from? If holiness can be that which is irrelevant, and I'm just using this because there is a term that is being used today over and over and over and over, we need to make our Christianity relevant. And I would suggest to you this, And I'm not trying to pigeonhole any one group or define something for somebody specifically, but let me just tell you, it would certainly appear and seem that when they use that term relevant, it is all the same as saying that they are trying to make Christianity fit the modern man, his life, and his family. We make Christianity fit the man. And I say, this is degrading to the law of God to fit What man will accept, tolerate, and incorporate into his everyday life. You gotta make it so that if he can't incorporate it into his everyday life, it's no use. You gotta make it relevant. Let me tell you what. God's law is not to be made relevant to man. Made to be acceptable to man. Man is to seek God and to bow to Him, not the other way around. And this relevant Christianity that we see today, if it makes holiness to be unattractive to the world, I say then that the whole of the movement is anti-Christ. We are prone to relent on sin. We are prone to go easy on sin. We're trying to make it look good to ourselves, make it look good to the world. The Lord knows this. But also when I say fourthly, we are prone to revisit our sin. We're prone to revisit our sin. We will often visit our old sin to see if it's still attractive. We might say within ourselves, oh, I'm dead to it now. I've won the victory. But I'm curious to see it again. Visiting your sins again. And let me tell you, I think everybody in this room knows what I'm saying. Let me illustrate what I'm talking about. I think this is very much like Samson revisiting the carcass of the lion. Are you familiar with that? Judges chapter 14, and after a time he returned to take her and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion. And behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion. You think, well, you're just curious. What happened to the lion? Did it stop there? Remember, Samson was a Nazirite. Samson was not to be touching the dead, or anything that was decaying of that sort. But what happened when Samson revisited the carcass of the lion? Verse 9, And he took thereof in his hands, and went on eating, and came to his father and mother, and gave them, and did eat. But he told them not, that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion. We like to revisit our sins. You know, this may seem odd, but it is the way of our old man to think again on the sin that he has known and what happened to Samson. So my point that I'm making this morning is simply this, the Lord does not leave the issue of our deliverance in our hands to be executed according to the dictates of our hearts. For we are prone to wander, and the victory would never be complete or satisfactory if it was left up to us. So I come to my second point and my second question. If he does it after the counsel of his own heart, if he does it after his own desires, what is his desire? Again, I want to emphasize to you this afternoon, we must understand that the deliverance of the people of God is not for their own sakes and their own good alone. Our deliverance is primarily for the glory of the Lord Jesus and is in accord with the covenant made with Him. Again, think about this with me. The Lord Jesus has been given a covenant of the Father that he will receive a people that are utterly free of sin and without the vestiges of sin remaining. With this as the ultimate end, the fulfillment of a covenant wherein the people of God are prepared as a bride then you will see the desire of God for what that people shall be undertaken." Again, what is the desire of the Lord? Well, I will seek to be very simple. It really amounts in two things. Number one, He desires the absolute ridding of the enemy. not partial, not partway, not reduced, not redefined, but the absolute ridding of the enemy. That is the desire of your Savior for you this morning. Does the Lord Jesus want you to be sitting in your sin? Does the Lord Jesus want to tolerate your sin in you? No, sir. He wants the absolute ridding of your sin. There is to be left in the people of God No such defilement or defeat that prevents them from entering into the presence of God with joy and assurance of acceptance. The Lord Jesus will defeat our foes for his sake. Or as first Corinthians 15 25 says, for he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet." When the Lord Jesus delivers and the Lord Jesus washes in accord with his desire, I say the result is absolute. Do you remember what absolute means? Okay, I'll remind you. I'll remind you of what Dr. Webster says, my own and dear personal friend. I'm not sure under what nature that is, but he sits on my shelf and I refer to him a lot. Let's put it that way. Webster says that absolute is existing independently of all cause outside of itself. Nobody causes anything but the absolute power. It can also mean to be whole. It can mean to be complete. Absolute denotes purity. It denotes perfection. When the Lord Jesus does His work of deliverance, He does it absolutely. Nobody else but He is the one who does it. He does it independently of all things outside of Himself. But when He does do His work of saving His people, He saves them entirely. He saves them completely. He saves them perfectly. He saves them absolutely, Hebrews 7 and 25, wherefore He is able to save them to the, you know that word comes next, uttermost. You could take uttermost and substitute there, absolute. He saves them absolutely, to the uttermost, them that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. When the Lord Jesus cleanses us, He does so absolutely. And you and I ought to stop and say, hallelujah. I want my sin gone. And the desire of your Savior is to have it gone. And when He does remove it, He removes it absolutely so that He leaves you pure and clean and every whit hole. Or as Isaiah chapter one, verse 18 says, come now, let us reason together. Saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. I would also suggest to you this, that when the Lord Jesus supplies us with His grace, He does that work absolutely, perfectly, completely. 2 Corinthians 4 and 14, that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise us up also by Jesus and shall present us with you for all things are for your sake that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God for which cause we faint not. The Lord Jesus gives us abundant grace. It is perfect. It is entire. There is nothing lacking in His grace, and it brings us to the place where we are not a people that faint, but a people that are rising up with wings as eagles. We're able to go forward with Christ onto that place where He has prepared for us the everlasting mansions. Therefore, I say, if deliverance is needed, Where should we come? If your heart needs deliverance, where should you come? My answer is you come to the Lord alone, not to man, for his heart is prone to wonder. We come to Jesus Christ. But there's a second thing that the Lord desires and with this I'm done. He desires the abundant joy of the saint. Only the Lord Jesus can bring joy and that is his desire for his people. You say, really? Where does it say that? John chapter 15, verse 11, these things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. Again, we might even use the word absolute there. The Lord deals with our enemies after His desires. not ours. That then allows us to do as the psalmist says here in verse one where he calls, he cries to the Lord, he prays, save me oh God by thy name and judge me by thy strength. Lord, I need your help. You are the deliverer. You are the one who outworks your will, your desire against the enemies of my soul. So I come to you, Lord, you save me. For if you don't save me, there is no salvation. If you don't help me, there is no help. If you don't lift me up, I shall not be lifted up. and mine eye hath seen his desire upon mine enemies." May the Lord be pleased to allow us to have that as our testimony and our song. Let's pray. Our Father and our God, now we would pray that thou would bless the Word of God. We would pray that thou would use it. We pray that thou would give us hearts that are led by the Spirit of God to consider that we have a captain of our salvation, that we have a shepherd of our souls, that we have a great physician who heals all our diseases, that the Lord Jesus is our king who will reign till he puts all his enemies under his feet. Lord, we pray today that thou will prove to us again how glorious and how successful our Savior is. to do according to all that He desires. And may we be those who are led to joy as we remember these things and as we believe these things. And these things we pray in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen.