Psalms 73:24

Nevertheless, I am continually with thee. Thou hast hold me by my right hand. And now the text for tonight’s study, Psalm 7324, Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. May God bless to us the reading of His sacred and Holy Word. this evening. If you’re in a foreign country, you’re going to have a very difficult time unless you have someone to guide you. If you’re left to your own resources, more often than not, you may get into a dangerous area, you may be harmed, you may be robbed, who knows what could happen. Wise people seek out a guide, and the guide will keep you away from any dangerous situations. Guides are best. if you wish to come safely to your destination. Now, as a believer in this world, we have to realize that we are strangers and pilgrims. And we need a spiritual guide to navigate through this world and arrive at our final destination, which our text tells us, here is glory. God himself is, your guide for your entire Christian journey according to Psalm 4814. For this our God, for this God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide even unto death. You’ll recall that Asaph has been living a godly life, but he’s been suffering. He looks around him. He sees there are people prospering, but they’re living very wickedly. This is very distressing. This is very stressing to him. He finds fault with God. He’s ready to give up the Christian faith. He’s confused and bewildered until it goes to the house of God, and then he receives insight and understanding. He came to a right understanding about God, that God is almighty and just, about the wicked, that they are doomed to destruction, and about himself that he was very foolish and ignorant to think the way that he has been thinking. So Asaph condemns himself for thinking sinfully. He repents. He bemoans his sinfulness. And he looks to the grace of God and rejoices in God’s mercy continuing to be with him. We talked about how God only gives us saving grace, but he gives us restraining grace as we go through this life. And God held Asaph back when his feet were almost gone, when he almost slipped. And then there is, of course, restoring grace because God had to bring Asaph back to a right fellowship with the Lord, her right understanding. And up to this point, Asaph has sort of been looking backwards. he’s been looking and considering about what has happened to him. But in our verse 24, he is now looking forward. He’s looking to the future. What’s going to happen. Let me begin tonight by saying this. The promise of heaven is only for those guided by the counsel of the Lord in this life. Is the word of God what guide you, guide your steps as you go through this life? When we have the word counsel used in scripture, and particularly this particular word here, it either refers to advice or it refers to God’s plan or purpose. Either way this word can be used. Here it seems to be used in a sense of someone being counseled by God. The ungodly we find reject God’s counsel and as revealed in scripture because Proverbs 1.25 says, you have said it not all my counsel and would none of my reproof. You wouldn’t listen. The believer house, the believer house, will say, teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes, and I shall keep it under the end, as Psalm 11933 says. Asaph desires to be guided by God’s word, the word, God’s counsel, that he heard when he was at the sanctuary. Now, most people rebel against God’s word, and spurned the counsel the most time. The believer, however, finds the scripture indispensable. It is a lamp under his feet and a light under his path. How could he make, go through this life without? He can’t. The believer is not someone who picks and chooses his own path in life. He is someone who yields to the revealed will of God about how to live. The written word of God, the Bible is your counsel to direct your way through this life. How important is the word of God to you? What place does its teachings have in your life? Look at this passage carefully because only those guided by God’s counsel are going to be taken to glory. Sadly, many people’s Bible’s, you even proclaim to be Christians have gathered so much dust on them that you can take your finger and write the word damnation on the Bible. In this very song, Asaph speaks of those who live contrary to God’s word. He speaks about those whose feet are in slippery places. it will end up being cast down to destruction. So is the Word of God what guides your steps in this life? How has the Word of God affected your life? Let’s look at that for a second. Has it made you wise unto salvation? For the Scriptures tell us in 2 Timothy 315, thou hast known to all these scriptures which are able to make thee wise under salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. As the offspring of Adam, you’ve inherited a corrupt nature, sinful nature, depraved nature. Scripture reveals that there is none good, no, not one. There’s none righteous in the eyes of God. In the best state, your best state, you’re altogether vanity in God’s sight. You’ve sinned and thought and word and deed. You need to say, and the Bible guides you as to the Savior. It’s Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and there are two particular things you need to enter into heaven, according to the Word of God. First, you need forgiveness of sin, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all sin. And secondly, you need perfect righteousness. Christ is the end of the end of the Lord of the Lord of the Lord of law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, then, and now shall be saved. That is the message of Scripture. That’s what the Bible tells you to do. Do you believe what the Scriptures reveal about salvation in Christ? I remind you of the passage in Colossians 127, Christ in you, Christ in you, the hope of glory. Unless we believe in Christ, unless Christ is in us, we have no hope of glory. None whatsoever. Has it made you wise unto salvation? Has it changed the way you live? All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction, for instruction in righteousness. That the man of God may be perfectly, perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. How do you know what’s righteous in God’s eyes? He tells you. Everything you. need to know you can find in the Word of God. Because the Word of God tells you how to pray, how to worship, how your marriage should be, how to do your work, how to raise your children, how to change your sinful ways, what is good, what is evil, how to be wise, how to pray, how to dress, and basically, how to treat your neighbor. Any person who is in Christ Jesus, the Bible says they are new creatures. They can’t live the way they used to live. Your life will have to be different from the world around you because you’re guided by the Word of God. You’re guided by God’s counsel. Has your life been changed since you’ve come to faith in Christ? This is proof of the Scriptures being your guide. So the promise of heaven is only for those guided. by the counsel of the Lord in this life. It’s very plainly, I think, laid out here in this Texas scripture. My second main point tonight is this. Those guided by the counsel of the Lord are guaranteed glory after this life. And afterward, receive me to glory. Heaven is your glorious home. Paradise, where heaven is called glory, because it is the place. of God’s glorious presence. Isn’t Christ called the King of Glory and the Lord of Glory? The Bible says that I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. Marco Polo, the famous explorer and traveler of the 13th century, laid dying after his great adventures. And he was urged by his attendance to recant all these tales that he was telling about China and his journeys. Withdraw these stories. No one believes you. But he said, I have not told half what I saw. My friends, whatever heaven is really like, we have only had a smattering of what’s heaven’s like revealed to us in scripture. Not even the half has been told us. Remember Paul was caught up into the third heaven, the Bible tells us. And he confesses that he saw some amazing things, but he didn’t reveal what those amazing things were. Who could ever explain or tell even a fraction what glory must be like? I suggest to you these things, though. You’re going to have unbroken fellowship with the Savior. and whose presence is fullness of joy and whose right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 1611. You are employed, you’ll be employed there in the singing of hallelujahs to Christ and Lord God Almighty, as we see in the book of Revelation. You will enjoy fellowship with other glorified saints in heaven and are surrounded by. In innumerable company of angels, the Bible tells us. You are at perfect peace and rest because the Bible reveals these facts so that we may comfort one another with these words. God will wipe away all tears from your eyes. There will be no more sorrow or sickness or death or anything like this. The former things have passed away. The psalmist tells us that he greatly delighted. delights in this, the psalmist. Whom I have I in heaven but thee, verse 25. To be with the Lord, to be with the Savior. That’s what he’s looking forward to. Our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us. A far more exceeding eternal weight of glory. Second Corinthians 4.17. Heaven is your glorious home. Your rival. in heaven is instantaneous or immediate. Afterward, receive me to glory. There is an afterward for the believer, which shouldn’t be, which should, I guess, be contrasted really with the end of the Wicked that we read about earlier in this chapter. There is a future existence after this life for both the righteousness. and the wicked. You don’t vaporize into nothingness. You don’t vanish when you die. Death is not annihilation for either the righteous nor the wicked. There’s eternal destiny to which you arrive. And there are only two final destinies according to Scripture. I think it’s perfectly illustrated by the story of the rich man in Lazarus. For we read there, that heaven or glory is the afterward of the righteous in Christ. Heaven or destruction is the end of the wicked. For the bagger died and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom, into paradise or glory. The rich man also died, was buried, and in hell he lifted up his eyes being in torment. Immediately. Right away. Now when you think about this, your present chastisement that he talks about in verse 14 is related to this future glory. Can’t we see that God in some way is preparing us for heaven? I think Psalm 73 teaches you that your present troubles are necessary for you and your future glory. In other words, it is the means by which God prepares you for that day when you’re taken to be with him. These present chastisements turn you from sin to God. Take your heart off the world in its pleasures. Tear your affections away from this fading life and its perishing treasures. They cause you to seek for an eternal city whose builder and his maker is God, an inheritance that doesn’t fade away. way, eternal in the heavens for us. Divine chasting produces humility, produces a deeper prayer life, mortification of sin, renouncing of our own strength and a reliance upon Jesus Christ. Your capacity to enjoy heaven is increased by God’s discipline and training and righteousness that he gives us here in this life. Now, friends, if we’re going to be able to be able to be. guided by God’s counsel, then we’re immediately transported to heaven. I like what Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5A. To be absent from the body, he says, is to be present with the Lord. That’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it? Joseph Parker was a Englishman from the 1800s. Had an unusual graving that he had an unusual graving that he had inscribed on his wife’s tombstone when she died. Instead of putting the word died and then putting the date, he decided he was going to put the word ascended with the date. Because he found comfort in being reminded that even though his wife’s body is in the grave, his wife’s soul ascended to be with the Savior. Transported like Enoch, whom the Lord took to heaven. Friends, the Bible never speaks about a purgatory to endure nor some type of state in which we have unconscious soul sleep, but rather an immediate comfort of joy as the people of God or as the wicked torment in hell. Those guided by the counsel of the Lord are guaranteed glory after this life. This is the teaching of this passage of Scripture. And really, it lays before us one of the great doctrines of Scripture, and that is the perseverance of the saints. God’s purpose in extending grace to you is to bring you to glory, ultimately. Asaph is astonished that despite all his sinfulness, all his foolish ways, there’s a nevertheless, as we talked about last week, he remains in God’s hands. He remains under God’s watch care, he tells us here. I am still with you. But it’s concerned about him. God does not cast him off. Despite the way he’s been acting and things, thinking and he’s saying, you know, I’m still alive, I’m still being blessed and accepted in God’s sight because of God’s grace to me. It begins to think about the future, as we see in verse 24. And what is he thinking here? Well, God’s going to continue to give me his grace until I reach glory. He will guide me in this life by his grace, and then he’ll take me to glory. The future is going to be. be saved. I am continually in God’s hand. There’s no change. How can you ever get out of God’s hand? We’ll check that in a moment. You can’t. Since thou hast hold me by my right hand, thou shalt guide me by thy counsel and afterwards to receive me to glory and it’s all of grace. Aesat’s logic is, I think, inevitable here. He’s come to see that God has revealed this to him. this is what the scripture teaches. Did God show him mercy? You and I mercy in giving us saving grace? Is he ever going to stop giving us grace? Does he promise grace upon grace in scripture? If you’re one of God’s elect, he’s going to give you restraining grace, restoring grace. As you go through this light, the gifts and calling of God are we without repentance. He didn’t change his mind. He doesn’t say, well, I didn’t realize that he was going to go so far astray. No, no, no. God has a purpose that he’s carrying out and it’s not going to fail. God’s purpose in extending to you grace is to bring you to heaven, to glory. It’s very simple. This is not rocket science. It’s straightforward. It is the teaching of the Word of God. God sustains you so that you reach glory. To be guided by God’s counsel means that you’re working out your own salvation with fear and trembling because God is working in you both the will and the do of his good pleasure. He never is going to let you go. He preserves you. He sustains you. He delivers you. He delivers you. He’s working in your mind. He’s working with your will and even your affections. And so the gifts and the graces and the fruit of the spirit all part of God’s work in you, sustaining you for this end that we read about in Scripture. God makes you unlike the world and its people. He makes you like Christ. He’s preparing you for himself. It takes you by the hand and you. And he makes you like Christ. He leads you through life. And he leads you all the way through to you reach eternal glory. That’s the teaching that we have in Scripture. Now there are some biblical proof that we have in Scripture. I want to look at a couple of verses of Scripture in the New Testament. The first one is John 316. Probably don’t even know need to turn to it, but let us look at it. I’m going to look at several passages in John, so let’s look at 316 to start. The Bible says, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Look at chapter 3 and then verse 36. He that believeth on the sun hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him. Look at chapter 5 in verse 24. Verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death unto life. One of the potent, most potent arguments regarding the perseverance of the saints is found in this word these words eternal life that we find in each one of these texts. If a person departs from the faith after he is once believed, then there is nothing eternal about the life that Jesus has promised him. It’s a brief life, a short life, but you can’t say that’s an eternal life, you lose it. But Jesus says you have eternal life. He not only says you have it in the future, but you have it now. You’ve already passed from death unto life. If the Armenian theory was true and a born-again believer could lose his faith and become lost, you can never say he had eternal life, ever. Jesus says, hath eternal life. The Armenians says, no, no, no, it’s only a temporary life. It can be lost. You can fall from grace. My friends, eternal life is not a wage. It’s not something we earn. It’s not something we can keep. It’s something that’s given. It’s a gift. God doesn’t retract his gifts. He’s not an Indian giver. You notice that Jesus says, they shall not perish. And their pass from death of the life. not only is the life eternal, but those who have this gift cannot perish. The elect may backslide, but they can’t perish. The hypocrites and false professors may make shipwreck of their faith, but the true believer does not. Oh, the true believer may fall into sin. He may be utterly cast down, or at least close to it, as Psalm 73 tells us. But even if he does fall, the Bible says the righteous fall seven times, but he rises again. It’s impossible, my friends, for a sheep to become a goat. And it’s impossible for a man who is born again to be unborn. If you have eternal life, my friends, that’s an assurance of glory. There’s no question about that, or at least there shouldn’t be. Christ will never lose anyone that’s given to him. Look at John 6. One more page over, verse 39, if you would. This is the Father’s will which has sent me that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day. What is God’s purpose? And we have to realize he’s speaking about God’s eternal plan and purpose. Something that can’t be altered. something that can’t be changed, something that cannot be thwarted. And God’s eternal purpose here, according to his election, is that none of his elect people, those given by the Father to Christ, can perish. Verse 28, or verse 39, indicates to us here, that this is the Father’s will, that he should raise him up again at the last day and that I should lose nothing. You’ve been given to the Savior. He’s not going to lose you. He’s going to hang on to you. You can’t be lost. Look at John 10. Very similar. Versus 27 to 29. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father, which gave them me is greater than all. And no man is able to pluck them out of my father’s hand. Has not Christ given eternal life to his sheep? Hasn’t he effectually called them? And doesn’t he tell us here that they’ll never perish? And that’s impossible for anyone to snatch them out of Christ’s hand or the Father’s hand. When it says no one, no devil, no demon, no man, not even you yourself, can get yourself out of the hand of the Savior. My friends, Christ is Almighty, Father’s Almighty, who’s going to pry those hands apart? Who’s going to get you out? There’s no. nobody can. So let us be encouraged by that. Look with me at Ephesians chapter 1, verses 13 and 14. Here’s something else. You’re sealed with the Holy Spirit. Look of Ephesians chapter 1, verses 13 and 14. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, after you believed, you were sealed with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession under the praise of his glory. In the New Testament, as well as the old, we have various objects, letters, so forth. You remember even Christ’s tomb was sealed. Sealed. The The seal was a guarantee of the genuineness of the article. There could be no substitution or it would preserve someone from tampering with it. You remember when Daniel was thrown in the lion’s den, the king put his seal, the royal seal on the lion’s den, and that meant that no one could change the fate of Daniel. It was set. Now here, the Bible says that if the Holy Spirit is within us, it’s God seal for us. It’s an indication that you belong to God and he’s going to guard you. Paul says you are sealed or guarded here until the day of redemption. The word earnest here, and the King James means it’s like a guarantee. of it. This is what the Bible talks about here. Until the day of redemption, how is it that someone who has the Holy Spirit has believed on Christ, been granted to the Holy Spirit here? That’s how you believe in the first place. And that’s a seal to you of the eternal inheritance that you’re going to have. Lastly, you have. You have. have reserved inheritance in heaven. Look with me at 1. Peter, if you would, and chapter 1, verse 4 and 5. 1.1, verses 4 and 5. To an inheritance, incorruptible, and on the file that fath not away, reserved in heaven for you, are kept by the power of God. Through faith, unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Maybe you worry, you may say, well, yeah, I have an inheritance in heaven, but suppose I never get there. Suppose I can’t enjoy it then. Peter fends off such a false nation. He says, you are capped by the power of God. Can you imagine, you know, soldiers guarding a city? Remember the pilots soldiers guarded Christ’s tomb lest someone would come and steal away Christ’s body, the disciples maybe, and claim that he was resurrected. Actually backfired on him because now they couldn’t deny that he was resurrected. I had proof of it. They had somebody there watching. My friend, only as a Christian here, do you find yourself as one who is preserved by the power of God. We’re not guarded by some weak human elements like mere soldiers. God himself is guarding you. And he’s going to guard you not just for a short period of time but until that day of judgment, until the final aspects of your salvation are completed. You’re guarded. Nothing’s going to happen. It’s set aside for you. We read it this morning that Jesus has this evening, or this evening in the scripture reading, the mansions are already prepared for us. He’s prepared a place for us. He’s going to take us to himself. That’s the promise of our Savior. Well, let me close tonight by saying this. You need a guide that get you through this life. We’re strangers, we’re pilgrims here. We’re liable to get all kinds of danger and trouble and get into harm. The promise of heaven is for those who are guided by God’s counsel by the word of God in this life. And those who are guided by the counsel of the Lord are guaranteed glory after this life. Here we find the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints how God sustains his people. how we continue on, how that we actually never really give up because God will let us. He keeps working in us the whole time. Even when it looks like Asaph is done, he’s finished with it all. God says no, you’re not. You’re going to go to the house of God. You’re going to get your eyes enlightened. And I’m going to show you what I’m actually doing. So that he says, well, truly caught his good to Israel, even as such, as are of a clean heart. Let’s close with the word of God. I don’t know.