TEACHING

The Blessed Life

Now, I want to share with you something from the Word of God that I think will begin to help you. It is found in Psalms 101.

Keep in mind that this was written by David, a man who had multiple wives, but he lusted after a lady whose name was Bathsheba. He saw her taking a bath, and he lusted after her. He took her, had sex with her. She became pregnant. And then he arranged to have her husband murdered in battle.

So, he had come before the Lord. Many of the Psalms, or a number of them, are an expression of David's heart toward God, wanting more of Him.

Now, I want to show you from the 101st Psalm, the first verse, a Psalm of David: "I will sing of mercy and justice." Mercy and justice.

Now, David knew justice. The thing is when you are judged by God you don't complain and say, "He's done something wrong." He will grant mercy to sinners, and the whole idea of grace is unmerited favor and mercy, or hessid, the steadfast love.

"I will sing of your love, your steadfast love, and I will sing of Your justice, because what You say is right."

Let's take a look at the second verse in the 101st Psalm. Here's what it says: "I will behave wisely in a perfect way. Oh, when will You come to me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart."

I will behave wisely. My behavior will be righteous. It will be perfect.

You see, most people who are involved in pornography, particularly, the sin comes about in their own home. They're watching the computer or they're in a hotel room, and they're looking at video and so forth. It is secret sin.

And David says, "When will You come to me?"

There are two ways that God judges you. He leaves you alone, so that the presence of God has departed from you. Yes, you can keep on going to church; you can keep on preaching sermons; you can keep on taking up the offering; you can keep on teaching a Sunday school class. But God has left you alone.

The second way he judges you is that He watches over you without your knowledge, and this is equally terrible for somebody who is sinning. God is watching over you, but in a such a way that you don't know what He's doing, so His presence is gone.

And David says, "I'm going to behave righteously. I'll walk in my house in a perfect way. When will You come to me?" Look one more time at that verse, because I want you to see it.

"I will behave wisely in a perfect way. Oh, when will You come to me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. When will You come to me?" Some of you who have been having the problems we've talked about, or you're just dead and cold, you're asking God, "When will You come to me?"

The way you begin to see the anointing and the blessing of God come into your life is when you determine in your own heart, "I'm going to walk in my house in a perfect way. I'm going to behave in a righteous fashion before God. And when I do, the power of the Holy Spirit is going to come upon me."

David wanted to sense His presence. He wanted the Holy Spirit to come into his life.

"I will be careful to live a blameless life. When will You come to me? I will lead a life of integrity in my own home."

The idea of integrity is the real translation of that is "whole-hearted." But he says, "I'm going to live with integrity."

Where? Where is the place where you're most likely to sin? Not necessarily at the office. Not necessarily at the restaurant. Not necessarily as you walk along.

He said, "I'm going to live it in my home." Where do the arguments take place where people give cutting remarks to one another? When do they cut up their spouses and belittle them? When is the hurt, and when are the tears and the vicious accusations? When does that take place? Well, generally in the home.

When somebody is watching pornography, or getting involved with something on the Internet that is impure, that's where it takes place. It's in the home. It's in the secret of the home. It's what you do behind closed doors.

The psalmist said, "I'm going to live a life of whole-heartedness. My life is going to be one. I'm not going to have a divided heart in my home." That's what integrity is. "I am together as one in my home."

The next thing he says, and this is so important, "I will set nothing wicked before my eyes."(Psalm 101:3) I want you to memorize that.

Let me tell you, folks, we have been over 40 years in television, but the truth is that what is on television right now is absolutely horrible. Drug addiction, crime, mayhem, violence, adultery, filthy language, fornication, you name it, it's all there over and over again. And when you watch it, what happens is it's going to distort your mind, and it's going to take you away from the Lord.

The second thing that's even worse, on the Internet there are 73,000 porn sites. 73,000. And much of it is run by organized crime on the Internet. 73,000 porn sites. Think of that. And people sit by computers, and nobody is looking.

"I will set nothing wicked before my eyes." You go to the movies, what do you see in most of the motion pictures today? You see sex, crime, violence, profanity, the worst kind of profanity.

It's time, if we're going to be Christians, if we're going to please God, we must walk in integrity in our own homes. We will not think, "The door is shut, the blinds are down, and therefore nobody sees me." God sees us. Remember what the Psalmist said, "I'm going to set nothing wicked before my eyes."

For many people there has to be cold turkey from television. We'd like you to watch The 700 Club, but so help me, so much of the rest of it isn't fit to watch. And it's time that we get out of that, because it becomes like a narcotic, and it just dulls our senses and dulls our closeness with the Lord.

We want people to have the Holy Spirit moving in their life. "Oh, when will You come to me?" We want God in your life.

David also said, "Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy. The one who has a haughty look and a proud heart, I will not have next to me, or will not let him endure." (Psalm 101:5).

So let's think what does he have? He walks in his house, in his home, with his family, with his children, uprightly. He is upright in the way he behaves himself in his house, and then he doesn't behold evil. He doesn't look at evil.

Then he says basically, "I won't permit slander." And this is vicious, slander tearing down somebody's reputation, talking ill about them and so forth. This is as bad as murder, and it's a sin that goes on in most churches. Many Christians will slander.

And God says, "No." David says, "I'm not going to permit this. I'm not going to have people in my official family that are slandering each other," because his officials were trying to get position. And in order to get position, they wanted to cut down somebody else.

You find this in big companies, big organizations, people who are slandering others in order to gain prestige and position.

The blessed life: "I'm going to walk in my house with integrity, and I'm going to keep my eyes from beholding evil, and I'm going to restrict slander. My heart is going to be right with God. Oh, God, when will You come to me? When will I know the power of Your Holy Spirit?"

This is the life that God blesses.