Good morning. Psalm 106 verses one and two
praise you, the Lord. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord
for he is good. We worship a God who is defined
by goodness. I will cause my goodness to pass
before they. That's our hope this morning.
We'll see the goodness of our God. and that His goodness, His
goodness will lead us to repentance. Tom, we're gonna... Number 37,
let's stand together. ? O Lord, my God, when I in awesome
wonder ? Consider all the works thy hands have made ? I see the
stars, I hear the rolling thunder Thy power throughout the universe
displayed. Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee. How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! When through the woods and forest
glades I wander And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur And hear the brook and
feel the gentle breeze Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee
How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! And when I think that God, His
Son not sparing, Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in. That on the cross, my burden
gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin. Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, my Savior
God, to Thee How great Thou art! How great Thou art! When Christ shall come with shout
of acclamation And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart
Then I shall bow in humble adoration proclaim my God how great thou
art then sings my soul my Savior God to thee how great thou art
how great thou art then sings my soul my Savior God to thee
How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Please be seated. Will you open your Bibles with
me to Psalm 104? Psalm 104. We've been looking
at this Psalm for the last two Wednesday nights and Lord willing
we'll Look at the last few verses of it this morning. Anne Neal's been in the hospital
last several days. I don't think she went home today,
but. Want us to. Ask the Lord's blessings
on our time together and remember to pray for him. So let's let's
pray. our merciful and gracious, glorious
and great heavenly father. What great hope we have in knowing
that you are pleased with your children, all found in thy dear
son, having our righteousness, all of our justification, all
of our acceptance in him. We ask that you would send your
spirit in power. That you would enable us to speak
with simplicity about the glory of Christ. That you would open
the eyes of our understanding. That you would cause our hearts
to be drawn in faith to Christ. And that you would enable us
to set our affections on things above where Christ is seated
at thy right hand. Or these are all the works of
your spirit. They are beyond our ability to accomplish on
our own. So we ask father, you said that if we ask for your
spirit, you would give him to us and. Oh, how needful we are
this hour. Lord, we pray for Ann and. We
ask that you would bless the physicians and. Medical staff
that's tending to her and give them understanding and wisdom
and enable them to treat her well and. We pray for you to
draw near to her and Wayne's heart as they are in this time
of need. We ask it in Christ name. Amen. David concluded Psalm 23 by saying
thy goodness and thy mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life. We worship a God. who is truly,
perfectly good. And he can do nothing but that
which is good. Romans 8, verse 28, you know
very well, and you know, and you know, that all things work
together for good for them that love God and those that are the
called according to his purpose. That goodness can only be understood
many times through the eyes of faith, can only be seen by the
eyes of faith. The Lord has ordained oftentimes
very difficult circumstances in our lives. We live in a body
of flesh that is contrary to our new nature. We live in a
world that's contrary to the gospel. There is a a spiritual
enemy that prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he
may devour. And the Lord has ordained circumstances
that are beyond our comprehension and beyond our control. Nevertheless,
nevertheless, our God is good. You have your Bibles open to
Psalm 104. I want you to notice verse 27. These, these all the children of God that are
described in the previous verses from the greatest of them to
the least of them. We're looking at Psalm 104, verse
27. These wait all upon thee that
thou mayest give them their meat in due season. In due season. You know, the
first, the first point that that Chris made Friday night has stuck
with me ever since. And it came to pass. And it came
to pass. That can be said about everything.
And in the fullness of time, it came to pass that God sent
his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem them
that are cursed by the law. In the fullness of time, it came
to pass. And that can be said, I looked
up that phrase in the scriptures and it's mentioned over 460 times
in the word of God and it came to pass. Every single thing that
happens in time has been ordained by our good God in eternity for
his glory and for our good. Now that's not, That's not just
wishful thinking. That's the truth. That's the
truth. And we can say of everything
that happens, and it came to pass. It came to pass. May God give us the spirit of
grace and faith to trust him and to wait upon him. They shall
all wait upon thee. Look at the next verse. And I'm going to insert a word
there because that verse is kind of hard to read the way the way
it's written in our English Bibles, that which thou gave them or
which thou givest them, you just put a comma after them, that
which thou givest them, they gather. Everything, Lord, that
you give them, they receive. And everything that we have comes
from the hand of God. The physical things that we enjoy,
every good and perfect gift comes from our Father above, with whom
there is no variableness nor shadow of turning. Everything
that we enjoy in this world comes from the hand of our loving God. And most importantly, look at
the next part of that verse. They are filled, I'm sorry, thou
openest thy hand. Now, when did our God open his
hand most graciously to his church? I cannot imagine what crucifixion
would be like, but I suspect that every person that's crucified
or was crucified had to have their fingers pried open in order
for the soldiers to nail their hands to the cross. I'm sure
that it took two or three or four soldiers to hold them down
while they drove the nails in the hands of the criminal being
crucified. Not so with the Lord Jesus Christ. He laid his life down for his
sheep. It didn't take one soldier to
hold him. He wasn't resistant. He wasn't
a victim. He went to the cross willingly.
And when he laid on that cross, he opened his hands and he was
wounded for our transgressions. You see, our transgressions are
explained in the Bible by the works of our hands. Everything
we put our hand to is defiled. A hand is a picture of work.
You can't work without your hands. And so it is in the scriptures. Who can stand before God? They
which have clean hands and a pure heart who have not lifted up
their soul to vanity. How are we going to have clean
hands? Only if by the opening up of his hands being wounded
for our transgressions can the works of our hands be taken away
and the work of his hand be imputed unto us. That's when he opened
his hands most graciously. And what does this scripture
say? And they received the goodness that comes from his open hand. He came into his own, but his
own received him not, but as to as many as received him. When
God opens his hand and gives us faith to believe what he accomplished
on Calvary's cross in putting away all the sins of all of his
people, he opens up the hearts of his children. And they receive
that truth. They receive Christ. They believe
on him. They trust him. They rely on
him for everything. For everything. Most especially
for their standing before God. How often times we see this in
the scriptures. Thou openest thy hand and they
were filled with good. You remember in 1 Kings chapter
17 when, and this is the widow that the Lord mentions in Luke
chapter four when he's in Nazareth beginning his public ministry
and he says, in the days of Elijah, there were many widows, but God
showed mercy upon none except the widow of Sarepta, which was
a Gentile. And you remember they were enraged
with that truth because they thought they had a special, a
special place with God, and they didn't believe that God would
have mercy upon whom he would have mercy, and whom he would,
he would harden. They thought because of their
birthright, being the children of Abraham, that they had a right
to God. God's people know they don't
have a right to him. We have no claim on God. We have nothing
to insist upon that he would have mercy upon us. We're dependent
upon him. But this woman in 1 Kings chapter
17, she's the one that there was a drought and you remember
Ahab was the king and Elijah had pronounced a drought by the
word of God and the land was starving and people were dying
and Elijah came to a widow and he told her to make him a cake
of bread and she said, You know, all I have is me and my son.
We got these two sticks. We're going to make a fire. We've
got just a little bit of oil, and we've got a little bit of
meal, and we're going to make our last meal, and we're going to die.
And Elijah said, make one for me first, and your oil will not
run out, and your meal will not cease until this drought's over. And she believed the word of
God, and she did it. And sure enough, throughout the
rest of it, her meal didn't run out, her oil didn't, her son
wouldn't, her ate every day till the drought was over. And then
she came to Elijah with her child on his deathbed. And she said,
you know what? Why has evil come upon me? You
know, you're the man. And Elijah went into the chamber
where that boy was lying dead. By the time Elijah got there,
the child was without breath. Without breath, the scripture
says, he was dead. You remember what Elijah did? He laid prostrate
over the body of the child, hand to hand, foot to foot, mouth
to mouth, eye to eye, nose to nose, and he prayed. Now, what's
that a picture of? And the child was, life came
back into the child. There's our Lord opening his
hand and he puts his hand to our hands and he puts his mouth
to our mouth and his eye to our eye and his feet to our feet.
And every part of his life becomes our life. And he breathes life. We're dead in our trespasses
and sins by nature. We have no life in and of ourselves.
And what's God saying to us? I've opened my hand and I have
goodness for my children, nothing but goodness. The Lord opens
his hand in touching lepers. Lepers, a leper in the day of
our Lord would, I mean, they would have to walk around hollering
at the top of their lungs, unclean, unclean, and make sure that they
remained a far distance from anyone else. And no one would
ever dare come near a leper in fear that they would become infected
with that. And what did the Lord do? He
went and touched the lepers, didn't he? He touched them and
made them clean. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one that can take his open hand and touch a sinner and not
be defiled. And with his other hand, touch
a holy God and not be destroyed. He is the mediator between God
and man, and he's the only mediator. The only mediator. What a, what
a glorious picture. He's, he's opened his hand and
that was filled with goodness and he gave to them and they
received it. They received it through faith. They received it. He gives his
spirit by his hand. And, uh, and all the goodness
of God comes by the spirit of God. He told Moses on Mount Sinai,
I'll cause my goodness to pass before you, but in order for
you to see my goodness, I'm gonna have to hide you in the cleft
of a rock, lest you be destroyed. No man can see God and live.
And what was that goodness? It was Christ. Christ was the
goodness of God. And what did Moses see? Moses saw the backside of God,
didn't he? How do we know that God is good?
How do we know he's good? By what he's done. You see, we
believe in the goodness of our God by looking at what he's done. We're looking at the backside
of God. We don't know what God's gonna do in the future, but we
know based on his history that everything that he's got in store
for us, he hasn't started anything he's not gonna finish, and everything
he's got in store for us is just as good as the things that he's
done in the past. Jeremiah put it like this, Jeremiah
chapter 29 verse 10, after 70 years be accomplished at Babylon. Now that's where you and I live.
We live in Babylon. And 70 years is a biblical number
for our life here in this world. Three score and 10, 70, that's
the life of a man in this world. and after 70 years be accomplished. You see, everything that comes
to pass is the accomplishment of what God has ordained in eternity. And Jeremiah said, the Lord said
to Jeremiah, after 70 years be accomplished at Babylon, I will
visit you and perform my good word toward you in causing you
to return unto this place. Now, where was Jeremiah? He was
in Jerusalem. They were about to be exiled to Babylon. And
the Lord's promising Jeremiah and the people of God, I'm only
going to leave you there for 70 years. I'm going to bring you back.
You see, our father, Adam, walked with God in the cool of the day
and fellowship with God. And it was all lost as a result
of sin. God said, you're going to spend
70 years in Babylon. I don't want to say this as a
discouragement. I hope that it will be an encouragement
to you. But the older I get, the more
I realize that things aren't getting better. You know, when
you're young, you keep thinking, you know, this is going to get
better tomorrow. It's going to get better. It's going to be
easier. And things are going to let up a little bit. There's some folks listening
to us right now that live in Fort Myers and his name is John
and he's very, very ill and he's older. And we're going tomorrow
to talk to him and to visit with him. And I was talking to Shirley,
his wife, and I said to her, you know, it's just the Lord's
way of He didn't have to have his hands pried loose, but we
do, don't we? And all these troubles, what
are they? They're God's way of opening
up our hands, prying our hands loose, and getting us to turn
loose of this world. And though our difficulties in
this life, in the 70 years of Babylon, get harder the older
we get, and the hardest days are yet to come, The hardest
days are the days that John and Shirley are suffering right now.
Those are the real hard days. The sweeter His grace is, the
stronger our faith becomes. Turn with me to 1 Peter, 1 Peter
5. Look at verse five. Likewise,
ye younger. Oh, wish I had learned this 30
years ago. Likewise, you younger submit
yourselves to the elder. Believe what they're telling
you. They know by experience some things that you haven't
experienced yet. Yea, all of you be subject one to another. Be submissive. And be clothed
with humility. For God resisted the proud and
giveth grace to the humble. That's what growing in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is becoming more
and more dependent upon him. Less confident in yourself. The
Lord said. To the disciples when he was
ascending into glory, he said all power has been given unto
me in heaven and in Earth. Now, if the Lord Jesus Christ
possesses all power, then that means that you and I have no
power. He's got it all. We're powerless, completely dependent
upon him. Humble yourselves, therefore,
unto the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time. When is that due time? When the
70 years in Babylon be accomplished, I'll cause my good purpose to
come upon you. And the next verse in Jeremiah
chapter 29 says, for, I know the thoughts that I have for
you. Thoughts of good, not of evil to bring you to your expected
end. There's our expected end. It's not going to get any better
in this world, but his grace can become greater. Our faith
can become stronger. His mercy. Don't put your hope
in thinking tomorrow is going to be a better day. In terms
of your circumstances, it may be a harder day. But you can
be sure of this. His grace gets better. Look at
casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you. Be sober,
be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion,
walketh about, seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfastly
in the faith. What is it to resist Satan? It's
to look to Christ. It's to rest your hope in Christ. Knowing that the same afflictions
are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. 70 years be accomplished in Babylon
that I'm coming to get you and I'm going to take you home. And
the same afflictions you think, you know, you oftentimes we,
we just get this woe is me attitude thinking, you know, nobody's
suffering like I am. That's not true. These afflictions, your brethren,
you, everyone, every one of God's children right now, listen to
me or amen. And what, what they're hearing, you know, it's true.
Don't you? These afflictions are accomplished
in your brethren that are in the world, but the God of all
grace who had called us unto his eternal glory by Jesus Christ. After that you have suffered
a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you to
him, be glory and dominion forever and ever. Oh, brethren. These things are
good. He's opened his hand to show
us his goodness. You know, what's so, what's so
telling about, about our unbelief. Sometimes it seems that we have
an easier time trusting God for the salvation of our souls than
we do in trusting him for the circumstances of our lives. If
he can accomplish the former, certainly he can handle the latter.
If he can put away our sin and secure unto himself our eternal
life, how much easier it is for him to take care of our circumstances. But we add to our troubles, don't
we, by trying to take control of things rather than looking
to Christ and believing that he's good. Look at, go back with me to Psalm
104. Thou hidest thy face and they
are troubled. Can you relate, brothers and
sisters? Can you, God hides his face sometimes,
doesn't he? And as soon as he does, boy,
our hearts are troubled. Why does he hide his face? He
said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. Yet he withdraws
oftentimes the awareness of his presence in order to set us to
pursue him, to seek him with all of our hearts, the hunger
after righteousness. Thou hidest thy face and there
are troubles. Thou takest away their breath. They die and return to the dust. Oh, brethren, don't forget that.
Death is not a morbid subject for the child of God. It's the
truth. And if you know the truth, the
truth will set you free. We're dying. We're dying. And that's a good thing. Because
it's not until we shed this body of death that we're going to
be given a resurrected body and see him as he is and be made
like him. It is appointed. You see. The day that he takes
away our breath. And you, you know you. Well,
you live without food for about three weeks. You can live without
water for about three days. You live without air for about
three minutes and one day God's going to cut off our air supply
and we're going to stop breathing and we're going to die. And our
loved ones can say and we can say and it came to pass. And
it came to pass. then they're going to return
to the dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit
and they are created. You know, we speak of artistic people
being creative, but all we're doing is rearranging the stuff
that we already have. To create something is to make
something out of nothing. And only God can do that. He's
the only one that can do that. And that's what he does. That's
what he did when he created us from the dust of the earth and
breathed life into us. And when he recreates us in Christ
Jesus and breathes the life of his spirit into our dead souls,
he's creating us. Now send it forth thy spirit
and only by his spirit. We're going to be spending the
next several weeks, maybe a couple of months in the first couple
of chapters of Acts and looking at Pentecost and the sending
of the Spirit of God and what it means to be filled with the
Spirit of God and the necessity of the Spirit of God. There's
a lot of misconceptions, a lot of foolishness going on in religion
in the name of the Holy Ghost. And it's demonic is what it is. It really is. What part does
the spirit of God play? It's expedient for you that I
go away for. If I go not away, the comforter will not come.
But when he comes, when he comes, what's he going to do? He's going
to convict you of sin because you believe not on me. You haven't
been convicted of sin until you've been convicted that you're an
unbeliever. Of righteousness, because I go to my father, all
righteousness has been established because we have our advocate. Seated at the right hand of the
majesty on high presenting himself on our behalf And judgment has
been accomplished because the prince of this world has been
judged All judgment was finished at the cross When christ said
it is finished satan was judged sin was judged god's people were
judged And they their sin was put away There's the spirit of God. They
send it forth. I spirit Nicodemus. You must be born again. You must
be born of the spirit. Son of man prophesied to the
wind call upon the spirit of God without the spirit of God.
If you have not spirit of God, you're none of his. Well, that's
the spirit of God. We have no life, but the spirit
of God always points us to Christ. That's his, that's his work. Now send us forth thy spirit,
they are created, thou renewest the face of the earth. Oh, we
find ourselves down in the midst of troubles and we see our God's
hand opened and nothing in his hand but that which is good.
Nothing but that which is good. And he sends his spirit and we're
revived. We're revived. We've got that
That oil is placed at look, go look back with me to, um, we
dealt with this on Wednesday night. Um, look at verse, uh,
verse 15. and wine that maketh glad the
heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread
which drinketh at man's heart." Now, what is the wine and the
bread? That's the body and blood of Christ every time we come
to the Lord's table. We're celebrating his life of
obedience and his substitutionary death, satisfying God's justice. And what's the oil? Well, the
oil of gladness. That's the Spirit of God. That's the anointing
oil. So the Spirit of God causes our
face to shine. When we feast, if you eat not
of my body and drink not of my blood, there's no life in you.
We eat his body and we drink his blood. We look to his life
and death for all our life and the spirit of God gives us gladness. Go back with me to, now send
us forth thy spirit, verse 30. They are created, thou renewest
the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure
forever. The Lord shall rejoice in his
works. God the Father rejoiced in the
work that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished. God's rejoicing
in his son. This is my beloved son, I'm well
pleased with him. God saw the travail of his soul
and God was satisfied. This is his work of redemption. God was pleased with and he's
completely satisfied. And he gets all the glory. Verse
32, he looketh on the earth and it trembleth, he toucheth the
hills and they smoke. There's nothing. Hebrews chapter
12 says he has shaken that which can be shaken and or that which
cannot be shaken might remain. And everything is it, why do
they, why, why do we interpret our troubles as things that aren't
good? Um, I have a, we have a brother
that, uh, has been suffering with an illness for many, many
years. And every time I talk to him. Ask him how he's doing,
and his response is always the same. He said, everything's right
on schedule. Right on schedule. Y'all may know what I'm talking
about, but he's shaking those things which
can be shaken in order to cause us to plant our feet on that
which cannot be moved. His goodness, the rock of ages. There's no stability in anything
else. I will sing unto the Lord. As
long as I live, I will sing praise to my God while I have my being rejoice in the Lord. What's the next word? Always,
always. Wait a minute, you don't know
what I'm going through. And again, I say rejoice, in
case you missed it the first time. No, always be thankful
in all things, for all things are the will of God in Christ
Jesus concerning you. That's faith. It's faith to believe
God in the midst of difficulties. That's what the Lord is telling
us about himself. He said, I've got this, I've
got this, and it's going to be good. It's going to be good. It is good. You just can't see
it except you got to believe it. You got to believe it. My meditation of him shall be
sweet and I will be glad in the Lord. Oh, we get so disquieted
and so out of sort because we don't believe God. God make our
meditations of him sweet. Let the centers be consumed of
the earth. Now we're all, we are, we, you know, we're all
centers, but he's talking about the unbeliever. Let them be consumed
by the things of the world and the things of the world will
consume you. If you don't believe God, if you, if you're not on God's,
if God's not on your side, If God before me, who can be against
me? If God's not on your side, the things of this world will
consume you. Mark it down. They will, they'll
overwhelm you. You will leave the gospel. You
will forsake the truth. You'll be overwhelmed with the
troubles. That's why God sends him. He's trying a faith that's
not tried, cannot be trusted. God was going to try our faith.
To cause us to say, Lord, this is good. You're good. You're
good. And I'm going to meditate on
your sweetness and on your goodness. And I'm going to rejoice in you. And I'm going to wait on you.
Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth and let the wicked
be no more. But you bless thou the Lord,
O my soul, bless ye the Lord. Amen. All right, let's take a
break.