Alright brothers, 2 Thessalonians
chapter 1. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. Let's read our text again. Verses 11 and 12. Wherefore also
we pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of
this calling. and fulfill all the good pleasure
of His goodness, and the work of faith with power, that the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and
ye in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus
Christ." Our subject is the good pleasure of God's goodness. The good pleasure of God's goodness. The way that God is going to
count His saints worthy. The way He will count you worthy
of this calling is by God fulfilling all the good pleasure of His
goodness in you in power. It'll all be by grace. It'll
be by God our Father and the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
It'll be by grace. By God fulfilling the good pleasure
of His goodness in you. Now there is none good but God. That's what the Scriptures tell
us. There's none good but God. God is goodness. He is goodness. The good pleasure of goodness
is the good pleasure of God. God is goodness. You see there
the His is in italics. It's added by the translators.
It's a little redundant really because the good pleasure of
goodness has to be the good pleasure of God because He's the only
one good. It's the good pleasure of God. God is good of Himself
and independent of Himself. The only one that's good. There's
nothing in God but goodness. And there's nothing that comes
from God but goodness. No iniquities in His nature.
No unrighteousness is in His ways. No sin is in any of His
works. All that comes from God is good. All the things God declared of
Himself to Moses is God's goodness. Let's go over there and look
at Exodus 33. This is God's goodness. These other things and then God's
goodness, these things make up God's goodness. Exodus 33. And really that's sort of all
God's attributes. They're all so vitally united
that we have to look at things separately, but God is good and
all these things make up His goodness. And Exodus 33.19. Exodus
33.19. He said, I will make all My goodness
pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord
before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and
will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And He put Him in
the cleft of the rock. That's where we see God's goodness
is in Christ the rock. That's the picture there. Look
down at Exodus 34 and look at verse 6. And the Lord passed
by before him and proclaimed, now this is the Lord's goodness,
all this makes up His goodness. He proclaimed the Lord, the Lord
God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's
children unto the third and to the fourth generation. Most men
speak of their own goodness, That's what the Scripture says.
Scripture says in Proverbs 20 verse 6, Most men will proclaim
every one his own goodness, but a faithful man, who can find?
Christ is that faithful man. And He's God. And when the rich
young ruler came to our Lord Jesus, he came speaking of his
own goodness. What he had done. And because
he thought the Lord was just a man, like any other man, he
called him good. And Christ is God, and He's the
faithful man. And He said to him, there's none
good but God. Why do you call me good? He corrected
him. If He's going to call him good,
He needs to acknowledge He is the God in human flesh. That's
so. There's none good but God. None
good but God. Whatever goodness is in God's
creation, it came from God. The goodness that's in His elect
angels is of God. The goodness that was in Adam
before the fall when he was innocent and upright, God created that.
The goodness of His saints is of God by His grace. Every good
gift, every good gift, every perfect gift comes down from
the Father of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning. God says this of sinful man.
This is what He says of you and me and our flesh. Your goodness
is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew, it goeth away.
We may do something good if God works it, but it's like the dew. It's here and then it's gone.
But God never changes. He is the same, yesterday, today,
and forever, working only goodness, working only the good pleasure
of His goodness toward His people, So we're going to see here tonight
what the scripture says about the goodness, the good pleasure
of God's goodness. I just like the sound of that.
The good pleasure of God's goodness. First of all, here's what I want
to show you. The goodness of God is particular
toward His elect Israel. It's particular toward His elect
Israel. It's the goodness of God to create
in us a clean heart and make us know His goodness. Paul is
writing here to God's elect, and this is what Psalm 73 once
says, Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean
heart. That's His elect Israel. God's
good to His elect Israel. Now God's goodness is upon all
His creation. His goodness is upon all His
creation. It's upon those that love Him,
and upon those that don't love Him, that hate Him. He loveth
righteousness and judgment. The earth is full of the goodness
of the Lord. Everybody benefits from the goodness
of the Lord, even men that hate Him and despise Him. The Lord's
good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. He gives
the sun and the rain on the just and the unjust. You go home tonight
and read Psalm 104. It declares God's goodness in
providing and preserving all His creation. Everything He created,
He provides life, He provides food, He provides everything
that's needed and preserves His creation. That includes man and
beasts and trees and fish of the sea. Everything's included
in that Psalm. It says, he watereth the hills
from his chambers. The earth is satisfied with the
fruit of thy works. He callseth the grass to grow
for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, that he may
bring forth food out of the earth. God's goodness does that. But
to triune God's saving goodness, His saving goodness is only to
His elect. It is only to His elect. Truly
God is good to Israel. We know this from Ephesians 1.
Ephesians 1 says, God the Father chose whom He would in Christ
before the foundation of the world. He blessed us with all
spiritual blessings by choosing us in Christ. And He predestinated
us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. And here's the
reason. According to the good pleasure
of His will. And then the Son of God came
and took flesh. Who did He say He is? He said,
I'm the Good Shepherd. I'm the Good Shepherd. And the
Good Shepherd laid down His life for who? For the sheep. That's
who He laid down His life for. And Ephesians 1 says, In whom
we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of
sins, according to the riches of His grace, according to the
good pleasure of His goodness. And then He sent the Gospel,
and the Spirit of God created a clean heart in us. and gave
us faith and gave us an understanding in other things God's freely
given to us. And it says in Ephesians 1.9, He made known to us the
mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He
purposed in Himself. This is the good pleasure of
His goodness. When Psalm 73, verse 1 says,
Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean
heart. He didn't behold a clean heart
in us, and therefore He's good to us. That's not what it means.
Because He's good to His people, He chose us, and Christ redeemed
us, and therefore He came and created a clean heart in us.
And He keeps purging us and keeps a clean heart in us. It's His
goodness to us that keeps a clean heart in us. The Lord is good
to Israel. The only reason we repented from
ourselves and owned ourselves to sinner and owned that we could
do nothing to make ourselves righteous and holy, the only
reason we keep repenting and live a life of repentance, being
turned and continually turning to the Lord, the only reason
is the goodness of God. It's the goodness of God. That's
what Romans 2.4 says. It's the riches of His goodness
the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering. The goodness of God leadeth thee
to repentance. And it wasn't just before you
believed that He was forbearing and longsuffering and good to
work repentance in you. It's after we believe Him too.
If He marked iniquity, we couldn't stand before Him. It's only in
the righteousness of Christ that He continues to be forbearing
to us in what we are. and long-suffering, and by His
goodness, He keeps turning us to the Lord. Is there anybody
here? I pray one of these days I'm
going to be preaching, and I'm just going to see a face light
up for the first time as somebody's hearing this gospel and hearing
it. And if you are, let me tell you
what, God's mercy and His free forgiveness is in Christ. And
if you need mercy, and you need free forgiveness, You cast your
care on Him. You come to Him. You come to
Him. If God's created a clean heart
in us, that's what we'll do. That's the only time we start
hearing this. That's the only time we're honest to say, I am
the sinner. Well, God's good and if He's
worked that in you and you come to Him asking mercy and grace,
He'll show you mercy and grace and forgiveness. Psalm 86.5 says,
Thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive. Plenteous in mercy
unto all them that call upon Him. Psalm 107.8 says, Oh, that
men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful
works to the children of men. For He satisfies the longing
soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. There's an important word there
when he says he fills the longing soul with goodness. It's work
spiritual. It's inwardly. It's in the new
heart. It's in the soul. We're not talking
about him just, he'll provide some good things in his life,
but that's not the blessing. The blessing is knowing him. The blessing is being filled
with his goodness spiritually. That's what he's doing. If he's
giving you a longing for him, you call on him. He's ready to
forgive them that call on him. So first of all, the only reason
we believe Him in the first place and enter this calling is because
of His goodness. That's it. The only way we stay
in it is His goodness. Now secondly, it's the goodness
of God working in us in power by His grace that makes His saints
worthy of this calling. Now He's called you, it was by
the goodness, the good pleasure of His goodness, He called you.
But it's only by that same good pleasure of His goodness that's
going to make us worthy of this calling. There's no worthiness
in us by nature. It's all going to be of God.
It's all going to be His work that makes us worthy of this
calling. That's why Paul prayed to God for his brethren. He didn't
tell them, now you do something to make yourself worthy of this
calling. He said, Wherefore also we pray always for you that God
would, that God would, that God would count you worthy of this
calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and
the work of faith with power. So that the name of our Lord
Jesus might be glorified in you. You might praise him and then
one day be glorified in him according to the grace of our God and our
Lord Jesus Christ. I wish we really could enter
into the fact there is no goodness in man. These things we see,
that we complain about all around, that's of man, that's of the
devil, that's of man, sinful fallen man, the evil, the wickedness. And even when it appears good,
there's generally an evil, wicked motive, a selfish game behind
it. There is none good but God. So
if He's going to work in us and make us worthy of this calling,
it's going to be by the goodness of God. Only by the goodness
of God that we continue under the sound of the Gospel. That's
what the Scriptures tell us. God's made us satisfied with
Christ alone to hear Christ preached in His house and Christ honored
and glorified. He had to make us satisfied with
Christ. That's how He planted us in His house. You're familiar
with Psalm 65, 4. Blessed is the man whom thou
choosest, and calls us to approach unto thee, that he may dwell
in thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the
goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. What makes people come in and
hear the gospel preached and just pass on through? And then
some come and hear the gospel and they're planning. Because
God made them satisfied with the goodness of His house. Who's
the goodness of His house? Christ is. Christ is the goodness
of His house. He blesses us to know He chose
us. We didn't choose Him. Blessed
is the man whom thou choosest. That makes God's people satisfied.
He chose me. He won't cast me away. God blessed
us to know He caused us to approach unto God. This is why men aren't
satisfied with God's house. They come in and they want to
say, I made myself approach to God. No, no, no. Those that are
planted in God's house and satisfied with the goodness of God's house
know God made me approach unto Him. And God blesses us planting
us in the house of the Lord so that we dwell in God's courts. He's made us satisfied with the
Lord Jesus Christ who is goodness personified. We're going to dwell in God's
house because He's made us satisfied with Christ. He's made us satisfied
with the goodness of His house. We're satisfied that Christ is
all. The world's not satisfied with
this. They'll tell you they're not satisfied with this. Now
you just can't preach Christ as all and just preach Christ.
You're going to have to add something in there that man's going to
have to do. God makes His child satisfied
that Christ is all. If you get a chance to listen
to the message I preached on there Saturday, I preached on
Christ's salvation. I preached in 1 Corinthians 1.30
how He's wisdom, He's righteousness, He's made unto us sanctification
and redemption. That's salvation. When you know
Christ is all four of those things, you have everything. You have
all and you know it's all Christ. And that's how God makes you
satisfied with His house. So we're satisfied to hear the
message that gives Christ all the glory. This is how He keeps
us planted. This is the goodness of His house.
The goodness of His house is our good God, who saves us according
to His goodness, the good pleasure of His goodness. And He keeps
you satisfied to hear that gospel, giving our triune God all the
glory. He makes you satisfied with the
preacher He provides for you. He said, I will provide pastors
which shall feed you after my own heart, which shall feed you
with knowledge and understanding. God's people really and truly
look at it like this. When I had a pastor that I sat
under, I had one in Arkansas, then I had one in Tennessee,
and I have one now. I just don't sit under him. But
I call him a lot and get counsel from him, and I listen to his
preaching. We review that as really and
truly, that's somebody God gave to me to feed me, and it's Christ
feeding me through that man He gave me. We don't look at it
like, I put that man in place, and that man's going to do what
I tell him to do, and he better be glad I'm supporting him, and
better be glad I'm doing this. Let me tell you something, as
a preacher of God, I love you and I'm thankful that you do
give of yourself and sacrifice and all. But this work is Christ's
work. And Christ is sustaining me and
nobody else. And that's what God's people
rejoice in. We're satisfied with that. We're
satisfied with it. We're satisfied with our brethren.
But you know why you're satisfied with your brethren? Christ dwells
in your brethren. just like He dwells in you. And
your brethren are the closest thing you're going to get to
Christ on this earth, in a body. And He makes you know that, and
He makes you know you need them, and they need you. They know
they need you. And you're so satisfied with
Christ, and you're so satisfied with His gospel, that you're
willing to look over whatever you got to, like Christ commanded
us to do. You're willing to cover the sin
of your brethren. Because that's what He commanded.
Because that's what He did for us. And remind them of the Gospel
and keep them looking to Christ above. You know, God's house
must go through much trouble. His house is His people. And
we have to go through much pain. You'll be satisfied with the
goodness of His house. His house consists of God, in
whom we abide as a tabernacle, a temple. His house consists
of Christ our head, who's the head, he's the true tabernacle. His house consists of his preacher
and his people in whom he dwells, who dwell in him. This is a living
house. As lively stones are built up,
a holy temple unto God. This is a house made of God and
his people. But we're going to have to go
through trouble. The Lord said we would have to go through trouble.
Christ put us in... He left us in a body of sin.
He left us in a sin-cursed world. And He united us together in
His body with sinners, saved by grace. And He did all that
according to the good, the goodness, the good pleasure of His goodness.
That's why He did all that. Because He's going to use all
that to teach us more of Him. But here's what He said He'll
do. Those of you that believe Him, Christ made you priests
unto God. His preacher and His people,
He made us priests unto God by His blood. And here's what Jeremiah
31 14, this is what God promised to do. I will satiate the soul
of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied
with my goodness, saith the Lord. That's what the Lord keeps doing.
It's Christ satiating our soul with fatness. Filling the longing
soul with fatness and making us satisfied. That's how we learn. He's teaching us this. He's teaching
us to submit to Christ in the face of all trouble. And it's
through all this trouble that we have to go through that He
satiates our soul more and more and grows us up in Him and teaches
us He's doing it all. I'll tell you a story, I just
shared this with somebody not long ago. In the early 90's,
I didn't understand why my pastor was doing a certain thing. Marvin was doing something a
certain way and I didn't understand why he was doing it. And I should
have looked to Christ. I should have looked to Christ.
I should have prayed to Him. I should have prayed for Marvin.
I should have waited and trusted the Lord and just trusted the
Lord would teach me what He was doing. But I was young and dumb
and I didn't do that. I wrote to three faithful pastors
asking them to help me. And without, they didn't correspond
with each other, but they all three replied and wrote me a
letter. And all three of them said the
same thing. I'm paraphrasing what all three
of them said. I mean, if you put them side
by side, you'd have thought they got together and wrote these
letters out in the same room. One lived out west of me, one
lived north of me, one lived way east of me. They didn't even
talk to each other. Here's what they wrote to me. Christ said, I'll satiate the
soul of my priests and they'll be satisfied with my house. He
said, I will do this. Here's what they wrote to me.
They said, do you believe Christ is the head of the church? Do
you believe He fills all and all His people? Do you believe
He's sovereign to work His will in His church? Then stop murmuring. Stop trying to correct your pastor.
Submit to Christ and trust Him to work by submitting to your
pastor. Submit to your brethren, and
if need be, Christ will correct your pastor's errors, your brethren's
errors, your errors, and He will teach you all in the process.
All three of them wrote that same thing to me. And Christ satiated my soul with
that word. And He satisfied me to just wait
on the Lord, and look to the Lord, and pray to the Lord, and
trust the Lord to work in my pastor and in my brethren. And by His grace, I heeded that
counsel, and I found it to be so. What they said was so. The
Lord works in His people, corrects His people, keeps His people,
teaches us all in the process. You know, well, that's the last
time you had to be taught that. No, no, no. Ten years later,
I acted like I'd never even heard it. And I had to be reminded
again. Another faithful pastor reminded
me, you believe God's sovereign, act like it. Trust Him. Trust
Him. See, the satisfaction is given
to us by God, and it's the satisfaction of knowing Christ is ahead of
His church. He feels all in all. He's overruling the trouble.
He keeps His preacher and His people. When He was in the back
of that ship and He was asleep and that storm came, where do
you think that storm came from? Who do you think sent that storm?
The same one that was asleep on the pillow sent the storm.
Who was the one who called the storm? The same one who sent
the storm. Why did He send it? to teach us everything we learned
in that account, that we need to look to Him and that He's
the only one that can calm the sea. And the moment we live from
Him, we're going to sink down. When Christ makes us submit to
Him, that's when we're going to submit to one another. And
you know what we're doing? We're not just saying, you know,
Peter's not just saying, oh, just submit to one another and
let each other run all over each other. He does say, you know,
Scripture says take the fault. Suffer yourself to be defrauded.
That's okay. What's the big deal if that happens? But what he's saying is this.
Cast all your care on Christ. Trust Christ. He's caring for
you. He's caring for His people. And
that's the only way we can resist the devil. Peter said it's by
steadfastly looking to Christ. We can't resist Him. And all
the divisions that go on in churches and the troubles that come, you
know what that is? That's the devil just having
a play day. And all this stuff of trying to stand for the glory
of God and I'm going to fix this and all this. No, no, no, no,
no. That's just submitting to the devil. That's not looking
to Christ and trusting Christ. And then also it's knowing this.
It's knowing Christ is working the same affliction in your brethren.
He's accomplishing the same affliction in your brethren. We have a Tennessee
thing. Nobody's suffering like I'm suffering.
Nobody knows what I'm going through. Oh, poor, pitiful me. No, Peter
said, that's just as much as the devil is trying to get you.
What did he say to Eve? God said, God's keeping something
from you. God's not being fair to you.
That's the devil's thoughts he puts in our head. Just know Christ
is ruling in the heart of your brethren just like he's ruling
in your heart and he's accomplishing this. And so we pray to Christ
our Head just like Paul's doing in our text. Paul can't be with
these brethren. And he's praying, Lord, I pray
that You work all the good pleasure of Your goodness in them. I pray
You work this work of faith with power in them and count them
worthy of this calling. Do it by Your grace. Make them
glorify Christ. You see, it's not us. that's
keeping things together. We didn't save ourselves, we
didn't redeem ourselves, we didn't choose ourselves, we didn't quicken
ourselves. It's not us that's preserving ourselves or keeping
His church together. It's the goodness of God. He
keeps His saints protected when enemies of the cross oppose us.
Look over at Psalm 31.19. Look at this, Psalm 31.19. Oh, how great, Psalm 31, 19.
Oh, how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them
that fear thee, which thou hast wrought for them that trust in
thee before the sons of men. Thou shalt hide them in the secret
of thy presence from the pride of man. Thou shalt keep them
secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. See how that
starts? Oh, how great is thy goodness. It's the goodness of
God working this. That pavilion is Christ. He's
going to keep you hedged about. And when we, you and me, and
we get puffed up in our flesh, and we just, these things we
do to try to fix things, you just try to usurp Christ's throne. And we start beholding a splinter
in our brother's eye. Well, with those two things,
we've got a beam in our eye. But it's God's goodness. It's
His goodness. It's Him working the goodness,
His good pleasure. The good pleasure of His goodness.
He's going to show us mercy and forgiveness and save us from
our own sins. We have a new man, but we also
have a sin nature. Look over at Go over to Psalm
25. We have a new man, but we also
have a sin nature. Now, we don't glory in our new
man. We don't look to our new man. We don't have confidence
in our new man. Our confidence is Christ. But
you know, the Spirit of God does make a distinction between our
sinful flesh and the new man God's created. Romans 7, Paul
said, I know that in me, he said, hold on, that is in my flesh. That part of me that's of Adam
dwells. No good thing. To will is present with me. Where's
that? That's in the part God created, in the new man. But
I can't perform that which I would because of my sinful flesh. See,
all goods in our new man, the goodness of God created our new
man. And Christ is the goodness of
the new man. Born of incorruptible seed, Peter
said the new man in you is uncorruptible. created in the righteousness
and true holiness of Christ. We can't produce fruit, it's
the fruit of the Spirit. And the fruit of the Spirit is
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance, against such there's no law. And it's our will of our new
man to always walk in the Spirit. Paul said, but what I will, I
can't always do. That's due to my sin nature.
But when trouble comes, and when it comes is when we usually find
out we still got a sin nature. And we need to be forgiven. But
by the Spirit of God's goodness working in us, our faithful Father
chastens us, turns us back to Christ, and He's going to keep
us crying out to Him from the new man. And here's what we cry.
Look at Psalm 25 verse 7. This is what He's going to keep
us crying out. Verse 7, remember not the sins
of my youth. Not so sins back there. We get
to looking back. Nor my transgressions right now. That's right now. According to
thy mercy, remember thou me for thy goodness sake, O Lord. All this is by the goodness of
God. Remember me for thy goodness sake, O Lord. Good and upright
is the Lord, therefore will he teach sinners in the way. The
meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his
way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, and to such
as keep his covenant and his testimonies. For thy name's sake,
O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it's great. What man is he
that feareth the Lord? Him shall he teach in the way
that he shall choose." That's the goodness of our God. That's
what Paul's praying for them. That's what He's praying for
them, that God will fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness
and the work of faith with power. He's told the Philippians, it's
God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good
pleasure. You know why He told them that?
In the context, He's telling them, Christ is right there.
He's in your midst. He's in you and He's in the midst
of His church. and He's working in you both
to will and do of His good pleasure. And the result of that, He said,
so do everything without murmuring and disputing. No need to murmur
and dispute. Christ is working, and it's all
gonna be good. I will satiate the soul of the
priest with that, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness,
saith the Lord. So we pray to God, oh God, thou
art good, and do us good. Teach me thy statutes. That's,
you know, We can do a lot of things where
we're trying to impress men and it's really just us trying to
appear like we're righteous and faithful and been in the faith
a long time. And really by most of it, we
just proven we need to be taught again. But the Lord is good and He does
good, and He'll bring you down to submit to Him and say, Lord,
you're good. Nothing good but you. You do
good, and I need you to teach me. That came from Psalm 119. If you're going to understand
Psalm 119, you need to start with the ending. And it starts
with David saying, Lord, I'm going astray like a lost sheep.
Save me. Recover me. And that whole psalm
is David going through one trial after another and ended up right
there at Christ's feet saying, Thou art good and You do good,
Lord, teach me Your statutes. After the affliction, that's
the psalm where he said, Lord, it's been good for me that I've
been afflicted, that I might learn Thy statutes. What's His
statutes? They're real simple. Believe
Him. Trust Christ. And love one another. Be merciful to one another. Be
forgiving. Do for one another everything
He's doing for you and saving you. And trust Him while you
do it. Trust Him for your own righteousness.
Trust Him to work in your pastor and in your brethren and in His
churches everywhere. Trust Him. And as you do so,
just treat your brethren just like He treats you. Merciful. Forbearing. Long-suffering. Lowly. So lastly, by continually working
this good pleasure, it's back there in 2 Thessalonians now,
chapter 1. By Him working the good pleasure
of His goodness in us, God's going to keep His saints full
of joy. God's people are happy people, and this is how He keeps
us full of joy. He's going to keep us full of
joy, and here's our rejoicing. We're going to give Christ all
the glory. That's the purpose of all this,
is to give our God and our Savior all the glory. Look at verse
12. Why is Paul praying the Lord will work this? Verse 12, that
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and
you in him. according to the grace of our
God and our Lord Jesus Christ." God, when it says that the Lord
Jesus may be glorified in you, that's God making us glorify
Christ by trusting Him alone to work in His people, trusting
Him to work through this gospel, and then when He does, we just
praise Him. We glorify Him. We give Him all
the glory. Listen to Jeremiah 33 11. You know, Christ fulfills every
covenant promise of God. And this is a covenant promise
of God. Jeremiah 33, 11. The voice of joy and the voice
of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the
bride, the voice of them that shall say, praise the Lord of
hosts, for the Lord is good. for His mercy endureth forever.
And of them that shall bring the sacrifice of praise into
the house of the Lord, for our cause to return the captivity
of the land is at the first, saith the Lord." The Lord said,
that's what's going to be in my house. It's going to be the
voice of Christ, the bridegroom. It's going to be the voice of
the bride. They're going to be filled with joy. They're going
to praise the Lord, our host. They're going to be saying, the
Lord is good. His mercy endures forever. They're going to bring
sacrifices of praise into the house of the Lord. Why? Because
He returned our captivity. Think about it. What are we praising
for? He came and delivered us from the captivity of the curse
of the law, making us righteous by His work. He delivered us
from the captivity of the devil, the strong man that was stronger
than us. He delivered us from the captivity of our sin nature,
and He keeps doing it. And He's going to deliver us
from the captivity of every trouble we face. And that's going to
make you joy and glory only in the Lord and say, oh, the Lord's
good. He worked it by His goodness and He's going to bring us to
say the Lord is good. His mercy endures forever. He's going to
keep us glorified in Him, glory in Him, and it's all by the grace
of God our Father and our Lord Jesus. And you know, I said He
left us in this body of death. We've got all these troubles
in this world and there's going to be troubles in the church. So God, as He's fulfilling the
good pleasure of His goodness in us and the work of faith and
power, He's going to keep His saints speaking only of God's
goodness. That's why He's doing it. They
shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, the psalmist
said. They'll sing of thy righteousness.
You know, literally, what do we sing about? When I read that
psalm, Psalm 145, 7, he said, they'll remember your great goodness
and they'll sing of your righteousness. What do we sing about? We sing
about God's goodness and God's righteousness. For any of God's saints who are
captive, I don't care however, if you're here, you're captive
in some way, if you're listening to this later or now, somewhere
else and you're captive, I want you to hear this. This is what
the Lord said. Psalm 34.8, Oh, taste and see
that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusts
in Him. Trust Him. Trust in Him. The Lord's good, Nahum said.
The Lord is good. He's a stronghold in the day
of trouble, and He knows them that trust in Him. And because
Christ is the Good Shepherd, this is what He tells us, brethren.
He's the Good Shepherd. And Psalm 23 tells us, Surely
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and
I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Think about this,
brethren. If you're His, You're going to
continue assembling with His people under the sound of the
gospel all your days. And when you pass from this life,
you know what you're going to do for eternity? You're going
to dwell in the house of the Lord. Assembling, hearing Christ
exalted and worshiping and singing praises to Him. That's what we're
looking forward to. He's glorified in us right now.
He brings us to praise His goodness right now. But one day, He's
coming to glorify us in Him. And Job said, I had fainted. He said, I had fainted unless
I believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the
living. That land of the living is where Christ is with all His
people in glory. And when we're in that day, we're
going to see the goodness of the Lord in perfection. You know,
I'm speaking up. off the cuff here, but this is
what I really believe. I do believe in that day we're
going to understand better or fully everything Christ ever
worked for us. and see all the things that we
thought was bad, how good they all was. Everything He ever worked
for us was good. And know, like He says we're
going to know as we're known, we're going to know everything
He's ever done for us. And we're going to see it's the
goodness of the Lord. Everything He did for me was
good. I had no reason not to murmur and complain about the
least thing. Everything He did for me was good. That's so, brethren. I pray that for you. Pray that
for me. Let's pray that for our brethren everywhere. That the
God, that Lord would count you worthy of this call and fulfill
all the good pleasure of His goodness in the work of faith
with power. That you might glorify Christ and be kept and Christ
may glorify you in Himself and it all be according to the grace
of our God and our Savior. Amen. All right, Brother Greg.