Alright brethren, let's turn
to Job 37. Job chapter 37. I had a message prepared and
something caught my attention last night and I went in another
direction. We're meeting today at noon for
obvious reasons. Friday about 6 o'clock, it started
snowing. And it snowed. And when we went
to bed, it was still snowing. We woke up Saturday morning,
it was still snowing. I told my friends on Saturday,
we're only going to get about two to three inches per hour
for about another six hours. And that was the case Saturday.
Went to bed Saturday night, still snowing. Woke up this morning
and we began to try to dig out of it. This is the third time
this morning. I've blown snow off my driveway,
trying to keep it, stay on top of it. I can't wait to the last
minute. I don't have that big of a snow blower. So we got a
lot of snow. So I was thinking a lot about
snow. And I got to thinking, why does God send snow? What's the purpose of snow? Well,
whenever Elihu was Preaching to Job, God the Holy Spirit gave
him the very reason why God gives the snow. And we find it here
in Job 37 verse 5. God thundereth marvelously with
his voice. Great things doeth he, which
we cannot comprehend. For he saith to the snow, be
thou on the earth. Likewise to the small rain and
to the great rain of his strength. He sealeth up the hand of every
man that all men may know his work. Then the beasts go into
dens and remain in their places. Now, he goes on and he's been
speaking about lightning and thunder and he goes on to speak
about snow and rain and tornadoes and hurricanes and frost and
thick clouds and then down in verse 12, second part of the
verse, he says this is why God sends them. Why he sends all
those different types of weather. That they may do whatsoever he
commandeth them upon the face of the world in the earth. He
causeth it to come, whether for correction, or for his land,
or for mercy. Hearken unto this, O Job, stand
still, and consider the wondrous works of God. Now this is the
end of Elihu's sermon to Job. And some think that Elihu spoke
out of turn. Some think that God rebuked him
because in the next chapter, God says in verse 2 of the next
chapter, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? But God's not talking to Elihu.
He's talking to Job. He's talking to Job. No, Elihu's
sermon is a very God-honoring sermon. It begins back in chapter
33, I believe, and goes all the way to the end of 37. And I'd
encourage you to read the whole thing at your leisure. It's a
very God-honoring sermon. In fact, Elihu, that Job prayed
for a daisman. And Elihu was sin of God and
stood between Job and God and spoke on behalf of God like Christ
our mediator does. He's a very good picture of Christ.
So today I want us to do what Elihu told Job to do by the Spirit
of God. Hearken unto this and stand still
and consider the wondrous works of God. Now, as we consider God's
wondrous works, the first thing I want us to see is God's wondrous
work in giving the snow. He said there in verse 5, God
thundereth marvelously with His voice. Great things doeth he,
which we cannot comprehend. For he saith to the snow, Be
thou on the earth. And likewise to the small rain,
and to the great rain of his strength. You know, we've made
some computers. Wise folks have made some computers
that are pretty good at telling us where the snow is going to
go. We can tune into the news and the weather reporter will
tell us this is where we think it's going to go and they're
right a good deal of the time. But no man has ever been able
to do what God's able to do. God can just say, be thou on
the earth and the snow comes. He does it by His word. He does
it by His voice. We were on the way over here
this morning and Will said, He didn't know what I was preaching
on. Will said, I wish that we could just somehow just say,
you know, snow be here and snow don't be there. Like we could
walk out to our driveway and say, don't be there. I thought
that'd be good. But we don't have that power. But God does. That's how the snow came. God
said, be thou. And the snow came. Just like
in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth. He
spoke and it was. That's God's power. We can't
speak the snow or the rain into falling. And another thing, we
can't speak and stop the snow and the rain from falling. Anybody
go out and be able to stop that storm from coming? We have no
power whatsoever, but God can speak it. Now this is true, brethren,
of the word of God's gospel. Look over at Isaiah 55. This
is true of God's Word when He speaks the Gospel. When He speaks
the Gospel. Look here in Isaiah 55. 10. Isaiah 55. 10.
As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth
not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth
in bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the
eater. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth.
It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that
which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto
I send it." The Gospel of Christ and Him Crucified. What you're
hearing preached right now, this is the Word of God. Now I can
sit here and I can speak to you and I can say hearken and heed
and listen and come and I can say all these things and I can't
make this word have any effect in your heart whatsoever. I'd
like to, but I can't. I can't. I don't have that power
and you don't have that power. But God, when it goes forth out
of His mouth, It never returns void. God speaks to a spiritually
dead sinner. And just like that rain and snow
comes down and it waters the earth and it causes it to bring
forth life, God speaks and there's life. He speaks, says, be thou
alive. And a dead sinner is regenerated
by His power, by His Spirit. He says, be thou filled with
faith. And you're going to find yourself
start believing God. You won't have a clue what happened.
It's things, He says, we can't comprehend. You don't even comprehend
what's happened to you. Nor do you understand, we ever
understand, how does God do this? Nobody has ever been able to
figure out how God makes the snow to come. We can't figure
those things out. We can't figure out how God makes
this word affection on our heart, but He does. This is God's power. Now, when you think of this snow,
when you look next, however long it stays around, Today and from
here on, when you look at this snow and all the abundance of
it, I want you to consider God's wondrous work in giving His children
spiritual life and faith by His Word. Our text says God thunders
marvelously with His Word, with His voice. It says God does great
things by His Word, things we cannot comprehend. When you look
at the snow, you think about that, you remember that. You
see, God doesn't just send snow and these elements and things
for us to just complain about it. He sends it for you to consider
God's work. Now secondly, go back to Job
37 and let's consider God's wondrous
work in what He causes us to do by giving us snow. He said
in verse 7, He sealeth up. That means He stops the hand
of every man. Boy, we had our plans, didn't
we? We had our plans for Friday night. We had our plans for Saturday. God stopped them. He stopped
the work of our hands. He stopped us dead in our tracks.
We had plans for the Friday night fellowship and the baby shower
and things we were going to do Saturday. God just stopped us.
He stopped it. He sealed up our hand, the hand
of every man. Now brethren, we don't have power. That ought to tell you, just
in something like the snow, in what God stopped us, how He stopped
us Saturday. He stopped this whole, from the
south all the way up the east coast, all the way up to the
north. He stopped this whole part of the country just dead
in our tracks. Now that ought to show you, you can will it
all you want to. You can say I'm going to do what
I will all you want to. You don't have power to bring
your will to pass. No sir. You don't even have power
to be alive. God has to sustain you to be
alive. That's why the scriptures tell us that you ought to say
if the Lord will, we shall live. If the Lord will, we shall live
and do this or that. But more importantly and most
importantly of all, this applies to salvation. You can't will
your salvation. I can't will my salvation. A
man can't will himself to life. A man can't will himself to be
clean. Job said, if I wash my hand in
snow water, I'm still going to be unclean. We can't do this
by our will. We can't do it. Why? Because
our nature is corrupted by sin. Adam sinned in that garden, and
sin entered, and death by sin, and death passed upon all men.
God imputed sin to us because Adam made us sin. And not only
that, we're born of Adam's corrupt seed. So you come forth with
a nature corrupt. We don't understand that. We
don't believe that by nature because Do you think a school
of fish thinks they're wet? They don't know any different.
And we don't know any different. All we know is sin. So everything
that you do, everything that you will to do, every choice
you make is going to be a choice directly away from God. It's
going to be something to take you further from God. If it's
a religious work you will to do or if it's an immoral base
sin that you will to do. Either way, it's taking you further
from God. Because that's the bondage of
our will. Man don't have a problem being
religious. That's no problem at all. But
true religion, he has no will for. He has no desire for whatsoever. And he can't make himself have
it. Just can't make himself have it. But you know what? This is what God says about that.
Verse 5, Isaiah 1.5. Let me just give this to you.
We're going to go there in a minute if you want to go to Isaiah 1.
He says in Isaiah 1.5, why should you be stricken anymore? See,
you can't just You can't use the rod and whip a man into submission. You can't use the law and force
a sinner into submission. That won't work. Look here, ye
will, now here's your will and mine, you will revolt more and
more. Why? Because the whole head is
sick and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot, even
to the head, there's no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises
and putrefying sores. They've not been closed, neither
bound up, neither mollified with ointment. That's you and that's
me. That's why when the Lord Jesus walked this earth, He said,
search the Scriptures. For in them you think you have
life. There's a lot of people who pick
up this Bible and read it And this is how you will read the
Bible till God gives you spiritual discernment. You pick this book
up and you'll read it trying to figure out what should I do
and what should I not do so that I can have life by the work of
my hand. That's what you'll do. That's
what we'll do by nature. We want to work this thing by
our hand. And he said, search the Scriptures, for in them you
think you have life. And they are they which testify
that salvation is in Christ alone, by His blood and His righteousness.
And he says, and you will not, you will not, you will not come
to me that you might have life, that you might have life freely
given to you, worked out by the Lord Jesus Christ alone, freely
given to you apart from your works. We live in a day and age
right now where there's a host of people in this world that
feel like they're just entitled for everybody that's working
to support them. And they won't go out and work
for a wage. But when it comes to salvation,
you can't get a man to stop working. Isn't that something? When we
ought to be working to earn our living, we won't do it. And when
we, God says, stop working, and trust me, we won't do that either.
We're backwards, aren't we, by nature? Backwards by nature.
But thank God by His marvelous voice, when He speaks, He seals
up. He stops the hand of every man. Just like He stopped the works
of our hands yesterday. When God speaks in irresistible
grace, the hand of every man is stopped from trying to earn
salvation. When He says to you, you can
go this far and no further, that's when you're going to stop trying
to earn salvation by your hand. He'll seal up your hand. And
God does it for this reason. Look at verse 7. The second part. that all men may know His work. He seals up your hand from your
work that all men may know His work. Yesterday, God got our
attention with that snow. Didn't He? Men, you hear men
chalk it up to Mother Nature. But in their heart, they know. They have to acknowledge God
did this. God did this. So you're without
excuse. You're without excuse. You see
me, God said, in all parts of the world, you see me. Be it
the lightning stretched across the sky, be it the hurricane
or the tornado or the snow or the strong rain or the light
rain or the drought. You see me, God said. You understand.
This is by my hand. He got our attention. Well, God
does the same thing to every man that He regenerates and gives
faith to behold Christ. He stops us and makes our hand
be sealed up so that we behold the work of His hand. Now, by
that snowstorm coming, God made us see the work of His sovereign
power. Sovereign power. Wasn't it amazing
how powerfully the winds were blowing? It reminded me of, remember
February in 2010 when I drove from Ohio all the way back? That
time took me like 16, 17 hours. I drove 25 miles an hour the
whole way because it was snowing sideways. That's how it was yesterday. Blizzard. Snowing sideways. That
was the first blizzard I'd ever seen back there in 2010. 40 miles an hour winds here with
snow coming down like it was, and 75 miles an hour down on
the coast, you just stand to see God's power. You look at
those snowdrifts, you see God's power. Well, when God seals up
our hands by His sovereign gracious call, He makes you to know that
He is the power and the dominion. You see, we don't know that.
You know, really and truly, we don't know that the power belongs
to God until God stops you and sets you down and makes you stand
still and consider God's wondrous works. That's when you'll find
out the power is God's. Why? Look how God uses our rebellion. Here we were one day, a rebellious
sinner, hating God, would not, nobody could make us believe
God. And then one day, here we are believing God. And you'll
know, I didn't do that. Because nobody could make me
believe Him in truth. And now I do. God did that. God did that. And Christ is that
power. He's that power and that wisdom.
It's Christ being formed in you. To them that are called, Paul
said, both Jew and Gentile, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom
of God. He's the power of God, the wisdom
of God, and how God can justly uphold His law. Fulfill it so
that God's law is perfectly honored. There's nothing wrong now that
everything about God's law has been honored Everybody God's
gonna save died on Calvary's cross when Christ laid down his
life in our room instead Under the fierce penalty of the law
that way justice is satisfied for every one of us And that's
how He justified His people. That's how He can be just and
the justifier. Christ is the power and wisdom
of God to be a just God and a Savior. And He's the power and wisdom
of God to make you cease from your vain will and be willing
to trust Him. Because when Christ is formed
in the heart, He gives a new heart and He makes us willing.
Thy people, God said to the Lord Jesus Christ, He raised Him,
gave Him the power and the authority as the God-man to fill all in
all. And He said, Thy people, Thy
people, those chosen of God and redeemed by Christ, Thy people
shall be willing. When? In the day of Thy power. in the day of Christ's power.
When Christ comes in and makes you willing, that's when you'll
be willing. By that snow, God made us admire His work in sending
something so pure and white and beautiful. Don't you think the
snow's beautiful? When it's falling, it's so pretty.
And when it covers the ground, it's so pretty. And the sun hits
it, it just looks like diamonds shining. It's just beautiful.
Pure, white, beautiful. Is there anything so beautiful
as the fresh fallen snow? There's one thing that's more
beautiful than that. Look over at Mark 9. There's
one thing more beautiful than the fresh snow. This is the Mount of Transfiguration.
This is where Christ was transfigured and Peter got to see Christ in
all His glory. And when God gives you faith
by His power and His grace, and He gives you a faith to behold
Christ in all His glory, you get a little glimpse of what
Peter saw fully. And here's what you see. Here's
what's more beautiful than that pure snow. Here's what I want
you to think about when you look at that snow. Look at Mark 9,
verse 3. Mark 9, verse 3. He said, Talking about Christ. His raiment became shining, exceeding
white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them. Whenever
God gives you faith to behold Christ, you behold somebody that's
entirely different than you. That's right. This is one way
that we see our sin. Because when you behold Christ,
you behold a man. A man, flesh, bone of our bone,
flesh of our flesh, who is holy and harmless and undefiled and
separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens. You behold,
his raiment is white as snow, whiter than any fuller. A fuller
is somebody that washes stains, you know, a washer. They wash,
they wash clothes and they wash the stains out. And he says,
a fuller couldn't wash a garment white as his raiment was. White
as snow. White as snow. That's what you
behold when you behold Christ, by His power, by His grace. Then
another thing, by stopping our hand by that snowstorm, God made
us to stop, behold His work of making the dirtiest ground beautiful. When God makes you Behold Christ. Look over at Isaiah 1 again.
When He makes you behold Christ, He makes you behold how that
He can make your bloody crimson sins just as white as wool in
the righteousness of His Lamb. Look here in Isaiah 1.18. Come
now, let us reason together. I pray, this is my prayer, I
pray God will speak this to you. I can't make you come and reason
together, but if God would just... I pray you speak in your heart
and say, come now, let us reason together. Now listen to what
He said. Listen to what He said. Though
your sins be as scarlet. That means from head to foot.
He just said from the sole of your foot to the top of your
head, you got wounds and bruises all over, you're covered in blood.
That's what your sin's done to you and that's what it's done
to me. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white
as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool. Now, sinner, I want you to do
something. Next day or two, maybe it'll be a month, I don't know,
depending on how cold we remain. But I want you to look at that
snow right now, how beautiful it is out there. It's covering
that ground and it's so beautiful. Here is snow, white as snow. Whenever the sun comes out, it
starts warming up, you're going to watch it start melting. And you're going to start seeing
the dirty ground come into view. And you're going to start gradually,
gradually seeing it warm up until eventually that's all you're
going to see, snow be gone. Here's what I want you to remember
when you see that happen. I pray God to make you remember
this when you see that happen. Everything that you think right
now that's going to commend you to God when you come into God's
judgment, that's your self-made righteousnesses. Well, I just
believe that I'm not as bad as the next fellow. That's a self-made
righteousness. Well, I try to do the best I
can. That's a self-made righteousness.
Well, I was baptized self-made righteousness. If you're looking
to that for your hope, to any work you've done for your hope,
it's a self-made righteousness. And one day when judgment comes,
and it is coming, God is coming, He will come again, and when
Christ returns, God's going to judge this world in righteousness
by that man, Jesus Christ the righteous. And when the sun of
righteousness shines on you, Every one of your self-made righteousnesses
are going to melt away into nothing, just like that snow is going
to melt. And all that's going to be left is your dirty, foul,
bloody, crimson sins. That's all that's going to be
left. And God won't receive you. God will not accept you in that
day. Now you think about that when
all of that snow is melting and all of that is coming to pass.
You think about that. But He says to you now, if you
come to Him, if you come to Him, Christ will make your sins white
as snow. And He'll do it forever. He'll
do it forever. I pray that God will make you
come to Him. I pray that God will make you cry out for mercy.
I pray God will make you cry out like David and say, purge
me with hyssop that I may be white as snow. I'll be whiter
than snow if you purge me. That's what we need, brethren.
And then you can stand. Then you can stand in His presence.
Alright, look here. There's something else He does
by sending the snow. By sending the snow, God stopped
our works and He made us consider His wondrous works and here's
one of the works He accomplishes by that snow. God made us and
all the animals in the forest, He made us and the animals to
go into our dens. Look here in verse 8, Job 37,
8. Then the beasts, that means the
living, the living. Then the beasts go into dens,
that means covert from the storm. They go into their refuge from
the storm, their covert from the storm. And they remain, they
dwell in their habitation, in their dwelling places. God sent
that snow, and you know what we did? We heard that weather
report, we heard it was coming. We started seeing that snow come,
you know what we did? Before that first drop of snow
ever fell, you know what we did? We got in our dwelling places. We went into our dens where it
was nice and warm and cozy. We took our refuge in our dens. And that's where we stayed. We
remained there. I went out yesterday morning
real early to start getting that snow off the driveway. There
wasn't a soul out. There wasn't an animal stirring.
There wasn't anything stirring. Everybody was in their dens,
nice and warm and cozy and safe. And that's where they remain.
That's where they remain. When God works His grace in a
sinner, and He makes you see your need of Christ, and He makes
you see that Christ is all the righteousness of His people,
that God's provided, that He washes you white as snow, God
will make you delight. He'll make you willing to take
refuge in the Lord Jesus Christ. He'll make you flee into Christ
and He'll make you dwell. He'll make you remain in Christ,
the covert from the storm, forever. That's what He'll do. He said
in John, He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, that means
He that believes on me, trusts in my person and work. He says, He dwelleth in me. He dwelleth in me and I dwell
in Him. That's what it means. They'll go in their dens and
shall remain. They'll dwell there. He dwelleth
in me, Christ said. Psalmist said, He that dwelleth
in the secret place of the Most High, that's Christ. He that
dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty, protected. Isaiah said, A man,
a man, Christ the God-man. A man shall be as a hiding place
from the wind and a covert from the tempest. That's what this
den is, a covert, a refuge, a hiding place from the tempest, from
the strong winds and the storm that's blowing. A place of refuge,
a covert from storm and from rain. That's who Christ is for
His people. He makes us willing to go into
Christ through faith and remain there, dwell in Him. Now, The
day of judgment is coming, and it's coming just as unstoppable
as that snowstorm came. Every sinner is going to stand
before God in judgment. Every sinner. Now, when you heard
that weather report tell you that storm was coming, did you
believe him? Why? Just another man telling you. Hadn't he fooled you a bunch
of times before? Hadn't he told you what the weather was gonna
be before and it didn't turn out to be that way? Why'd you believe
him this time? I just believed him. And what'd you do before
the storm came? You took shelter. You took refuge. You got indoors. I was inside
before the first snowflake fell, weren't you? Why won't you believe this report? Judgment's coming, just like
that storm. Judgment's coming. I'm giving you the weather report.
I'm telling you the judgment's coming. Why won't you heed this
report? It'll be too late when the storm
starts coming. It'll be too late to get in the
covert then. Get in it now before the first drop falls. Christ
is a covert from the storm. You'll never fail in this covert.
You'll be safe and secure forever. Now lastly, I want to look here
at this last thing. There's an ongoing, ongoing wondrous
work that Christ does. And for you who believe, it begins
when He starts to convert you and it goes all the way through
the life of faith. It's called trial and affliction. Trial and affliction. But it's
a wondrous work. When God sends the various kinds
of weather, when He sends the snow and the rain and the frost,
Elihu says there in verse 12 at the end, He sends them that
they may do whatsoever He commandeth them upon the face of the world
and the earth. And that's what they do. And
He says, now here's three things that this weather does. He causes
it to come, whether for correction, a rod, like a belt, or for His
land, or for mercy. Now, Elihu may be at least in
part, and I think in a great part, speaking of the weather
allegorically. Because his whole point here
in the whole message has been to show Job and Job's friends
the purpose for which God chastens His children. That's what he's
been doing throughout this whole sermon. Job's three so-called
friends, they came and they said that Job himself was to blame
for his affliction. You ever had a friend like that?
You're suffering in some trial, some affliction, something has
happened to you that's an obvious chastening, you've broken a limb. I remember one time my mother
broke her arm. I mean my grandmother had her
arms in a cast and somebody asked her, what she did. She said,
it's just sin. They said, what did you do? That's what these friends, they
came and they said, you've done something. It's your fault. It's
your sin. You've done something. You're
to blame for this. You brought it on yourself. Job
said, you are all some miserable comforters. Miserable comforters. The Lord said in the beginning,
He said, Job, there's nothing like him in the earth. He's a
perfect and upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth
evil. As far as I can see, it wasn't
because of any sin in Job that God sent to trial. So Elihu here,
he speaks up by the Spirit of God and he declares the truth.
He declares that God's chastening is for three reasons. For three
reasons. For three reasons. Number one,
he says for correction. for correction. Sometimes the
chastening is because of some sin. Sometimes it is. It's so when God first chastens
us in conversion, we're in sin. We're living in sin. And when
God comes, it's chastening when God begins to convert you. Speak
this power. It's just like Him stopping us
in our tracks yesterday, turning us. in another direction altogether. Sometimes it is for sin. And
God won't, He's faithful. God will not allow His child
to go on in sin. He's going to correct His child
and turn His child, quicken His child, turn His child and bring
you back to the feet of Christ. He's going to do that. It's for
correction sometimes. But that's not the only reason.
Or, it's for His land, He says. Elihu was using the weather here,
speaking by the weather. The various kinds of weather
that come. You know, they're needful. They're needful. You
know, when that weather comes, you say, how does the weather
correct? Well, when God sends the weather, you see branches
break off. Out in the woods, you see creeks
rise up. You see all these different things
happen. Flood. Places are flooded. Things
are moved and trees are uprooted and things like that. That's
God correcting His wilderness. That's God breaking off what
needs to be broke off. Sometimes God sends it for correcting. He breaks off of you. He prunes
you. He prunes His child. What needs to be broken off,
He'll break it off. Sometimes it's for His land,
though, to make His land fruitful. This spring, the scripture says
He sends His snow like wool. covers this ground for a reason.
And come the spring, when you start seeing that green foliage
poke up, you see the buds come out, you see the blossoms and
the fruit, you're going to see the produce God brought forth
because of this snow right here, right now. That's what He does for His land.
He does the same thing for His children. His children are His
land. Your body is not your own, it's God's. If you're a child
of God, you're His land. And He does it for His land to
make you fruitful, to produce fruit in you. Fruits of righteousness
which are by Jesus Christ. You ever brought forth fruit
after He's chastened you? The Hebrew writer said, no chastening
for the present is joyous, it's grievous. But afterwards, what
happens? It yields the peaceable fruit
of righteousness in them that are exercised thereby. What does
it sound like? Lord, it's good that I was afflicted. You did what was right. Praise
in God. It's good that I was afflicted,
that I might learn your statute. You ever look back on your trials
and praise God for them? Look back and say, Lord, thank
you. That was the best thing that ever happened to me. I guarantee
you children, One day, they're going to look back and look at
how you corrected them. And it wasn't pleasant at the
time, but they'll look back on it down the road and say, I sure
do thank you for doing that. Thank you. Well, God's child
does too. That's the fruit he brings forth.
Praise and worship of God, making us to see God's right. He's wise. He only does that which is for
our good and for our profit. And it's always for our good. It's always to bring us to Christ.
Every bit of it. And then he says here, there's
another reason. Or it's for mercy. Or it's for
mercy. I'm sure, without a shadow of
a doubt, Saturday, some child of God, and now this is for the
child of God. All of this is for the child
of God. That's who God deals with, His
elect people in the earth. And I can tell you there was
an elect child of God somewhere in this world, somewhere in this
snow-covered part of this world, had their plans on Saturday,
and they were grievously disappointed by those plans being stopped. by the snow. And they may never
even know it in this life, but what God was doing was He was
stopping them, preserving them from some tragedy that was going
to happen to them. Or for something that they were
going to go into that wasn't going to be good for them or
whatever. He stopped them. He stopped them before they even
knew anything about it or came into contact with anything. He
did it for mercy. He did it for mercy. For mercy. withholding from us what we deserve. His mercy and grace has given
us what we don't deserve. That's what God's always doing
for His people in all these different things that happens in life to
us. That's always what He's doing.
He sends an obstacle that causes you affliction and it's God's
mercy to preserve you. Remember Joseph? Remember Joseph? Look at the affliction Joseph
went through. sold into slavery, went off down there to Egypt,
foreign land, put into bondage, into jail. Then God exalted him. Gave him the authority over all
the storehouses and all that. And in the end, Job said this.
He told his brothers, you meant this for evil, but God meant
it unto good. To bring to pass as it is this
day to save much people alive. Whatever God's doing in this
world for His child is for mercy. It's for mercy. So remember that. You come into some providence
in your daily life and it's a chastening thing that, you know, it's correcting
you. Just remember this. It's for
three reasons. It may be one of these three or it may be all
three. It's for correction. It's for God's land to make you
fruitful, make you praise Him, make you come to His feet, worship
Him. And it's for mercy. It's for
mercy. It's to keep you from falling
away into this sin-cursed earth and it's to, as the Hebrew writer
says, to make you partaker of His holiness. To make you lay
aside that sin that so easily besieges you and make you run
this race looking to nobody but Christ the Lord alone. He's the
holiness you've got to have if you can't enter into God's presence.
So remember that now. Now I want to end by reading
a comment from Robert Hawker. This is a little lengthy, not
too much, but I want to read this to you. He said, When from
the world of nature we are enabled to follow the Lord into the world
of grace, and when from the common blessings of His providence in
creation we are led to behold the special blessings of His
love in redemption. This is like passing from the
outer courts of His temple into the more immediate apartment
of His presence. Isn't that true? When you look
at all these things going on around you, even the weather.
Think of how often we talk about the weather. It comes up, my
grandfather used to say, when a man starts talking about the
weather, he's run out of stuff to talk about. Conversation's
over. He's run out of things to talk
about. We complain about it. All these different things. How
many times do we consider God's work in it? Harker said, when
you go from looking at these things that's happening in nature
and be led up to the Lord, it's like going from the outer court
of the temple into the inner court of the temple. Listen to
this. And in Jesus, what a vast, unlimited contemplation is thrown
open to a poor sinner's view. That's when you begin to understand.
Remember how we saw in Isaiah 55, he said when he calls his
child, he said in the hills start to sing and the trees clap. You start seeing Christ, rejoicing
in Christ. Then he says a prayer. He says,
Do thou give us to see that both in the kingdom of nature and
providence, grace and glory, thou art the all in all. the portion of thy people, here
and hereafter, and their life forevermore. Now brethren, in
every form of whether that God sends, in all God's providence
in our daily lives, whether it's big or whether it's small, remember
those words and let this be your prayer. God, make them do whatsoever
you command upon the face of the world and this earth. bring
these things and make me look to Christ, make me look to the
snow and the rain and all these different things and make me
behold your power, your wondrous works of grace and mercy to you
people. You know what I have concluded?
I haven't enjoyed too much cleaning the driveway three times. That
hadn't been too fun. I used to think it was fun when
I'd see the snow because it was new to me. The new has worn off.
Now when I see the snow coming, I think about work. But I'll tell you this, I've
concluded now, this has been a good snowstorm. It's been a
good snowstorm because it made me see God, made me see Christ,
made me see what He's done. And that's always good. That's
the end of every trial, every act of providence. God make us
know that, make us see Christ. Alright, amen. Let's stand together
and we'll have a word of prayer, sing a song, and I think the
ladies are going to have a baby shower. Lord, we thank you for sending
the weather and the storms and the rain and making them accomplish
your will. Just like this earth needs it,
just like this world needs you to feed it, prune it, make it
fertile. Lord, that's what we need. Every
child of God needs this. And if it's an afflictive weather
that you send our way to chasing us, Lord, we pray you'll correct
us. We pray you'll make us fertile
and we pray you'll show us your mercy in it. How we do thank
you, Lord. How we do thank you. Everything
you do is right. Everything you do is profitable.
Your love never changes for your people. It's the same yesterday,
today, and forever. Make us to know, Lord, that you're
never chasing in anger. You do it in love to help us
and turn us and correct us. Thank you, Lord, for Christ,
our Redeemer. Bring us now to His feet. Make
us worship Him. Forgive us, Lord, our sins. Forgive
us complaining about the weather and complaining about the weather
of our trials. Oh, what sinners we are, Lord.
Unthankful. Thank You for forgiveness. We
ask it in Christ's name. Amen.