May it please God to bless us
together this morning as we meditate in his word. Let us turn to the
Gospel of Mark in chapter 7 and read in the last verse, in that
chapter, verse 37. So the Gospel of Mark, chapter
7, and reading verse 37. And were beyond measure astonished,
saying, he hath done all things well, he maketh both the deaf
to hear and the dumb to speak.' This was the result of that which
had occurred by the Sea of Galilee when the Lord Jesus came and
cured a man who was blind and had an impediment in his speech. And the result was that the people
were so amazed and were told and were beyond measure astonished,
saying, he hath done all things well. he maketh both the deaf
to hear and the dumb to speak. And surely it is a wonderful
blessing for us today to have a record in the Word of God of
so many occasions when there were great things done. Things
which appeared impossible. Here was a man who was blind
and had an impediment in his speech and yet he was Instantly
cured and we have many other examples especially in the Old
Testament when Israel were delivered on many occasions in their journey
in the wilderness The great blessing when they were brought out of
Egypt across the Red Sea things which were naturally impossible
to And therefore they must have been in those days beyond measure
astonished at those things which had occurred. Right back of course
from the days in the Garden of Eden when the Lord came and spoke
to Adam and Eve those great truths. And so we can follow the pattern
of God's work doing amazing things so that we are astonished And
may we today still realise that you and I come, live in this
world today and we have to deal with the same almighty God. And
may we realise again and again that our faith may laugh at impossibilities
and believe it can be done because we have a God today who can do
great things still. We tend to perhaps think the
days of those things which we might classify as miracles have
passed. But our God is the same. And
the day of miracles is not past. And you may say, well, just give
me an illustration of that. Well, the illustration really
refers perhaps most positively to our spiritual life. to realise
that the wonderful blessing that when the Holy Spirit comes and
gives us spiritual life, that is a miracle. Why is it a miracle? Because you and I could not do
it ourselves. Surely that is what gives us
the clear view of a miracle. It's that which God can do and
that which you and I cannot do. And so to realize then that we
still today are blessed to know that we have a God in heaven
who did this miracle on this occasion to this man and the
result was the people were beyond measure astonished. Well, it's
a great blessing perhaps when you and I are beyond measure
astonished. And what was the result? What
did they say? He hath done all things well. Well, there are
many things, naturally, when we can say he hath done all things
well and that we can be astonished. And there were those occasions,
weren't there, in the wars that have occurred. The great wars
we may refer to the first world war and the second world war
when there was the wonderful deliverance that God brought
when things seem to be so black so impossible and We can go back
can't we to the the occasion of Spanish Armada and that seemed
a very difficult situation there was a the Spanish fleet sailing
up the channel with their great Navy and there was Britain with
just a few ships by comparison but we see what God did he caused
the weather the weather to produce a storm so the fleet the Spanish
fleet was scattered and they were eventually really destroyed,
and it was amazing how the wind changed direction. You think
of it from, think of the shape of the British Isles, and I think
that the wind chased the fleet up the channel, passed over,
and then the wind changed direction and sent them up the east coast,
and then it changed direction again and caused them to go round
the north of Scotland and then down, and many of those ships
were destroyed on the Irish coast. Amazing, wasn't it? God did that
which appeared impossible. And then we think of the last
world war when there was that wonderful occasion when the troops
were at Dunkirk again with the ocean before them. It wasn't
a question then of dividing the waters like it had been in the
Red Sea so that people could cross over, but the Lord sent
a great calm. that even little boats could
cross the channel and bring back to England many many of those
troops which appeared they would lose their lives. And so we're
thankful that we have these historical accounts and in our lifetime
to remember and that we have a God who still works miracles
today in a natural way. So never think that you come
into a situation naturally and think, well that's just too difficult,
that's too hard. Again, just ponder it with your
schoolwork and your university work and your work as you go
to work in the world. You may face difficulties. Don't
forget, you have a God who can help you. through every single
apparent difficulty. Those things which are difficult
to us are not difficult for God. They're not difficult at all.
And therefore, let us have faith to believe. And we shouldn't
again, as we mentioned at the beginning of the service, forget
the goodness of God yesterday in causing the rain to stop.
And so we have evidences still in our lives, and I hope perhaps
all of us may be able to look back in our lives to remember
great things which God has done, which we've been able to observe
and realize it is the Lord which has appeared. And now, what's
the result? He hath done all things well. Well, I'm sure the Queen Elizabeth
and her people realised the Lord had done all things well when
the Armada was destroyed. And we know that there was that
day of prayer in our country when there was that deliverance
from Dunkirk. And again, two typical occasions
when we can say, he hath done all things well. And it's good
then if you and I can observe these things. But perhaps we
think, well, I don't think God has done all things well. I think
things have gone very wrong in my life. I think things haven't
worked out well. And I don't agree with this word.
I don't think that the Lord has done all things well. I think
there have been many things which have not been done well. So how do we explain that? Well,
we explain it in this way. First of all, let us realise
that the Word of God is a gracious, wonderful Word which directs
us with regards to our spiritual life. The great purpose of the
Word of God is for His people to be encouraged. And therefore,
as you and I think of these things, we should not Just think of our
natural life, because really there's two types of people,
aren't there? Two types of people in this world.
Those who know the Lord, those who will come to know the Lord,
and those who do not know the Lord, and those who will not
know the Lord. You see, there's those two pipes,
two types. And you and I fall into one of
those two categories. Now then perhaps we may all at
some time in our life say, well I don't believe this. I don't
think this is true. I don't think that the Lord has
done all things well. There's many things in my life
which I think should have been different and could have been
different and would have made a difference in my life. Well
if you and I are amongst those who are not believers, and not
those who are born again in the Spirit of God, we will come to
that conclusion. And we will always believe that.
And right through our life we will believe that things haven't
been all well. Many things have been wrong.
And we will come down to the day of our death with that belief
that such a word as this is not true. But on the other hand,
if we are one of God's children, without any doubt, and that is
true, you may think, well, I'm not sure about that. Well, you
will be sure if you are one of God's children. You will be sure,
and you will be able to say, with these people, he hath done
all things well with regard to our spiritual life, because we
tend naturally to just view things which are occurring in the present
time and to weigh up things in that balance. But when God gives
you and me grace to weigh up things in God's balances, which
are of course the balances of time and the balance of eternity,
and when the Holy Spirit enables us to view things with an eternal
aspect, then what a blessing it would be if we are able to
see that the Lord brings us, has brought us, will bring us
into situations for our soul's good. Our soul's eternal good. And to realise therefore that
God's hand is upon us. And therefore those things which
come into our life, are for our good, and we shall be able to
say, without any doubt, He hath done all things well. That doesn't
mean to say that everything that you and I wanted to come to pass
has come to pass. And perhaps in our spiritual
life, things haven't come to pass as we expected. Indeed,
they may not come to pass as we wanted. But as you and I journey on through
life, And if we are being taught by the Holy Spirit, we would
have to come and say, with these people, he hath done all things
well. Because I am being taught by
the Holy Spirit, I am being shown the value of eternal things and
the vanity of the things of this world. These things don't occur
all at once. And really in our spiritual life
it's like this, here a little and there a little, line upon
line, line upon line, precept upon precept, precept upon precept. But there is a learning and there
is an acknowledging. that he hath done all things
well. And of course the central theme
really of this is to direct us to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now naturally we do not turn
to the Lord Jesus Christ. People sometimes pray, you know
you get a great thunderstorm, perhaps you've seen a great thunderstorm
and the lightning comes and the thunder crashes And people suddenly
then get afraid. You see earthquakes. You see
people running about and shaking. They then start praying to God. But it's only a God of time. It's only just because they want
to get things back to normal. They don't really have a concern
with regard to their soul's eternal good. But what a blessing it
is when the Holy Spirit causes us to, in the words of Paul as
he wrote to the Romans, to the Hebrews rather, to consider him. What a blessing that is. What
a blessing if you and I have been brought to consider the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now we won't do that in a true
way unless the Holy Spirit has shown us where we are. in our
sinful condition, without hope, lost, ruined, going headlong
to a lost eternity. And never assume anything other
than that until the Holy Spirit has come and granted us that
blessed light of the Gospel. And then it is, as you and I
are able to Look back, you see this word says this, he hath
done all things well. It's that which is accomplished
and it's that which gives us confidence to press on and to
trust in our God, to have the evidence that those things which
he has done for our soul. We should not be unmindful of
many things he's done in our natural life and we should Be
very thankful and praise God for that, very much so. But my
friends, there's greater praise when we have the evidence of
God's work in our soul. That we're able then to say,
yes, the Lord has done all things well. You see, he may have stopped
you and me doing certain things. He may have brought illness into
our lives. He may have brought affliction into our lives. And you know it's good then when
you and I can be able to say before God and before men, as
the psalmist said, it is good that I have been afflicted. People don't say that naturally,
do they? A man of the world doesn't want to be afflicted. He won't
say, well, that was a good job I was afflicted. You see, it's
good, isn't it? The Spirit of God comes and shows
us that it was good, because it's had a good effect upon our
souls. Perhaps it's made us stop and
consider where we're going, what we're doing, what we've been
saying. And then you see what's the result
of that investigation? It's this. He hath done all things
well. Now it doesn't say he hath done
some things well. He says he hath done all things
well. So let us ponder such a word
very carefully and examine our own lives beside this to be able
to come and say yes well that occurred in my life and I wasn't
very happy but as I look back I can see it was necessary. It was necessary to bring me
to realise where I was going, what I was doing, and to direct
me to the Lord Jesus Christ as the all-sufficient Saviour. What
a blessing that is! What is it? It is an eternal
blessing. It's an eternal blessing. And
my friends, we all need to have that experience. It's not a theory, it's a living
evidence of the work of God in our hearts when by faith we can
say truthfully from our heart such words as, He hath done all
things well. Now God works in different ways.
We have this physical situation here and we've had this person
whose ears were opened and the string of his tongue was loosed
and he spake plain. And the Lord did this in a special
way. He came and he put his fingers
into his ears and he spit and touched his tongue. He looked
up to heaven and he sighed and said unto him, Ephrathah, that
is, be opened. Now that's one example of what
the Lord did. But there are many other examples
of how the Lord healed. Sometimes he just spoke the word
Other times have you? Considered recently he made clay
and put it on the eyes of the man who was told him to go and
wash in in the in Siloam the Lord uses different ways and
We should not therefore come and think well that person of
course was blessed in that particular way And therefore I must have
that particular blessing My friends God knows what is best for you
and me Don't draw an analogy with what other people have been
blessed with, how the Lord has dealt with other people. Draw
the analogy with the Word of God, and you'll find there are
many different situations to strengthen and to encourage us. And to believe, therefore, that
as we may come into a situation and we may think, well this is
rather unusual, I don't know of anybody else having passed
this way, My friends, a blessing is that God is dealing with us.
That's a great question, and that's a great favour, and that's
a great thing to praise God for, and then to be able to look back
and say, He hath done all things well. And that's a great blessing. Let's reiterate that. That is
a result of the effect of the work of God. in the heart of
the true believer to be able to say he has done all things
well. Well this morning as we ponder
these words and remember these people were astonished at the
effect astonished at the effect and what a thing it is you know
if the Holy Spirit comes so that we will be astonished at what
God has done. Now this morning in our lives. Has God done things for us so
that we are astonished? We really are astonished. It
may be He's healed our bodies, and that's good. But my friends,
it's good to be able to realise that may be one thing. But here,
the people are saying He has done all things well. Everything
in your life and my life. Because if we are blessed by
the Holy Spirit of God, with that knowledge of that new life
in our hearts, it is the work of the Holy Spirit. And he has
done all things well. The things which appear to be
so difficult, and I'm sure there are things in our life which
we find so difficult, We think, well, I wish I didn't have to
walk this pathway. I wish I didn't have this to
endure. I wish I didn't have this situation to face every
day. Well, if it is working together
for your soul's good, so that it has had the effect of making
you pray, has had the effect of you being made to call upon
the name of God, perhaps to heal you naturally, perhaps to cure
you naturally. What a blessing that is. But
then to look beyond these things, as you realise the goodness of
God, again in the second of Romans we read this, the goodness of
God leadeth us to repentance. When you and I realise God's
goodness, then to be led to Him, and to realize what he has done
to deliver our souls from eternal hell, to realize the cost of
our salvation. The effect will be, if you and
I are a true believer, it'll give us repentance. We'll be
sorry for all the things that we've done wrong in our lives,
for all the ways that we've turned against God. For the times when
we've said, I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to obey
God, I'm not going to follow the things of God, I'm going
to follow my own way. What a blessing, my friends,
when the Holy Spirit humbles us, that's what it comes down
to, to bow down before God and to be able to come and say, like
David did, David said this, as for God, his way is perfect.
You read David's life in the Bible. You read David's life. He had some very difficult things
to face. Very hard things. Things which
went totally contrary to what he had expected. But you see,
he was able to say, as for God, his way is perfect. And God's
way is perfect because He deals with the soul of all His people
so that when they come down to the end of their life, and you
and I will all come to the end of our life, we'll all come to
that day which will be the last day in our pilgrimage on this
earth. And that will be for us, time
will be no more. To come down to that day and
to realise that the Lord has been gracious to us, all through
our life. Yes, he's been leading us. We read in the 107th Psalm, he
led them forth by the right way that they might go to a city
of habitation. And that is the truth of God's
Word. And if you and I read that and
remember it, It'll be a comfort to us to realise that in our
lives the Lord leads us in the right way. So that we're able
to come and say He has done all things well because it is to
bring us to that city of habitation. It is to bring us to our eternal
home. Let us be mindful of such a word
as this and to ponder it in our hearts. And to realise the relevance
of it. And it's not something irrelevant,
but it's something very important. And so as we have this account
here this morning, he hath done all things well. So, if you were asked and had to
answer that question this morning, has God done all things well
in your life? Has he done all things well in
your life? Do you say, well, I don't think so. Well, if you
are, and if you are made a true believer, you will come to the
conclusion, yes, he has done all things well. Because the Lord leads his people
about, you see, in the right way. It's not their way, it's
God's way. And what is the effect of that?
The effect of that is this. You and I will have to give God
the honour and God the glory. Because he has dealt so kindly
and so graciously with us. The effect of this in a natural
way was this. His ears were open and his tongue
was loosed in a spiritual way that is the same. Our ears are
open so we hear the truth of God and our tongue is loosed
to speak about the things of God. The two things go together. And you should not think that
if your ears have been opened, there won't be any speaking.
Because if your ears have been spiritually opened, your tongue
will also be loose to speak about the things of God. It must be
so. Because it's for the honour and
glory of God. My friends, the Word of God is
very clear on that. Don't think you can creep into
heaven without testifying of what God has done for your soul.
Don't think there's a back entrance. My friends, there's a right way.
There's a God-honouring way. And if you and I are brought
to this position to say He has done all things well, it will
be to acknowledge that. with a loosed tongue and unstopped
ears, and you'll rejoice to be able to do this, because it will
bring you back to this great and wonderful truth, that Lord
Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. And there
have I, and there am I, I've been there, lost, ruined, God
has stretched out his hand. God has put forth his finger,
as it were. And God has spoken to my heart. And I'm a new creature. I've been born again by the Spirit
of God. He hath done all things well.
He's born with me in my sinful condition. When I ignored God,
when I turned my back upon God, he hasn't cut me off as a cumber
of the ground. He didn't deal with me as my
sins deserve. Why? Because His mercy endureth
forever. Oh, and if you and I have been
a partaker of that mercy, what a blessing it is. And to direct
us then to what the Lord Jesus Christ did in order that you
and I might receive that mercy. Yes, what did He do? What did
He do? He died that you and I might
live. He died to take away all our sins, everyone washed clean, washed in the blood
of the Lamb. Now you see the true believer,
the one who says he has done all things well, encompassed
in that statement will be a direction to view the suffering Saviour. You have to know all things well.
Naturally, a natural mind, a natural man is not interested in a suffering
saviour. He's not interested. But to the
Church of God, to those who are born of His Spirit, He's very
precious. And He's very precious in His
wonderful love, isn't He? Wonderful love. That's what touches
our hearts. That's what moves our spirits.
His love in time past forbids me to think He'll leave me at
last in trouble to sink. He won't. He who has begun a
good work will continue it and will bring it to fruition. God
doesn't have any failures. We have failures. God doesn't
have any failures because His work is a divine work. And it's
a work which is successful. It's a work which goes on. And
what a blessing and how important it is that you and I have the
evidence of that work in our hearts so that we're able to
say, yes, he has done all things well. Done all things well with
regard to that great and wonderful plan of salvation. It wasn't
just something which just happened by chance. It wasn't something
which just occurred. My friends, it was planned in
eternity. He had done all things well.
And it's a wonderful plan. If you sit down and just think
about that plan of salvation, and how it was illustrated in
the Old Testament through those sacrifices and the shedding of
blood, and brought to a glorious consummation, in the life and
in the birth and life and death and resurrection and ascension
and intercession of the Saviour. What is there? Food for the soul. No doubt. Food for the soul. And you'll prove that as you
meditate upon those things. And what does it do? It encourages
our soul. It brings joy into our heart.
We rejoice in that plan of salvation. We bless God for it. And we come
and we say, well, we will be astonished. Astonished that God
should have looked upon such an unworthy sinner and caused us to hear and to
speak. Oh, my friends, bless God for
that, and bless God for that. If you and I can come and say,
yes, these words, he hath done all things well. Come all ye that fear God, and
I will declare what he hath done for my soul. Not someone else's
soul, your soul, my soul. He hath done all things well. It's wonderful, isn't it? To
think that Almighty God has done all things well in our lives. Things which appeared to be so
against us, so against us. And when we're younger, we have
things sometimes come into our lives which we're not very happy
about. I think also perhaps when we're
older, but perhaps more particularly when we're older, we plan things.
We look forward to perhaps going to some event. Perhaps it's going
to some football match or something like that. And we're stopped. I remember in my life, I was
stopped doing that once. I had tickets to go to an England
international. I was looking forward to it very
much. And the Lord caused an illness to come upon me and I
couldn't go. Initially I was very angry, very rebellious. But the good hand of God was
upon me and showed me that such things were not a benefit for
my soul. And it was a complete change. So that instead of being disappointed,
I was thankful. So, and initially, I thought,
oh, I wasted all that money on those expensive tickets. But
then you see when the Lord came, it didn't really matter. The value was nothing compared with the benefit that it brought. So don't be
disappointed when the Lord sometimes stops us doing things which we
really wanted to do. Ponder it. Perhaps God's hand
is upon us. Perhaps God's hand is upon us
for good. Why? because of his love to our souls. That's a very humbling thing,
isn't it? To think that this great God,
the ruler of the universe, has looked upon you and me in a wonderful
way, in a definite situation, and the time of love has come. change the heart, renew the will
and turn the feet to Zion's hill. He hath, he hath, not man, he
hath done all things well and the result must be surely to
praise and to glorify God so that we are then astonished that
the Lord should have had mercy upon us. We will never think
we're worthy. We'll never think we're worthy.
But we shall be thankful the Lord has been gracious to us.
The Lord has put his hand upon us. The Lord has led us and is
leading us in the right way that we might go to a city of habitation. So my friends this morning, ponder
these words, think upon them. And if he has done all things
well, the great evidence will be that he's brought you to the
Saviour. You see Jesus Christ as something
you never saw before. You realise the words of the
hymn, Jesus is the one thing needful, I without him perish
must. Everything else then fades away. And then it is, you have union
with the Lamb, from condemnation, free. What a blessing that is.
So, this morning, ponder these words, and may we all be able
to say them, with regard to natural things perhaps, but may we all
be able to say them with regard to our spiritual life. Because
if we are born in the Spirit of God, we will be able to, before
we die, we look back and we say, yes, he hath done all things
well. Blessed be his name. Amen.