Go with me, if you would, back
to Psalm 25. Psalm 25, verse 10 says, All the paths of the Lord are
mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies. All the paths of the Lord are
mercy and truth. Isn't that good news? Down in verse 15, he said, mine
eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he shall pluck my feet out
of the net. All the paths of the Lord are
mercy and truth. Mine eyes are ever toward the
Lord, ever toward the Lord. I had a conversation with a brother
who lives in a different state. And he told me that something
happened to him that hurt his pride. He said it knocked him
down a couple of notches. And he said when it happened,
he immediately said inside himself, thank you, Lord. I needed that. Thank you. I needed that. That made me think about something. Everything that God's people
go through in this life, they go through it because they
needed to go through it. That's really something to consider. Every single thing that God's
people go through in this life, they go through it because they
needed to go through it. Our Lord is sovereign over all
things. All things. Our Lord is sovereign
over all things. We say that, we believe that,
but It is so in a way that is so much greater than we can say
and believe. Our God is sovereign over all
things and He is sovereign over every providence in our life. The path of every step that we
take, the steps of a good man are ordered. The things that happen to us,
the things that happen in us, the things that happen around
us. He's sovereign over all of our circumstances. We only live
out the things that were predetermined to be done concerning us. That's all we're doing. That's
what Peter told the very ones who hung the Lord on the cross.
He said, you only did what was predetermined for you to do. That's all that you did. Everything
about the lives of those men, where they were born, when they
were born, what brought them to that place in that moment
and made them feel that that's what they needed to do. Every
bit of that was predetermined by God Almighty. They meant it for evil. God meant
it for good. The Lord hath made all things
for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. Think about
that. The king's heart, Proverbs 21,
the mind, the thoughts, the will, the desire. The king's heart
is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of water, he turneth
it whithersoever he will. God gets the sovereign, all-powerful,
all-controlling, reigning, ruling credit for all things. All things. All things. I got to thinking
about the fact that our God is sovereign over all things, and
everything that He does, He has a purpose in doing it. Our God is sovereign over all
things, And everything that he does, he has a purpose in doing
it. Our God doesn't do anything unnecessarily. If it happened, it was necessary
to happen. If he went through Samaria, he
must needs go through Samaria. If something happens, God allowed
it to happen. And God doesn't allow anything
to happen unnecessarily. Everything he does is on purpose,
for a purpose. Everything he does. And it is
an absolute fact that we do not understand his purpose in everything
that he does. That is an absolute fact. Rarely
do we understand any of his providences concerning us. Rarely. Rarely. Our dear sister Irene
is going through such a difficult moment right now. Such a difficult moment. Our
brother D. I can't imagine. I can't imagine.
I've never been in that position before. And I cannot imagine. We don't understand these things.
We don't understand these things, but here's our comfort in it.
Verse 10 says, all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth. All the paths of the Lord. If
it leads us to Christ and if it leads us to salvation in Christ,
it's mercy and truth. If the end of it is Christ, it's
mercy and truth. Well, that you say, well, that
took a life, mercy and truth forever with the Lord, mercy
and truth. It's mercy and truth. All the
paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant
and His testimony. Who keeps the covenant and the
testimonies? Here it is. Every soul that God
the Father placed in the covenant and the testimonies. Every soul
that the Son kept the covenant and the testimonies for. Every
soul that God did that for, accomplished that for, gave the accomplishment
to them for it. Every soul who has been given
a heart by God's grace to know and believe and bow to His perfect
finished work in all things. Nothing is more encouraging than
listening to the conversation of a believer while they're going
through trials. Nothing is more encouraging. Those who have been given a heart
to trust His perfect finished work in everything. Those who
have been caused to cast their all on His perfect finished work
in all things. It's all who have been caused
to say in verse 15, mine eyes are ever toward the Lord. Ever toward the Lord. I'm looking
to you. I'm looking to you. I turn to you, I trust you, I
trust you. In Psalm 46, our Lord said, be
still and know that I am God. That is the greatest thing a
believer could do. Be still and know that I am God. In Isaiah 45, he said, look unto
me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth for I'm God and
there's none else. Look unto me. Just look unto
me. God's people cry, Lord, that's
all we can do. That is all we can do. Our eyes
are ever toward you. We just cannot stop looking to
you. That's all we can do. Our trust is in You. It's in
Your good providence and Your purpose in this. That's all we
can do. I don't understand, but I trust. I trust. Look at verse 1, Psalm 25 verse
1. It says, Unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift
up my soul. Oh my God, I trust in thee. Let me not be ashamed. Let not
mine enemies triumph over me. All of my sin and my doubt and
my fear and my infirmities, let not all of these things that
are going against me triumph over me. Verse three, he said, yea, let
none that wait on thee be ashamed. Let them be ashamed, which transgress
without cause. That means without an offering. That's what it translates to.
An offering of appeasement, those who try to come to God outside
of the blood. Lord, we're coming in the blood. We're coming in
the blood. Never be ashamed when you come
in the blood, never. Verse four says, show me thy
ways, O Lord, teach me thy paths. Teach me to follow you in your
way. Teach me to bow to your way and
your path. Lead me in thy truth and teach
me, for thou art the God of my salvation. On thee do I wait
all the day. Verse six says, remember, O Lord,
thy tender mercies and thy loving kindnesses, for they have been
ever of old. Remember not the sins of my youth,
nor my transgressions. According to thy mercy, remember
thou me for thy goodness sake. Oh Lord, you, you get to the
end of a life and that right there is all that matters. All
of us are headed there. All of us are headed there. And
that thief on the cross, that was that man's last moments.
And this is what he said, Lord, would you remember me? Would
you remember me, Lord, would you remember your tender mercy
and your loving kindness? Would you please remember not
my sin? Would you please blot out my
sin, blot out my transgression? blotted out in your own blood,
the blood of the Lamb of God, would you please remember not
my sin, and according to your mercy, for your goodness sake,
would you remember me when you come into your kingdom?" The
Lord said, I most certainly will. He said, you're going to live
with me in the paradise of never-ending today. It's always going to be
today. It's always going to be right
now. Verse 8 says, good and upright is the Lord, therefore will he
teach sinners in the way, the way of Christ, the way of salvation. 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 unto such as keep his covenant and his
testimony. If we could ever learn that,
David keeps saying, Lord, teach me. Would you teach me? Would
you show me your judgments and teach me these things? If we
could ever just learn that and remember that now. Believe me
when I tell you I know how difficult the paths can be that we have
to take in this life. I know how difficult the sorrow
can be indescribable. Sincerely indescribable, the
pain, the fear. Even though we know that God
is sovereign in all of these things, sometimes we still wonder. Why do we have to go through
all of this? Have you ever wondered that, honestly? Why do we have
to go through all these things? Why? We know that God is sovereign
in all this. We know that he's reigning in
ruling over this. But why do we have to go through
all of this? Let's ask a more important question
than that, okay? Turn with me over to Hebrews
5. Hebrews 5 verse 5 it says, So also Christ glorified not
himself to be made an high priest, but he that said unto him, Thou
art my son, today have I begotten thee. as he saith also in another
place thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Christ did not glorify himself to that position. God the Father
glorified him to be the blood offerer for sin. Now verse 7
says who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers
and supplications with strong crying and tears. You think about
that. There's a difference in crying
and strong crying. And if God says that it was strong
crying, it was strong crying. When he says many, he means a
number nobody can count. And when He says it's strong
crying, it was deep, deep sorrow and crying and tears. He said in verse 7, who in the
days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications
with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save
Him from death and was heard in that He feared, though He
were a Son, Yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered." We wonder why do we have to suffer
the things that we suffer? Why do we have to suffer the
things we suffer? A greater question than that is why did Christ have
to suffer the things that he suffered? Verse 9 says it's because being
made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all
them that obey Him. He had to learn obedience for
them. And He had to suffer for them
in order to become the author of their eternal salvation. That
had to happen. It was necessary that He endure
that. Turn over to 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3 verse 18, it says, For Christ also hath
once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust. Why? Why did He do that? It says that
He might bring us to God. being put to death in the flesh,
but quickened by the Spirit. Why did He have to endure that?
That He might bring us to God. God required that suffering for
the purpose of providing salvation to His people, bringing His people
back to Him. And even though God's ways and
his reasons are so much higher than we can comprehend, his ways
are so much higher than we can comprehend. What he's doing is
so much greater and so much more intricate than we can comprehend. And even though knowing this
is not going to diminish the sorrow or the pain or the heartbreak
or the suffering, Even so, I want to show you this, okay? In the
same way that there was a purpose in Christ's suffering, there
is a purpose in our suffering. Turn over to Romans chapter 5. In the same way that there was
a purpose in His suffering, there's a purpose in ours. Romans 5 verse 1, it says, Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
What that said is, being justified, past tense, we are. Okay? By faith, by looking to
Jesus Christ. We have peace with God right
now through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by
faith into this grace wherein we stand. We're standing in it
right now and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We're doing
that right now. Verse three says, and not only
so, But we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation
worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope. It is our sufferings really that
teach us and draw us to our Lord. It really is. These horrible
sufferings cause us to realize that Number one, we really are
full of sin. Do you want to be convinced that
sin is in us? Just look at what we go through.
Think about this. Would we be convinced of our
absolute total depravity sin if we did not have to endure
any of these sufferings and we did not go through any of these
horrible things that we go through? These things prove to us we are
eaten up with sin. We're just eating up. We are
sinners. We're dying. We're dying. Every day that goes
by, we're dying. In the flesh, we're dying. Just
totally eaten up with sin. And in our sufferings, we also
realize that Christ really is all of our hope. Have you ever
known a doctor to heal anybody to the point that they never
died again? Have you ever? You can go back, you can find
a really good doctor and keep going to him and keep going to
him. And now you can replace a bunch of parts. You can get
new knees and new hips and do all these things. But we're going
to die. There really is nobody else to
go to. The purpose in all of this is,
number one, we are convinced we are sinners before God. And
Christ really is the only hope that we have. It's all of these terrible sufferings
that wean us away from this world. They make us, the longer we're
in them, the more we don't want to be here. When we're young,
all we want is to be here, and it's tough to be weaned away
from this world. Even when we get older, it's
still tough. But these are the things that
do cause us to more and more start becoming weaned away from
this world and our affections truly do start turning to Christ. At first, it's a theory or it's
an understanding. But after a while, it becomes
life. It becomes need. It becomes desire. And it's our sufferings that
do that to us, cause us to look for Him and wait for Him and
patiently say, come, patiently say, come quickly. I really want you to come. It's
these sufferings that will in the end be the means of carrying
us to Him. Does that register? These sufferings
are drawing us to Him, giving us a heart for Him, but these
are the means that carry us to Him. For a child of God, it will
be said that all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.
They're all paths of goodness. Psalm 23 calls them paths of
righteousness. All of them, all of them. And
it's because they all lead us to Christ. If it leads us to
Christ, and leads us to salvation in Christ, it's mercy and truth. Mercy and truth. I cannot imagine
the suffering that some of our dear brethren have endured throughout
time. You hear these stories of what
believers before us endured, and I cannot imagine. I cannot
imagine the suffering that some of our brethren are going through
right now. I just cannot imagine, but may God comfort us with these
words. We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
called according to His purpose, His purpose in whatever He's
doing. Our light affliction, and I've said it many times recently,
it's only light when we're not the one going through it. But
compared to glory, it is so light. It is so light. compared to the
suffering that those are going to have to endure outside of
Christ. It's so light. Our light affliction, which is
but for a moment, worketh. It's doing something. It is working
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. As heavy
as they may feel right now, just keep comparing them to glory.
Just keep looking to glory. May God allow our eyes to be
turned to His eternal glory and just stay right there. Stay right
there through it. Very quickly, go back to Psalm
25. I just want to read the rest
of this Psalm and I'll close. Psalm 25 verse 10, it says, all the paths of the Lord are
mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies. For thy name's sake, O Lord,
pardon mine iniquity, for it is great. What man is he that
feareth the Lord? Him shall he teach in the way
that he shall choose. His soul shall dwell at ease,
and his seed shall inherit the earth. The secret of the Lord
is with them that fear him, and he will show them his covenant.
He'll show them his covenant. Mine eyes are ever toward the
Lord, for he shall pluck my feet out of the net, turn thee unto
me, and have mercy upon me, for I am desolate and afflicted.
The troubles of my heart are enlarged. Oh, bring thou me out
of my distresses. Look upon mine affliction and
my pain, and forgive all my sins. Consider mine enemies, for they
are many, and they hate me with cruel hatred. Oh, keep my soul
and deliver me. Let me not be ashamed, for I
put my trust in thee. Let integrity and uprightness
preserve me, for I wait on thee. Redeem Israel, oh God, out of
all his troubles. He will. He will, He has, He
will. He said in 1 Peter 5, after you
suffer a while, I'll perfect you, I'll strengthen you, I'll
establish you, I'll settle you. When that time comes, we're going
to see that everything He purposed concerning us, all of it, was
mercy and truth. He did well in all of it. That's
what we'll say. He's done all things well. I
pray God will comfort us with that. I pray God will comfort
our loved ones who are going through great trials. Pray he'll
teach us something. All right, let's all stand together.