Good morning. I invite your attention
for a Bible study to Proverbs chapter 15. Proverbs 15. Proverbs 15, and look with me
at verse 15. All the days of the afflicted
are evil, but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast. Is anybody here afflicted? The word afflicted here means
depressed in mind or in circumstances. It means lowly. It means poor
and needy. Is anybody here any of those
things? Anybody afflicted? Believers
know a thing or two about affliction. Our Lord told his disciples,
in the world ye shall have tribulation. And the word tribulation, same
meaning as affliction, same thing. We must. Now spiritually speaking,
it's a good thing for us to be afflicted. The psalmist told
us this in Psalm 119. He said, it is good for me that
I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes. But in the
moment, When we are feeling the affliction, when we are burdened
by the trial, whatever it may be, it doesn't feel like a good
thing, does it? It feels painful. It feels frustrating. Sometimes we just feel helpless,
don't we? We shouldn't be surprised. And
here's why. Notice what it says here in verse
15. It said, all the days of the afflicted are evil. Our days
are evil, and here's the reason why, because that's what we are. What God say when he saw the
heart of man, nothing but evil continually. I wanna show you
one of our brethren who can relate to us very well. Turn to Genesis
47. Genesis 47. Genesis 47 verse 7, here Joseph has been set in charge of the land of
Egypt. Pharaoh put him in charge over all the land of Egypt. Joseph's
brothers had been returned to him and his father, Jacob. And here, Joseph is going to
bring Jacob in to be with Pharaoh. And look here, verse 7. And Joseph
brought in Jacob, his father, and set him before Pharaoh. And
Jacob blessed Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said unto Jacob,
How old art thou? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh,
The days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years.
Now look what he said here. Few and evil have the days of
the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days
of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their
pilgrimage. I don't know why Pharaoh asked
him that question, how old are you? But I sure love his response. He said, few and evil. All the days of my life, that's
it. That's my life summed up. My
days have been few, and it doesn't seem few to me, so it's 130 years
old. Few days full of evil, nothing but evil. Can we relate to him? You know, Jacob's mentioned a
lot in the scriptures and concerning God's people, we're often referred
to as Jacob or Israel, the new name God gave him. Well, here's
what Jacob was. He was a poor and needy, lowly,
depressed sinner. And I thought about this in this
account. I mentioned Joseph was set on the throne in Egypt. You
remember what happened years prior when his brethren, They put him in a pit, they stripped
that robe off of him, and they wanted to kill him, and then
one of the brothers said, let's not kill him, let's just sell him
as a slave. They sold him off, away with this man. That's what
they said for their brother, all right? And they did away
with him. But we saw God's goodness in
preserving Joseph, in using him. He put him on the throne of Egypt,
and he used Joseph to get his brethren back with him. In Genesis
chapter 50, we read Joseph confronted his brethren after their father
Jacob passed away, and he said, you meant it for evil. What you
did, you did away with me, sold me as a slave, left me for dead.
You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. God used Joseph to save their
lives by great deliverance, all right? But you think how depressed
their father must have been, Jacob. I think it was around
20 years since they convinced their father that a wild beast
devoured him. He was Jacob's beloved son. That's
why Jacob made him that coat of many colors, because he loved
his son. And then he went 20 or so years
without his son, and now he's reunited with his son, and all
his children are here together. Jacob lived a life of depression.
I believe that. And I used to not think a believer
could live a life like that, but now it's becoming obvious
to me that we can, and we often do. The life of a child of God
is not easy, but as it was with Jacob, so it is with all God's
people. Jacob was a sinner, but he was a sinner saved. He was
a sinner saved by the grace of God. We read in Romans chapter
9, God loved Jacob. Jacob was no better than Esau,
whom God says He hates. But God, in His mercy, loved
Jacob. He set His love on the worm Jacob. And I'm so glad it's so. Now,
just as it was with Jacob with his sons, you see God overruling
evil for good. I want us to think about this
in context of this verse here, because our life is full of affliction,
all right? And pretty much all our affliction
is self-inflicted, isn't it? It's my own fault. Why do I find myself in the mess
I'm in? Because I got myself in the mess that I'm in. But
I rejoice to know this, as it was in Jacob's day, God still
overrules our evil for good. Though we've sinned against God,
Though we wanted nothing to do with him, wasn't it so with you? And yet God in tender mercy overruled
that evil of myself for my own good, for my own salvation. And
in regards to the afflictions that we endure in this life,
God overrules those too for good. He uses the afflictions that
we suffer to draw us closer to himself. Now, I want to show
you this in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, if you'll turn over there
with me. 2 Corinthians chapter 4. It's so easy to complain about
our lot when we're having a bad day or when something happens
that really upsets us. But if we could only understand
that it's for our good, if we could truly see God's purpose
and His wisdom in it, then just maybe we'll be able to thank
God for the affliction. Now look here at 2 Corinthians
4 verse 8. I'm going to read a few verses
here. This is how Paul felt, he said, we are troubled on every
side, yet not distressed. We are perplexed, but not in
despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Cast down, but not destroyed.
Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus that
the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus'
sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our
mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us,
but life in you. We having the same spirit of
faith according as it is written, I believed and therefore have
I spoken. We also believe and therefore
speak. Knowing that he which raised
up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus and shall
present us with you. Now here's something we need
to be reminded of, okay? Sometimes we think everything's
against us. I think we just read these verses
maybe last Wednesday or Sunday, but whenever we're down, truly
down, I pray God would cause us to recall these verses right
here to our mind, all right? Look at verse 15. For all things
are for your sakes. that the abundant grace might
through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God,
for which cause we faint not. But though our outward man perish,
yet the inward man is renewed day by day for our light affliction. which is but for a moment, worketh
for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which
are not seen. For the things which are seen
are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."
Whatever we're going through, and the past, let's just call
it two years, I think for everybody have been a really, really tough
two years. But we need to remember, God
calls our affliction light, whatever it is. As heavy as it may feel
to us, He calls it light. And compared to the eternal weight
of glory, He said, awaits us how light it truly is. I don't
want to make what you're going through light. I know some of
you are going through really tough things right now. And again,
to some respect, we all are. But compared to what God has
done for us and what awaits us, what's never begun to enter into
our hearts, what He's prepared for us, it's light, so light. I love what Jeremiah said. He
said, the Lord is my portion, therefore will I hope in Him.
Don't hope in ourselves, don't hope in what we see. You know,
he's saying the things we see, it's all temporal. You see things
just like I do. You live here in the same world,
country I live in. Things don't always seem so great,
but there's a reason we walk by faith, not by sight. Let's
not trust in the things we see. Let's hope for that which we
see not, the hope God's given us. Now I want to look at a couple
of Psalms here quickly. I want to show us the prayer
of the afflicted. Turn to Psalm 25. Psalm 25. Our brother David, he sure knew
a lot about affliction. You read about his life, he went
through a lot. Now look here at his prayer, Psalm 25 verse
15. He said, 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. Is that not your prayer? That's the prayer of the afflicted.
Turn over a few pages to Psalm 90. Psalm 90, verse 14. Here's my prayer. Oh, satisfy
us early with thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all
our days. Make us glad according to the
days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we
have seen evil. You notice He said, thou hast
afflicted us. You know, when we're in trouble,
we do it to ourselves. Our trouble is the result of
our own sin, but we need to understand God is sovereign. God is in control. God is on His throne. He afflicts
us. It's according to His will and
His purpose, and He does so for our good every time. He will satisfy us early. Our
cup will run over, surely goodness and mercy are going to follow
us all the days of our life. We're gonna rejoice and be glad
forever. We may have a hard time with
that while we're here, but God's given us a good hope through
grace, and whether we're truly happy here or not, if he saved
us, there we'll be rejoicing for all eternity. And I pray
God's given us that. I look back in our text, Proverbs
15, Verse 15 again, all the days of the afflicted
are evil, but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast. If God has saved us, and I believe
He has, then He has given us a new heart. That's what He told
us, He's given us a new heart. Now this new heart believes God. You know, there's a lot of people
in this world that don't believe God, and the reason is, that's all
of us by nature, the reason we don't believe God is because
we're dead in our sin, and God has not quickened us, given us
a new heart. He must give us a new heart to
believe God, because this old, wicked, cold, stony heart of
flesh can't, and it won't. But God's given us a new heart
that believes Him. He's given us a new heart that
believes on the Lord Jesus Christ alone. And a lot of people will
claim to believe on Christ, but they also believe in themselves.
You know, the message today is believe yourself, love yourself,
whatever. We must believe Christ. We must love Christ. Look to
Christ and Him alone. And this new heart that God gives
does. It's a new heart of love, praise,
and adoration for Christ our Savior who loved us and gave
Himself for us. And this new heart that God's
given us, our text tells us it's a merry heart, a merry heart. a happy heart. I mentioned, you
know, because we go through things in this life, sometimes it's
hard to be happy. But if God saved us, he's given
us this heart. He's given us this merry heart,
this heart of rejoicing. As afflicted as we may be, and
we are, but as afflicted as we may be any given day, we can
rejoice like no one else on this earth. I feel like I say this a lot,
and the reason for that is probably because I find myself not rejoicing
like I should. We have every reason to rejoice
and be thankful and happy, praising our God, every reason to. I love,
in studying this, that there were a lot of meanings here of
a merry heart, but here's the one that blessed my heart the
most. He that's of a merry heart hath a continual feast. It means
a good inner man. He that is of a good inner man,
he that has a good inner man hath a continual feast. You know this, but turn with
me to Colossians chapter one. Colossians chapter one, verse 26. Colossians 1 verse 26. Even the mystery which hath been
hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his
saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the
glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in
you, the hope of glory. The good inner man is not us. It's not me. I am evil. I am sin. It's what I am. The
good inner man this is talking about here, the good inner man
that this merry heart is referring to is Christ. Christ in us. And we can acknowledge this fact.
This is why this proverb bless my heart so much. All the days
of the afflicted, that's us, are evil. Life is tough. I mentioned
I'm finding that out. Life is tough. All the days of
the afflicted, the life of a believer is difficult. It's trying, it's
troubling, it's heartbreaking. But we have cause to rejoice.
God has given us a good inner man. God has put Christ in us
and us in him. That's comfort and affliction
right there. Christ is in us, Christ liveth in us, and we live
in Him. And in Him, no matter how sorrowful
we may feel, we have a continual feast. We do, I want to consider
that for just a moment. Back in our text, Proverbs 15. All the days of the afflicted
are evil, but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast. I love that word, hath. It doesn't
mean we have it, but then we won't have it, but then we will
have it, then we won't have it. Hath, evermore. Everlasting,
we have this continual feast. Now, I love a good feast. I love it so much. Anybody that
knows me knows that. I'm well aware of the fact that
Thanksgiving is about a month away. My birthday is on Thanksgiving,
too. I'm especially looking forward
to it this year. It's going to be a wonderful
day, I pray. But I want, you know, normally
when I think about a feast, I think about just pigging out on the
food, which I certainly enjoy. But this time I thought a little
differently. You know, a feast, Lord willing,
by God's grace, I'll be with my favorite people, people I
love, people I cherish and enjoy being around more than anybody.
I will also have the food I love the most right there in front
of me and in me. And I look, I'm looking forward
to it. I'm really looking forward to it. You know, a feast is such a relaxing
time. It's like when we have our fellowship
dinners. I consider those to be feasts. It's so enjoyable,
isn't it? You know, walk out these doors,
we've all, well, I say we, not me, but the rest of you, I guess,
have prepared something and we're gonna sit down and indulge and
enjoy one another's company and enjoy the food. It's such a wonderful
thing to enjoy a feast. Now, that's physically speaking. What about spiritually? You know,
every time we gather to worship our Lord, open His word and hear
His voice and look to Christ, that's a feast. You know, we've
been a little disappointed because we haven't got to have our conference
for, I don't even know if it's two or three years now. And I
think we all assume we're going to have it next year. We don't
know what the year holds. I hope so. And if we have it,
oh, I pray it'll be such a feast. We're going to enjoy it so much.
I'm already looking forward to it. But all that aside, our life
that we live in this flesh right now, if God has saved us and
given us this new heart, our life is a continual feast. I
want us to see that. I want us to truly believe that.
God has given us affliction, yes, but he's given us Christ. What more could we possibly ask
for? What do we possibly not have if we have him? Feast on
him. I mentioned when we come here,
that's our goal is to feast on him. The Lord told Peter after
his resurrection, Peter went back, I go fishing, and he told
him three times, you know, he asked him, do you love me, do
you love me? He said, feed my sheep, feed them. What do we
feed God's sheep? Christ. We feast on Christ. Believe on Christ. Come to Christ. Trust in Christ. Cling to Christ.
When we're afflicted, especially when we're afflicted, look to
Christ. Consider Him and the affliction
He endured for you. Now quickly, I wanna show you
a couple verses in Lamentations. It's right after Jeremiah. Lamentations
chapter one. Lamentations chapter 1 verse
12. And I'm telling you, if God has
given us faith in Christ, when we feel down, you turn to this
verse right here. I pray God would cause me to
turn to this verse right here. Lamentations 1 verse 12 says,
is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see
if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto
me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger."
This is speaking of Christ our Savior on the cross. You know,
there were a lot of people that passed by wagging their heads,
reviling Him, mocking Him. and that was you and me. But God's given us faith to believe
that that was our Savior hanging there, that He hung there on
purpose, that He wasn't there in weakness. You say, oh, well,
they bound Him, they nailed Him. They did. But he said, I'm doing
this in power, the power my father's given to me. It was in power
that he laid down his life, that he hung there. And he hung there,
the just, he died the just, holy, righteous, spotless Lamb of God
for the unjust, that's us, the young godly, that's whom Christ
died to save. He substituted himself. He gave
himself completely. Whatever trial we endure, it
may take a part of us, but it doesn't take us completely. He
gave himself completely to save us. Consider him. He uttered
these words, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? God forsaken by God, I can't
explain it, but I do believe it. He said, the Lord hath afflicted
me. It was God's work. We will not,
we cannot be forsaken. We may be forsaken by people
in this life. It happens. It's sad, but it
happens. But if we belong to Christ, we
won't be forsaken by God because Christ was forsaken in our place. He was forsaken so that we never
can and never will be. Oh, praise His name. Turn over
just a page to Lamentations chapter three, verse one. This verse right here can be
true of us, but it certainly speaks of Christ. It says, I
am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. You know, we think we're afflicted,
don't we? And we are. But compared to Christ and the
affliction He suffered for us, we don't know a thing about affliction.
He is the man who hath seen affliction by the rod of God's wrath. You know, the Apostle Paul, we
read an account where he was afflicted. And we know God afflicted
him. He said, God gave me a thorn
in the flesh. He prayed three times for the
Lord to take it away, and the Lord would not take it away.
But he gave Paul some comfort. He gave him assurance. He said,
Paul, my grace is sufficient for thee. I know it's a verse we say a
lot. But how often do we not think of that when we're in a
hard time? His grace, His amazing, saving,
sovereign, keeping grace is sufficient for us. It always is. And after hearing that, Paul,
he believed God and he said, Most gladly, therefore, will
I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may
rest upon me." He said, Lord, you're right. Your grace is sufficient
for me. Thank you for the affliction.
That's what he was saying. He thanked God for the affliction
because His grace is greater than the affliction. His grace
is greater than our sin. Whatever we're going through,
His grace is greater. Remember that, child of God. Remember
that. One more thing here. Turn back
to our text, Proverbs 15. All the days of the afflicted
are evil, but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.
And look what verse 16 says. Better is little with the fear
of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith. We may
not have all the material things we want in this life. We may
have little. or we may have great treasure.
But here's what we need. Did you notice it? He said, the
fear of the Lord. That's the beginning of wisdom,
the fear of the Lord, the heart that reverences God, this merry
heart that believes God, looks to Christ, trusts in Him, rests
in Him. If we have nothing in this life,
but we have that. If we have nothing in this world
but we have the fear of the Lord, faith in Christ, we have everything. Look at verse 17, it says, better
is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred
therewith. He's saying you could have the
ox ready, like the fatted calf, ready to be killed and eaten,
be filled, but if there's hatred with that, you're better off
with a dinner of herbs, some spinach, kale, with love. Do you get the picture? If we
have Christ, it doesn't matter what else we have, because Christ
is all and in all. I'm a poor sinner and nothing
at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all. We lack nothing. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. I pray we've come here to feast
on him. I'm not there gonna claim a message
I bring is a feast. The feast is in God's word. The
feast is in Christ looking to him. Here's what he said. He
said, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Are
you hungry? Are you thirsty? God says, if we are, we're blessed. He'll fill us. Are you afflicted,
brethren? Come and dine. come for all things
are now ready. I pray God would not let us forget
to give thanks for this continual feast. And concerning us, the
afflictions are part of the feast. We got to take it all. The afflictions
are part of the feast. May we thank God for the affliction. May we thank him for Christ and
may we thank him for the continual feast he's given us. And I'll
give you one closing thought. Very soon, you know, our brethren
keep departing us, one by one. There've been a lot lately, it
seems. One by one, very soon, we're gonna sit down at the marriage
supper of the Lamb. That's gonna be a feast like
we could never imagine. I'm looking forward to that feast.
I pray we are, too. All right, the Lord bless you.