Good evening. If you would open
your Bibles back to Psalm 72. Psalm chapter 72. 376 days ago, the year 2020 began. And it didn't take very long
before there were rumblings of how bad of a year 2020 was, or
was, in the middle of it. It took us less than half of
the year before I started seeing things such as, 2020's the worst. And anytime anything bad happened,
people would say, 2020 strikes again. And as we got closer to
the end of the year, we started seeing things such as 2020 is
the worst year ever. It's the worst year of our life.
I can't wait till 2020 ends. As if turning to January 1st
of 2021 would change everything. And towards the end, at the height
of all that, when it was difficult to go through a day of work where
someone didn't say something about how bad the year was, or
it was hard to turn on my phone without seeing someone else saying
something or hashtagging something about 2020 being awful, our pastor
preached a message and he read verse 18 of Psalm chapter 72. that says, Blessed be the Lord
God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. That verse struck me, and as
the next few days went by, and I continued to hear the same
thing about the year we were in, I felt conflicted about it
and I held my tongue, I didn't say anything about it, but as
I researched more and looked up more on this verse and more
on it, I felt the need the next time I preached to preach on
this topic. And I don't mean to, I'm a stubborn
person and I have a tendency to say things and to do things
at an extreme just to disagree with somebody sometimes. They
like a restaurant, and I don't think it's very good, or it's
not great, and they'll say, this restaurant's the best. And instead
of saying, eh, maybe it is, or I'm not a huge fan, my response
is like, I think it's the worst. And that's just me being stubborn.
And I don't mean to do that when I say that the title of my message
tonight is 2020 was wondrous. I realize that in saying that,
it might come across as me speaking in grand terms or just trying
to get someone's attention. And though I'm okay if it does
get someone's attention, and it is a grand statement, I'm
saying it because I believe it. I believe that for any child
of God, 2020 was wondrous. And the goal of my message is
by the end of this, Lord willing, that you might also say and believe
2020 was wondrous. If we look at this verse, and
I'll read it again, blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel,
who only doeth wondrous things. In reading Spurgeon's thoughts
on this, through any psalm, it's a great place to go and look
and find information. There are almost always three,
four, five different points from other writers and other things
that they've said about a verse that are very beneficial to understanding
it. And they'll explore the meaning and get further into it. Well,
there's not anything like that for this verse. Instead, this
is the description given for verse 18. This verse explains
itself. It calls for profound gratitude
and emotion rather than trying to understand it. We should use
it for adoration, for love, instead of trying to add to it. It is
and ever will be the peak of our desires and the object of
our prayers to behold Jesus, exalted King of Kings and Lord
of Lords. He has done great wonders such
that no one else can match, leaving all others so far behind his
wonder that he remains the sole and the only wonder worker, the
only one who may do wonders. Now, the context for this, it
says under the Psalm 72, it says, A Psalm for Solomon. But if we
look at verse 20, it says, the prayers of David, the son of
Jesse, are ended. Now, when I read this verse,
blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth
wondrous things, I think to myself, someone was very happy. Someone
was in a good state. Someone was excited about their
status in life. This person, I wish I could be
in the place that they were in. But when we read what the writers
wrote, they say that David said these words, or the meaning of
all these words, as he was dying. And we know that as David was
dying, he said in 2 Samuel, though my house be not right with God. And he meant that both as in
his family, his house, and inside him, as we heard Aaron say this
morning. This was a man who was going through great trials. Things
didn't seem to be going the way he would have wanted them, and
he was dying. Yet he said, who only, our God,
Lord God, who only doeth wondrous things. And if we look at David's
other words in different psalms, he kept saying the word wondrous
in describing the Lord. He would say, for thou art great
and doeth wondrous things, thou art God alone. He said, sing
unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works. Make me to understand the way
of thy precepts, so shall I talk of thy wondrous works. I will
speak of the glorious honor of thy majesty and of thy wondrous
works." David couldn't stop talking about all the wondrous works
of our Lord. And as I prepared this message,
I kept wrestling with the fact that I am saying a year that
most people classify, and this includes me and probably many
of you. There were times throughout 2020
that I thought, man, this is awful. I don't want to have to
keep dealing with this. Whatever the trials were, whatever
happened. And I think a big reason why 2020 got so much traction
with how bad it was is that it's not different than other years,
except for one way. In most years when I go through
a trial or you go through a trial or tribulation, you deal with
it, maybe your family deals with it, maybe a couple friends. So
when you tell me you're going through a trial, I can't relate
to it or it's not important to me because I'm not going through
it, so I just let it go. And it's vice versa that way.
But last year, Many people were going through the same things.
And we all know that misery loves company. So that when I could
say, I have to, I'm dealing with this, everyone else said, me
too. Isn't it awful? And we love to
do that. Our sin causes all our problems.
And if we dwell on it, our sin just makes it worse and makes
it fester. And in this circumstance, we
all just compounded and grew traction. And I kept wrestling
with, how do I say this and not offend people? Well, I'm sorry
that I know many people went through trials I don't know about.
And there were a lot of difficult things about last year. But as
I looked up the word wondrous in this verse, there are three
translations that come out the most. The first is the word wonderful
or wondrous. The second is the word marvelous.
And they both make sense. But the third one brought a lot
of clarity to this. The third translation of wondrous
is hard or difficult. How can the word be translated
marvelous, wondrous, and yet at the same time difficult or
hard? Well, one thing we need to realize
is that when David says, who only doeth wondrous things, it
doesn't mean that they weren't difficult or they weren't hard.
Anyone who's read the Bible, read the Word of God, understands
that the benefits and all the promises we have in this Word,
none of them preclude us from having trials, tribulations,
or difficult times. So though all the works of our
Lord are wondrous, and marvelous, they can also be hard or difficult
on us. And I'll expound upon that in
a bit. This is said to Job in Job 37. And don't we know that,
don't we often go to one person in the scripture when we think
of, my trials are really hard? Don't we oftentimes go to Job
to think about, well, I mean, can you imagine much worse happening?
But this is what it says, hearken unto this, O Job, stand still
and consider the wondrous works of God. And I thought, what things,
what works is God in control of? What works are we talking
about? Well, two words put together kept coming up in verses I saw,
and see if you catch what they are. And these are all quotes
from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. All things were made by
Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
They wondered, everyone, at all things which Jesus did. The Father
loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. When
Christ is come, he will tell us all things. All things are
delivered unto me of my Father. He hath done all things well. For with God all things are possible. Behold, I have foretold you all
things. All things are delivered to me
of my Father. All things that are written by
the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished,
that all things which are written may be fulfilled. Come see a
man which told me all things that I ever did. Is this not
the Christ? Jesus knowing that the Father
had given all things into His hands, and that He, the Lord,
was come from God and went to God. The next thing I want to
discuss is five points, or five truths, or five facts, however
you want to describe them. that will continue to show us
that everything, all things in this world, everything is of
the Lord. Everything is of His doing. Everything
is of His control. Everything that we go through,
that we see, that we hear about, all of it is of the Lord. The
first of these, and each one of these five have two parts,
and they're all gonna be the same. The first is the Lord is
in control, and we are not in control. We think that we are in control. We go about our daily lives acting
like we're in control. Now, I know I'm not in control.
I'm preaching, I'm not in control. Yet almost every single thing
I do makes it show that I actually think I'm in control. I say I'm going to do something,
or I determine I'm going to do something. And when it doesn't
go well, what do I almost always do? I find someone else to blame. Now, I determined to do something,
saying I'm in control, but am I not admitting that I'm not
in control by blaming someone else for me not being able to
do it? We see verses in the scripture of not a sparrow can fall from
the branch above except for the Lord. And we see through examples
in the scripture of how the Lord is in control of everything,
and yet we see examples of how stories that show us that we
aren't. One of those is Peter. Does anyone think that when Peter
woke up on the day that he denied the Lord three times, that he
ever thought he would do that? The Lord told him he was going
to do it, and he said, uh-uh, not me. I'm not going to do that.
That's the definition of thinking you are in control. Yet he denied
the Lord three times anyway. I love the description that Aaron
gave this morning about power. And really control is just who
has the power. And he said that our Lord, that
God is power and he has all power. And that anyone in this earth
or anyone in this world who has a little power, it's just on
loan from him until they've accomplished his purpose. And then he will
take that power back. There may not be a better example
of that than Nebuchadnezzar. You have a man who became king
and conquered countries and ruled most of the world and was the
most powerful man in the world. He was so powerful that he could
do whatever he wanted. And he built an enormous statue
of himself that everyone might worship him. And he knew how
much power he had. And when three men wouldn't bow
down to his statue, he decided he would throw them into a fiery
furnace. and to show how little control and power he had, the
fire he made did not have the power to hurt those men. And
then Nebuchadnezzar said, look at all these things I have done.
And in that moment, the Lord took all his power away. He no
longer could think straight, and he found himself, years later,
wandering in the fields and eating grass. And then the Lord, in
His mercy, showed him that he didn't have power and gave him
a mind, and in that moment, the Lord gave him his power right
back, and he became in power again. A question I could ask
on who's in control would be, whose will will win out? When all's said and done, will
it be my will, your will, or is His will gonna reign? We know
that the Lord is in control and He has all the power and we do
not. Secondly, the Lord has a purpose. We do not have a purpose. Now
we think we have a purpose. We think we have a plan. How
often do we write things down or make a determination on a
turn of a new year? How often do people say, well,
my New Year's resolution is I'm not gonna blank or I'm gonna
blank. I don't even remember the things
that I said I was going to do in the past year, let alone be
able to fulfill them. Our Lord has a purpose from before
time began that he would fulfill from beginning to end. And we'll
get into more specifics in a minute on that purpose. But once our
Lord sets something, sets his mind on something, that's what's
going to happen. Part of that is because he has
the power and he's in control to make the purpose happen. We
do not. We try to do things, and they
never work out the way we thought, or we don't even try to do them
anymore. An example from the scriptures of that is the prodigal
son. That young man had a plan. He had purposed that he was gonna
take his inheritance. He was gonna force his father
to give him what he said was rightfully his, and he was gonna
go live how he wanted to. It didn't take very long before
he realized that he'd made a grave mistake. He realized that there
was so many people, the servants in his own house were in such
a better state than he was on his own. So he came home, and
as in almost all these stories, in Peter's denial or with Nebuchadnezzar,
we find him go back, and what does the father do? The father
embraces him. The father puts him by his side. The third thing is our Lord knows
the outcome. We do not. Our Lord, because
he has the power and he has purposed it, he knows the end result. He knows the outcome that is
coming. We think we do. How often do we go in a certain
direction or make a decision and it never turns out the way
we thought. If we look back at our lives
and look at the many things we've done, do we ever, ever have something
that goes right down the path we thought it did? We always
are all over the place, and we just don't know. But again, thankfully,
he knows the outcome, and he controls it, and his purpose
is always fulfilled. A couple examples of that, what
about the woman at the well? Through all the trials that she'd
endured on her life, all the paths that she went down and
the things that she'd done, yet all of those things determined
that she would come to a well at the time when no one else
would come to a well. There's no reason to go to the
well in the middle of the day, but she came in and that's where
he was. And again, what happens when
a sinner doesn't know where they're going, they don't have control,
but a child of God ends up coming to the Lord because He draws
them to Him. Another example of not knowing
the outcome is how about Joseph? Joseph's brothers purposed for
one thing to happen. Joseph, if you put yourself in
his situation, when his brothers sold him to a foreign land to
be a slave, He never would have known the outcome that was coming.
Though his brothers meant it for evil, the Lord meant it for
good. And Joseph, through his life, every single turn kept
going the wrong way for him. He did everything he could the
right way and someone would lie on him and he'd end up in jail.
All for him to end up at the right hand of the king. End up
in a position that he was with the king and he had the power
and he got everything the king did. Fourthly, the Lord knows
best. We don't. Our Lord, since he's
in control, since he has the purpose, and he knows the outcome,
it's always what is best for his children. We don't even know
the best route to take to work. If we have two options, we'll
pick one, because we obviously think it's the best way, and
there'll be a wreck, or we'll hit every light. We can't make
the smallest little thing determined of the best. We don't know the
best way to go ever. In Ecclesiastes 6, it says, for
who knoweth what is good for man in this life? The wisest
man does not know what's best for himself or for any of us.
Thankfully, the Lord knows what's best, and the best is always
what happens to a child of God. An example of this is Abraham
and Sarah. The Lord promised them a son,
the son that would be the foundation of Israel, In a few years they became impatient
and I don't blame them. If I would have been in their
situation I probably would have done worse than this. But they
thought the best thing for us to do is for us to take this
in our own hands. We need to be the ones who help
God fulfill His promise. Well how much travail and how
much trouble did that cause upon them? To have a son and for them
to have to cast him out. out of that house, the Lord knows
what's best. Then fifthly, He finishes it. We do not. Our Lord has everything
in control. He has a purpose. He knows the
outcome, and it will always be the best for His children, and
it will always come to completion. There is nothing that ever happens
in this world that does not end in the exact way that the Lord
set it out. Everything, despite what we see,
despite what we think, despite our best efforts, our knowledge,
our plans, everything, it doesn't ever end how we want. Thankfully,
it ends how the Lord does. He finishes it. Remember when,
after the Lord had died, and he had appeared to the disciples,
Peter said, I'm going fishing. We don't finish anything. I am
particularly bad for this, but yet we make so many plans, we
think of so many things, and we either can't finish it, we
don't finish it, we don't want to finish it, we realize in the
middle of it was a bad idea. But Peter and the other disciples
went fishing. After the Lord died, they said,
that's it, I'm not gonna do this anymore. And the Lord came to
them, and then like every single one of these stories, the same
thing happens. The Lord comes back to us, he
takes us, and he sets us on the path. He sets us straight. Now
with those five things, I wanna finish with one more story from
the scripture, one more event. And I'm going to use those same
five things. And what we've seen and what we've talked about is
that everything that happens in this earth, everything that
happens is of the Lord. And everything He does is wondrous. And why we can say that, why
every child of God can say that is because of what happened with
the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, His sacrifice. And I wanna
use that story for these same five things so that we can all
say that blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel who only
doeth wondrous things. The first thing is the Lord is
in control. It says, my time, or he said,
my time is not yet come. He said, when the time was come
that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to
go to Jerusalem. Our Lord knew what he had to
do and he was able to do it. Turn with me to John chapter
18. Look at John 18, verse 5. This
is the Lord in control. They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth,
when they said, Who seek ye? Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus
saith unto them, I am he. And Judas also, which betrayed
him, stood with him. And as soon then as he had said
unto them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground. The Lord's power and His control
of all things, when He says His name, all men fall to the dust. There's no other reaction we
can have. Turn over to John 19, verse 10. Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest
thou not unto me, knowing thou not that I have power to crucify
thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldst
have no power at all against me, except it were given thee
from above. Therefore he that delivered me
unto thee hath the greater sin. Thou hast no power over me, except
it come from above. All power comes from the Lord,
and He is in control of all parts of salvation. And not only is
he in control, but he had a purpose, and he has a purpose, that he
would come to save his children. As just a boy, our Lord said,
I must be about my father's business. He then said, for the Son of
Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. There was
one purpose he had. Turn back to John 18. In Romans it says, And we know
that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are called according to His purpose. For whom He did
foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image
of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. And it also says, for the children
being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God, according to election, might stand, not of
works, but of him that calleth. John 18, verse 10. Then Simon Peter, having a sword,
drew it, and smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right
ear. The servant's name was Malchus. Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put
up thy sword into thy sheath. The cup which my father hath
given me, shall I not drink it? Peter had his own plan in mind. He would defend the Lord. He
would not let them take him. But that wasn't the purpose of
our Lord. His purpose was to go with them. He says, the cup
which my father hath given me, shall I not drink it? It's what
I must do. He said, I set my face like a
flint. He said, and we know that all
things work together for good. He knows the outcome. Not only
is He in control, not only did He have a purpose for salvation,
but He knows the outcome. And I can say that He knows the
outcome before we get to the last part about it being finished
because of His power. Our Lord, before He even became
a man, the plan, the purpose of salvation was already fulfilled. It was already completed. As
He said, I have to do my Father's will. He knew what He had to
do, yet it was already done. When someone has all the power
and all the control, they can go ahead and say that something's
finished, because it will be done based off of their word.
In John 18, verse 4, it says, Jesus, therefore, knowing all
things that should come upon him, went forth and said unto
them, Whom seek ye? Is that not amazing to think
about our Lord knowing the whole time He was on this earth what
was coming? The whole time. Look at verse
9 in the same chapter. That the saying might be fulfilled
which He spake of them which thou gavest Me, I have lost none. He knew the outcome. All of His
children, all the elect, everyone that He was given would come
to Him. None would be lost. And then
in John 19, look at verse John 19, or John 19 verse 16. Then delivered he him therefore
unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus and led him
away. And he, bearing his cross, went
forth into a place called the place of the skull, which is
called in the Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified him, and
two other with him on either side, and Jesus in the midst."
He knew what he was doing. He did it on purpose. He knew
the outcome of it. And the thief on his side. Talk
about knowing the outcome of it. He says to the thief, verily
I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. He knew the outcome of that thief
next to him as he knows all of our outcomes. And then fourthly,
he knows best. Look back at John 17. Our Lord
knows best. It isn't enough that our Lord's
in control, that he has a purpose and that he knows the outcome.
Our Lord is so wondrous that it's not enough, and I'm gonna
repeat that, he's not enough for him to be in control, for
him to have a purpose, and for him to know the outcome. He's
so wondrous that for his children, he makes sure that everything
is the best for them. Nothing that happens to His children
is not the very best. John 17, look at verse 1, These
words spake Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said,
Father, the hour is come. Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son
also may glorify Thee, as Thou hast given Him power over all
flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast
given Him. And this is life eternal, that
they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
Thou hast sent." All the things we're talking
about, all of them come down that He should give eternal life
to as many as Thou hast given Him. All those that He's purposed,
all of them will get eternal life, His children. That's what's
best. Though we get stuck, we get distracted
by so many things of this world, we can say that He only does
wondrous things because of the end, because of the outcome.
Look over at John 20. John 20, verse 11. But Mary stood without at the
sepulcher weeping, and as she wept she stooped down and looked
into the sepulcher, and seeth two angels in white sitting,
the one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of
Jesus had lain. And they said unto her, Woman,
why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because
they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have
laid him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back
and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus
saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She,
supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou
have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and
I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She
turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni, which is to say,
Master. Through the greatest event that
has ever happened, through our Lord's sacrifice, all of his
disciples, those that worshiped him, those that loved him, his
family, his friends, everyone, they all thought it was the worst
thing that could ever happen. Just because we think something
is bad or awful does not mean that it is. And here Mary, is
at the sepulcher weeping over what she perceives to be the
end of her Lord. Yet, as in every story that we
keep quoting in the Bible, to the child of God the Lord comes
and comforts them. The Lord shows that His death
on the cross was for the salvation of all of His children. Look
at verse 19, Then the same day at evening, being the first day
of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were
assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst
and saith unto them, peace be unto you. And when he had said
so, he showed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples
glad when they saw the Lord. Then Jesus said unto them, peace
be unto you as my father has sent me, even so send I you.
And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto
them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. He said, Father, if thou be willing,
remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thine be done. Our Lord said, Nevertheless,
not my will, but thine be done. It's a phrase that we should
say constantly. It's something that anytime anything
happens to us, we shouldn't question it, we shouldn't doubt it, we
shouldn't try to figure out why it happened that way, but we
need to say, not my will, but thy will be done. And then finally,
he finished the work. In John 17, it says, I have glorified
thee on the earth. I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. And the glory which thou gavest
me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that
they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. The beginning of verse 23, the
work being finished means, I in them, and thou in me, that they
may be made perfect in one. And then finally, look at John
19, verse 28. After this, Jesus, knowing that
all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled,
saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full
of vinegar, and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon
Hyssop, and put it to his mouth. And when Jesus therefore had
received the vinegar, he said, it is finished. And he bowed
his head and gave up the ghost. The final words of our Lord were,
it is finished. Everything he came to do, everything
he purposed, everything he planned, everything he sought out to do
was finished. It was all done. The Lord Jesus
Christ saving his people is wondrous. And though I want to say, or
I wanted to say, the Lord Jesus Christ saving His people is more
wondrous than anything, that's not a true statement. There are
not degrees of wondrous. Something is either wondrous
or it is not. The Lord Jesus Christ is wondrous. His works are wondrous because
they are His works. Everything that he does is wondrous. Everything that he touches is
wondrous. And everyone that is found in
him is wondrous. The year 2021 might bring changes
and it might not. But one thing we can be sure
of, it cannot be any more wondrous to a child of God. For the child
of God being in Christ is everything. And as long as we are in Him,
every moment, every day, and every year are as wondrous as
anything can ever be.