I want to talk today, bring a
message today on two things that are good for me. I've seen an
article by Scott this week in a bulletin, and he was talking
about these two things and how they would affect us. It's a
very small bulletin article, but it spoke to me. And two things
are good for me. David found in his experience that these things were good for
him, these two things were. And I'd like to talk about two
of these things, just two. I don't know that I've ever,
ever fully, fully learned them yet. I believe God's teaching
them to me, and I believe maybe He's teaching them to you. And
I want to learn them. I don't want to learn them just
in my brain. I don't want to learn them in my head. I want
to experience it in my heart. I want to know it in my heart. And by God's grace, maybe if
I could learn these two things, submit myself to Him, I'd be
able to submit myself to you, submit myself here to His church. It's plain to me that my gracious
God and Father is teaching me these things, these two things,
and I hope He's teaching them to you. But I'm a very slow learner,
very, very slow learner. I'm a very slow learner. So I
want to show you the first thing. and see if they're good for you
too. Look what it says there in verse 71, Psalm 119. It is good for me that I have been
afflicted. It's good for me that I have
been afflicted that I might learn thy statute. Good for me to be afflicted?
to be pressed, to be burdened, to be tried, to be put into fire, to be under heavy burdens, to be
sick, to be hurting. That's what David
said, it's good for me that I have been afflicted. That don't sound
like the gospel of today, does it? This gospel of health and
wealth and name it and claim it. But in the gospel, it tells us.
Our Lord Jesus himself said, you know, said, if you don't
deny yourself, there's no way in the world you can be my disciple. But it's in the Word of God.
Philippians 129 says this, you notice this, it's not only giving
you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, it's giving you, it's
God give it to you that you could believe on Christ. It's a gift
of God. But he said also with that belief
and that faith in Christ, that trust in Christ, he said it's
also giving you to suffer, suffer on his behalf. And I'll tell
you, our Lord said, and it says it in the scripture so many different
times, that if you be without chastisement, you're bastards
and not sons. David said there over in Psalm
73, I'm chasing every morning, every morning. And Paul, when
he had that great thorn in the flesh, he said, you know, he
says, my strength is made perfect in your weakness, our Lord told
him. He said, well, if that's what it takes for Christ to get
all the glory and for Christ to have complete control over
me, then I'll glory in my infirmities. I'll rejoice in what God sent
in me so that Christ can be manifested in my weakness. And then the
Lord told His disciples, He said, be of good cheer. In the world,
out here in the world where you live, among where you live, on
your jobs, what you go through, where you live in this world,
in the world you'll have much tribulation. But he says, you'll
be a good cheer. You know why? I've overcome that
world. I've overcome it. I've overcome
it. And Peter says this, can it not strange concerning the
fiery trial which is to try you? Don't think it's strange. And
no man, none of us as believers should ever be disturbed by our
afflictions. The scripture says we were appointed
to it. We were appointed to it. Now
I'm not saying that trials and afflictions are good for everybody.
I'm not saying that. They're not good for everybody.
They're really not. There's a lot of people that
trials and afflictions and troubles is not good for them. It really
isn't. But they're good for the believer.
They're really, really good for us as God's people. Because there's
some afflictions, some trials and things that happen in some
people's lives that makes them bitter. Very bitter. And makes
them sour. Sour. Makes them rebellious. But for a believer, for afflictions
for a true believer are good. They're really good. They're
really good. And like I say, I hope that I
learn these things and I'm learning them now and I hope you will.
You know, Paul said over in Philippians, I mean, excuse me, in Romans,
he says, we glory in tribulations. Now, what did he mean by that?
He says, we don't glory in our troubles and in our trials, we
glory in him who sins them. Nobody lays in their bed at night
and said, Lord, I thank you that I'm deathly sick. I thank you
that you've sent this great trial on me. We don't lay in bed and
think of things like that. But we do lay in bed and thank
God that he is our God, that he orders all things for us and
for our good and for his glory. So I'm telling you, you know,
trials and afflictions are not good for everybody, but for God's
people, They are good. They are really, really good.
And let me give you the first reason they're good. Because
trials and afflictions prove the reality of our faith. You
know, if you was never tried, never put in the fire, never
put in the water, never went through the river, never had
great trials, never had great burdens, never had great sickness,
how in the world could you know you had faith? How can your faith
be real? God's gonna test your faith.
He knows we got faith, but he wants us to know we got it. Are
we gonna trust him? Or are we gonna go through life
bitter and troubled and bothered and worried? Oh, trials, these
afflictions test our faith. He sends them to test our faith.
You go through the scriptures and every true believer in the
Bible, every true believer in the Bible, you find them. was
put to severe tests, severe tests, trials. And they came forth from
those trials, trusting God. Look over here, you keep, look
over in Job 23 with me. Look what it says over here in
Job. This is what I'm saying. And I'll tell you, you ought
to memorize this verse. You ought to really, you ought
to memorize. This is one of them verses you
ought to memorize for the next time you're in trouble, the next
time you're being tried. You remember Job said this, he
says, though he slay me, though he slay me, he puts me on my
deathbed, I'm gonna trust him, I'm gonna trust him, I'm gonna
trust him. And look what he said here, Job
23 and verse 10. But he knoweth the way that I
take, when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. Your trial of faith being much
more precious than of gold, Lord, be tried with fire. And then
he goes on to say, oh, after he's tried me, I'm gonna come
forth as gold. My foot hath held his steps.
My way have I kept and not declined. I've not stopped. I've not declined. I'm not just started up on this
way and then I backed up a little bit. Neither have I gone back
from the commandment of His lift. Listen to this, when I was in
this trouble, when I was being tried, you find anybody tried
more than Job in the Word of God. And he says this, I sting
what God said to me and His Word more than my necessary food.
I tell you, I've got to have His Word, that's what He said.
And you take Abraham, his whole life was one trial after another,
yet he believed God. He believed God. You know one
of the first things he did after he got into Canaan, was he went
over and he found him a grave. And he bought him a graveyard.
He bought him a place for himself to be buried and his wife and
everybody to be buried. And he got ready and he went
out not knowing where he was going. He waited for his father
to die, then he went. Then his wife died, then he kept
on going. He had a son, he had to wait
25 years for that son. And then God says, take that
son up on that mountain and slay him. He said, I'll go up there,
but I'll tell you, I'm the ladder coming back. God, He said, I
want you to kill your only son. Telling us what God did for us
when He gave His only begotten Son. But he believed God so much
that when God, he said, take that son and slay him, he said,
I am the Lord, I'll come back. Because I believe what God said.
He said, in my son, all the promises are gonna be, and I'll get off
that mountain, and me and that boy's coming back down here.
Because if I slay him, God's gonna give him life. And God
slew his son, and through him, we have life. So what's a trial
compared to what we have in Christ? Huh? Now, all trials are not,
you know, a lot of people have trials and they're not unpleasant.
They're not unpleasant. You know, prosperity, I think,
is one of the awfulest trials a person has to go through. Prosperity. You know, Spurgeon says prosperity
slew us 10,000. Poverty has just slew 1,000.
And that's prosperity is a trial. More men have fallen through
prosperity than they have any other way. You look over in Proverbs,
look over here to Proverbs with me. Look in chapter 30, Proverbs
30. You know, I remember sitting
in a restaurant one time and I was with Pastor Henry Mahan
and another couple and we were sitting there eating and this
couple would come down to be in this meeting. And they come
to be in this meeting and they said, you know, said, we wanna
move down here where the gospel's at. They lived up in New Jersey,
said, we wanna move down here where the gospel's at. But we
got jobs and we got all kinds, we got all kinds of stuff. He
started talking about making all excuses why they couldn't
come. Henry looked at him and said, listen. He said, I'm gonna
tell you something and I'm gonna tell you the truth. He said,
if you want the gospel, More than anything else, them
jobs and what you got will amount to nothing. You'll move, you
can find a job here. You can buy a house here. And
so quit talking about what you're gonna do. If you're gonna do
it, do it. If you ain't, just keep your mouth shut. And I thought, man alive, I'm
glad he ain't talking to me like that. But you know what that
couple did? They went home, quit their jobs,
sold their houses and moved. Now we got people playing at
the gospel. Young couple, they took off when
they was young. Got rid of everything, moved
where the gospel was. Now we got people moving away
from where the gospel's at. Bruce Crabtree was telling me
the other day about a couple not been to their ranch. They
had a 7,500 acre ranch. And I went to it one time out
in Montana. Oh, it was a huge place. Cabins,
you know, for people to live in and fish in and hunt in. David
Letterman lived across the street from them, across the road from
them. I mean, it was something. Well, David Letterman bought
their ranch off of them. Bought all their cabins and everything.
And they went to John Mitchell's church. Everybody, I don't know
if you know John, but I mean John Mitchell's like, oh, what
a preacher. And what a faithful man. The Lord's called him home.
But anyway, these folks, after they sold the ranch, they moved
way off somewhere in the bottom of a mansion. And John said, it's gonna be
awful hard to leave that mansion and go to heaven, ain't it? That's
why I'm talking about prosperity. If anything, anything you've
got, anything that anybody's got keeps him from Christ. Oh
my. Look what it says here in Proverbs
now. Let me show you this. Look down in verse seven and
eight. He said, two things, two things
have I required of thee. Deny them not me before I die. Remove me far from vanity and
lies. Don't let my life be vain. Don't
let me look at this old vain world. Don't let me lie. Give me neither poverty nor give
me riches. Feed me with food convenient
for me. Just give me what I need. Lest
I be full and deny thee. And say, who is the Lord? Or
lest I be poor and still and take the name of my God in vain.
God gave me just what I need, just what I need. And I'll tell
you another thing about trials, you know, these afflictions.
Trials show us and teach us the frailty of this flesh. How frail
is this flesh? And you know when you learn how
frail this flesh is, and I mean it's frail, oh, you know what
it'll cause you to do? Oh Lord Jesus, come. Oh Lord
Jesus, come. You long for Christ's return.
Solomon said, you know, in Ecclesiastes, I've tried everything. I've tried
everything under the sun. And you know what I found out?
It's all vanity. It just never satisfied me. Never done anything for me. It's
just emptiness. And I tell you, you can't read
that and know it, you've got to experience this earth as vanity
and this world as vanity. You've got to experience that.
I'll tell you what, you go to the graveyard, just go to the
graveyard several times. We've lost six people in our
congregation in just a little over a year, you know that? Six
people out of this congregation. Six. Every one of them was believers
and went to be with Christ. Went to the graveyard. Went to
the graveyard with people I loved. I went to the graveyard with
people I didn't even know. And you know, when you go there,
you know what you'll find out? That's where I'm headed. I've got my tombstone, got my
name on it, got my birthdate on it, and all I need to do,
it's like when Herman passed away, I went and just said, I
want you to go and put his death date on that thing. Guy went
out there and put it on it. Somebody will go and said, put
Donny Bell's death date on there. Got my birthday on there. But
oh my, all they take, go to the graveyard a time or two. Go to the hospital. You know
we can't go there very often anymore, but you know how many
trips have we made to the hospital? And we go in there and we see
somebody frail, weak, body weak, sick. And you know what you find
out? How's that grass withering? That
grass is withering right there. That grass is withering. And
then you know you go before God. And you make your confession,
pure confession of your inabilities, your confession of your sin,
your confession of your failty of flesh, confession of what
you've done, confession of what you've said, confession of what
you think, confession of what you feel. And you ask for His
mercy, and you know what you'll find out when you do that? In
my flesh dwells no good thing. And I'll tell you what, how many
of y'all ever been down to the valley of disappointment? Down
to the valley of disappointment. Depression and doubt. Oh my goodness. And you know who disappoints
me more than anybody else? Me, myself. I'm the greatest
disappointment to myself. I've been disappointed lots of
times in my life, but nobody's ever disappointed me like I have
myself. Do y'all understand that? Uh-huh. I make promises to myself
and I don't keep them. I pray prayers and I don't wait
for the answer. And oh, I know what depression's
like. Oh my. Doubt. You know what all these
things show us? Our utter and absolute dependence
on God. We'll learn this, that what our
Lord Jesus said, without me, without me, without me, you can
do nothing. I'll tell you something else
about these trials, these afflictions that the scripture says good
for us. Trials and these burdens and these afflictions leave one
and only one place to look to the grace of God for strength
and for help. Paul says this. He asked God
to have mercy on him and save him from some pain that he was
in. And the Lord taught him this. He says, you know Paul, by grace
sufficient for you. He taught him he was still a
frail man. And said, my grace is sufficient for anything you
go through in this world. It's sufficient. And this is one thing I got off
of Scott out of that bulletin. Trials, burdens, afflictions
enable me to sympathize with other people. To pray for other
people and understand the weakness and burdens of others. You know,
When you've been to a few of these things through yourself,
then you'll see somebody else going through something and you
truly, truly sympathize with them. When somebody's weeping,
you can weep with them. And you can really pray for somebody
if you've ever been in that situation. I mean, you can pray for them.
You can wake up in the middle of the night, and they're on
their brain, and they're on your mind, and you say, oh God, strengthen
them. Oh God, help them. Oh God, please let them get a
good night's rest. Oh Lord, do something for them. And you understand, when you
see their weakness, and you see their burdens, and they're sitting
there weeping, then you can weep with them. But a man who has never wept,
there's no way in the world he can weep for somebody else. And
then when you see somebody fall or fail or say or do something
that they shouldn't say or do or act some way they shouldn't,
you can forgive them because you've done it yourself. You've
done it yourself. You've done it yourself. And
oh, you can show mercy. Oh, you can be merciful to somebody.
Because God give you mercy, or give you mercy. And all these
things happen, and God does this to prepare us, to fit us, enable
us, to help other people, minister other people. And you know how
he does it? You've got to experience some
things in this world before you can do anything for anybody else.
Don't you all think that's right? When you see somebody really
sick, you really hurt for them. You really do. And oh, God help
us to sympathize with others. And here's another thing. Talk
about this trials and afflictions. Afflictions are good for me,
David said. But boy, I tell you, people say, that sure don't feel
like it's good for me. Well, they are, they really are. And they help us and cause us
to see the sinfulness of our own hearts. And when we see the
sinfulness of our own heart, it makes us look outside ourselves
and look to the righteousness and rejoice in the righteousness
of Christ. Because if we didn't have that,
what would we be? We cry, oh, wretched man that
I am. And then we go right back and
say, but there's therefore now no condemnation to them that
are in Christ Jesus. That's out of the same man's
mouth. He said, O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? And he said,
I think through Jesus Christ our Lord. And then he turned
around and said, I know this. I don't care what my flesh is
like and how weak it is and how frail it is and how wretched
it is. He says this, there's no condemnation
right now in Christ. That's a good, boy, if you got
an affliction that makes you run to Christ like that, it's
good, it's really good. I thank God, we need to learn
what Paul learned. Look over in Philippians with
me. Look over in Philippians chapter four. I mentioned this
here recently in a message Philippians chapter 4. You know,
we need to learn what Paul learned. And look what he says in verse
11, chapter Philippians 4, 11. He said, not that I speak in
respect of one. I'm not talking I want something.
For I've learned. I've learned this. In whatever
state I am. Up, down, weak, poor, I've learned
to be content. He said, I know both how to be
abased. I know how to be brought down.
I know how to be embarrassed. I know how to be shamed. I know
how to be brought down to be nothing. And then he goes on
and says, and I know also how to abound. I know how to abound. I know how to be full. And I'm instructed. Who instructs
you? God's word does. Both to be full
and to be hungry. Both to abound and to suffer
need. And you know what he says here? How can you do this, Paul? He said, I can do all this through
Christ, which strengthens me. I can do it through Christ. All
right. We need the only way we can experience
these things and learn these things to experience. Now I want
you to turn with me back over to Psalm 73. Back to Psalm 73,
and I'm gonna show you this other thing. This trials, he says,
my afflictions. Afflictions are good for me. Good for me. That's one thing
that's good for me. That's good for me. Oh my. You know when God's word will
really become precious and the gospel become precious for you? It's when you've been through
the fire a few times. The second thing is good for
me, look what it says down in verse 28 of Psalm 73. Psalm 73. Look what he says. But it is good for me to draw
near to God I've put my trust in the Lord God, and I'm going
to declare all your works. Oh my. It's good for me to draw
near to God. Good for me to be afflicted.
Then he turned around, but it's good for me to draw near to God.
You know, when you read this 73rd Psalm, you remember me reading
it to you. And David said, I looked at all
the world, and how well the world was doing, and how prosperous
they were, and how fat they were, and how much, all the things
that they had. And he said, I was so full, he said, I got envious
of them. And here's the Lord's people,
he brings out a full cup to them. And then he said, oh, what does
he say here? Look at verse 12 and 13, he says
this. Behold, these are the ungodly.
who prosper in the world and in Christian riches. And he said,
well, and for me, I just cleansed my heart in vain and washed my
hands in innocency. I've tried to live for the glory
of God and it don't look like it's done me any good. Because
what? He said, for all day long, I've been plagued and chastened
every morning. But oh my, that's what he said. And then he says, when he got
to the end of it, he said, I was like a beast before when he got
to the end of it. He said, but it's good for me. to draw near
to God. Oh my, you know when we first
become believers, and I still, it's startling to us, some of
us. And this is, you know, we get kind of shocked. And that
people don't rejoice over our faith and desire to get us, they
don't like us giving glory to God. They don't like that. I've
been around, I get around men that go to church. pretty often. And I tell them I'm a preacher
and where I pastor at, and you know, and they'll just kind of
look away because of all the things they've read about me
and seen in the newspaper and things like that. They'll talk
about what they've done, and I'll talk about what Christ has
done, and it gets really quiet. Because a lot of men don't want
to rejoice in your faith. They don't desire to give God
the glory, and we want to give God all the glory. But there's
a lot of people you're startled by, your own kids, your own children. You tell them everything they've
got, God give to them. Now wait a minute, I work for
this. Oh, we'll see. And I tell you, this is the thing
that startles us. It does me, I don't know if it'll
startle you. But this old sinful flesh and the appetites of this
sinful flesh, and the sinful thoughts, we get astonished and
I get startled that they're not fully curved, that they're not
fully, you know, that they're still there. You think, well,
they'll stop one of these days. This flesh and my sinful thoughts
and my sinful appetite, they'll stop one of these days. But you
know, the older you get, the more you're in the battle, it
seems to get worse. Oh, to be over this, how do I
not have to go through it? Why do I still this way after
all these years? Oh, the flesh lets against the
spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and they're contrary
one to the other. So I can't do the things that
I want to do. I can't be as spiritual as I
want to be, and I can't be as special as I want to do, but
I've got this world going on. And the older I get seems like
the worse it ought to be. It is getting, you know, and
I don't understand that for myself. You think, my goodness, should
I go out one of these days? But I haven't. And oh, here's something. We seemingly offer sincere, honest
to God, reasonable prayer, And they're not always answered in
the same, in a favorable way. No, they're not. David laid on
his face before God, begging for his child not to die. He
did it seven days and seven nights there before God. He didn't get
up. He didn't bathe. He never combed
his hair. He didn't eat. He didn't drink.
He just laid there and wept and cried and prayed, God, please
save my baby. Well, God didn't answer that
prayer and baby died. Didn't answer. He got up, went and took himself
a bath, combed his hair, trimmed his beard, said, I'll start eating. How can you do that? You just
lost a child. He said, I can't, he can't come
back to me, but I'm sure go where he's at. That's a good answer. Oh my, Paul asked God, he said
three times, three times, here's an apostle. He went to the Lord
three different times and said, Lord, I've got a thorn of the
flesh, a thorn in my flesh, save me from it. Lord, save me from this thorn
in my flesh. No. Lord, save me from this thorn
in my flesh. God said, I ain't gonna do it.
Why ain't ya? I want you to know to trust me
and trust my grace and trust, did not trust your flesh, but
trust me and trust my grace. That's all right, I've done that
for you, just one reason to make you understand that my grace
will meet your need no matter when, where, or how. That's what
he said. Oh my. Oh man, I don't even want
to mention this. I don't. It's just awful for
me. Our spiritual growth seems so
slow. So slow. There's not a one of
us in this building today that's a believer. We want to have knowledge. God, give us knowledge. Give
us knowledge of Christ. Give us knowledge of your word.
Give us knowledge of ourselves. And all of us, we want to grow
up. We want to be mature. Want to be mature believers.
We want to grow. But then we'll show up some days
and we'll go out in that home or in the meeting and we find
out we're so, I'm so immature. I'm so ignorant. Why did I say
that? How could I have said that after
all these years? How could I have acted that way? You know what
our Lord said? The Spirit's willing, but this
old flesh is so weak. Oh my. And we're so often disappointed
in ourselves and other believers. But it's good. It's good for
us. to go to the Lord, because it's good for me to go to God.
You know, disappointment is one thing that we just, we're just going to have to live
with. Disappointment. Disappointment. In ourselves and very often very
disappointed in other believers. And just like David did here,
we see the wicked prosper, the rebel gets fat and gets full. Blasphemers. All these blaspheming preachers,
free of troubles, but we're burdened, we're afflicted. And the psalmist,
look what he said here in verse 17. He said, I was, when I thought
about all these things that I seen in the world and everything that
was going on and met my difference between them and them, he said
this, he said, when I thought to know this too painful for
me until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I understood what
their ends gonna be, what God's gonna do for them. He put them
in a slippery place. He gave them all this. All this,
it's like putting a calf up, put him in the barn. All them
cows look at him and say, boy, you go out down there and feed
him, they all come running. But you got him up to slay him. That's
what God does with people, gives him a bat, cause he gonna slay
him. And that's why David said, I
don't know, I know not what's good for me, but I do know this,
it's good for me to draw near to God, to trust the Lord, to
trust the Lord. Not lean upon this arm of flesh.
Well, how can we draw near to God? How can we draw near to
God? Well, we draw near in faith.
Draw near in faith. I believe Him. I believe Him.
I don't believe Him like I should. I don't believe Him like I like
to. I don't believe Him like I ought
to. But one of these days, I'm going
to believe Him perfectly. But oh my. I want to believe
Him. I want to believe Him. Draw near in faith. Draw near
in faith. And then draw near to Him in
worship. Our Lord says, when that Lord come down off the mountain,
three leopards met Him. A leopard met Him. They come
down off that mountain. And the scripture says, and they
came to worship Him. And they said, Lord, and this
is what they said, Lord, if you will, that's the first thing,
they worshiped Him. And then they said, Lord, if
you will, you can make me clean. He said, I will be thou clean. But they came as lepers. They
came as sinners. They came as seekers. Sir, we
would see Jesus come as a servant and also come as a son, come
to worship, draw near to God in worship. And then also, last
of all, and I'm done, it's good for me to draw near to God, draw
near to God in praise. Oh, praise. Bless His name. Praise His holy name. You know,
the psalmist said in Psalm 46, 146, let everything that hath
breath praise the Lord. I had a little old wren sits
out there by the house in a tree and just sings its head off.
20 degrees outside, 10 degrees outside, 15 degrees. He's just
singing over a fog, just singing, singing. Praising God. And all to praise the Lord. But
you know what? It's a sad, sad proof of our
sinfulness and selfishness when we never, never approach God
except to ask for something. But oh my. Oh God, we lift our
hands, we lift our hearts, we lift our souls, we lift our voices,
we lift our minds, we lift everything about us up to you. And bless
your holy name. You're God, and I thank you that
whatever's in this world for me, you ordered it. You ordered it. Oh, I'm gonna
draw near to God. Huh? Let's all draw near to God. Keep me near, Lord, near, near
to thee. Let's draw near to God. Draw
near. When these trials and afflictions
and these burdens come, It's all near. It's all near. Our Father, in the blessed name,
precious name, oh the saving name, that name, oh Lord, that's
above every name, the Lord Jesus Christ, we come to bless you,
to praise you. Lord, whatever, whatever. Lord, We have to be honest before you. And we've tried this morning
to be honest with ourselves, to be honest with your word,
to be honest before you. But Lord, we're drawn near to
you. We're coming. We're coming, and
we'll always keep coming. We'll always keep looking. We're
afraid to look anyplace else, afraid to look to ourselves,
afraid to look to this world, afraid to look to any other man,
any other person. But Lord, we're not afraid to
look to you and to trust you and to bless your holy name.
So Lord, meet the needs of every heart and every home And those
that we love so dearly that's going through a great fight of
afflictions, be with them for Christ's sake. Amen. I'm learning to lead. Learning to lead. I'm learning to lead. Finding more power than I ever
dreamed I'm learning to lean on Jesus Well, God willing, I'll
see you tonight.