All right, turn back with me
to Psalm 76. I know every time we open the
Word of God to look into it, we're dealing with very, very
weighty matters. And since Monday morning, when I began to study
from this passage, I have felt an enormous weight. What it feels
to me like is a very, very weighty matter. The wrath of man shall
praise the Lord. I want to preach this this evening
by God's grace and strip away all pretense and talk in very
plain, simple language and deal right with where we all live. My text is verse 10 of Psalm
76. Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee. The remainder of
wrath shalt thou restrain." I feel like I understand some fraction
of what the Old Testament prophets wrote when they said the burden
of the word of the Lord. I want to live my life praising
the Lord as God overall. I don't want to waste my time
with a silly emotional show of what the world calls praise.
I want to waste my time with a show of religion. I don't got
time for it. I want to be enabled by God's
grace to praise the Lord. I want to praise His character.
I want to praise and be thankful for salvation in His Son. I want to be thankful and praise
the Lord for His mercy and His wisdom in salvation I want to
be able to praise the Lord in all of his works, no matter what
he does. And I would imagine that almost
everybody feels that way about the blessings that God gives
us. And certainly when the Lord blesses
us, we ought to be a thankful people. God gives us something. We didn't earn it. We didn't
deserve it. He gave it to us freely and we ought to be thankful.
I would imagine everyone with little children practiced that
speech a lot in the last few days. You open up a present,
and the kid's real excited. What does every mom and dad say?
What do you say? What do you say? What do you say? Be thankful.
But what about when there's a tragedy? What about when there is a terribly
painful event in our lives? What about wars? Scripture says
they're never ending. They're just unceasing. They
never stop. I don't know. I mean, I know
that's true. I don't think there's been a
day in my life on this earth. There's not been a war somewhere.
What about those wars that kill so many people that destroy so
many lives, not just the soldiers that are fighting him, but civilians
just. How do you explain that? I saw
some pictures over the last couple of weeks. which seems particularly
painful at this time of year. I want to ask you, how can a
family meet a plane at Andrews Air Force Base carrying a coffin
draped with the flag of a soldier killed in action? Praise the
Lord. I ask you, they're crushed. Did God do that? Did he? Did God take the life of that
soldier? Did he or didn't he? What about when a young person
dies? They've got a young family. We think they've got so much
to live for, that we think they've got so much left for them to
do. How can that family attend the funeral of a young person
and go back to their everyday lives, praising the Lord? Did
God take the life of that young man and young woman? Did he? Or did the devil do it? Did something
evil happen that God couldn't control? Would God do such a
thing? to take the life of this young
person? What about crimes of murder,
rape, and theft that absolutely ruin people's lives for the rest
of their life? How can a victim of a crime like
that go on in a life praising the Lord? Did God allow that
to happen? Did God allow the wicked to prevail
and not suffer anything for it? What about women and children?
who live under the hand of an abusive man and they suffer and
generations afterwards suffer for it. Why does God allow evil
like that to ruin lives of what we would call innocent people?
What about natural disasters that kill thousands of people? The tsunami that's in the news
right now has killed thousands of people. Now how did that happen? Did God do that? Or did Mother
Nature do it, outside of God's control? Did God do that? Or did Satan do that, just being
evil in the world? I mean, we think, well, Satan
must have done it, because a loving God would never do such a thing.
Well, now, would he or wouldn't he? I know what people like to
think, but what does God's Word say? Would he or wouldn't he? And people ask a lot of questions
like that, don't they? A lot of questions. And I will
freely confess to you, I do not know the answer to them. But
here's what I do know. Mike, God did it. I know that. I know God did it. Everything
that happens on this earth, whether we think it's good or whether
we think it's evil, I know this. It happens according to God's
eternal will and purpose. Nobody ever does anything that
God couldn't stop. Nobody. Either, one of two things
is true. Either God did it or somebody
did something, overruled God's will and their will ruled. One
or the other. That's the only two options.
I know this, God did it. I want you to look at Amos chapter
three. If you find the book of Daniel,
Daniel, Hosea, Joel and Amos. I'll give you time to find it. Amos chapter 3. I know I looked all these references
up today, but I, hmm. Oh yeah, it's verse 6. There
we go. Amos 3 verse 6. Shall a trumpet be blown in the
city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be an evil in the
city, and the Lord hath not done it? If there's evil in the city,
God's done it. Now we know God didn't do evil,
but He allowed it, and He allowed it to happen, and He used it
for His purpose, not the purpose of the wicked. Look in Isaiah
chapter 45. Isaiah 45 verse 5. I am the Lord and there is none
else. There is no God beside me. I
girded thee though thou hast not known me that they may know
from the rising of the sun and from the west there is none beside
me. I am the Lord and there is none
else. I form the light and I create darkness. I make peace and I
create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. One more scripture, Proverbs
chapter 16. Verse four. The Lord hath made all things
for himself Yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. So when
these things happen, we know this from the word of God, God
did it. Now, I by no means, I'm saying
that the wrath of man works, the righteousness of God, God
does that. But this is what I'm saying.
And this is what the word of God is saying that God is in
control. God is sovereign. So he is in
control of everything that happens, whatever's happened. is happening
according to His will and purpose. And everyone and everything in
God's creation is going to be used to praise Him one way or
the other. Now, it's my prayer that God
would allow us to praise Him for His salvation in Christ. But if we're rebels against God,
and we refuse to bow to God, and we live in opposition to
God's free and sovereign grace We're still going to praise God,
but we're going to be used to praise God in his justice. God's
still going to overrule us and make even our rebellious works
to praise him. So we know that when evil happens,
it happens according to God's purpose. Everything God does,
you know why he does it? He don't have to give you and
me an answer. You know why he does it? He does it simply because
it seems good in his sight. That's why he does it. He didn't
do it because it was his purpose to bring evil. He did it because
it seemed good in God's sight. He did it to bring good out of
it. And only God can do this. Only
a sovereign God can do this. Can overrule the wickedness of
man to accomplish his purpose of good. And you just mark it
down. That is exactly what God is doing
every single time we experience evil in this life. And I want
to give you five examples of what I'm saying. Five examples
of the wickedness of man praising God. The first one is Job. You know the story of Job. Satan
nearly destroyed Job. He took everything Job had except
his wife and his life. Took it all. Made it so bad Job
wished he'd taken his life. Now I want to ask you a question.
Why'd that happen? Huh? Who did that? Did Satan do that or did God
do that? It wasn't Satan. It was God. God was the one that
brought Job up to Satan. Satan didn't come and ask the
Lord, how about this fellow Job, let me go after him. God brought
Job up to Satan. He said, if you consider my servant
Job, if you consider there's none like him in the earth, a
perfect and an upright man, what it fears God and eschews evil.
God brought Job up to Satan. And Satan took away all of Job's
riches. He took away all of his servants
and he killed every last one of his children. And then Satan
covered Job's body with boils from the top of his head to the
sole of his foot. And you know why all that happened?
Because God brought Job up to Satan. The Lord brought this
trial on Job, didn't he? I got another question for you.
Why didn't Satan kill Job's wife and let him suffer with that
for a little bit and then kill Job? Why didn't Satan do that? Surely the wrath of man shall
praise thee and the remainder of wrath God's going to withhold.
He's going to restrain. See God's in control of this
thing. See first the Lord told Satan you can take everything
he's got but don't you touch him. Then he said you can touch
him But don't you take his life. God was the one who was in control
of this thing all along. God was doing it. And I do not
pretend to know all of God's purpose in Job's trial or any
of our trials. But I do know that in the end,
Job praised the Lord like he could never have praised him
before he went through this. Look at Job chapter 42. Job learned
something. about God that he could not have
learned until he went through this fiery trial. Job 42 verse 5. Job says, I've heard of thee
by the hearing of the ear, but now, after 42 chapters of this,
now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent. in dust and ashes. Job learned
something precious in this. And the Lord brought a blessing
out of it. Look over at verse 10. And the Lord turned the captivity
of Job when he prayed for his friends. Also the Lord gave Job
twice as much as he had before. Then came there unto him all
his brethren and all his sisters and all they that had been of
his acquaintance before and did eat bread with him in his house.
And they bemoaned him and comforted him over the evil that The Lord
had brought upon him. See, who brought that? The Lord
had brought it. If they knew it, the Lord brought
it upon him. Every man also gave him a piece of money and everyone
an earring of gold. So the Lord blessed the latter
end of Job more than his beginning. For he had 14,000 sheep and 6,000
camels and 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 she-asses. He had also
seven sons and three daughters. The Lord brought a blessing from
that that Job never could have experienced. before he went through
this trial. It seemed evil, but the Lord
brought good out of it, didn't he? All right, my second example
is Joseph. I don't think anywhere in scripture
we have a better example of a classic good boy. That's Joseph. Joseph
was an obedient child. Joseph was a joy. He was an utter
joy to his parents. Joseph was Jacob's favorite son. How he loved that boy. Everybody,
everywhere liked Joseph. He went to town, everybody, hey,
Joseph, everybody liked Joseph. Everybody loved Joseph, except
his brothers. His brothers hated him. And one
day they took Joseph out in the open field and they threw him
down in a pit where no water was. And their intention was
to kill their brother. And they decided we're going
to sit down and eat a bite of bread first, get our strength
up, and then we're going to kill our brother. And while they're eating,
Reuben, one of the brothers, convince them, now let's not
kill our little brother. Instead, let's sell him into
slavery. And so fellows were passing by who would be ISIS
today. That's exactly where they came
from. That's the kind of men they were. And they sold their
little brother to ISIS, to slavery. How evil that can you imagine
somebody doing that to their little brother? Did God do that? Would God allow
that to happen to this favorite son? But then when Joseph was
in slavery, God blessed him. He rose up to a prominent position
in charge of the house of a very important man named Potiphar.
I mean, for a fellow who's a slave, Joseph has got it made in the
shade. And then Potiphar's wife falsely
accused Joseph and has Joseph thrown in jail for years for
a crime He wouldn't commit. He didn't commit. You reckon God did that? That
God allowed this miscarriage of justice to have an innocent
man thrown in this jail? But even down in that jail, God
blessed Joseph. Joseph ended up in charge of
the prison. He's a prisoner. He's in charge of the prison.
And while he was there in prison, he met Pharaoh's butler. Pharaoh's
butler done something to make Pharaoh mad. He was down in prison
too. And he had a dream. It troubled him. And Joseph told
him what his dream meant. You're going to be set free out
of this place. You're going to go back to serving Pharaoh. And when
you do, remember me telling him about me, would you? And the
butler was so happy. He said, Joseph, that's exactly
what I'm going to do. First thing I do when I get out
of here, I'm going to tell Pharaoh about you and spring you out
of this place. And he forgot all about Joseph for two long
years. What an evil that was. How that
was so wrong. Would God allow that to happen?
Really? Well, I want to start with why
it wasn't worse. Do you know why Joseph's brothers
didn't kill him? Surely the wrath of man shall
praise thee, and the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain.
That's exactly why. Do you know why Joseph didn't
catch some awful disease and die in that prison? Because surely
the wrath of man shall praise thee. and the remainder of wrath
thou shalt restrain. That was true today, then it
is still true today. I remember, I don't remember as the very
first, it may have been the second, it was close anyway to the events
of 9-11 and those buildings were still smoldering. Brother Henry
preached from this passage and he said there's 5,000 souls missing.
You know why there's not 35,000? That was their intent. Those men intended to kill 35,000.
You know why? Because surely the wrath of man
shall praise thee and the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain.
God was in control all along. Now that's not to excuse this
evil. This evil is wicked. But God is the one that brought
all this evil to pass for His eternal purpose. After years
of slavery and years of prison and never being able to go back
to his homeland, Joseph had been delivered from prison and was
in second in command in all of Egypt. I want you to look at
Genesis chapter 50. We don't have to wonder why God
did this. God did it. We know that. And
we don't have to wonder why he did it. Joseph tells us why he
did it. Genesis chapter 50. Verse 20, here Joseph is talking
to his brothers who sold him into slavery, who mistreated
him so bad, who hated him. And he tells them, but that's
for you. You thought evil against me. That's the purpose you meant
to carry out was evil against me. But God meant it unto good. To bring to pass as it is this
day, to save much people alive. Joseph's brethren and almost
everybody he met for a long time, all of them, meant to bring evil
upon Joseph. And every single time they did,
God overruled it. God meant it for good. God overruled
the wickedness of men to bring to pass his purpose for good. What would have happened if Joseph
hadn't gone down into Egypt? and then put in charge all that
corn, and come up with a way to save up all that corn and
give it out to people when they needed the famine. If Joseph
hadn't gone down to Egypt, the children of Israel would all
starve to death before God ever gave them the Promised Land.
If Joseph hadn't gone down into Egypt, the children of Israel
never would have gone down there, and never would have become slaves
in Egypt, and you and I never would have received the wonderful
picture of redemption. Israel was delivered from bondage
in Egypt through the blood of the Passover lamb. And if they
had never been down there in Egypt, we wouldn't have that.
And Pharaoh heard, a different Pharaoh later on down the line,
many years after Joseph had died, had heard that God sent a deliverer. He was going to set Israel free.
Now Pharaoh is a wise businessman. He's not going to stop. He's
not going to let his free labor leave that country. He's building
a wall to keep them in, not keep them out. He's going to keep
them. This is good business, cheap labor. So Pharaoh said,
tell you what I'm going to do. God caused a deliverer to be
born. I'll show you what. I'm going to kill every boy,
baby. And he did. Can you imagine the horrible
pain of some parent having an infant boy taken from their hand,
had his head cut off. I mean, can you imagine? No,
we can't. The evil, the wicked evil that
that was. Did God do that? Is that something
God just happened because God couldn't stop it? You know what? God did that. And the remainder
of that wrath, he restrained every boy, baby, In Egypt, every
Israelite boy baby wasn't killed. Moses wasn't. And just to show
that he's running the show, you know what God did? He had Pharaoh
raise Moses. Surely the wrath of man shall
praise thee, and the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain.
Well, Pharaoh wasn't done trying to fight against God. God sent
all those plagues. Moses left Egypt and he came
back 40 years later. And he said, God said, let my
people go. Pharaoh wasn't going to do it.
And every time God sent a plague, Pharaoh said, oh, I'll let you
go. And then the Lord took the plague away. And scripture says
nine times, Pharaoh hardened his heart. Would not let the
people go. But then God told Moses, I'm
going to send one more plague and you're leaving this place.
I'm going to harden Pharaoh's heart. And God hardened Pharaoh's
heart, and that was the end of old Pharaoh. Pharaoh was a wicked,
wicked, evil man who hurt untold number of people. Here's my question. Did God do that? Did he? Did God do that? Look at Romans
chapter 9. Did God actually put that wicked
man on the throne, the greatest throne on earth at the time,
and allow him to hurt so many people? Yes, he did. Yes, he did. And God overruled
the wickedness of Pharaoh to accomplish his purpose, to let
the earth praise him. Romans 9 verse 17. For the scripture
saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised
thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name
might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath
he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he heart
See, God raised Pharaoh up and allowed this wicked to happen
so that his name would be praised when Pharaoh was destroyed. Now,
will all of us be delivered like that? Will we be delivered like
Job was and see that the Lord has given us twice as much as
we had before? Will we go through horrible evil like Joseph did?
Are we going to end up the Vice President of the United States?
More than likely not. I'd venture to say that most
of us will never see the full end and purpose of God and his
trials for us. I think that's a story yet to
be told. We may not see more than likely see the telling of
that story. I know we won't all be delivered
like that and be given great riches and blessings on this
earth. I know we won't because we're going to read just a minute
about some of our brethren Hebrews chapter 11 who died in it. They
weren't delivered from it. Well now preacher, what do you
got to say to people who are going to suffer like that and
die in that suffering and never get any relief from it? What
do you got to say about that preacher? Well I'll tell you
what I'm going to do. I'm going to let our brother
Joe answer that question for us. And I'm going to pray that the
Lord will allow us to say the same thing in meaning. Job said,
the Lord have taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. He also should be my salvation. That's what Job said. That's
what Job said. I pray God let us say that very
same thing. All right, here's the third thing. And let me say
this before I go on. Whether or not we see the end
God's purpose and we suffer these horrible trials. I don't have
to see the end of them to know God's bringing good out of them.
Though He slayed me, I'm going to trust Him. Right, here's the
third thing. The persecution of the early
church. The persecution of the early church is a whole lot more
horrible than we can imagine. Not only were those early Christians
thrown to the lions, You know what they did to them? They covered
them up with the animal skins to make them look like an animal
that a lion, you know, would hunt out in the wild. And then
they threw them down in there with those hungry lions to chase
them around, you know, and eventually eat them alive. I mean, they
were eaten alive. They were burned at the stake.
I mean, they were tied to a stake and set on fire. Nero would dip
them in tar or something and attach these Christians to a
bowl and light streets with them. Set them on fire and light streets
with them. Use them as street lamps. Look
at Hebrews chapter 11. Verse 36. Others had trial of cruel mockings
and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They
were stoned. They were sawn asunder. They
were sawed in half. They were tempted. They were
slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins
and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented. Of
whom this world was not worthy, they wandered in deserts and
in mountains and dens and caves of the earth. And these all,
having obtained a good report through faith, received not the
promise." They weren't delivered in this life. God having provided
some better thing for us, that they without us should not be
made perfect, should not be made whole. Now, this torture, they
were not delivered. Did God do that? This is my question
to us now. Did God do that? Well, I think
we pretty much established He did. Well, why would God allow
all this wickedness to happen to his people? These are his
children. Would you allow something like
that to happen to your children? I wouldn't. This is God's children. Well,
I know God did it, and I can tell you why he did it. Look
in Acts chapter 11. Acts 11 verse 19. They which were scattered abroad
upon the persecution that arose about Stephen. This persecution
came up after Stephen was stoned and they were persecuted. They
ran out of that place. They traveled as far as Phenicia
and Cyprus and Antioch. And what were they doing was
they were running away. They were preaching the word to none
but the Jews only. And some of them were men of
Cyprus and Cyrene, which when they were come to Antioch, they
were run out too. They run out because it's persecution.
They spake unto the Grecians. They spake unto the Gentiles,
preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was
with them, and a great number believed and turned unto the
Lord. See, the Lord allowed this persecution
at home. He brought this persecution at
home to force his disciples to scatter everywhere. And everywhere
they went, they went preaching Christ. And God's people heard
the gospel. They heard Christ preached and
they believed. They were saved. A great number
of people believed. Our ancestors, Gentiles. I often think, I think about
Brother Henry every single day. I think about him every day.
Sitting and studying and preparing. I'm so thankful. what he sacrificed
of himself to preach the gospel to the likes of me. It doesn't even begin to compare
with these early Christians being forced out. And rather than saying,
I'm not going through that again. I'm not suffering that persecution.
I'm keeping my mouth shut. Instead of doing that, they preached
Christ everywhere they went. God saved his church out of it.
He saved his people because of that. And you'll find this is
universally true throughout human history. The more wicked men
of this earth try to crush God's church and stop the gospel from
being preached, the more it flourishes. That's true universally throughout
the history of man. And do you know why that persecution
didn't kill every believer, didn't make everybody else shut up and
stop the gospel preaching? You know why that didn't happen?
Because surely the wrath of man should praise thee. and the remainder
of wrath thou shalt restrain. All right, now I saved my two
big guns for last. I was thinking about this today,
should I reorder this? I think you're supposed to shoot
your big guns first, but I saved mine for last, so don't quit
on me here. Here's my fourth example. What
about Adam's sin in the garden? All right, I know that God's
in control of all things. I know that. I know God's holy,
and I know God hates sin. then can you tell me why God
did not stop Adam from sinning in that garden? God hates sin.
Why didn't He stop him from sinning? If Adam hadn't sinned, we wouldn't
be in this mess, would we? If Adam hadn't sinned, we wouldn't
be suffering the pain and the sorrow and the sickness and the
death that we go through all of the time. Why didn't God just
stop Adam from sinning? He could have. He had the power
to do it. Why didn't He? It's for the same reason that God
does everything else. It's for His glory. It's for
God's glory. It's to bring about God's purpose
of the redemption of His people. See, Adam wasn't like you and
me. Adam was a representative man. He represented everybody
that would come from his loins. And everybody who Adam represented,
which is all of us, they did what Adam did because he's their
representative. Now, if Adam had not sinned, you and I could
still fall into sin by our own disobedience. And if that happened,
there wouldn't be a savior for us. No, there's only one sacrifice
for sin. In Christ, you can be sacrificed
every time somebody sins. No, there's just one sacrifice
for sin. The representation is a great key of the gospel. It's
a great glory of the gospel. If we were made sinners by one
representative man, we can be made holy and righteous by a
second representative man. See, Adam's sin as a representative
man allowed God to display his greatest glory in saving his
people through the second Adam, through the Lord Jesus Christ,
the second representative man. You see, if Adam hadn't made
us unrighteous by his disobedience, Christ never could have made
us righteous by his obedience. If Adam hadn't killed us, Christ
could never give us his life. If we hadn't been lost in Adam,
we couldn't be saved in Christ. It's got to be through this representative.
We could never have seen the glory of Christ and the redemption
of His people unless we first saw man's ruin by his own sin. We couldn't see the glory of
holiness if we first didn't see the filth of our sin. Satan came, he beguiled Eve. He set this thing in motion,
didn't he? But you know why Satan didn't carry the day? You know
why God didn't destroy all of creation forever? Because surely
the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath
I shall restrain. Adam shouldn't have sinned. He
shouldn't have rebelled against God, should he? But God did not
destroy the entire human race. Satan did not carry the day because
there already stood the surety. Christ Jesus, the Savior. And
God overruled Adam's sin to accomplish his purpose and the salvation
of his elect. by showing creation, the glory
of Christ the Savior. And we never could have seen
it if Adam hadn't seen it. And here's my last example. What
about Calvary? You know, everything that men
did at Calvary was wicked, wasn't it? They had a mock trial and
the judges got witnesses they knew would lie. They tied the
hands of a man that they knew was innocent behind his back
and blindfolded him and beat him with their fist and mocked
him and said, all right, now prophesy and tell us who hit
you. They cleared their throat and they spit in the face of
an innocent man and worse yet, in the face of God's own son.
Wicked men mocked the very son of God. They mocked him as king. They made him, after they beat
him and mocked him, they made him wear an old purple blanket.
They just found an old dirty purple blanket. It wasn't a nice
robe. It was just a dirty, filthy,
purple blanket. And they put it on his beaten,
lacerated back. And they stuck a wilted reed
in his hand for a scepter. They shoved a crown of thorns
down on his cap, and they mockingly bowed the knee to him and laughed,
saying, look, hail, king of the Jews. Look what they got. And
then when they got tired of that, they took him They made him carry
his cross till he couldn't carry it anymore. And they laid him
down on it and nailed him to it by driving railroad spikes
through his hands and his feet and picked that thing up and
plunked it down in a hole and disjointed his whole body and
laughed and mocked him while they watched him die. And wicked
religious men joined in the fun. They mocked him as he died. They
said, look at him. He saved others. Himself he cannot
save. Let's see if God will have you
now. You just come down from that cross and we'll believe
you. Now I ask you, why would the Holy Father allow all of
that evil to happen to His darling son? Why would He allow that
to happen to the only righteous man that ever lived? Would God
really do that? Yes, He did. Yes, He did. And
I'll tell you why He did it. He did it so that His people
would have salvation from their sins in justice. See, at Calvary,
God put His glory on display. Heard Brother Nyberg say this
one time, only he got it from somebody else, but I heard it
from him, so I'll give him the credit. He said, Calvary is the most
God-like thing God ever did. At Calvary, God put His glory
on display. He put the glory of His wisdom
on display. Now I know man's wickedness was
on display, but I'm telling you this at Calvary, the glory of
God's grace, the glory of God's love for his people, the glory
of his mercy, the glory of his wisdom, the glory of his love,
the glory of his justice far outshines the darkness of man's
evil and sin. See at Calvary, the wicked did
not carry the day. They were not able to pervert
justice at Calvary. Calvary, on that center cross,
an innocent man did not die. A guilty man died to satisfy
God's holy justice. The Lord Jesus Christ was made
sin for his people and he died as a sacrifice to put that sin
away. He hath appeared in these last
days to put away sin, to make the sin of his people to not
be there anymore. So now, By God's grace, we see
the glory of God's wisdom in saving his people through the
sacrifice of his own son. And if it weren't for those Jews
and those Romans getting together, you know, the Jews and the Romans
never got together about anything. They got together about this,
didn't they? And they got together about this. And if they hadn't,
there'd be no sacrifice for sin. There'd be no salvation unless
Christ was crucified. He couldn't be stoned. He couldn't
have his head cut off. He couldn't be hanged. He had
to be crucified. And when they did that, those wicked men, they
did exactly what their evil hearts wanted to do. But God overruled
their will. Their will was to get rid of
Jesus, wasn't it? Their will was to have this man not reign
over us. And what happened? They didn't get rid of him. No.
And he'll eternally reign over them. God accomplished His will,
didn't He? And He used their wickedness
to do it. And even though we may not always see it, and I,
at least in my experience, I'll say this, I seldom do, almost
never. But this same thing still holds
true today. Men will always be evil. Men
will never be anything but evil. And God will allow them to do
what they do to accomplish His will, not theirs. And we think
the world's getting worse and worse and worse, don't we? Maybe
it is. I don't know. But do you know
why it's not worse than it is right now? It could be worse.
You know why it's not? Because God's on the throne.
Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder
thou shalt restrain. And the Lord's going to restrain
that wrath. That's what we read in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2
there. The Lord's going to restrain that wrath. He's going to hold
it back. until the time he's done with
this creation. When he's taken all the last
of his people out of this wicked world, then he's going to let
her loose. He's going to let her loose.
But not before then. Not before then. Because the
wrath of man shall praise thee. And the remainder of that wrath,
God's going to restrain. He's going to hold it back for
his purpose. And in all things, We can't see
the story being weaved together. We can't see the end of it as
it's being weaved together. But I promise you this, in everything,
in every wicked, evil, painful, sorrowful things that happens
to us in this creation, I can tell you the end of it. It's
God's purpose for good for His people, for the salvation of
His people. If I can get a hold of that, I can say it in meaning.
Though He slay me, yet I trust Him. All right, let's bow together. Our Father, we thank You for
Your Word. We thank You for Your Word that
displays to us who You are. And Father, we're Your children,
Your little children. Your Word calls us Your little
children. And we can't understand And we know we're not supposed
to understand. We don't need a God we can understand. But
Father, we pray for faith to trust you and to believe you. Give us faith. Increase our faith,
we pray. And let us rest easy while all
around us is in absolute chaos. Let us rest easy on the pillow
of your sovereignty. Let us Give us the faith to trust
the Lord. Give us the faith to say with
our brother Job, though he slayed me, I'm still going to trust
him because he is all my salvation. It's in the precious name of
our Lord Jesus Christ and for his glory, we pray.