Matthew chapter 19. I want to
begin reading verse 16. Just two verses. Matthew chapter 19 and verse
16 and verse 17. We're studying tonight on the
goodness of God. The attribute of God's goodness. God is good. And here in verse
16 of Matthew chapter 19, One came and said unto him, Good
Master, what good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal
life? And he said unto him, Why callest
thou me good? There is none good but one, and
that is God. But if thou wilt enter into life,
keep the commandments. There is none good but God. We've used this passage of Scripture
several times to prove the deity, the divinity of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the way we simply do that
is this man, this rich young ruler, came to the Lord Jesus
and called Him Good Master. And the Lord Jesus said, There
is but one good, and that's God. And what he was saying was, Do
you recognize me as God? You call me good. Just how good
am I? Well, I'm God. If none is good
but one, then Christ must be God, because He's good, isn't
He? He's good. So we've used this passage to
teach the divinity of Christ, but we've also used it before,
and it's to prove that goodness belongs to God exclusively. It's one of the attributes of
God that belongs to Him and no other. There's no power but of
God. That tells us that God alone
is sovereign. He's almighty. And here, goodness
is unique to God. Only He's good. Now somebody
will say, Bruce, what about the angels, the holy angels? Aren't
they good? Yes, they are. But where did
they get their goodness? Where did they derive their goodness
from? And the saints, we're told that
saints are good. Barnabas was a good man. The
fruit of the Spirit within us is goodness, love, faith, hope,
gentleness, meekness, goodness. So saints are good. The angels
are good. Angels were made good, but they
lost that goodness, didn't they? Many of them lost their goodness.
Man was made good. God looked upon man that he had
made. And what did he say? Good. He's good. He said very
good, didn't he? Very good. But we failed and
lost that goodness. And when a person is created
anew in the Lord Jesus Christ, they're made good. They're made
good. That new creature that is within
is good. As you and I are born into this
world, we're bad. We're fallen. If we ever become
good, we must be made good. We don't have any inherent goodness
in us at all. We must be made new creatures
to be made good. And that's the point where God
is different in His goodness than all others. The angels have
a creative goodness. If we're in Christ, we have a
creative goodness. That new creature is good. But
God does not derive His goodness. from anybody. He's not a creature. He's not made. He's the eternal
God. John Gill gave five words to
describe God's goodness. God being good. And he used these
five words. He said this, God is originally
good. He's originally good. In other
words, His goodness is of Himself. It wasn't bestowed upon him. He wasn't made good. He is originally
good. And he said God is also essentially
good. Now, you may be a human being
and not be good. You may be an angel and not be
good. But God cannot be God without
being good. He is essentially good. And if he ceased to be good,
he would cease to be God. That's what we mean by he's essentially
good. It's his nature, his being. Just like he cannot lie. If he
lied, he would cease to be God. If he ceased to be good, he would
cease to be God. So he's essentially good. And
Gil said he's independently good. Since he never derived his goodness
from any outside source, His goodness is not dependent
upon any outside source. He's independent in His goodness. If all the angels had failed,
if man had failed, and God had destroyed the world and obliviated
it, annihilated it, you know something? God would still be
good because He's independent in His goodness. He's not dependent
upon anybody for that. If I was hungry, he said, I wouldn't
ask you. And if he needed any goodness,
he wouldn't ask us. He's independently good. And
Gil said, fourthly, he's infinitely good. He's infinitely good. In other words, his goodness
cannot be measured. You think of the goodness of
the angels, the elect angels, and you think the goodness of
all the believers. If you combined the elect angels
and elect saints together, their goodness would be but a drop.
But how could we possibly measure the goodness of God? It's an
infinite ocean, isn't it? It has no shores. It has no bottom. It's infinite. It's infinite. The infinite goodness of God. And lastly, he said, it's immutable
goodness. It's immutable goodness. You
can't add anything to it. It's abundant already. It's full
already. You can't take anything from
it. You can't diminish it. And it cannot change. I am the
Lord. I change not. The goodness of
the Lord, David said, endureth for how long? Forever. Forever. Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, today, and forever. He changeth not. Goodness is
everlasting goodness. Some have considered the attribute
of God's goodness like this, and I think probably there's
something to this, at least in a sense. They put goodness over
here in this category, as it were, and underneath that they
put grace and mercy and things like that, and they say goodness
is what moves God to be gracious. Goodness is what moves God to
be merciful. J.L. Dagg says this, goodness
exercised towards the unworthy is called grace. Goodness exercised
towards the unworthy is called grace. Why would God say that? What would move him to save a
person by his grace? Mr. Dagg said it's his goodness.
And he said this, and goodness exercised towards the suffering
is called mercy. What would move God to extend
mercy to a miserable man and a miserable woman? Goodness.
He's good. I think that Scripture, and I
want to prove that to you, look over in Psalms, Psalm 107. You
can let go of Matthew 19 if you want to. And turn to some Scriptures
with me. Look first of all in Psalms 107. And look here at what is attributed
to the Lord's goodness. Let's just begin here in verse
1 and read a few verses. In verse 1 of Psalms 107. Oh,
give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good. That's what we're
talking about isn't it? Give thanks unto Him for He's
good. He's essentially good, eternally good. For His mercy
endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord
say so, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy. And
gather them out of the lands, from the east, the west, the
north, and the south. And look at this now. They wander.
They were scattered. North, south, east, and west.
They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way. They found
no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul
fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord
in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their distresses."
Now, that's mercy, ain't it? They were in trouble. They were
hungry and thirsty, no place to dwell in. They cried and the
Lord delivered them. That's mercy. That's what we
need is mercy. And look in verse 7, And He led
them forth by the right way, that they may go to a city of
habitation. That heavenly city. And look
what He said. Look what He attributes this
to. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness. What was it that moved the Lord
to pity these people that had no city to dwell in? Hunger and
thirst. Praise Him, therefore, for His goodness. Let's read
on. Look in verse 10. Verse 9 said, He satisfied the
longing soul, and He fills the hungry soul with goodness. Such
is said in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound
in affliction and in harm, because they rebelled against the words
of God. And they despised the counsel
of the Most High. Therefore He brought down their
hearts with labor. They fell down, and there was
none to help. Then they cried unto the Lord
in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses.
He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and
broke their bands of sunder." And what does he attribute that
to? Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness. And you go on and he gives two
more examples of his goodness in saving these people. It's attributed to his goodness.
So what moves, what is it that moves God to act graciously towards
a poor sinner? It's goodness. And what is it
that moves Him to pity the miserable? It's goodness. The Lord is good. He's good. Some of God's attributes,
we've been studying some of His attributes. We've looked, I think,
at His eternality. I know we've looked at His power.
We've looked at His omniscience. He knows everything. He's omnipresent. Some of the attributes that you
and I have been studying about, they make us see how great God
is. He's the greatest of beings.
John Dagg used to say, God is the greatest of beings. We've
been studying some attributes and we see that, don't we? But
when we come here to the goodness of God, we see that God is not
only the greatest of beings, but He's the best of beings.
His goodness, when we see His goodness. He's not only great
in His power, oh, but He's the best of beings in His goodness
and His love and kindness. and His tender mercy. You and
I may have an occasion to recoil at the power of God. Sometime
when we see Him exercising His power, I tell you, it may make
us afraid and cause us to recoil. Recoil it is justice. If you
and I had been standing on the hill overlooking the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah and the plains when the fire began to fall out
of heaven, I tell you what, I wouldn't want to see that, would you?
I would want to see the justice of God, the power of God executed
against those people. So there are some of the attributes
of God that may, when we see them, cause us to recoil. Certainly
the wrath of God. But you know, there's nothing
in the goodness of God that would cause us to recoil at all. When
we see goodness, it ought to motivate us. It should be a motivating
force to put all our trust in Him. to come to Him and believe
Him and adore Him more than ever. There's something about the goodness
of God. If the triune God is essentially
good, and He's independently good, and He's eternally good,
and He's unchangeable in His goodness, then this should motivate
us to trust Him in this world of badness and evil that you
and I live in. Look over here in another psalms
now, in Psalms chapter 52. Look in Psalms chapter 52. This
first verse here, Psalms chapter 52 verse 1, David talks about
the goodness of the Lord endeareth forever. Why boastest thou thyself
in mischief, O mighty man? The goodness of God endeareth
continually. That may not help you very much. You won't see the blessing in
that until you look at the title of this psalm and realize on
what occasion it was written. It says here that when Dog, the
son of David, when Dog the Edomite came and told Saul and said unto
him, David is come to the house of Ahimelech. Ahimelech was the
High Priest. And David was fleeing from Saul. And he went, sure, to the High
Priest's house. It really was the temple there, or the sanctuary
where they lived, the temple. And he gave David some shewbread.
Remember that? And he gave him the sphere of... what was the silly giant's name?
Goliath. He gave him Goliath's sword. But he was fleeing. There was
this man there. by the name of Dog. He was an
Edomite. He was a wicked man. And David
left the priest and went on about his way, running from Saul. And
Dog went and told Saul. He said, David went there to
the priest's house and they helped him, gave him bread. Well, Saul
called all the priests. There were 85 priests with him
wherever. Saul called them there and said,
did you help David? They said, he's your best servant.
They didn't know what was supposed to happen. Saul said, I'm going
to kill that one of you fellows. And he couldn't get any of his
men to fall on him and kill him. So he told Dawg, he said, you
take your men and you kill them. He killed 85 of those priests
right there. They lived in the town by the
name of Nob. And he said, don't just stop
killing them. You go kill every man, every woman, every child,
every animal that's in the city of Nob. And that's what they
did. There's one man escaped, and that was a Himalayan son.
And he went and told David, he said, they've killed my dad,
they've killed all the priests, every man, woman, and girl in
the city of Nod. It just broke David's heart.
He said, it's my fault. I knew, he said, what Dog would
do when he seen me. I've occasioned the death of
all your father's house. And he comes here and he's talking
to this dog, and he said, Why boastest thou thyself in mischief,
O mighty dog, you wretch? I know you can slay innocent
man with your sword. But he said, Know this. Know
this. All your mischief and all your
wickedness will not change one thing. You may put men in fear,
and you may cause me grief of heart, but there's one thing
you will not change. You will never diminish, and what is that?
God's goodness. The goodness of God endeareth
for him. Now, this isn't that confident,
brothers and sisters. When you and I look around us
and see all the evil, all the wickedness of men and devils,
there's one place to look and see goodness and be encouraged
by, and that's up. the goodness of our God endeareth
forever. Look at another passage. Look
in Psalm 27. Just over to your left. Look at Psalm 27. Look
in verse 13. Look what David says. This is
why the goodness of the Lord and our knowledge of it and living
by faith upon this goodness is so essential to us as believers.
Look what David said, I'd have fainted. I'd have fainted. You know what happens when we
faint, don't you? You become unconscious. You lose
your youthfulness. You can't do anything but just
lay there if you faint. He said, I had fainted. What
kept him from fainting? Unless I had believed to see
the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. David said, if I just kept looking
around me and all I could see was the mischief of devils and
the sin of man, he said, I would faint. And look what he attributes
to the goodness of God, too. Look what he attributes, rather,
to the goodness of God. Look what he said up here in verse
two. When the wicked, even my enemies
and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled
and fell. Why did they do that? The goodness
of God. That's why. Though an host should
encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise
against me, in this will I be confident. How can he say that? How can he say, when I see war
coming, I'm not going to fear. I'm not going to be overwhelmed.
This is my confidence, and that's what he says in verse 13, the
goodness of the Lord. No matter how bad things get
at home or abroad, we will faint unless we believe in the goodness
of the Lord in the land of the living. Now, things go bad in
your house. Things go bad in my house. If
we don't have any idea of what's coming next week, next month,
next year, in our families, in our countries, things can get
bad. And you and I will sit and cry
and grieve ourselves to death and fear and tremble over these
things if we don't exercise faith in our Lord's goodness as David
did. I had fainted unless I had believed
to see the goodness of the Lord. And that's why those five things
that I give you are so important. The infinite goodness of the
Lord. Men's evil and devil's evil can be measured. And God
will measure it someday. And He'll give to them what they
deserve. But the goodness of God is infinite. If evil reaches this point, the
goodness of the Lord overreaches. If evil goes this deep, There
is a depth below that, and that is the goodness of the Lord.
So live as David did in this wicked world full of evil. Live
as David did, believing to see the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living. Look in Psalms chapter 33 and
look here in verse 5. I want to stay here for just
a minute. Look what he said. He loveth righteousness. The Lord loves righteousness
and judgment, justice. Look at this. The earth is full
of the goodness of the Lord. It's full of the goodness of
the Lord. Listen to what David said in
Psalm 145.15. I just want to quote it to you. You've heard
this several times. Let me show you. Let me just
illustrate to you how the earth is full of our God's goodness. David said in Psalms 145, 15,
The eyes of all wait upon thee. And you give them their meat,
their food, their nourishment in due season. You open your
hand and you satisfy the desire of every living things. Now what is that? But goodness,
listen to this. I thought about this today as
I sat in my office and I looked outside and there was the most,
two of the most beautiful little yellow birds I've ever seen in
my life. Had little black streaks on their wings and they flew
off and here come a bunch of yellow butterflies flying through
by my window and I thought, man, the little creatures. And who
is it that feeds all these creatures? I mean, the birds, the fowls
of the air, the beast of the field, the creeping things, innumerable. Job said they're innumerable.
These creeping creatures, they're innumerable. And who is it that
satisfies the desire of all these creatures? It's the Lord. It's the Lord. And you know,
He don't just satisfy them in our day, but look how long He
satisfies them. He has satisfied them now for
6,000 years, all these little creatures. He opens his hand
and satisfies the desire of every living thing. All the vegetation,
all the bees, the fowls, the plants, you know the grass wouldn't
be green unless he satisfied his thirst.
It would just dry up. Earth would dry up. We'd have
no trees. Have you ever seen the earth open its mouth because
it was thirsting for rain? I've walked sometimes through
the yard, and man, I've seen cracks that big, and my heart's
went out to God's earth, and I've cried out to Him, Lord,
Your earth needs to be satisfied. It's burning up. The grass is
dry. The crops are drying up. And what does He do? He opens
His hand, and He satisfies the desire of His grass, of His trees,
of His plants, of His birds, creeping things. And look at
humanity. Isn't this a good illustration
of God's goodness in the land of the living? How long have
we been on this earth? Six thousand years. And we're
still here, aren't we? Our humanity is still here. And
you know what it's owing to? It's owing to the goodness of
God. It's full. The earth is full
of the goodness of the Lord. In spite of calamities, the Lord
has sustained it. And why? Because of His goodness.
Paul said this, He left not Himself without witness in that He did
good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling
our hearts with food and gladness. That's goodness. That's goodness.
When we see nature upheld and supplied, that's goodness. When
we see evil restrained and goodness promoted among men, that's God's
goodness. When we see any stability in
any of our institutions of government or marriage or family, that's
owing to God's goodness. At any time, at any place where
liberty and justice prevails to any degree, that's the goodness
of the Lord. The earth is filled with His
goodness. Somebody say, look at the pain,
look at the sorrow. Yes, there's pain and sorrow,
but look at the goodness. We see it everywhere, don't we?
If we just look, we see the goodness of the Lord in the land and the
living. What keeps the earth from total
famine? Why isn't humanity annihilated
and plagued with diseases and plagued? Why hasn't the badness
of devils and men brought utter destruction and ruin? Why hasn't
this happened? The goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living. The earth is full of His goodness. Look at yourselves. Look at yourselves. Whatever your situation is this
evening, can't you see the goodness of the Lord in your situation? Much better than we deserve,
is it not? And lastly, and we'll close with
this, and this is probably the most important thing, no doubt,
about the goodness of God. Now I want you to turn to two
passages right quickly. Look in Luke chapter 2 and verse 7. Luke chapter 2 and verse 7. Why did the dear and blessed
Son of God become incarnate, take to Himself our likeness
through the womb of the Virgin, and live among us a man of sorrow,
and die to atone for our sins to bring us to heaven at last?
What is it in God that would send us such a Savior? He tells
us here in verse 7 of Luke 2. brought forth her firstborn son,
wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because
there was no room for them in the inn. There had been room
for others, but not them. And there were in the same country
shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock
by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and
the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore
afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not. For behold, I
bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day
in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And
this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped
in swaddling clothes, laying in a manger. And suddenly there
was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising
God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace
and what? Goodwill. Goodwill. What is it in God that sent us
such a glorious Lord and Savior? Goodness. Goodness. Goodwill. Towards who? Unworthy
people like we are. Fallen sinners like we are. Brothers
and sisters, we can look to God now. and find Him to be a merciful
Father to us because He sent us a Savior. We can look at our
sins and say they're gone and we're not guilty anymore because
of this goodness of God that sent us a Savior. We can look
at the law and not tremble and not be condemned by it because
God in His goodness sent us a Savior. We can't attribute it to anything
else, can we? You weren't worthy of it, were you, Clarence? One more scripture in Romans
chapter 2, and we'll close with it. Romans chapter 2. Look in verse 3. And thankest thou this, O man,
that judgest them which do such things, and doeth the same, that
you shall escape the judgment of God? You live in sin yourself,
but you condemn others for doing it, and think that you shall
escape the judgment of God. Or, verse 4, despises thou the
riches of His goodness and forbearance among the sufferers. Look at
this. Not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance. The goodness of God. Now some
would say this is the knowledge of His goodness, and in a sense
that may be so. Sometimes when a person comes
to the knowledge of how good the Lord has been to them, this
was so in my case, the Lord helped my soul over hell so often. And it scared me to death, but
you know it never did break me. But then He began to show me
how good He had been by keeping me out of that place. and preserving
me and keeping me. And when I saw His goodness,
I tell you what, it just broke me. It absolutely broke me. And
I tell you, sometimes where wrath, where the knowledge of wrath,
the knowledge of condemnation won't break a stout-hearted sinner,
the love of Christ will. And the knowledge of the goodness
of God will. That's one way to look at this.
But probably the proper way to look at it is this. It's what's
in God. It's what's found in Him that
would move Him to bring anybody to repentance. To come to you
and convict you of sin and show you your need of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the goodness of God that does that. And Paul
says here, and he warns especially these Jews, that this goodness
can be despised. And how would a man despise the
goodness of God? By shunning Him. when God speaks
through His Word and through His preachers and through His
witnesses by just going on about the ordinary way, giving no heed
to it, despising the riches of His goodness, the goodness of
God, the goodness of God.