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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/brody-thibodeau/god-is-good/
Our Father, we are thankful for a God who is good. We are thankful for thy mercy and thy tenderness. Thankful for the grace of God in reaching and saving these three young men. We are thankful that thus far, their lives have been preserved for God, and we pray for them.
Father, we pray for the salvation of souls, and rightly so. But we do understand that many of the prayers of the apostles and the epistles were connected with the growth and the preservation of the saints, and the preservation of assemblies.
And Father, we do pray for every young person here at this conference who is a born-again believer on the Lord Jesus, that they will indeed live for God. But we pray tonight that the power of God will be evident in the preaching of the gospel, because there are sinners here, and if tonight were to be their last night, it would be hell forever.
Help us to remember the seriousness of the gospel. And Father, help us to preach in the power of the Holy Spirit. We look to thee in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. I'd like to read in the Old Testament, in the book of Psalms number 73, please.
Psalm number 73. In Psalm 73, we'll read verse number one. It is a psalm of Asaph, we are told. And it says, truly, God is good. And I think that's what I want you to focus on for the first part of our gospel meeting.
Truly, God is good. That seems like an obvious statement, I'm sure, to many people in our audience. God is good. I heard one gospel preacher one time say that the most terrifying statement in all of the scriptures is that God is good.
What we will intend to do as we go over some of the themes from the scriptures is prove that the goodness of God is something that should cause us to rejoice. We can be thankful for a God who is good, not only in his character, but in the things that he does.
He is good. But as we go over these themes and concepts from the scripture, we will also realize that the fact that God is good makes it so that judgment is sure, hell is real, and sin is serious because God is good.
If you were to go back to the beginning of your Bibles, I said that sentence too quickly. If you were to go back to the beginning of your Bible, you will find that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
A very simple statement, and yet so full of truth and detail. You consider that in the creation process, he, by speaking a word of power, was able to bring about all of that you see out of nothing. Tremendous thing.
And we think about the power of God in creation, and we say, God is good. Thank God for creation. You watch as creation is fine-tuned down to the details. I used to think that God created a tree, and then a tree has to bring forth leaves, and leaves have to bring forth whatever else, whoever knows what happens to a tree, but eventually you would get fruit.
But that's not how God created the trees. God created the trees already bearing fruit, so that when he formed man of the dust of the ground, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, there was already in place all of the conditions that were necessary for life and living, because God is good, he's taking care of Adam.
You fast forward just a little bit, and you will find that that same man now with his wife in a garden, rebelling against God and disobeying the word of God by taking the fruit that they were not supposed to partake of and eating of it, and God now intervenes, and the same God who had provided everything that was good for Adam, the same God who cared for Adam and cared for Eve, he now intervenes in righteousness and in justice, and he takes the man and the woman whom he loves, and he puts them out of the garden.
Why? Because God is good. And immediately we are faced with this fact, the goodness of God demands punishment for sin. The goodness of God makes him the polar opposite of sin and sinfulness. And when he put man out of the garden, people today might look at that event and say, God was harsh.
No, God is good. People might say God is unfair. No, God is good. People might say God is unreasonable. No, God is good. And because God is good, sin is serious. I wanna stop just for a second here tonight, because a gospel meeting is not a gospel meeting unless you're thinking.
Thinking about what God is trying to say to you through this meeting. We've heard three men get up and tell us about God's dealings in their experience, bringing them to a knowledge of sin and a knowledge of the Savior.
When you think about the goodness of God, do you think about your sin? Have you thought at all about your sin today? There are some younger ones up front here who are paying good attention. Perhaps you were like our brother, and today you've just been waiting for the meeting to end so that you can run around and play and have the snack.
But have you thought about your sin? You now look throughout the Old Testament and you will find that God is good. You will see as humans are suffering and as people are oppressed and as different things happen in the Old Testament of the scriptures, God always knew and God always cared because God is good.
A caring and a knowing God would intervene in the experiences of people who were oppressed. He would deliver them from the bondage that they were in. He would seek to bring them into the blessing that he had for them.
And when they responded to his word, they were always blessed because God is good. But if you look at the history of the nation of Israel, you will see that there were times when they rebelled against God, when they chose sin over God, when they chose to go their own way.
And when they chose to go their own way, they chose sin over God, they rebelled against God, they defiled the very habitation of God. God let them go. God carried them away. God held them responsible for their sin.
Why? Because God is good. And you see, we always are representing a God who is seeking to bless. That's the one, I shouldn't say the one thing. That's the best thing to me about preaching the gospel. If there's only one thing I like about preaching the gospel, perhaps I should get a different profession.
Is this a profession? Is anyone professional at this? I'm looking at people. We are presenting to you a God who wants to bless. Is he a God of love? Absolutely a God of love. In fact, the Bible says God is love.
He's good. That same loving God does loving things. Those loving things have included the giving of his word so that we can be aware of our sin. Those loving things include the giving of his son so we could have a way to deal with sin.
Those loving things include the gospel that now goes out to you with an invitation to come and have rest because God is good. He wants to bless you. But for sinners who refuse his word and for sinners who rebel against him and sinners who reject his son, God will hold you responsible because God is good.
So if you go by the calendar, almost 2000 years ago, tonight, the Lord Jesus would be in the grave. If you go by the calendar, almost 2000 years ago this week, there was an event like none other, tremendous event.
I want you to think with me just about the Lord Jesus in the hours leading up to the cross, how he would meet with his disciples in the upper room and when Judas had gone out to betray him, while he was being betrayed, he took bread and he broke it, knowing full well what it represented, his body, which would be given for them.
He took the cup and he blessed it. And that cup of blessing that the apostle Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 10 was passed around to all of them. And those men would remember the cup of blessing has to do with redemption in the land of Egypt.
And now the cup of blessing would have to do with the blood of the lamb on the cross of Calvary. He was looking forward to what was going to happen on the cross. He would go to the garden of Gethsemane.
And in the garden of Gethsemane, he would pray. And he was in such agony that he would sweat as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground, anticipating the agony of the cross. And yet he moved forward.
Moving forward and being mocked by the Jewish people, being turned over to the Romans, having his back whipped, having a crown of thorns placed on his head, having the hair ripped from his face. And you would be able to look at that man on that day and according to Isaiah, his visage was marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men.
And if you were to watch as those cruel soldiers would buffet him in the face, you would stand back and you would say, wait a minute, God is good. You watch as the Lord Jesus now at the busiest time of the year in the city of Jerusalem, when the people were pressed together so tight that there were barely even be room for a man to walk.
He puts his cross or they put his cross on him. Always remember, it's the world that gave him the cross. They put his cross on him and he bearing his cross went forth to the place which is called Golgotha, the place of a skull.
And there they crucified him and we stand back now from Jerusalem's wall and we say God is good. As they nail his hands to the cross. I don't think it was quiet enough to hear the dull blow of the hammer swung low, by the way.
I think the mob was just as ravenous as they were in Pilate's hall by the time they had made it to Calvary because they wanted to make sure this was carried out. And they drive the nails in his hands and they drive the nails in his feet and they gamble for his clothes as he's hanging there for all to see, naked and the shame of the cross.
And you and I may hang our head and say, I thought God was good. As the Lord Jesus could endure the dark hours of Calvary and break the silence by saying, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Was he questioning the goodness of God?
No. As he hung there knowing that the scriptures must be fulfilled and he saith, I thirst and they give him vinegar to drink. He is never doubting the goodness of God because God is good. And as he knowing that all things were now accomplished, he shouts a cry of triumph, it is finished.
And we watch as this man, now you think about this, if you're not familiar with the scriptures, you remember this. In complete and utter authority and control, he lays his own head on his own breast and he rests.
And he says, father, into thy hands, I commend my spirit. He had power to take up his life and he had power to lay down his life and he had power to take it up again. That authority he had received from who?
His father. Why? Because God is good. And when the wrath of God, he endured on the cross of Calvary, remember it's because God is good. Because God must deal with sin justly. Where our brother Scott read to us today from 1 John and chapter two, he is the propitiation for our sins.
That is God needed to be satisfied for sin. If you would like to have your theology straight, always remember the cross was first and foremost to satisfy God. Never forget it. What was taking place is that there was a perfect sacrifice being perfectly offered to perfectly satisfy a perfect God.
Because God is good. And nothing less than a perfect sacrifice would do. But God must punish sin, not just for mankind. Now I'm being consistent with the scriptures now. Because he's not just a propitiation for our sins and for the sins of the whole world.
It says the whole world, what's going to happen in a coming day. And I'm looking forward to this day. I'm looking forward to the day when everything will be in its proper place. When everything will be perfect again.
Well, when it will be not just like it was before the fall, but even better. When the universe will be in perfect harmony with the God who is good. And the only thing that could have accomplished that is the cross.
Because if God was not satisfied for sin, there would be no millennium. If God is not satisfied for sin, there would be no eternal state of glory and beauty. First and foremost, God must be satisfied because he is good.
Thank God the cross was because God is good. Thank God the cross is because God is always good. What he accomplished there was because God is good. And then they buried him. I am thankful that it was Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus that buried the Lord Jesus.
Clock is at a weird angle. Because that was in fulfillment of the scriptures. For those of you who are skeptical about the scriptures being the word of God, you need only read Old Testament prophecy and then see its fulfillment in the New Testament to be convinced of the authenticity of the Bible.
But you look in the Old Testament, it doesn't just say that he was buried. It says that he made his grave with the wicked. Those were the two malefactors. And with the rich in his death, that was Joseph of Arimathea, a man of means, a man who had enough money so that he could purchase a plot of land close enough to the city of Jerusalem where he would you out his own tomb that would have been for his own use, no doubt, only to be interrupted by this event that took place on the cross where he now felt it necessary to take the body of the Lord Jesus, wrap it in linen clothes and spices, a hundred pounds of spices, and take that body and lay it in the tomb.
Now it was a tomb in which never a man had lain. I'm not sure if that means anything to you. That's because you don't read your Bible. Because if you were to go to the Old Testament, you will find that there was a time when they laid a man in a tomb, but there were bones in that tomb.
And when the man's body, dead body, hit the bones of the prophet that were in the tomb, he came to life again. So the New Testament is careful to guard the resurrection of the Lord Jesus by saying it's not because he came into contact with bones that gave him power and resurrection.
The resurrection power was going to be something that he had on his own, combined with the power of the Spirit of God and combined with the power of God himself. Why? Because God is good. God could not suffer his holy one to see corruption or leave his soul in the grave.
It would be completely contrary to the scriptures that were written. Because God is good, he was going to fulfill his word and raise Christ from the dead. And they went to the tomb and it was empty because God is good.
In an audience like this, I'm sure there are some people who enjoy the preaching of the gospel and whose hearts are touched by the cross. Some of us whose minds are enjoying the different details of the cross and the burial and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
And our hearts rejoice knowing that he's alive tonight. Does the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ mean anything to you? Does a savior who died under the wrath of God have any appeal? You know God is good.
There's coming a day when because of the sin and sins of the nation of Israel, we've been hearing about it today, there will be a period of time on this earth that is called a tribulation. Our brother was careful to tell us today that the last half of that seven year period will be a time of great tribulation.
It will be the time that is called the time of Jacob's trouble. So now you have the scriptural idea, not just as a tribulation on the whole world, but it is, but specifically it is going to be an intense tribulation upon the nation of Israel.
Because God is good. If there's anyone who hasn't heard our overall take on biblical theology today, and you're just listening to this recording or listening to this gospel message, we believe that God will bless Israel in a coming day.
By saying God is good for punishing Israel, we are not saying that Israel does not have a future or is not really an object of the love of God. But the tribulation is because God is good. Before that happens, according to the Bible, before that happens, before God brings on the earth all of the different vials of his wrath, all of the different trumpets, the seals that will be opened, all of the different cataclysmic events that will happen, the Gog bringing down Magog and all the nations and pressing in against Israel and that man from the West, there's something going to happen to every believer on the Lord Jesus in this dispensation that is a tremendous thing to look forward to.
And it could happen tonight. That is the Lord Jesus is coming again for us. According to 1 Thessalonians 4, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, the voice of archangel and the trump of God, the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord. And it's hard not to let your voice ascend as you begin to see what's going to happen as we leave this earth, as we move up into the heavens, as we meet those in the air, as we then are with Christ, as we then enter into heaven with him.
It's going to be a fantastic time, tremendous time. You say, why do you believe that that happens before the tribulation? Because that's what the Bible teaches. But why does it happen before the tribulation?
Because God is good. God is good and he has promised us that we will not see the wrath. He has promised us that the Lord Jesus is our deliverer from before the wrath to come. And God will absolutely keep his promise of a pre-tribulation rapture because God is good.
And God will allow his wrath to fall upon this earth that rejected his son and the nation that had him crucified. And they shall look on him whom they have pierced because God is good. And God will allow his son to return in absolute conquering power to flatten the nations and change the entire topography of this earth and reign in a real living body because he's a real living man on this real earth for a real thousand years because God is good.
That's what the Bible teaches. But then according to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, which teaches about resurrection, we read that we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed, right? But in the same context, we are told that Christ is the first fruit in the resurrection.
It's singular because he is singular. That means just the way Christ was raised, others will be raised. Christ the first fruit, then we which are Christ's, that is coming. I take it that our Christ's and in Christ are two separate phrases used to describe two separate groups of people.
But what the Bible calls the first resurrection are those who were raised to the resurrection of life. And then 1 Corinthians says, and then cometh the end. That is, there will be a resurrection unto damnation.
The bodies of every sinner who rejected God's word and rebelled against God will be raised again from the dead because God is good. Reunited with your soul to stand before the judgment of the great white throne because God is good.
And as you're standing before God, after being, now listen to this, and Christians listen to this too, please. After already having been in hell for at least a thousand years, to stand and face the man of Calvary who sits on a throne that is white and great.
John says, I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God and the books were opened. The book detailing all of your sin and your sins is opened. The book which you're holding now in your lap, many of you, is opened.
And the book of life is opened. And we are told according to the Bible that whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire and God is still good. I hope we understand that as believers tonight.
I hope we also understand that as we are forever with the Lord, already having reigned with him a thousand years, our mind is like the mind of Christ, a love for sinners, but an absolute holy hatred for sin.
I can almost get the sense that every time a person is cast into the lake of fire, there would be an amen from all of the saints. God is good.