The Good Will of God (05/05/2002)

The Goodness of God as the Starting Point

Dear Father, we thank you for this time in our day, when we come together and break your bread. We come to the Word of God. We ask that your Holy Spirit would direct our hearts, teach us, comfort us with your words.

And most of all, reveal you to us. Lord, we pray that you would take our minds into the heavenlies. For we are seated in Christ in the heavenlies this morning. And then, Lord, after we've learned what you would teach us, would you take us from here with it.

We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Greg, give me just a little bit of heat on this. Testing, one, two. A little bit more testing. Is that good? Can you hear it in the back? Okay. We've been discussing the character of God in our series on the great doctrines of the Bible.

First of all, we've studied three major topics. The fact that God is a personal God includes three things. First of all, that he has intellect, but with God we don't call it intellect, we call it omniscience.

And we've studied that. Secondly, since God is a person, he has sensibility, which includes higher forms of feelings. Things such as love, goodness, hate, wrath. And then thirdly, he has will, that which puts into effect all that God has designed.

And this is sort of the broad outline of what we're discussing. We're in the part about the sensibility of God, and we've talked about the fact that that includes five things. His holiness, his justice, his love, his goodness, and his truth.

And so last time we began to talk about the fact that God is good. And this morning we're going to continue in that theme. For those of you who weren't here last time, let me just give a quick review.

First of all, when we talk about the goodness of God, we have to go to Matthew chapter 19 and verse 17, where the Lord Jesus himself said, there is none good but one, and that is God. And that's our starting place because there is none other that is good when we define good as the goodness of God himself.

Secondly, we discussed the fact that God works all things together for good. And we're familiar with Romans 8, 28, so that particular point was not difficult to cover. And then thirdly, we talked about some things that are associated with God's goodness in the word of God.

Things such as mercy, grace, his patience, his truth, his forgiveness, his justice, all good things that he brings into our lives, his faithfulness, the good knowledge that he gives us, knowledge of God himself and knowledge and wisdom in this world, and the good hand of God upon our lives.

And then we talked about the fact that good with God is not based upon any supposed goodness in man. That brings us to what we're going to discuss this morning. And that is, we're going to talk a little bit about the good will of God for our lives.

The Good Will of God for Our Lives

In other words, God's direction in our lives. Turn with me, if you would, to Romans chapter 12 and verse 1. Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2, these are familiar verses to us all. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and underline the word good this morning, good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

So there is a good will of God for our lives. Now, I want you to turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 30 and verse 4. While you're turning, I'm going to read you a couple of verses from Ezra chapter 8, verse 18.

You go ahead and turn to Deuteronomy 30 and verse 4, if you would. But in Ezra 8 .18, it says, and by the good hand of our God upon us, they brought us a man of understanding. And I'm going to skip down to verse 22 and listen to this.

It says, then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God to seek of him a right way for us. Very important phrase, to seek of him a right way for us.

And listen to this, and for our little ones. And for our substance. And I think it's interesting, in many of these passages that we'll study about the good will of God, there will always be a phrase about our little ones.

The next generation coming along. Those children and grandchildren that are sitting next to us this morning. Our little ones. Wouldn't it be nice if there could be a right way for our little ones? And so in Ezra, they proclaimed a fast.

And they afflicted themselves before God. They laid aside the pleasures of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the cares of this world, and other things that come in. And they laid those aside, and they fasted in order to seek of God a right way for themselves, and for their little ones.

Now in Deuteronomy chapter 30, starting with about verse 4, there are several things in this passage, concerning the good will of God toward us. I would say that the first main topic we see in this passage is, sort of a repeat of one of the other points we've already covered, but as far as God's good will for us, it is God's good will for us, that all things would work together for good in our lives.

Now follow along with me in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 4, and I think you'll see that immediately. If any of thine be driven out unto the utmost parts of the earth, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee.

It may seem terrible in the day of the driving out. It may seem awful in that day when you leave the promised land of victorious Christian living, and you fall into a time of despair, a time of the flesh, a time of temptation and doubt and depression and perhaps more sin.

It may seem terrible, but no matter how far you may be driven out, even to the uttermost parts of the universe, God says, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee.

I don't understand any doctrine in this world that teaches that you can lose your salvation and then gain it back again. If that were possible, we would have to crucify Jesus more than once, and that is not only impossible, but it brings him to open shame, which means it's blasphemous.

I keep telling you about this wonderful little billboard I have to pass every day. I'm going to try to put blinders on when I drive through Wortham, headed this direction from Mahea, because this church over there has this billboard.

I think they should outlaw billboards on churches, because all you get usually is stupidity, silly little thoughts that men have about God, or sometimes they'll even speak as if God is talking. That's very dangerous.

It's using his name in vain, I think. But this past time is... You know, last week I told you it was the worst one I had ever seen, but that's because I hadn't seen this week. But it gives me a sermon topic every week, so I should be grateful.

All things work together for good. Anyway, this recent one says, Try Jesus. Try Jesus. The devil will take you back any time. Now, not only is that cute, but it is also false doctrine, because, first of all, trying Jesus won't save anybody.

Secondly, if anyone really ever did receive Jesus, there's no way in the world the devil can take you back. It is ridiculous. But sometimes in our lives, we go through a time of chasing, and when we do, it's as if we've been driven out.

But always remember that no matter how far out you go, to the ends of the universe, God will go to that place and gather you, and from thence will he fetch you. Verse 5 says, And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land.

You see, he'll bring you back to the promised land, if you're his, which thy fathers possessed. And thou shalt possess it, and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy father. Now, notice in this passage that he's going to not only do you good, but he says he's going to multiply you above your father.

Now, when we bring this into the realm of understanding that this Old Testament passage is a type, and in the New Testament we're living the antitype, and that many of these physical things that they went through represent spiritual things that we go through, I believe that this means that when he says he takes us out in order for us to be chastened because we moved away from him for whatever reason, then when he brings us back, he multiplies us above that which our fathers had.

I believe if we look at each generation, of all the generations of Christians for almost 2 ,000 years now, we have more access to knowledge. We have more commentaries, more Bible dictionaries, more Bibles in our houses than any other generation ever had.

We have radio, we have television, we have now the Internet with Bible studies all over it. Research can be done in five seconds. It used to take a 45-minute drive to Waco to their theological library can be done in five seconds from your home now.

And as we come back into the promised land of being spirit-filled and victorious Christian living, we can have more access to the knowledge of God than any other generation has had, and I believe God is revealing himself to this generation in ways that other generations did not have.

I don't mean extra-biblical revelations, but I mean he is taking the word of God, and as we live, especially the passages in the book of Revelation and the prophetic passages that deal with the end times, the tribulation, the rapture, the kingdom period, those sorts of things, as some things unfold before our eyes, certainly God gives us more understanding of the same scriptures that our predecessors had.

He will see that we're driven out sometimes, but he will always gather us back. Notice also that it says when he does, he'll bring us into the land that our fathers had, that we should possess it. That's kind of a continual tense on that word.

What that means is as long as we are here, we're in a continual state of taking the land. The enemy is still around. God did not drive all the enemies out before Israel came into the promised land. He said you couldn't handle it.

He said, but I will go with you, and God said the battle is mine, but you will drive them out little by little, little by little, until you possess the whole land, and you cast them out, and you've killed every man, woman, boy, and girl, and animal, and all their idols.

What is that picture for us? It says we will go on possessing this land when we come back. It means it's not finished just because we came back. The battle is not over. The war is won, but there are still enemies.

Your flesh will still attack you and try to lure you away. The world system and its philosophical system will try to steer you the wrong direction and make you think wrong things, and some of the most heinous philosophies that I've seen have to do with child-rearing today, where the world has its system and philosophy of how to raise children, and God has his, never has changed.

It says the rod applied to the rear end of a child is the only thing the child can reason with. If it's done so lovingly and in the Lord, the child never believes it's lovingly. But you see, that's the severity of love that we talked about last Sunday.

The world knows nothing of that. Most people today don't spank their children. And the Bible says if you don't, you hate your child. I don't know what that says, but it's pretty clear. But the world teaches the opposite in many ways.

So the enemy is still all around us. Just because we're indwelt by the Spirit of God and then because we move into the promised land, maybe after some chasing, maybe after some hard times, we come back to the Lord and we're filled with his Spirit.

We're enjoying the fellowship of our brothers and sisters, the study of his Word together. And we're walking in him even when we're not here, even at home, even in the darkness. When it's dark outside, we still walk with him and we go through those sessions.

Don't think for a moment that the enemy is entirely driven out. Because the moment you come to that high mountain of victorious living, you're going to look down in that valley and see that there's a battle still going on or there's an enemy still down there taunting you.

And that's what this means when it says, possessing it. You read that in the original, it would be more like possessing it rather than thou shalt possess it. You will go on possessing it until the Lord comes back.

He will do good to thee and multiply thee above thy fathers. Look at verse 6. And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed. Notice how it brings the children in again. He will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

Let me ask you a question this morning. Who is it that does, or I should put it this way, who performs the operation of circumcision upon the heart? Do we work that up ourselves? Who performs this surgical procedure?

Now this is an interesting phrase when it says, and the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed. But let's understand something here. This verse comes after verse 5. Verse 5 is the verse that talks about possessing the land, which if you know your Bible, that implies casting out the enemy and destroying the enemy and his idols.

Now if we do that in our homes and in our church and in our life, and our children are at our side and they see us destroying idols and they see us destroying the enemy and they see us possessing the land of promise, victorious Christian life and the power of God in our lives, then I think we can apply verse 6.

Not only will God circumcise thine heart but the heart of your seed. He will cause your children to love him. He will cause your children to love him with all their heart and all their soul that they may live.

And you say, well now, can you prove from the Bible that all of my children will be saved? I'm not really trying to prove anything this morning. I'm trying to just read you some things that God said. And God did say that I will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed if you are in an ongoing process of possessing the land.

Let me give you some other scriptures that bear on this in the passage in Ezra chapter 8 that I cited just a moment ago. If you remember, it talked about the fact that they were seeking him in a right way from God and for our little ones.

In Psalm 144 and verse 11, the Bible says, Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name's sake, for thy righteousness' sake, bring my soul out of trouble. And of thy mercy cut off mine enemies and destroy all them that afflict my soul.

For I am thy servant. It says, Rid me and deliver me from the hand of strange children. Now, isn't that an interesting phrase? Strange children. Are they all around us today? Have any of you been out, outside the safety of your home or your church, been out to the grocery store or to the mall and looked around at the strange children, parts of their bodies pierced, like they used to do when we were kids that did that over in Africa?

Now they do it here. Of course, when we were kids, you only heard of demonism over in Africa, but now it's here. Our country, our nation, just as Merilef Unger, the author of Unger's Bible Dictionary, one of the greatest scholars of our time, wrote a couple of books on demonism and he proved that certain nations, whole nations have been demonized by Satan.

When he was writing, he wasn't at the place we are in this country yet, but I bet if he were writing today, he might have a chapter in that book about the United States of America. So it says here, Rid me and deliver me from the hand of the strange children.

You see, if you want your seed, if you want your children to be circumcised of heart and to love God with all their hearts, minds, and souls, they have to be ridded of the strange children. They can't be allowed to run with them like Dinah did in the Bible.

In fact, you'll have the same result Dinah did if you let them run with him. Rid me and deliver me from the hand of strange children whose mouth speaketh vanity. They pick up false philosophies. And their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.

But our children pick that up from these people, the peers, if you let them be peers. And he says, Rid me of these things, verse 12, so that our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth, that our daughters may be as cornerstones polished after the similitude of a palace.

They're good things, but I ask you the question, would God write that if it weren't possible? You say, well, you can't promise me that all my children will be saved. No, I can't, because I can't promise you that you will continue to take the promised land and defeat the enemies and keep them away from your children.

But to the extent that you do, God gives you some promises here. He says very clearly that your sons will grow up as a plant in their youth and your daughters like polished stone. If there are some conditions of it or not.

I think there's another place in Psalm 147 and verse 11. The Lord take pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise thy God, O Zion. For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates.

Now, what do you suppose that picture? The bars of the gates of the city. Don't you think those are to keep the enemy out? He has strengthened that in your family. He hath blessed thy children within thee.

Now, we have some New Testament passages as well that deal with our children. You think about in the book of Acts, when Simon Peter saw the sheep come down and it had all the unclean animals on it. God said, take and eat.

He said, no, Lord, I don't eat that unclean stuff. And God said, well, whatever I call clean, don't you call unclean. And he was referring to the Gentiles. He was teaching Peter that God would save Gentiles as well.

But in that little passage, there's a phrase that says that salvation might come to them and their house. That means the wife and children. And how many of you remember in Acts, I believe it's Acts chapter 8.

It's either 8 or 16. I think it's chapter 8, where the jailer comes into play. And God breaks, who was it, Peter? Who did he break out of jail in that passage? Peter and one other person out. And the jailer fears for his life because he knew that he'd be killed because he failed in his job.

And he says, what must I do to be saved? And what did they answer him? They said, believe with all your heart that thou mayest end thy house. So there are some passages of scripture in the Bible for you parents and grandparents that teach very clearly that if certain circumstances are met in your family and in the church that you go to and in perhaps the school that your children go to that there are some promises.

It only makes sense, doesn't it, if God is a sovereign God and God has known who would be saved from the foundation of the world, which the Bible clearly teaches in many places, Deuteronomy chapter 7, Ephesians chapter 1, many, many places, Romans chapter 8.

If God is sovereign and he has known his own from before anything was created and yet he puts us in time and he holds us responsible to witness and to live a Christian life and to exhibit the fruits of the Spirit, doesn't it make sense that the same God who has determined the end has also determined the means?

And if the means include clearly hearing the gospel in an environment of love, did it make sense that if your children grow up in your home next to you, who God has already saved and given the Holy Spirit and given the Holy Word of God and given the blessings of God and the things of God and the victory of God and the continual taking of the promised land and casting out of the enemy, if God places your children in that environment, don't you think it's likely that that's the means to their salvation?

These passages certainly indicate it. Now I'm going to go back. That was a rabbit trail, but I like it. Back to Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 6. Not only says God will circumcise your heart, but the heart of your seed.

It's a pretty good promise. You can bring theology into it and doctrine and philosophy and all you want, but it's hard to do away with what God just said, isn't it? It's hard to do away with the clarity of this where he says if you possess the land, God will do thee good.

The supreme good he could do any of us would be to do good to our children, don't you think? God will do thee good and multiply thee above thy fathers and the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart and the heart of thy seed to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, so that you may live and your children may live.

God’s Goodness Includes Severity Toward Enemies

Paul, verse 7. And the Lord thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee. Now, do you remember last week when we studied the goodness of God, we saw that by definition it included what we might even call evil.

I mean, look what Job said when his wife said, curse God and die. God said, well, if we perceive of the good that God gives with his hand, should we not also receive of the evil that God gives? There are things that happen in our lives that are bad to us, that we perceive as bad, that are horrible, that we have to go through, but you know that in the end God is working even that to your good.

And we studied that last time. So God's goodness includes severity. And what some in the world would perceive as evil. Verse 7 proves this once again, even though that's not our topic for this morning.

But any time you talk about the goodness of God, you've got to understand that severity is part of it. Just like the love of God. Also includes the other side of the coin, which is wrath and hate for sin.

God's love for his children also hates Satan's seed, which would come and destroy you and your family. But his goodness, the very goodness that will bring you back from the far corners of the universe and fetch you back to himself and place you back in the promised land until you now go on and possess it.

Go on and possess it and I'll multiply you above your fathers and I'll circumcise your heart that you may know me and the heart of your children that they may know me so that you can live. That same God that brings those good and wonderful things to us brings the very opposite side of that coin, the curses, to your enemy.

Now I want to caution you this morning as we study such a verse that we understand in the Old Testament it's tight. It's a symbol. And as you see David praying against his enemies, yes, he's talking about people.

He's talking about armies. He's talking about those who would come and take his life from him and take his country away from him and destroy his people. And he says, God, my enemies are many and they hate me with cruel hatred, he says.

And all of that pictures in a physical way the spiritual truth for us today. When we speak of these enemies where God says that he will pour out his curses upon your enemies and on them that hate you and persecute you, let us remember that the New Testament teaches us very clearly in Ephesians chapter 6 that we battle not against flesh and blood.

Your enemies are not people but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places. There's where the focus of your attention should go. If you focus on your physical enemies, the people, you'll get bitter.

And that bitterness will only hurt you. It won't even touch them. They don't care. But if you focus on who's really behind the evil, that it is Satan and his demons driving people to harm you and to hurt you because he hates you, and you focus on the true enemy, which is him, we battle not against flesh and blood.

It's not ever each other. It may seem that way for a season sometimes because we can hurt the ones we love more than anybody else, can't we? But it's never really us hurting each other. It's the enemy that catches us in a moment of flesh and drives us to hurt the other or drives the other to hurt us.

But remember who it is that gets hurt. Principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places. But isn't it wonderful that God says I will put all my curses on your enemies. Did you know there's coming a day that that evil one will be chained for a thousand years in the pit of hell?

Have you ever wondered what hell will be like for Satan? I've thought about what it would be like for people. But have you ever wondered what it would be like for Satan as he is chained there and bound there in hell?

It'll be hell for him too. A lot of people picture him as being the ruler of hell. That's not the way it is. It'll be hell for him. In fact, it was built for him and for his angels. All of the curses of God which we cannot even name will come upon him someday soon.

All them that hate thee, all of his demons as well. Now verse 8,. And thou shalt return and obey. Isn't it interesting that we have to return? We don't stay in a state of revival. We don't remain in a state of walking the sweet walk with the Lord.

We are driven out of the promised land quite often by our flesh, by the world, or by the devil who's behind it all. God goes out to the corners of the universe however far we went away and he fetches us back.

And he brings us back. And after the chastening that we received because of the place we went, after we've received the chastening and we've been humbled and we're back on our knees and we're praying for the Lord to we confess our sins, we pray for him to cleanse us and bring us back.

It says, Thou shalt return. The word return is important because it has the connotation of revival, being revived in our hearts. A heart that would love God with all of our power and might whereas a few days previously we were kind of caught up in the things of this world or the cares of this world.

The word return means we're coming back from that to God and that can only bring what happens next and that's the word obey. Obey can never come first. All of our religious friends all around us will teach us that we must obey and then God will be pleased with us.

And yet the Bible teaches us that our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. God's not pleased with filthy rags. So when we are brought back, remember at the first of the message, who did we say it was that performed the operation of the circumcision of the heart?

Who? The Lord. So it is the Lord who initiates this. He initiates everything that we study deeply enough. The Lord initiates this. He begins to move our hearts back to a place where we remember that He is our God and then He causes us to return and that only brings obedience with it.

We cannot have obedience first. We must return. We must be in Christ or we cannot obey anything. We must be in Christ or we can't even please the Lord. Nothing of our flesh can please Him. No good works that we would go out and do.

And yet that's the first thing we think about sometimes. Well, I need to go do some good stuff so God will be happy with me. No, we need to return to His feet and learn of Him and He will cause us to return to Him and then obedience will follow.

And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the Lord and do all His commandments which I command thee this day and the Lord thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand. Now look at this little following passage or phrases in this verse because we talk about the goodness of God.

Look what He brings to us. First of all, success in every work of our hand. I picture this as the ministry work of our hand. I picture this as we love others and we go out to witness, give a testimony, we give the word here and there, to different people, different portions, as God leads us to do, that God will bless the work of our hands.

He goes on and He says, I will bless the fruit of thy body. Who's that? There it is again. You see how all this is connected with our children? And He says, I will bless the fruit of thy cattle and the fruit of thy land.

What is that? That is economic success. That was their money, wasn't it? God will take care of us economically when we're in this mode, when we're walking in Christ, when we're with Him, when we're continually possessing the land, when we have had revival in our hearts so that it brings obedience with it to the Lord.

He then will make plenteous in every work of our hand in the fruit of our body, the fruit of the cattle, the fruit of the land for good for the Lord will again rejoice over thee for good as He rejoiced over thy fathers.

And you can take that a step further if you went into John chapter 17 and you went into Proverbs chapter 8, you would find that He also rejoices over you just the same as He rejoices over His only begotten Son who rejoiced before Him always.

Proverbs 8 says, before anything was made, He has that same love for you and me. Verse 10, that certainly brings rejoicing, doesn't it? What could rejoice our hearts more than to know that the Lord rejoices in us?

He rejoices in us because we're His children, not because we always do good. You see, it's a position. Our position is we're His children in Christ Jesus. And verse 10 kind of brings a great conclusion to this passage in this study this morning of the goodness of God.

Because God is so good to us that He's given us this book. Have you ever contemplated what life would be like for you and your children today if you didn't have it? Why don't you just look around the neighborhood at people that never look at it and you'll see as if they don't have it, to them in a way.

And yet God holds them responsible, and you'll see that in this passage. God holds them responsible to pick it up and look at it like you've done. What would it have been like if God hadn't revealed Himself to you?

Oh yes, you could have known He was there by looking at a tree or a rock or a stream or the ocean, a mountain. You could have known He was there. According to Romans chapter 1, you couldn't have known He was love.

And with all of the evil that you see in this world around you, you could not have known He was good. In fact, those that don't pick this up often say, how could God be good with all the evil that's in the world?

How could a good God let that happen? Right there, just tell them, don't even try to answer it. Just tell them, go back to your coffee table, pick the book up, read it from Genesis to Revelation, then come back and we'll talk about what it says.

Verse 10, if thou hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God and keep His commandments and His statutes, which are written, you see, which are written in this book, right here, and if thou turn unto the Lord thy God with all your heart, with all your soul, for this commandment, which I command thee this day, is not hidden from thee, neither is it afar off.

It's even closer than this. Because He said, it is not in heaven, it's not that I kept my book in heaven. He said that you should say, well, who shall go up to heaven for us and bring it down to us that we may hear it and do it?

We'd be keeping your laws God, if it just weren't so heavenly. It's not in heaven, neither is it beyond the sea, that thou should say, well, who go over the sea for us, over maybe to Europe somewhere, and bring it to us, then we'll hear it and do it.

No, no, no, He says, but the word of God is nigh unto thee and thy mouth and thy heart, that you may do it. See, I have set before you this day life and good and death. Do you know how your children can have goodness of God in their life?

You just saw it. Go back over it. Are you possessing the land by driving out the enemies in their homes? No, you're lying. Do you keep your children away from fears? I'm not worried about it. There are many good Christian teachers in the public school system today.

I'm not worried about the teacher. And I know they have some weird textbooks that teach the false philosophy of evolution. It's a loser. Everybody knows that now. My daughter just wrote a paper on that.

So teenagers can find research that proves very clearly that the facts of the earth, scientific facts, that creation, not evolution. So I'm not that worried about that. What I'm worried about is they rub elbows, who they're rubbing elbows with on the playground.

Strange children that come from strange homes that don't have this book, or at least you might as well say they don't have it. And they have different gods than you do. Different philosophies of life.

They talk differently. They dress differently. They act differently because they are different. And don't expect, if you're not in the process of driving those out, don't expect these promises for your seed and your little ones to come to pass.

But if you are, yes, you may have gone away from God, and yet God fetched you from the far corners of wherever you went, and if he's brought you back, and if you have returned to him in your hearts, and if you are obeying him in Christ, then the Bible says he not only has circumcised your heart, knowing the love in which you may live, but he will do the same to your children.