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Nahum 1:7
In September, in October, November, December, you get the point, 108 days till Christmas, I'm ready, right? It's time. I think one of our kids this morning was talking about putting Christmas lights on the chicken house, so we're getting close.
It has been a long year in some regards. I mean, technically it's been a long year, you know, because it's been a 366 day year. I mean, that's the year we're in, a leap year, February 29th. And some people may think, because I like Christmas so much, I don't like February 29th, but actually I do.
Stephanie and I began dating, I guess officially, unofficially, officially on February 29th, 2004, so just over 20 years ago. My favorite Baptist pastor, Benjamin Keech, was born February 29th, 1640. That's actually the code to get into my phone, so if you can remember that date, then you can, you know, get in my phone if you need to do that.
But there is a February 29th in history that I want to talk to you about, a very sobering date that is probably a story you've never heard. This is February 29th, 1704, and it happens in the New England town of Deerfield, Connecticut.
February 29th, 1704. On that day, in the pre-dawn hours of that day, a French and Indian raiding party attacked this small town, and one of the houses that they attacked when they attacked this town was the pastor of the town, New England Puritan pastor, his name was John Williams, 1704.
John Williams, at this time, he's married to a lady by the name of Eunice Mather. She is actually the stepdaughter of Solomon Stoddard. You're like, I don't know all those names. You probably know the name Jonathan Edwards.
Jonathan Edwards is the grandson of Solomon Stoddard, so you just kind of see how these New England families are connected. Well, the raiding party breaks into their home that morning, and John and his wife are asleep with their seven children.
They're awakened and alarmed, and John grabs his pistol. He actually tries to shoot. If it would have gone off, they'd have just killed him on the spot. He's bound, his wife is bound. They allow them to get dressed, the family's dressed.
They take their two smallest children, the six-week-old little girl, six-year-old little boy, I believe, and they murder them in front of them on their doorstep, and then they take them out into the cold weather, and they bound them with about 100 other people from Deerfield, and they marched them northward to Canada.
Now, on the way to Canada, it's about 140-mile march through the snow. Several of the townspeople die. Some of them are just mercilessly killed. John's wife, Eunice, talks about, remember, six-week-old child.
She had just had a baby six weeks ago. Her energy's not there. She talks to him. She's like, I'm not gonna make this journey. Well, not very long after that, she gets sucked away in a river current. The captors, they rescue her.
They bring her back onto the shore, but when they bring her back onto the shore, they murder her, they kill her. Also, now John, he's bereaved of his dear wife. He's bereaved of his two smallest children.
He has five other children now that he has to get to Canada in captivity, and you remember, too, he's the pastor of these people. And so they allow him to preach sometimes on Sundays, but they do it really just to mock him.
So as he preaches and as the congregation sings as best they can in the woeful state that they're in, everyone's lost somebody. They just, they mock him. He gets to Canada and his youngest daughter that's living now, he'll never be with her again.
She's taken by an Indian tribe and she never returns. Later in his life, he goes to plead with her return, but she's already adapted to that culture and he never is able to have a relationship with her again.
For a couple of years, he's in Canada and the French are there and the Roman Catholic presence is there and they spend two years just trying to convert him, ridiculing him, mind games, all those things, trying to convert him from his Protestant roots, his Puritan roots to Roman Catholicism, but he never caves.
Now, one of his sons does cave and he has to work and he actually is able to convert him back. But after all of that, I'm skipping a lot to think of the time, but after all of that, he returns, eventually he's rescued, he's brought back to the colonies.
And on December 5th, 1706, he preaches a sermon with this title. Now, just a refresher, his two youngest children have been murdered in front of him. He's lost another child to be with natives in Canada.
He's lost his beloved wife. He's been separated from the rest of his children for over two years. He's been subjected to Roman Catholic proselytizers. And this is the title of the sermon he preaches in 1706.
Reports of divine kindness or remarkable mercies should be faithfully published for the praise of God, the giver. God is good. We're in Nahum chapter one this morning in Providence Baptist Church. I long for myself.
I long for us in this room. I long for our community. I long for our nation to recover an understanding of God like that. This is the God that we worship. This is a God that we don't always understand every part of his ways, but we know that all of his ways are good because he is good.
And all that he does is good. And so today we are in Nahum chapter one in verse seven. And I want to consider the title of this sermon, Good is Yahweh. Would you stand with me? And we'll just read that one verse.
We've made our way here so far. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him. Father, help us to recover your goodness, an understanding of your goodness today.
Help us to recover a vision of you like Pastor John Williams had. Help us to see a biblical and large picture of who you are. We don't have to make you bigger. We can't make you bigger. We just want to see you as the God that you are.
Lord, you've been good to us. You've been good to our nation. You've been good to our church. You've been good to our families. And Lord, how often have we mocked your goodness. And I pray for repentance.
I pray that we would rest in your goodness today. We would hear this. We'd hear verse seven today, not merely as a rebuke. Yes, we've mocked your goodness, but also this great reality. You know those who take refuge in you.
And I pray that would be our return to turn from mocking your goodness to rest in your stronghold, Jesus Christ. We pray your blessing today. Prepare our hearts even as we hear this message and take the Lord's Supper after it.
We pray in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. In my later teenage years at First Baptist here in town, we had a pastor by the name of Dr. Mike Stanley. And he would basically, if my memory serves correct, there's others in here that could help me if I'm remembering this wrong, but basically he would begin every sermon with that old saying, God is good.
And then the congregation would reply all the time. And then he would say all the time, and all the time the congregation would say God is good. That was something that he had kind of trained us in. And I don't know what you think about all that, but let me just say this, the reality is this is true.
God is good all the time, and all the time God is good. And this is a truth that the church needs to be constantly reminded of. The goodness of God is a perfection. It is a perfection of God that sometimes it's all we have to cling to.
I don't understand, I don't know what's going on, I can't explain it all, but I do know this, God is good, and I'll cling to that hope. In fact, it seems to be true of our verse today in its context. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble.
He knows those who take refuge in Him. You see, the promise of a future destruction of Nineveh doesn't necessarily do anything for Judah today. Oh, so Nineveh's gonna be destroyed someday. Okay, what's that do for me now?
Except here in verse seven, the Lord reminds His people of His goodness. In essence, cling to that, Judah. Take refuge in that, hope in that. Trust the Lord and His sovereign goodness. Now, the title of today's sermon, it really comes from the way that the Hebrew is given in verse seven.
If you look at verse seven, most of your translations, I'm sure, begins with the word the Lord, which is the Hebrew word Yahweh, but in Hebrew, it actually begins with the word good. So if we were gonna translate it literally, we would say something like good is Yahweh instead of Yahweh is good.
Now, that's really, I'm not gonna pick that apart. I think it doesn't matter, really. It's really a subtle difference in English. But I will just mention that in Hebrew, I think that there's a bit of an emphasis by placing the word good first.
So good is Yahweh. It's a reminder, it's a highlight, if you will, of this attribute of the goodness of God. In fact, Spurgeon comments on this verse. This is a note of soft, sweet music amid the thunder of divine power falling most refreshingly upon the ear of faith.
In other words, just listen to me. You've been going through this, right? And I don't wanna say that we've been beaten up, but we've dealt with some heavy lifting, haven't we? The vengeance of God, the wrath of God, the jealousy of God, the judgment of God upon wicked Nineveh.
And so we've had all this going on, and it's like you're in the midst of a battle, and the battle's going on, and the smoke, and you hear the guns and bullets are whizzing by you, and all of a sudden you stop and you pause and you notice there's this beautiful apple orchard.
And you reach forth and you grab a ripe apple and you pull it off the tree, and you eat it and you're refreshed in the midst of everything else going on. Well, that's not a great analogy in some regards, but just think of it as we've learned of all these wonderful truths about God from Nahum chapter one.
We have this pause here in the middle, a refresher. Hey, remember this. God is good. And one commentator notes it this way. The God who brings judgment does so as part of his goodness. So hear me, this was very important.
It's not God brings vengeance, but he is good. It's God brings vengeance because he is good. Now, our verse breaks down into three clauses, three just indicative clauses. That is, the clauses, they don't tell us to do anything, though there is certainly important implication.
They're just three statements. So you can see that in your Bible. In fact, the way it's written in the ESV here, the clauses are broken down each a line. So the first clause is good is Yahweh. The second clause is that he is a place of safety, maybe a strong tower, a stronghold in the day of trouble or distress, that's the meaning there.
And then the last clause is he knows those who take refuge, shelter, safety in him. In between the first and second clause, there's an untranslated Hebrew preposition. And the only thing I would mention about that is it reminds us that clause one and two connect in such a way that God's goodness is directly tied to his being a safe haven for his people.
To me, and maybe you're not where I'm at, it's hard because I've been wrestling with this, I've spent time with it, praying and studying, and now you're hearing all this for the first time. But I just wanna say to me, that is outstanding.
It is simply beautiful. We must believe and behold the goodness of our triune God. And so I think how I'm gonna break this down is to preach a sermon on each one of these clauses. Now, I'm not just trying to make the sermon series long, but if Pastor Jacob can add messages to his Sunday school, then I reserve the right to do it in Nahum too, right?
But I want us to know that we're beckoned in places, we're singing Psalm 34, we're beckoned in places like Psalm 34, eight, to taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is a man who takes refuge in him.
And by the way, the word for refuge in Psalm 34, eight is the same Hebrew word for refuge in our text in Nahum 1, seven. So what I want you to know is that the Bible commands us to see and behold and believe and rest in and trust the goodness of God.
And so what we're gonna do the next few weeks, now remember, next Sunday, I won't be here, Pastor Jacob will be preaching morning and evening, but I want us to see in these few weeks on this verse, the goodness of God.
John McKay says this, when the Lord vindicates his name, it is a two sided operation. He pours out his furious wrath on those who have set themselves against him, but he also extends his protection and favor to those who are in covenant relationship with him.
This is the context of Nahum 1, seven. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him. I considered in fact, just entitling today's message, the gospel according to Nahum, because we see at least in shadow form here, we see the gospel in our verse.
How so? This is the gospel according to Nahum, that God displaces wrath while simultaneously extending his grace. You see it there altogether in the text. This is typified in Nineveh and Judah. Wrath on Nineveh, grace to Judah.
But the fulfillment of this type is Christ. In wrath, remember mercy. Yes, this is the cross. This is God's goodness. The fury of God's wrath and the extension of his grace and favor for those who what? Who trust him.
It's all displayed here in our text, but it is fulfilled and displayed most perfectly in the Messiah. You need to remember this morning that the hope of Nahum, the hope of Judah, even the hope of Nineveh, the hope of the Old Testament, the hope of all people is the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for sinners.
This is the hope for the nations. This is the hope for Perry County. This is the hope for your own soul. There is not three, not four, not seven. There's one gospel. One gospel, one way of salvation. I know it's been asked before or people have asked, maybe you haven't asked it, but maybe you've thought it.
Why is there only one way of salvation? I think it was R .C. Sproul or somebody along those lines who said that's not the question we should be asking. The question we should be asking is if we are truly as sinful as the Bible says that we are and we are, why is there a way of salvation at all?
It's because of the grace and goodness of God. All our hope is in Jesus. Psalm 25, 8 says, good and upright is the Lord. Therefore, He instructs sinners in the way. And the Lord's goodness, I'm telling you this morning, is flowing out of this verse and instructing us.
The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in Him. Now listen very carefully here. Children, listen carefully. Understand the analogy that I'm giving. Many professing Christians today would seek and are even seeking to take refuge in Nineveh.
They trust her walls of financial or political stability. They trust her military prowess. They are comforted by the fact that, hey, everyone else is inside these walls and everyone else is doing it this way, so I must be okay.
They are scared to be outside of Nineveh. They are scared to be seen as different, but you need to be reminded this morning, church, that Nineveh is where God's wrath falls. You must not seek refuge there.
God doesn't know in a salvific sense, and we'll talk about this when we get to that clause, but God doesn't know in a salvific sense those who take refuge in Nineveh. But he does know, he covenantally know, he savingly knows those who take refuge in him, that is, in Christ, and to them, and to them alone, he is a stronghold in the day of trouble.
We'll probably talk about this a lot as we think about these clauses, but I'm just gonna ask you today, sir, ma 'am, little boy, little girl, where is your refuge this morning? Think for a moment. Do you believe this verse?
Where really lies your trust? Where's your hope? This is who the Lord knows, those who take refuge in him. So where's your refuge? Is it Christ, or is it your works? These will melt before the consuming fire of the Holy One of Israel.
Is your refuge in your heritage? Hey, you're a conservative American, you come from a long line of conservative Americans, you're from a good family, God must accept you, that's your refuge. Is your refuge in your presumption?
Hey, one day, when I was young, I prayed a prayer, I signed a card, they told me I'm saved, so I must be good. I'm telling you this morning, friends, that our refuge must be in none of those things. It must be in Christ alone.
The God-man who fulfilled all righteousness in his perfect obedience, who died the death of sinners on the cross, bearing the wrath of God in our place, who rose again on the third day. Is Christ your refuge?
Now what I want to do this morning is focus on this first clause, the Lord is good. And I've broken that down into three points. First, the meaning of God's goodness. The text says the Lord is good, or reading it literally from the Hebrew, we would say good is Yahweh.
Now, the confessional statement of the goodness of God permeates the Bible. I've even had to mark out some verses I was gonna read because there's so many, so I'm just gonna read two. I've already read a couple.
I'll read two more. Psalm 73, one. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. Lamentations 3, 25. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. Good is Yahweh.
This is the testimony, I'm telling you, it's the testimony of the scriptures, and it's repeated so much because is there anything else that falls under a more focused attack of the evil one today than the goodness of God?
What was his strategy in the garden? Think about that for just a second. Why did he say the things that he said in the garden? Why did he say it that way? He said to those in the garden. He said to Eve in the garden.
Did God really say you can't eat any tree? What's he questioning there? The goodness of God. This is gonna be a PG -13, but I thought about the analogy today in our world, and it's like Satan asked our world today, did God really say that you cannot be promiscuous?
And what does God say? We can have intimacy in the context of a marriage between one man and one woman, but Satan makes that sound like that is God not being good to us. Because the cry today is, you should be able to do whatever you want with your body, with whoever you want, and if it involves killing a child because of the result of that inside the womb of its mother, then so be it.
This all flows from Satan's attack on God's goodness to us. And we need to be reminded, I'm telling you, we need to be reminded because we face this temptation daily. You say, well, I don't face that temptation.
Oh, but you face other temptations. Why is my tire flat, right? Kick it, kick your tire, you're frustrated. Why did this happen today? Immediately, Satan is whispering, right, in your heart. Is God really good?
Would God have allowed this person to become president? Would God have allowed your bank account statement to read this? Would God have allowed you to make this kind of test on your grade? Would God have allowed your children to do this or that?
Would God have done this if he really was good? And that's the temptation that we really real people face in a real world. And it's a very testimony to the goodness of God that he kindly reminds us in his word.
He reminds us that he is good. Good is Yahweh and we must trust him. I'm going to tell you, as we go through this sermon, I'm leaning hard on Stephen Sharnock's work. So you can read that the existence and attributes of God.
His chapter on God's goodness is wonderful. I commend it to you, but in the name of integrity, I have to tell you, you're going to hear Sharnock through me because I've leaned hard on him, even using some of his headings.
So first, I want to talk about in the meaning of goodness. We're going to go through these quickly. I just don't have time to develop them. So you have to listen well. If you listen fast, I'll preach fast.
Okay, number one, God is originally good. God is originally good. Yahweh is good. Good is Yahweh. Here's what we mean. God is good in himself. He is the very standard of goodness. He's the measure of good.
Like he doesn't say, oh, that's good out there and then conform himself to that. He is the standard of goodness. He is goodness. His goodness is derived from within his own holy self. And we're not even, his language is clunky there.
His goodness permeates all that he does. Nothing is better than God. Nothing is more morally perfect than our triune God. God is good and all that he does is good. Secondly, God is originally good. God is infinitely good.
Let me just quote Sharnock here. A boundless goodness that knows no limits. A goodness as infinite as his essence. Not only good, but best. Not only good, but goodness itself. The supreme, inconceivable goodness.
God is originally good. His goodness flows out of him. God is infinitely good. There's no beginning to his goodness and there's no end to his goodness. He is, and there's no comprehension of his goodness.
Full comprehension. Thirdly, God is perfectly and unchangeably good. Perfectly and unchangeably. I had to put these together. I just try to be mindful, thinking about how we just, we could spend eternity talking about God's goodness.
God is perfectly and unchangeably good. Good is Yahweh. There is no first John, remember? There is no darkness in him at all. How much darkness is in God? Is there a little speck? Is there a little spot?
Is there a little hint of evil somewhere? No. There is no darkness in him at all. James 1 reminds us. There's no shadow due to change. So he's perfectly good. There is no mark of ungoodness in him whatsoever and he's unchangeably good.
He doesn't change. Fourthly, God is originally good, infinitely good, perfectly good, perfectly and unchangeably good. Fourthly, God is incomparably good. Good is Yahweh. And what I'm saying here, there is no goodness like the goodness of God.
Not your family. Your family's good. It's a good gift from God. But they're not good like God. Not the kindest person you know. Not the best bonus that your company has ever given you. There is no goodness like the goodness of God.
Fifth, God is freely good. Sharnock says it this way. God is necessarily good in his nature, but free in his communications of it. In other words, think through this heavy thought here. God displays his goodness as an overflow of who he is, but he displays it especially out of the freeness of his sovereignty.
So God is good to all and he's freely out of the overflow of his goodness, especially good towards his people. To the church. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him.
How good is God? Not just to give us a refuge. You think about this. Moses is up on the mountain in Exodus 34 and he's pleading with God and he's saying, God, essentially, go with us. God is rightly upset about their, upset's not a great word to use of God, but God is rightly indignant towards their sin.
And so Moses says, God says, I'm not gonna go with you. You can have the promise. I promise you the land. Y 'all can go. I'm not going. Moses says, no, you have to go. We want you to go with us, right?
We need you to go. And I wonder sometimes you even might be tempted to take the promises of God, but not the person of God. But God is good to us. And not that he just gives us the promises, but he gives us the person.
God gives us himself. He's the refuge. Sixthly, this is the last one here. God is originally good, infinitely good, perfectly and unchangeably good, and comparably good, freely good. This is a big, it's a theological word, so it might be kind of clunky for us, but God is communicably good.
And what we mean by this is the goodness of God is what we call a communicable attribute. So the text says good is Yahweh, but what we mean also by this is that God's goodness is transmitted as it were to his people in such a way that they perform what the Bible calls, what kind of works are they called again?
You remember? What kind of works do God's people do? Good works, right? Good works. Now, there are no good works apart from God in us. Listen carefully. Your best, apart from being born again, the Bible says is filthy rags.
So you can't bring God your so-called good works and ask him to accept you because you can't give him good works because only he is good. But when we're clothed with Christ, when we trust the Lord Jesus, when we bow our hearts to him in repentance and faith, trusting his lordship, when we're changed by his grace, one of the results is we do good works.
So Titus 2 .14, Jesus Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. I'll just say it this way. Jesus gets what he pays for.
You've done that before, right? I mean, the opposite, not gotten what you paid for. You know, somebody sold you that. Oh man, yeah, you need to get this thing right here and you get it and you get it home and you're like, I didn't get what I paid for.
Jesus gets what he paid for. He gets a church that is zealous for good works. And where do their good works come from? They come from the goodness of God. The goodness of God communicated to Christian causes us to desire, listen to this, good things.
What are the good things? God's ways, the Scriptures, the church, prayer. We want others to experience the goodness of God. And so we go and we preach, we proclaim, we share the gospel. Why? Because Christ is worthy and we also want people to experience the goodness of God.
We order our lives around the furthering of Christ's kingdom, the building of his church and the fame of his name to the nations. What I'm saying is, it's impossible for you to encounter the goodness of God and be left unchanged.
It's communicably good. What I'm telling you this morning is this is the God of the Bible. This is John Williams' God. The God who is originally good, infinitely good, perfectly and unchangeably good, incomparably good, freely good and communicably good.
Now we're gonna move to the second point, but before we do, let me just mention one more text. Sharnock writes this whole chapter based on this text. Mark 10, 18. Jesus says there to the rich young ruler, why do you call me good?
No one is good except God alone. Now Jesus is not saying that he is not good. He is saying that he is God. You understand? He is saying, don't toss that word good around so lightly. And we do that sometimes and I'm not like rebuking us for this, but that was a, oh yeah, here's a challenge for you today.
That was a good sermon, right? One better be careful before you say the word good, right? That was a good pizza. That was a good football game. Well, not if you're a Razorback fan, right? It was like, we don't toss around the word good to, we do end up tossing around the word good a little bit carelessly.
And Jesus is making sure you understand what you're saying, man. When you say to me, good teacher, you don't even know the fullness of what you're saying because only God is good. Yahweh is good and Jesus is Yahweh.
This is the Jesus that we worship this morning. This is the Jesus offered to us to take hold of by grace alone through faith alone in him alone. Jesus is, think of it this way, goodness in the flesh. This text speaks of Christ.
Good is Yahweh. Now that's the meaning of goodness. We have two more points to consider. Number two, the manifestation of goodness. So the text says, the Lord is good. And we've discussed what that means.
His kindness, his benevolence, his favor. I think it was Wayne Grudem that said something along the lines of all that God does is worthy of, I'm butchering it now, it's worthy. Everything that God does is worthy of applause and acceptance because all that he does is good.
Okay, now we're talking about how does this goodness manifest itself? So he's inherently good, intrinsically good. He displays that goodness to us. How? A few brief thoughts. First, creation. He displays his goodness in his creation.
See if you can finish this Bible verse with me if you can. This was after God made everything. And it says that God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was what? Very good. Everything that he made was very good.
Think about that for just a moment. You don't appreciate that enough and neither do I. Mountains, they're good. Bears, they're good. Rivers, they're good. Galaxies, they're good. What if the whole world was just black and white?
You know? What if everything you saw, what if it just had two colors or whatever? Red and yellow. That's all you could see, right? But instead, we could see all these brilliant colors. I remember flying over in Europe before seeing the fields of tulips and it's just like all these different colors, yellow and red.
It's like, this is amazing, right? You see a sunset or a sunrise. This is beautiful. Why? It's God displaying his goodness in creation. Taste buds. Everything could taste like cardboard. We could just eat for sustenance but God's given us taste buds.
We can taste wonderful taste. Black coffee on a cold morning or he can taste lemon meringue pie or if you like brown sugar in your oatmeal or whatever the case may be, he's given us marriage. He's given us autumn.
He made all of these things. Why? Because he's good. He's good. All good in anything else is derived only from God. The goodness of creation, the goodness of the angels, the goodness of a sleeping baby or that first frosty morning, right?
These are all derived goodness. The goodness of these things don't come from these things. The goodness of these things come from the God who made them and is manifesting his goodness in them. Secondly, and we're just going quickly here in really just summations, but we see the manifestation of God's goodness in the cross.
In creation. Secondly, the cross. The Lord is good. A stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him. How is God our stronghold? That's a question from the text. Because he shields his people from his own good wrath against sin.
Listen, I think as Paul Washer says it this way, one of the most alarming realities that mankind has to face is that God is good. You're thinking, well, that's not alarming. Yes, it is alarming. Why? Because he is good, sin cannot be just swept under the rug.
It must be dealt with. And it must be dealt with in a good way. It must be dealt with in a righteous way. And this is bad news for sinners. It means our sins must be dealt with. So let's just back up for a second.
This is why hell is good. Hell is not bad. Hell is good. It is the place our good God deals with sinners goodly in a good way. Punishing them under his good justice. But here our text says hell is not the only place that sinners are dealt with.
There is a stronghold. God has displayed his goodness in a stronghold. Another way. It's the cross. For those who take refuge in Christ. This is the free and sovereign goodness of God. To provide a refuge for sinners.
Where? In his own Son. What a good God! Jesus who lived a perfect life, died as our substitute, rose again from the dead, and we are commanded and invited and even entreated from the Scriptures. Come, come, come!
Put your faith here. Rest here. Find a hiding place here in Christ. To all those who repent and believe the gospel. Psalm 4, 6 says, There are many who say to us, Who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord.
Who will show us some good? Answer, God has. And Jesus is offered again to us by faith. Will you trust him? Good is Yahweh. Thirdly, God manifests his goodness in creation. God manifests his goodness in the cross.
Thirdly, I'll just mention this. There's so many more ways we could talk about, but God manifests his goodness in care. In care. First, care in preservation. So here, Psalm 147, 9 says, He gives to the beasts their food and to the young ravens that cry.
So God cares. God shows his goodness, not just that he created the world, but that he cares for it and that he preserves it. He feeds the beasts. God cares for his creation. He upholds it. He governs it.
He preserves it. Psalm 145, 9, The Lord is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made. This morning, you didn't think about this. You did not think, if you did, you're a super nerd. You did not think about it this morning that when you saw the sun come up, you thought, man, the earth once again completed another rotation, right?
It takes the earth how long to rotate? Around 24 hours. And you didn't wake up this morning and think, boy, I'm sure glad the earth being on its 23 .5 degree axis made another rotation over the night.
Again, if you did, I commend you and you get the nerd award for the day. But you remember that God sustained us another night. The whole world, not just the church, everyone, right? He showed his goodness and his care.
God is gifted man with a variety of abilities. Music and art and carpentry and architecture and athletics and mental aptitude. Charnock writes it this way. God hath bestowed various dispositions and gifts upon men for the promoting of the common good that they may not only be useful to themselves, but to society.
Amen. What a good God. We have people in our world today who are brilliant scientifically, who are brilliant mathematically, who are brilliant when it comes to music, who are brilliant when it comes to athletic ability, who are brilliant in architectural skills, who are brilliant in carpentry skills, who figure stuff out, who make things better, who invent technology.
Where does all this come from? From a good God in his preservation. But secondly, I'll need to mention this here. He manifests his care in the preservation of the world, but he also manifests his care in the providence of the church.
God is the church's refuge. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him. Who is that? That's his people. He's good to the church. He has providential care for the church.
He hears her prayers. Even when she doesn't pray, he does more than we could ask for or think. He's provided her with an inerrant, infallible, sufficient, authoritative, necessary, clear Bible. In a language that she can read and understand.
He displays his goodness in bringing sinners from death to life. In the Gospel going forward, and regenerating your unworthy soul. Bringing you out of death and bondage to life in Christ. Forgiving sinners' sins, he shows his goodness.
Joining them together in local assemblies. Providing those churches with, we chanted, but he's given us more than that. Songs, beautiful songs. Do you think about the words that we sang this morning? God has provided the church all these wonderful things.
God has shown his care for the church in ordering all things great and small for his glory. And the church is good. I don't understand, let's be clear. I don't understand every evil. I don't understand all that happened to John Williams.
I don't understand it all. I don't, I don't, I don't. I don't understand every sickness. Every sorrow. Why some people die younger than others. I don't understand distress. But I know this. The goodness of God reigns over it all.
And all of it is about the glory of his name. And what? The good. God works together all things for what? For good, for those who know him. This is what he's telling his people. You don't see it all. You don't know it all.
But my goodness is working in it all. I will judge my enemies because I am good. I will protect my people because I am good. And God will lead his people through times of sorrow like John Williams. But for those who know this God, we know that it all ultimately, even when we can't comprehend it all, it flows from his kind heart.
Pain is real. Hurt is real. Tears are real. Suffering is real. This isn't just like stoicism. We're just saying I'm impervious to pain. I never cry. I never hurt. And I never feel sorrow because God is good.
No, no, no, no, no. These things are real. These things hurt and they're real. But God knows it all. He sees it all. And God himself has entered into our suffering in Christ who cried real tears, who felt in his humanity real pain.
And one day we'll see it all. All wrongs made right. We'll know it all. At least we'll know it to an extent better than we do today. And we'll see the glory of God's sweet goodness in it all forever. He is good in his care for the church.
And listen, can I just pause here? Can I just say for just a moment how good has God been to our church? Paul asked in 2 Corinthians 2 to who is sufficient for these things? I can tell you right now, it's not me and Pastor Jacob.
We're not sufficient in ourselves. I'll speak for myself further. I'll let him speak for his own self. But I am so inadequate. I am inadequate. And yet here God works by his grace and for his glory. And he works through his word.
And he's working through you. And we have here people serving and people evangelizing. And people just come together like, hey, we gotta get this done. And we just come together and we do it. And we're like, hey, we're gonna go share the gospel when we come and we just do it.
I do wish more would participate in that. I hope that you're praying for us in that. But we come together, we evangelize. We come together, we pray. We come together, we give. We have people, various people who are leading in various ministries.
We have people doing things behind the scenes that the rest of us don't know about. We have people who are discipling. In the last year, we baptized in a calendar year. So from October 2023 to the end of this month, 2024, we've baptized Ella Grace.
We've baptized Caleb Plinney. We've baptized Miss Virginia. We are preparing to baptize, Lord willing, soon one Kermit Grassoffi. And I think often, oh God, we're so small, right? Sometimes false things I know are said about us.
And I think, God, are you listening? Are you listening to this? Will you take care of us? Will you watch over us? Will you take care of us financially? Will you grow us in number? Will you grow us in Christ?
Would you just make a name right here in Perryville, Arkansas? Would you make a name for your son here? Will you keep us from sin? Will you keep our church to keep fighting sin? Will you keep us holy?
Will you keep us in unity? There's so many little things that can creep into a church we fight about or get mad at each other about. Would you just care about us? And would you just love us? And what has God done with all my frustrations or doubts or anxieties?
God has displayed again and again and again and again and again this reality. He is good. He's good. Glory to his name. Okay, the meaning of God's goodness, the manifestation of God's goodness. And now I'm going to speak just really briefly.
But you need to listen, listen very well to hear this, the mockery of the goodness of God. The text says good is Yahweh. This is coming at you rapid fire, so listen. We mock God's goodness when we forget his benefits.
We mock God's goodness when we impatiently murmur. We mock God's goodness when we distrust his providence. We mock God's goodness when we forsake the ones that he so lovingly bestows his goodness upon.
Let me say that better. That's a little clunky. We mock God's goodness when we neglect the church. We mock his goodness when we disobey his word. How can we take a good Bible from a good God and neglect its instructions?
May God keep us from ever mocking his goodness by using his goodness as a license for sin. Shame on us to ever say God is good, therefore I will go sin. We mock his goodness when we look upon the gifts instead of the giver.
When God is not enough. What we need is peaceful times or a prosperous field. We mock God's goodness when we ascribe our blessings to a cause other than his goodness. When we say, well, this happened to me, yeah, because I did it.
We take credit for what he has done or when we fail to be generous with the goodness that he's shown us, right? Well, God's been good to me, maybe if you try hard enough, he'll be good to you. No, a stingy and greedy people mock the goodness of God.
A haughty and arrogant people mock the goodness of God. We mock the goodness of God when we trust our own works, our own righteousness to earn his favor. You see, when Jesus was crucified, the King James says that they walked by and reviled him.
They wagged their heads at him. That is, they mocked him. And I'm telling you, listen to me this morning. If you're trusting your works or you're trusting anything else for the salvation of your souls other than the finished work of Jesus Christ, you wag your head at him this morning.
You mock his sacrifice. Jesus came for sinners. God's acceptance of you cannot be based on what you have done or who you are. The son was bruised, not for his disobedience, but for yours and for mine.
Are you trusting in your work or his? Don't you understand this morning, churches? I've gone through that list. In all these ways and more, we have too often mocked the goodness of God, and yet remember today, this is why Jesus came.
To give his life as a ransom for many, to die in the place of those who have disdained the goodness of God. And so he did, and so he rose again. Will you trust him? Because I have saved the most mocking thing that you can do to God for last.
What is it? Is it running down the parades that are happening in our world today? Is it murdering someone? No, all these are wicked and vile, but they all stem from this one thing. That is the pinnacle of mocking the goodness of God.
What is this one thing? Unbelief, not believing what you have heard. Psalm 86, five, for you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. This is the God of the scriptures.
I am simply calling us today, everyone in here, to simply one action. Belief. Don't hear this sermon on the goodness of God and go out here today and enjoy this beautiful day that our good God has bestowed upon us and mock his goodness by not trusting in it.
Unbeliever, have you fled the false security this morning of the walls of Nineveh and rested in Jesus? Have you ran away from your own goodness, of which there is none, and ran to the goodness of God in the face of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?
Have you repented this morning of your ungoodness, your sins, your evil, your transgressions, and have you sought God's mercy of which he promises? He promises, right? For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love.
To who? To all who call upon you. In our text, the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows those who take refuge in him. So have you heard this morning? He's good. Call upon his name, take refuge in him, and see his goodness displayed.
Good is Yahweh. And forgiving and abounding in steadfast love. He knows those who take refuge in him. He is good, he is good, he is good, he is good. Belief, belief. Young people in this room, children, my children, the children in this room, believe.
Look to Christ. If you're in this room and you've been playing games, you're hypocrite, you've said you're a member of the church maybe, but you know in your heart even now you're like, wait a second, I've been mocking the goodness of God and I need to be saved.
What do I do? Believe. Go to Christ. Don't hold on to it. Don't listen to the lies of the evil one. Don't believe your pride or your flesh. Run from it all and go to the goodness of God and Christ and believe and be saved.
And then I'll just close with this. Church, he is good, he is good, he is good, he is good. Won't you believe? Listen today, you gotta let go of your anxiety. Anxiety is not a medical condition, it's a sin.
And it stems from unbelief. I'm not just waving a magic wand and saying ha ha. No, it's a struggle, it's a fight, we have to kill sin, but I'm just pleading with you today. Believe. Believe. Stop trying to be in control of everything.
Give it to God. Trust his goodness. Trust his word. Repent of ways that you've mocked his goodness this week and go to the good God and Christ who says, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.
Believe. Trust his goodness. Even as we prepare now to come to the Lord's table. Father, help us to believe what we've heard. Holy Spirit, we pray that you would take the words. It's not enough. The preaching is not enough if the spirit is gone.
So please, Holy Spirit, use the preaching to bring about these realities that we have.