The Goodness of God (04/28/2002) | NOTE: Intermittent tape malfunctions throughout recording

Before we go there, though, I want to take you through some scriptures.

We've been talking about the sensibility of God, studying the character of God

lately.

We've talked about the holiness of God, the justice of God, the love of

God.

Today we will talk about the goodness of God, and next time we'll talk about the truth of God.

Those five things fit under the study of the sensibility of God, the fact that he has

an emotional aspect.

We are created in his image.

It's no accident that we are people of emotions.

God is that way.

Therefore, that's why we're that way.

So let's have a word of prayer, and we'll begin this morning.

Father, we thank you so much for your Holy

Spirit who lives within us.

It is your way of walking in us and with us each moment of our lives once we've come to know the

Lord Jesus Christ.

We thank you for all that the Lord Jesus Christ did in his earthly ministry and is doing now

as our advocate before you.

We thank you that you gave us to him as a love gift.

We thank you this morning as we think of the fact that you are all -powerful.

You're the all -powerful creator of the universe.

We thank you that you are good.

We thank you that the Lord Jesus has revealed your goodness to us and ultimately

on the cross.

We pray in his name.

Amen.

To begin a study of the goodness of God, we would have to start in Matthew 19, verse 17, some of these other

verses.

We're going to end up there in the psalm I gave you, but some of these other verses you may like to turn to.

But Matthew 19, verse 17 is a familiar story to all of you.

You remember that the young man came to Jesus and said, Good Master, what must I do

to inherit eternal life?

And rather than answering the question immediately, Jesus said, Why do you call me good?

There is none good but one, that is God.

And then he went on to teach the young man.

But the phrase we want to focus in on this morning is this phrase where Jesus himself says, There is

none good but one, that is God.

It's interesting in the Greek language when you look at this word none, where it says there

is none good but one.

The word none is oudais, which means not

even one.

Not even one man, woman, or thing.

None, nobody, nothing.

It couldn't get any stronger.

It's a very strong word in the Greek.

So when Jesus said there is not even one other good other

than God, he began to give us a definition for the goodness of God.

Although it's very difficult to understand for us because the way our minds think, we learn almost everything by

comparison or contrast.

It is interesting as we study the goodness of God that we're going to find contrast even in

the goodness of God.

Because for one thing, it's the only way that he could have revealed his goodness to us

is to contrast it with evil.

A lot of people, novices, brand new baby Christians, or else people who don't know the Lord and don't

plan to know him and don't want to know him, will ask the question, how can God, if he's

good, let all these bad things happen?

Well, a study through the Bible of the goodness of God will answer that question.

So we see, to begin with, that there is none good but one.

It is not so much that God is not at all that God strives to be good

or that God has goodness or does good things.

It is that God is good.

Acts chapter 10, verse 38.

We look at this record of history because Jesus in Matthew 19, 17 said there is none good but one.

Why do you call me good?

Well, Acts chapter 10, verse 38 gives us the reason that we do call Jesus good.

It says how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power

who went about doing good and healing all that

were oppressed of the devil for God was with him.

We might add, and God is good.

So when God is with us, we do good.

Might be a little rabbit trail we could chase there.

Let's look and see if we can think of a definition of good with respect to the goodness of God.

Sometimes it's easier to say what it's not.

The goodness of God is not the absence of evil.

Did you hear what I said?

It sounds a little contradictory.

But the goodness of God is not the absence of evil, but rather it is the discernment of

evil and the avoidance of evil.

You might like to turn with me to Genesis chapter 2.

We're going to read a few verses in these early portions of the Bible.

Genesis chapter 2, verse 9.

And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

The tree of life also in the midst of the garden and this very interesting tree

called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now notice it doesn't just say the tree of the knowledge of good.

It says the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now I might ask you who created that tree?

God.

And that's why I say that goodness with respect to the goodness of God is not the

absence of evil.

It is the discernment of it and the avoidance of it and the hatred of evil.

Because if God created this tree and it was a tree of both the knowledge of good

and the knowledge of evil, then God at least knew what evil was, did he not?

Therefore he was not in the absence of it.

He merely was in the hatred of it and the avoidance of it.

Go into Genesis chapter 3 and let's pursue this a little further and maybe we can learn a little bit more about

our God.

He certainly is not the God of America today in the sense that it's taught in many, many churches.

Because in most modern churches the goodness of God is taught as if it is fluff.

It is goody -goody two -shoes.

It's ice cream and Sunday school picnics and so forth.

It's as if they would think that God created the tree of the knowledge of good only, not the knowledge of good and evil.

Most modern Americans and people in the world today are not aware of the fact

that God is who he is and it's not like we like to define him today.

We don't like to define the side of God that has to do with severity.

We like to define the side of God that has to do with goodness.

And we like to define goodness in our own way.

And yet we can't because we're faced with the scriptures.

Look at Genesis chapter 3 verse 4.

And the serpent, the devil, said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die.

Now God had told Adam that they would die if they ate of the tree of the knowledge

of good and evil.

Satan comes to her and lies and says, You won't really die.

Now what basis can he say that to her upon and why does he have any hope of her believing it?

Because Eve had the same problem as the modern church.

She misdefined the goodness of God.

And Satan comes and tells her what she really wants to hear, that God is only a God of

goodness, in your definition of goodness.

He would never do anything to harm you because the definition of goodness means that he could not.

And that is how Satan defines the goodness of God.

Satan defines the goodness of God as if it includes no evil and no severity.

And Eve believed it.

Satan said, You shall not surely die because how could a good God kill

you?

Doesn't that make sense?

From Satan's viewpoint, as long as we let him define the words, it makes pretty good sense, doesn't it?

But let's follow this a little further.

He says, For God doth know that in the day that you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened,

and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Now Satan told Eve that God, and notice he says gods, he opens the idea of

the possibility of other gods, other than the true God.

This is perhaps the very beginning of idolatry.

But he goes on and it says, And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes.

In a tree to be desired, to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and

gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.

This particular verse comes into play this afternoon as we speak about the role of women in the church.

I hope you'll all be with us for that.

Look at, skip down to about verse 22.

Chapter 3 of Genesis.

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become

as one of us.

Now you might say it's interesting because God seems to agree with Satan when he says us.

Because Satan said you'll be like the gods, knowing good and evil.

God says man is become as one of us to know good and evil.

Well it is true that God knew good and evil.

But it is not true that there are multiple gods, because what God speaks of when he says us is me,

myself, and I.

He's speaking of the Holy Spirit, he's speaking of Jesus, and he's speaking of the Father.

And he is one God who subsists as three, the Father, the Son,

and the Holy Spirit.

It had to be that way or God couldn't be loved.

You remember studying that last time when we studied the love of God?

Love has to have an object.

And there was a time before God created anything, not even angels.

All that existed, as far as we know, was God.

We can't know much information back beyond that point.

God didn't give it to us.

But we can hypothesize that there was a time before he created anything when

just God existed.

And the Father loved the Son.

And the Son of God, who is deity, was loved by the Father.

So that's what God means when he says they've become as one

of us.

They are like me, they are like my son Jesus, who know good,

feel life, and partake

of that, and then live forever in this sinful state, which would have been a

tragedy for them.

So we see that the goodness of God is not the absence of evil.

It is the discernment of it, the hatred of it, and the avoidance of it.

But it's not as if God was ignorant of evil or didn't know about evil.

In fact, that would be totally ridiculous when you consider that everything that we have had to first come out

from God.

There was a time when there was only God.

When God created that tree, he created the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Satan comes back, tries to define the goodness of God as a goodness that does not include severity, or

that it cannot include hatred, or that it cannot include correction, or

chastisement, or wrath.

Satan says God's not like that.

He'd make a pretty good preacher nowadays, wouldn't he?

We hear that a lot, and yet it's not the truth.

In fact, 2 Samuel 14, 17, you don't need to turn to that one, it's just one little phrase I want to give you.

It's really speaking of an earthly king, but it is said of this king that he is godlike, or godly.

And look at the definition here of this wise king.

Then thine handmaid said, the word of my lord the king shall now be comfortable, for

as an angel of God, she says you are like an angel of God, or a messenger of God.

It could in fact be interpreted you are like the Lord's Messiah, the messenger of God.

So is my lord the king to discern good

and

difference between good and bad.

You say, well, we can all do that.

It's not as easy as you think.

Because we live in a world that defines good as bad and bad as good, all around us.

For as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad.

Therefore the Lord thy God is with thee.

It's the only way he can have that discernment.

So we see that God's goodness has the ability

to define the difference between that which is evil and that which is good.

Romans chapter 11 in verses 21 and 22 it

speaks of the fact that God's goodness is not the absence of severity.

It actually uses the word.

For if God spared not the natural branches that would be the Jews, the Jewish nation,

take heed lest he also spare thee not.

Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God on them which fell

severity but toward thee goodness if thou

continue in his goodness.

Otherwise thou shalt also be cut off.

That is a warning to the church today which is predominantly a Gentile

church.

It is a warning that the church not look at the Jews and say, look at them.

They're total idiots.

No wonder God cast them off.

God says be very, very careful when you speak that way.

Boast not against the branches it says.

But if thou boast thou bearest not the root but the root thee.

In other words he says Israel was my people first.

Thou wilt say then the branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.

Yes that's true isn't it?

Paul taught that, that the Jews were broken off taken into unbelief so that the Gentiles might

be brought in to the family of God through the Abrahamic promise.

Well because of unbelief they were broken off.

And thou standest by faith.

Be not high minded but fear.

For if God spared not the natural branches take heed lest he also spare not thee.

Behold therefore the goodness and severity.

You see his goodness is not like we like to define it.

His goodness is like one side of the coin and his severity is like the other side of the same coin.

If we use some human examples we can see how that's true.

The devil tries to find goodness as a coin with just a head on it and no tail.

We all know that a coin like that is worthless.

He says God is just purely goodness which means to you sweetness and the absence of

any type of wrath or correction or severity.

That's what Satan says but God says of himself that the other side of the same coin

is in fact my severity.

You gentlemen if you were locked in safe and sound in your home late at night

and a rapist broke through your front door and came into your home where your wife

and your daughters and your sons were and you love your wife and your

sons and your daughters with love that God placed in your heart as he made you the husband and

their father.

You see this man coming in and you know what he will do.

Would it not be love and goodness on your part to be as severe with that man as you could be.

As a matter of fact to take his life and to avoid the danger that he

brings to your love and to your goodness.

In fact goodness has always included that type of severity and it does with God as well.

So it is false doctrine and false preaching today when they try to define God in any other way.

Job said if you remember in Job chapter 2 it says

that in verse 9 then said his wife unto him dost thou still retain thine integrity curse God and

die.

You see she had accepted Satan's definition of the goodness of God.

She had decided that since evil had come to my husband surely God doesn't love you.

Surely God is not good.

Therefore curse him and die.

She had been deceived by the same one that Eve was deceived by in the garden.

In fact he may have given her the very same message and she believed it again.

Satan doesn't really need he's like a comedian.

He doesn't need new jokes he just needs new audiences.

He doesn't need new tricks he just needs new generations.

Every generation that's born we fall for the same things again and again.

So she fell for it.

She says curse God and die.

But Job said unto her thou speakest as one of the foolish women.

What shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive

also evil?

In all this did Job not sin with his lips.

Now I ask you this morning if we're going to have a definition of God's goodness like the world defines him and like

Satan defines him how in the world could Job say the last part of that phrase?

If we're going to receive the good things that God brings us shall we not also receive the

evil that God brings us?

Now he says that from a human viewpoint of course and to us there truly are evil things that happen in the world

and bad things that happen to us but what Job was wise enough to know having walked with God

and studied God and come to know God the best he could with what information God had given him in his

day.

He knew more than the modern preachers of today.

He knew that what we perceive to be severity, sometimes even what we perceive to be

evil that comes to us by the hand of God is really for our good

because God is good.

Therefore it cannot truly be evil even though it may appear to be at the time.

Don't be duped like Eve.

Don't be duped like Job's wife.

Don't ever let Satan come into your hearts and minds.

Young people listen to me.

Don't ever let Satan come and tell you.

God is not good.

The very.

Thing that you're in the midst of is what will draw you closer to him than you've ever been before.

I almost laughed when I looked over at Sarah.

She's living proof.

And she's had the sweetest spirit, by the way, because she knows that whatever this is,.

There's no God better.

A great example sitting on the front pew.

So, the goodness and severity of God is also spoken of in Joshua chapter

23.

And behold, verse 14 says, this day I am going the way of all the earth.

So he was in his last days life, Joshua, the great warrior of God,

the great man of faith.

And he says, and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one

thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake

concerning you.

Joshua said, think back on your life, and you know and your heart knows that not one

good thing that God promised you did he ever withhold.

He says this towards the end of his life.

All are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.

But listen how he ends this thought.

He says, therefore it shall come to pass that just as all good things are

come upon you, which the Lord your God promised you, so shall the Lord bring upon you

all evil things until he hath destroyed you from off this good

land which the Lord your God hath given you.

That was somewhat prophetic wasn't it?

What Joshua warned them about, he says, yes God is love, and God is good,

and just as he always brings the goodness that he promises, he will also bring the correction.

If you get away from God in your life, and you turn to other gods, false gods, idols,

and you begin to think more about them and love them more with your heart than you do the true God, and for us today the

Bible says clearly in the New Testament that idolatry is covetousness, it's things, and we

get our eyes on the things of this world, and the things that our flesh desires, and we begin to love them whether they be things

or people more than we love God, be very, very aware of the fact that

just as God brought good, his goodness will bring what Joshua

and Job called evil.

Now he is not evil, but there are evil instruments in this world, one being called

Satan, one being called the demons, even the world philosophical system that we

live under, Satan is the little g god of this world, and even bad

people, children of Satan.

All of these are like chess pieces in God's hand to bring into our lives whatever needs to

be brought to bring us back to him, and so this is

not truly evil, it's only evil from man's viewpoint, from God's, it is perfect

goodness, and perfect kindness, and perfect love.

Sometimes when you spank your children you may have felt a little bit evil, but you knew in your heart that you weren't.

You knew in your heart the opposite is true, that God said that the parent that does not chasten his child

hates the child.

Hates the child!

That is a good definition of what it is to love the child.

It is to love the child when we correct the child.

This comes from God.

Another thing about the goodness of God is that it kind of tags onto this line of thinking is that

God does in fact work all things together for good, even the things that we perceive to be not

good.

Romans 8 28, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and to them that are called

according to his purpose.

In Genesis chapter 50 is one of the greatest examples and teachings of this aspect of

God.

Do you remember Joseph when his brothers threw him into that well?

We're going to leave him for dead and finally they decided no we'll make some money out of this so they sold him into slavery and he went

into Egypt.

Years later they met him again, didn't they?

And they were a little bit uncomfortable to say the least.

And in this context in Genesis 50 18 it says and his brethren also went and fell down

before his face and they said behold we be thy servants.

Don't kill us.

That's what they're thinking.

And Joseph said unto them fear not for am I in the place of God?

You see how Joseph dealt with these circumstances?

He never blamed God.

He knew that God knew best and even when he was in the bottom of that well and later in the prison in Egypt

he knew that God was good.

And he trusted God.

That's a large part of faith is to trust that God is who he says he is.

He is good.

But as for you he says to his brethren ye thought evil against me

that God meant it unto good.

You see how if you look at that from his point of view how could he possibly have

looked up from the bottom of that well and said God is good today?

Well he could have.

Now in his youth I don't know if he did or not that day but I know that later on by the time he met his brothers

he had learned that that was truly the good hand of God because he goes on to

say what you meant is evil God meant for good to bring it to pass as it is at this day to save

much people alive.

And he was able to feed the whole people of Israel.

So it was in fact good.

Deuteronomy 6 24 says and the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes to fear the Lord

our God for our good always.

It teaches that even the severest laws of God that seem severe to us and difficult they're for our

good.

In Deuteronomy 30 verse 4 if any of thine be driven out.

Now I want you to be thinking of this.

Here we have a scene where it seems to be bad.

In fact from a human viewpoint we could only say it is bad.

And it speaks of the time when the children of Israel were driven out of Jerusalem.

And if you ever read Josephus the historian and you read what happened when Rome put them under siege in the year

70 AD and it was also done earlier when they went into Babylon.

Probably a very similar scene where they put them under siege and they couldn't eat, they couldn't drink.

Some of the women ate their own babies.

And all of these horrible things began to happen and then God drove them out from the land and they went into

captivity.

Now if that doesn't seem evil and bad what does?

And yet read the passage or follow along with me.

If any of thine be driven out unto the uttermost parts of heaven he said.

If you be driven out to the furthest end of the universe from thence

will God, the Lord thy God come and gather thee and from thence will he fetch

thee and bring thee back to himself.

And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed and thou shalt possess it again.

And he will do thee good and multiply thee above thy fathers.

And the Lord thy God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your children

to love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul that thou mayest

live.

Tell me that's not good.

You see if he hadn't scattered them, if he hadn't brought destruction and seeming evil to them they

would have let God go forever and all been lost to an eternal damnation and separation from God.

And because God let what we sometimes whine about and cry about and shake our little fist at God and say you're

not a good God how could this happen is the very thing that brings us to him.

We don't know evil till we, well we never will know what hell is all about.

Jesus suffered separation from God when he was on the cross and he said my God, my God why hast thou

forsaken me?

He knew what that was so that we'll never have to know.

But we can imagine can't we?

We do have imaginations, we can imagine a little bit what it would be like to be separated from God.

All that there is in the universe, there is none good but one God and to be separated from goodness

forever.

Hell can't be described as just fire that's not enough to put you in a place

where there is zero goodness the opposite of it is surrounding you forever.

The fire won't seem that hot compared to the effect of being away from a good God and all that is

good forever.

And so God sometimes brings severity to us in this life to drive us to himself

to do us right.

We call it a whooping in Texas I don't know what you call that in Tennessee, probably pretty much the same

thing a whooping but this

is part of the goodness of God.

Let me give you some things that are associated with the goodness of God in the Bible in

Exodus chapter 33 verse 22 and

then following this is where Moses asked to see God and God

said well no man can see me and live but I'll put you in the cleft of a rock and I'll cover you with my hand and I'll pass by and you

can see my hinder parts.

Remember that story?

This is in this story and then down in chapter 34 then in verse 6 it says as he

passes by Moses it says the Lord and that is all caps so that's Jehovah

passed by before him and proclaimed the Lord the Lord God merciful

and gracious and long suffering and abundant in goodness and in truth keeping mercy

for thousands forgiving the iniquity and transgressions and sin and that

will by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children do you see the

goodness and severity of God in the same sentence?

He mentions mercy, he mentions grace, he mentions patience, he mentions

abundant goodness and truth and mercy and forgiveness and he says and he'll know by no

means clear the guilty he will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the

children's children under the third generation and the fourth generation and Moses made haste and bowed

his head and fell to the earth you see the severity of God causes us to fall to the earth

before him.

In chapter 26 verse 11 it says and thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord

thy God hath given unto thee and to thine house thou and the Levite and the stranger that is

among you.

First Chronicles 28 20 says God even my God will be with thee

he will not fail thee nor forsake thee.

I'm giving you some things that are associated with his goodness.

Second Chronicles 30 22 the Levites that taught the good knowledge of

the Lord.

Ezra chapter 7 verse 9 it says for upon the first day of the first month began he to go up from

Babylon see they had been placed into captivity and on the first day of the fifth month came he back to

Jerusalem.

God was about to deliver the remnant back out of captivity away from what pictured Satan, what

pictured the world system and the sins, the sinfulness of our flesh.

He's going to deliver them back to Jerusalem which pictures victorious Christian living and it says that

on the fifth month came he to Jerusalem according to the good hand of his God which

was upon him.

You know that that good hand of God was upon him when he was back in Babylon too?

And that same good hand brought him out of the chastening back into the promised land and that's what the

chastening was for.

Nehemiah chapter 2 verse 17 then I told them of the hand of my God which was good upon

me as also the king's words that had spoken to me and they said let us rise up

and build.

You see when God's good hand is upon us we can build.

So they strengthened their hands for this good work.

Verse 20 says then answered I them.

You see the enemies of God Sanballat and Tobiah and the

Ammonites and these Arabians that were the enemies of God laughed at them when they

said they would come back in and build this wall.

They laughed them to scorn and said you'll never be able to do it we'll destroy you.

The enemy is always saying that to us and yet then answered I them and

said unto them the enemy could picture Satan the God of heaven he

will prosper us therefore we his servants will arise and build that

ye have no portion nor right nor memorial in

Jerusalem.

You can pray and ask the Lord Jesus to rebuke Satan and remove him

because he has no portion he has no right he has no memorial in your life

because you belong to the Lord.

So the things that were mentioned in those passages that are associated with God's goodness are mercy, grace,

patience, truth, forgiveness, justice, good things that he brings in our life,

faithfulness, good knowledge of God, and the good hand of God.

And I'm sure there would be many others.

Good with God is not based upon any supposed human goodness.

Let me talk to you about this point just for a moment because the world doesn't understand this about God.

The world tries to approach God by building a stairway to heaven, a stairway of good acts and

good deeds and religiosity.

And the world thinks that they can approach heaven because they think that God's definition of goodness can be

defined in man or by man or by good

acts that man might do.

Look at Romans chapter 9 and verse 11.

It's the last time I'll ever tell you to start out in Psalm 144.

That'll be next week, next month sometime.

Roman chapter 9 verse 11.

I would like you to see this one.

This above all passages in the scriptures prove without any doubt at all

that the goodness of God is not based upon any supposed

human goodness that might be found in man.

Of course there is the verse over in the Old Testament, I think, Jeremiah, where it says even our

righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

There's that one.

But in Romans chapter 9 verse 11 it says, for the children being yet born, not yet born,

these two children, not yet born, speaking of Jacob and Esau, they had not even been born

yet, neither having done any good or evil, so they had never done what man defines as good or what

man defines as evil, so that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of

works but of him that calleth.

It was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob have I loved,

but Esau have I hated, said God.

And it was not based on any good works either one of them had done because they weren't born yet.

So God's goodness does not look for goodness in man.

It only looks for God's own goodness.

And I think, I love what the black lady said so much and I quote it in almost every sermon,

but they ask her, how do you know you're going to heaven?

She said, because when God looks down at me, he sees me all dressed up in Jesus.

You see, God can't look for our righteousness because it would not please him at all.

What he looks for is the righteousness of God in Christ as we have received him as our own.

Numbers chapter 23 says God is not a

man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent.

In other words, change his mind.

Hath he said, and shall he not do it?

Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?

Behold, I have received commandment to bless, and he hath

blessed.

I cannot reverse it.

He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in

Israel.

The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of the king is among them.

This was spoken by the false prophet Balaam.

As God had told him, you better not tell them a lie, Balaam.

When you go to him, you tell him the truth is, Israel is going to win this battle.

And the reason Israel is going to win this battle is because I, God, have not beheld iniquity

in Jacob, nor have I seen perverseness in Israel.

But you and I know, having read the Bible, that there was perverseness and iniquity in Israel, was

there not?

But God didn't behold.

You know what he beheld?

He was going hundreds of years into the future, beholding the cross that had his son dying on it for their

sins.

For their sins.

In the place of them.

As full payment for those sins.

And God also was taking that very righteousness from Jesus and somehow transcending time

and bringing it back, of course this applies to us forward in time, but taking it back to these sons of God in the

Old Testament and placing his righteousness in their bodies.

And as he looked at them, he saw the perfect lamb, the perfect son of God, and he was satisfied.

God's goodness and his wrath, God's love and his

justice, were all satisfied when he looked at the cross.

And the blood of the cross.

And the lamb of the cross.

And when Jesus was resurrected on that third day, it proved that God was satisfied.

And so when God looked down at Jacob and Israel, he saw no iniquity and no perversion.

And he said, I'm not going to let the enemy destroy you.

You're going to win.

That's all we have time for this morning.

There's more about the goodness of God.

But that's enough for us to think about this week, isn't it?

God's goodness is accompanied by severity because that's the true definition of goodness.

But that severity is backed by what God is, and God is love, so it's all meant in

love.

And it all brings us to a better, closer, sweeter relationship to him.

And when the enemy looks at us and tries to come and lie and say, I'm going to destroy you.

I've even got a prophet here that will tell you I'm going to destroy you.

Even the false prophet couldn't tell him that because God wouldn't let him.

He said, you go tell them this.

I don't see one thing wrong with Israel.

My hand's on them.

And the shout of the king is with them.

And that shout of the king, any warrior knows that means attack.

We're going to victory.

And you have that this morning if you've ever received the Lord Jesus and Christ as your own.

You can behold the true goodness of God.

Let's stand and pray together.

Father, we thank you for your goodness.

We stand in awe of your severity.

We do have a healthy, proper fear of you because we know the same hand that can bring us what we

perceive to be good things can bring us chastisement when we need it.

So we fall before you this morning in our hearts and we worship you but we also rejoice

in the fact that you love us as the Lord Jesus told us when he prayed to you that you would give us the same love

that you had for him that you would have that same exact love for us.

Tender mercies, loving kindness and gentleness and patience.

And a love that we can only talk about.

We cannot comprehend fully.

That love is behind your goodness and your goodness is what motivates you

to do all that you've done both in our lives and in the life of the world.

We thank you that you've called us to yourself.

Lord, if there's anyone with us today that has not yet received the Lord Jesus, would you

please move them in that direction?

Would you please woo them?

Father, may they see the light.

Father, go with us into our time of fellowship.

We ask you to bless our meal together and our evening services as well and we ask you in Jesus' name.