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THE GOODNESS OF THE LORD, Sermon #162
"I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD."
PSA 27:13-14.
The psalmist was not a stranger to the struggles and trials that we experience in this life.
He was not a stranger to the withdrawing of the Lord.
In DEU 33:25 we read, "Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be."
This teaches us that the Lord will prepare us for the thorny path that we will tread.
He gives us iron shoes to protect us and shield us against the thorns and rocks of the steep places that we must climb.
When David longed for God’s presence, he cried out in PSA 39:12, "Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were."
David understood that this life is only in preparation for a great and never-ending journey.
Struggles and trials can keep us from thinking that the earth is our resting- place.
We will find no rest in our flesh.
As long as our hearts are set on the things of the flesh, the Lord will undermine them so they will not take root.
Every thorn in the flesh and every storm that passes over our heads are foreordained of the Lord.
The psalmist said, "I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD."
The Apostle Paul said in 2CO 12:7-8, "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelation, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me."
If we experience a great trial, do we beg the Lord to deliver us?
Paul continued in Verse 9, "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee."
The Lord was teaching him that he would see the grace of God in the trial, "for my strength is made perfect in weakness."
We learn to see our weakness.
When we have a sinking feeling, like we will collapse, the Holy Spirit lifts Christ before our eyes, and we see that we are fellowshipping in the sufferings of Christ and that He is crucifying the flesh.
Verse 9 continues, "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
The Lord’s purpose in suffering is that the power of Christ may rest upon us.
One of the things that makes the way rough is that it is unknown.
ISA 42:16 says, "And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.
These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."
If we could know what the future held, we might endure the trial, for we would know when we would be delivered, but the unknown is haunting.
The troubles of our paths are surely as ordained of the Lord as our glory at the end.
PRO 20:24 says, "Man’s goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way?"
Every trial and struggle we go through has been ordained of the Lord for the crucifying of our flesh.
JER 10:23 tells us, "O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps."
All of the places that the Lord leads us are for the purpose of emptying us of ourselves and making us proper candidates to serve Him.
In MAT 11:28 we see the invitation of the Lord Jesus Christ to serve Him: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
We do not become labored and heavy laden with sin, guilt, and misery until the Lord has brought us through the purging process.
The Lord uses the trials and struggles to make us proper candidates for the Lord’s service.
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in
heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light," MAT 11:29-30.
David often speaks to the heart of God’s people in the book of Psalms, but in our text, as is most often the case, he speaks of his own personal experience.
See the beautiful distinction between the first part of the chapter and the last.
David began this Psalm by praising God, and ended by showing the foundation that gave him the ability to praise the Lord.
He said, "I had fainted, unless I had believed."
He could praise the Lord because he had faith to believe that he would see the goodness of God in the land of the living.
He concludes, "Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD."
He begins in PSA 27:1 with, "The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"
As David goes on to praise the Lord for His goodness, he describes what he means by "The LORD is...my salvation."
He said in PSA 27:4, "One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple."
Is salvation the mere fact of escaping hell?
To David, salvation was the nearness of the Lord.
However, David also spoke of a time of trouble.
PSA 27:5 says, "For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock."
He needed the solid rock, Christ Jesus, as the foundation of his hope.
David clearly reveals that his pleading ground was based upon undeserved favor.
He did not claim any merit.
He said in PSA 27:7-8, "Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek."
He pled on the basis of mercy.
In the beginning of the Psalm, David spoke of the canopy of Divine love over him that made all his oppressors as nothing to him, and yet in our text he referred to such extreme circumstances that he would have fainted.
David said that if there had not been such great support holding him up, he would have fainted.
"I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living."
The Lord leads us through many changing circumstances, both spiritually and in providence, to wean us from this world and self.
JER 48:11 tells us, "Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed."
We must be emptied from vessel to vessel, from trial to trial.
We will be purged from this sin and then that sin.
When the Lord has convicted us of the pride of our hearts and has truly humbled us, then He will convince us of the uncleanness of our hearts.
Then He will teach us another sin, and we will go through another struggle to be cleansed from that sin.
If this does not happen, then we will be like Moab, whose "taste remained in him," whose bitterness of sin was never removed.
The Lord does not give His people uninterrupted peace in this world lest they settle into complacency, nor does He leave them without a good hope lest they should faint and despair.
That is what is so precious about our text: "I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living."
The Lord delivers us in His time.
HEB 12:3 says, "For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds."
Trials and purging come so that we will take our eyes off of ourselves and lift our eyes unto Christ, that we might know what it is, as the Apostle Paul says, to "live by the faith of Jesus Christ."
The faith of the Lord Jesus Christ is lifted before our eyes and imputed to us so we may walk by His faith.
David was led through great depths of discouragement, trouble, distress, and well nigh despair, yet he never once questioned his relationship with God.
A good example of this is PSA 86:1-2; "Bow down thine ear, O LORD, hear me: for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my soul; for I am holy [one whom He favors]: O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee."
David spoke of a tremendous struggle, but he never questioned God’s favor to his soul.
The Lord empties His people from vessel into vessel, leaving everything of the flesh (that tends to faint) behind with the dregs, so that their only hope is to encourage themselves in the Lord their God.
In HEB 11:6 we read, "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
Unless David "believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living," he would have fainted.
God is a rewarder of those that wait upon Him.
"Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD."
If Abraham had not been emptied of self, his heart would have fainted when God commanded him to offer up Isaac, in whom was his hope of salvation.
If the Lord had not emptied Abraham from vessel to vessel, emptying him of all flesh and all human reasoning, he would have fainted.
Abraham had been emptied of all human reasoning even before he received Isaac, for he could not believe Isaac could be born!
GEN
17:17 tells us, "Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?"
Abraham did not faint when God commanded him to offer up Isaac because he believed in the goodness of the Lord, "Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure," HEB 11:19.
Abraham could believe because the Lord had completely stripped him of all human reasoning.
Abraham did not faint when his faith was tried because he had been established in faith through being emptied from vessel to vessel.
We read in ROM 4:19-21, "And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform."
His human reasoning had been removed.
There was a secret power that kept Jacob from fainting when he had to let Benjamin go with his brothers.
He "believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living."
Jacob cried out of his anguish, "All these things are against me;" he thought these things would bring down his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
Yet within his soul, a secret power sustained him.
Although Jacob may have felt ready to faint, he saw such a remarkable deliverance that his heart fainted for joy.
GEN 45:25-27 says, "And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, And told him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt.
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