“GOD IS GOOD”

Keith Ledford 

Psalm 73:1 “Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.”

The Psalmist begins with a thought that is the conclusion of all that he lists in the Psalm.  This statement is a theological Mt. Everest.  Many people have slipped and fallen on the sides of this mountain falling prey to the fiery darts of the wicked one.  It's real easy to say that God is good when all is well.  But can we still say it when our lives are upside down?  Asaph had almost fallen off this Mount Everest but by the grace of God he has climbed to the top and is able to say decisively that God is Good!

He has been through a terrible trial of temptation. "But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped." V.2 You see, Asaph almost fell into the abyss of unbelief because he wanted God to stay in the box he had built for Him in his mind and theology.  You and I are in grave danger there.  We build our cages for God and for some reason He doesn't seem to stay in them.  Just trust Him.

Asaph was perplexed at apparent injustice. 1-“For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” 2-V.13 “Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. V.14 For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning. V.16 When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me.”

God’s mind and His purposes are fathomless.  If we read about and thought about some other human’s thinking as much as we do God’s we would have a pretty clear understanding of their ways.  We might say of them, “I know you like the back of my hand.”  Not so with the Almighty.  His thoughts are higher than the heavens and so He leaves us perplexed at times.

Perplexity at the will of God or in the will of God is not sinful.  But it could lead to sin! When we don’t understand the ways of God and our mind is perplexed by His “Apparent injustices” then Satan can slip in subtle suggestions such as:

*God’s not fair

*Holy living doesn’t pay

*Your relationship with God is over

*Your prayers are never answered

*I would trust Him, but I’ve prayed for my children for years and they’re still not saved.

*I can’t understand why God has allowed me to be single all these years.

*I don’t know why God won’t straighten out my companion.

*I don’t know why God allows me to suffer physically. There are reprobate sinners who get along fine.

*Why does my life have so many twists and turns? My life is weird.  Why doesn’t God do something?

*I have terrible memories and scars from my childhood and teen years.  My dad mistreated me, even abused me, my mother was cold to me, kids laughed at me in school. Why should I be willing to trust God?

*My husband/wife walked out on me – why should I trust God?

*Death claimed my loved one – way too early.  I needed him/her.  Where was God? Surely that wasn’t His will????

I know that I can’t explain to you the why of these things. I’ve had some gut-wrenching rides on the roller coaster of life – so I’m not condemning you.  By why don’t you let God be God and us be His loving, loyal and faithful followers?  “Truly God is good…”

Somehow we must resolve our perplexity.  Paul wrote in II Corinthians 4:8 “We are perplexed, but not in despair.”  If perplexity at the ways of God in our lives becomes despair then Faith’s shield droops at our side leaving us vulnerable to the fiery darts of the wicked one. We must as the Psalmist come to a place that we can confess, “Truly God is good…”

The best place to start is WORSHIP! “Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end." V.17 One author wrote a book entitled, "All I Really Needed to Know I learned in Kindergarten."  What you really need to know about life’s perplexities you should learn at worship.  What are you finding in worship?

O, how the Psalmist’s perspective changed when he went to the place of worship! In verse two the Psalmist’s feet had well-nigh slipped.  Thank God they hadn’t slipped but the temptation to despair had crept in close.  In verse 18 he realizes that Jehovah has set the wicked in slippery places. He feels like kicking himself. He is so ashamed of the perspective of perplexity! He said, “So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before Thee.” V.22 He was chagrinned and shamed at his foolish and ignorant viewpoint on the justice of Almighty God.

From the Perspective of Worship he saw the Punishment of the Wicked.  Vv. 18-19. From that perspective he also saw the Presence of Elohiym. V.23 “Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand.” From worship he also saw the Providential Guidance of God. V.24 “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.”

Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones said, “Well, having been through it all, I have now been given to see that God is always good.  I was tempted to think there were times when He was not; I see now that that was wrong.  God is always good in all circumstances, in all ways, at all times – no matter what may happen to me, or to anybody else. ‘I have arrived,’ says the Psalmist, ‘at the conclusion that ‘God is always good to Israel.’  

Are we all ready to say that?  Some of you may be passing through this kind of experience at this moment.  Things may be going wrong with you, and you may be having a hard time.  Blow upon blow may be descending upon you.  You have been living the Christian life, reading your Bible, working for God, and yet the blows have come, one on top of another.  Everything seems to be going wrong; you have been plagued ‘all the day long,’ and ‘chastened every morning.’  One trouble follows hard after another.  Now the one simple question I want to ask is this.  Are you able to say in the face of it all, ‘God is always good?’ Yes, even in the face of what is happening to you, and even as you see the wicked flourish.  In spite of the cruelty of an enemy or the treachery of a friend, in spite of all that is happening to you, can you say, ‘God is always good; there is no exception; there is no qualification?’  Can you say that? Because if you cannot, then you are guilty of sin. You may have been tempted to doubt.  That is to be expected; that is not sin. The question is, Were you able to deal with the temptation? Were you able to thrust it back, and to put it out of your mind? Were you able to say, ‘God is always good,’ without any reservation at all?” (From Dr. M. L. Jones)

David, a 2-year old with leukemia, was taken by his mother, Deborah, to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, to see Dr. John Truman who specializes in treating children with cancer and various blood diseases. Dr. Truman's prognosis was devastating: "He has a 50-50 chance." The countless clinic visits, the blood tests, the intravenous drugs, the fear and pain--the mother's ordeal can be almost as bad as the child's because she must stand by, unable to bear the pain herself.  David never cried in the waiting room, and although his friends in the clinic had to hurt him and stick needles in him, he hustled in ahead of his mother with a smile, sure of the welcome he always got. 

When he was three, David had to have a spinal tap--a painful procedure at any age. It was explained to him that, because he was sick, Dr. Truman had to do something to make him better. "If it hurts, remember it's because he loves you," Deborah said. The procedure was horrendous. It took three nurses to hold David still, while he yelled and sobbed and struggled. When it was almost over, the tiny boy, soaked in sweat and tears, looked up at the doctor and gasped, "Thank you, Dr. Tooman, for my hurting."  Monica Dickens, Miracles of Courage, 1985.

You are faced with a choice today.  You can take all the hurts of yesterday, all the pain of gnarled relationships, and all the questions about tomorrow, and cling to all of that looking at God with suspicion, or you can say like this little boy David, "Thank you, Lord, for my hurting."

I'm convinced a multitude of believers never enter into the Canaan land of perfect love and end up backsliding because they get suspicious of God when he tests them.

“GOD IS GOOD”

Continued

"ACQUITTING GOD IN THE COURTROOM OF THE SOUL"

Psalms 73:1  Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.

God is tried in the courtroom of the soul by believers and unbelievers alike.  The "Accuser of the brethren" also accuses God to people.  One of the very first tactics that the serpent used to deceive and defeat mankind was the "God's not fair" accusation. Genesis 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

After preaching on the subject, "God is Good" I had a number of conversations about the topic and realized what a pertinent and emotional subject it is.  Allow me to share some of one of those conversations I had.

A gentleman came up to me in the foyer after that Sunday morning message.  He said that his pastor had preached on Psalm 73. His pastor said, “You can get bitter or you can get better.”  This man’s boy was killed instantly in a freak accident. His sister had helped sing many special songs with the family but when her brother was killed she quit singing.  She was getting bitter instead of better.  Her stomach started swelling and she said, "I don't need a doctor to tell me I have cancer, I know I have it."  Finally the pain became so intense she had to seek medical help and found that a very large tumor had grown into almost every abdominal organ in her body.  They were supposed to take her into surgery at 7:30 one morning but instead came at 7:00.  This dad had not made it yet.  The pastor and his wife were there and the pastor said, "You can't take her yet."  He talked and prayed with the daughter until she was able to say, "Tell my dad if I don't see him down here I'll see him in heaven."  Big tears rolled down her face as she let go of the bitterness and acquitted God in the courtroom of her soul.  She never really regained consciousness after that. Do you see how the adversary seeks to destroy our relationship with Jehovah? He is seeking to use that same general tactic on you and me.

What are the accusations that Satan brings against Jehovah in the courtroom of the soul?

International calamities.  Just look at the Haiti earthquake in January, 2010.  Estimates are that 230,000 - 316,000 people died.  I have been where mass graves were.  Bulldozers dug big holes and thousands of bodies were dumped in together without markers or decent burial.  How do you explain how a just God could allow an earthquake like this to happen?

The death of millions of innocent people at the hands of tyrannical leaders.  A multitude of little boys and girls walked into Hitler's gas chambers that had done nothing wrong. 

Child molesters, rapists, pimps and other malicious people walk the streets and seem to get by.  Precious unborn babies are aborted in their innocence.  In a hundred other ways hearts are broken, dreams are snuffed out, plans are destroyed, hopes are crushed, and Satan paints a big red arrow pointing at Jehovah to say or suggest that God is guilty, that He could have stopped the evil.

Robert Velarde said, 'Upon the death of his wife, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms … But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is in vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside."

Fortunately, Lewis came to grips with his grief and in the end realized that God not only exists, but that He is indeed all loving despite our sufferings.

Still, for Christians and non-Christians evil and suffering are often at the forefront of our minds, particularly when we ourselves are suffering. How could a good God allow so much evil? Why doesn't He do something about it? Couldn't God have created a world without evil?'

What evidence could the defense make to show that God is good in the courtroom of the soul? 

Unfortunately in our quest for answers you can't always use pure logic because we don't have all of the facts.  God is as high above us as the heavens are above the earth.  So there is going to have to be some faith in God presented in the courtroom of the soul. 

We know from the Bible that God shares in our sufferings.

Lee Stroebel wrote, "As that wise man once said to me: God’s ultimate answer to suffering isn’t an explanation; it’s the incarnation. Suffering is a personal problem; it demands a personal response. And God isn’t some distant, detached, and disinterested deity; He entered into our world and personally experienced our pain. Jesus is there in the lowest places of our lives. Are you broken? He was broken, like bread, for us. Are you despised? He was despised and rejected of men. Do you cry out that you can’t take any more? He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Did someone betray you? He was sold out. Are your most tender relationships broken? He loved and He was rejected. Did people turn from you? They hid their faces from Him as if He were a leper. Does He descend into all of our hells? Yes, He does. From the depths of a Nazi death camp, Corrie ten Boom wrote these words: “No matter how deep our darkness, He is deeper still.” Every tear we shed becomes his tear."

Let me ask you how fair Calvary was?  How fair was the trial by the Sanhedrin or the kangaroo court in Pilate's hall?  God, in the person of His Son, has experienced the dregs of injustice and unfairness.  He was a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. 

It is also true that God did not create the world as it now is.

Genesis 1:31a "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."

When God spoke the world into existence and created all of its beauty and design it was very good.  Natural evil and moral evil did not exist at that time.  But God also created man with the capacity of love.  With that capacity came the choice to love or not to love.  It was easy for Eve to say to Adam, "You're the only man in the world for me."  Because he actually was.  But God created one tree among the hundreds in the garden that He said they were not to eat of.  With the capacity for love and the capacity for choice Eve and Adam chose to disobey their Creator which brought the fall and the curse.  Millions of heart attacks, cancers, deaths, disease, divorces, birth defects, auto accidents, tsunamis, earthquakes, etc. trace their origin back to the fall and to the curse.  GOD DID NOT MAKE THE WORLD TO FUNCTION LIKE THIS!  God created you to be a prince or princess in His great kingdom.  Please don't make the foolish choice of accusing Him of unfairness and rejecting His gracious offers of salvation!

The day is coming when evil will be forever abolished and good will forever win.

In the courtroom of your soul I want to remind you of the fact that the day is coming when God will forever right the wrongs and those who have chosen Him will enjoy the pleasure of His presence and blessings throughout eternity.  Yes, Adolph Hitler may have escaped the Nuremburg trials but he will not escape the White Throne judgment. 

Eichmann in 1945 stated: "I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction." "To sum it all up, I must say that I regret nothing."

Evil cannot properly be punished here.  But God will finally and fully punish it.  Righteousness cannot be properly rewarded here. But God will finally, fully, and forever reward it! 

In the courtroom of your soul I want to present the Word of God, the logic of your being, and the affirmation of the voice of conscience to say that God will settle all scores.  Why don't you trust Him?  I too don't have all of my questions answered as to the why of things but I trust His goodness.  In a few short years I won't care about the why of things when He takes His wonderful hand and wipes away all tears from our eyes.  One look into the face of my Savior will answer all of my questions.  My fear for some of you is that the enemy of your soul will get you hung up on, "Why does God allow evil in this world?"  "Why does God allow suffering in my life and in the lives of others?"  Being fixated on those questions could keep you from experiencing God's perfect solution to evil.

It’s like the story that British church leader Galvin Reid tells about meeting a young man who had fallen down a flight of stairs as a baby and shattered his back. He had been in and out of hospitals his whole life — and yet he made the astounding comment that he thinks God is fair. Reid asked him, “How old are you?” The boy said, “Seventeen.” Reid asked, “How many years have you spent in hospitals?” The boy said, “Thirteen years.” The pastor said with astonishment, “And you think that is fair?” And the boy replied: “Well, God has all eternity to make it up to me.”

Will you acquit God or will you indict Him by listening to the enemy?  The accusations no matter how painful they are simply are a smokescreen to keep you from serving and loving the only true and living God.  Please put your pain, sorrow, questions, and your sin at the foot of His blood drenched cross.

“Truly God is good…”