Let's open up to Psalm 104. Psalm 104. We're not going to read the whole psalm, we're just going to be looking at a part of it. So we're going to be looking at verses 27 through 30. And I'll read from verse 24 to get a little bit of the context here. But this is a great psalm. So look at verse 24 there. Oh Lord, how manifold are your works. In wisdom you have made them all. The earth is full of your possessions, this great and wide sea, in which are innumerable teeming things, living things both small and great. There the ships sail about. There is that Leviathan which you have made to play there. Here's our text. These all wait for you, that you may give them their food in due season. What you give them, they gather in. You open your hand. They are filled with good. You hide your face. They are troubled. You take away their breath and they die and return to their dust. You send forth your spirit. They are created and you renew the face of the earth. Let's pray once again. Father, we just thank you for bringing us here this morning. We recognize that none of us deserve to be here or even breathe the breath we're breathing or let alone hear your precious word read and even sitting in personal copies in our own laps, Lord, and yet we thank you that you brought us here. We thank you for your grace in our lives and we pray that you bless this time as we consider your words, Lord, and bless the preacher, bless our ears as we hear and cause us all to worship you in prayerful meditation as we consider your ways. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, one of the names of God, you know God has many names in scripture, one of the names of God I love so much, and that God's people have loved so much throughout the long centuries of church history, even throughout the history of the people of the Old Testament times, the Old Covenant, is the name Jehovah-Jireh. Jehovah-Jireh, and that means the Lord will provide. Jehovah Jireh. And incidentally there's a book that was written in 1865 by a man named William S. Plumer and its full title is Jehovah Jireh a Treatise on Providence. In preparing this sermon I found some helpful things in that book and I recommend it to you. It's one of the best books I've ever read actually. But that's kind of not saying too much because there's about 100 books that tie for the best book I've ever read, you know? You know how it is. But our text in Psalm 104 is in reality a passage that discusses God's providence. God's providence. The doctrine of providence is very meaty theology. It's an incredible doctrine. To study it and apply it to one's heart and mind gives God his rightful place as sovereign upholder of all things, as the orchestrator of all of history, deliverer of the weak, remover of kings and kingdoms, and installer of rulers and nations of power. This doctrine puts God where he should be as our only hope, as our true provider, as the one who can part the Red Sea, and as the one who can light up the inside of a prison cell with holy fire and holy love and holy zeal. To understand providence, though, it's always going to have aspects to it that are mysterious to us. There's no way you can totally fathom the depths of God's providence in history, right? But to understand what it is, not necessarily to understand what God is always about in our particular moment in history and time, but to understand what providence is and how it is that God is king, and he is sovereign, and he is the shepherd and provider of his people, as well as the one who causes the rain to fall on the crops of the wicked. This is to bring, to understand providence, is to bring our hearts into a place of rest and a place of peace. After all, what is life but a test, moment by moment, to determine our faith and trust in the living God? That's really what's going on in your life. Every moment is this test of your faith. Are you going to trust in the living God? If you're still wondering what exactly Providence is, just to remind you, I know you guys talk about, you read the Confession of Faith every morning. Here's what the first paragraph of the chapter on Providence in the 1689 Confession of Faith says. Chapter 5, paragraph 1 of the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith says the following, God The Good Creator of all things, in His infinite power and wisdom, does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, to the end for which they were created, according to His infallible knowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, and infinite goodness and mercy." That's what providence is. Now mind you, Psalm 104, 27 through 30 is only covering some particular aspects to providence. Divine Providence. The subject of Providence is actually incredibly immense. It's huge. It has much more to it than we see in these verses. But then again, we can draw out from these verses in Psalm 104 the marrow of this great doctrine which can have an almost limitless amount of applications as we chew and meditate and preach on God's sovereignty and upholding and providing for the whole world at all times. That's what we're talking about this morning. Plumer quotes a man named Racine saying this, quote, he who ruleth the raging of the sea knows also how to check the designs of the ungodly. I submit myself with reverence to his holy will. And he records Orton writing this, a sense of the divine care and favor has been in all ages the support of the church. and the consolation of good men, no thought can enter into the mind of man better adapted to promote its piety and peace than this, that the world is under the government of God and all events of our lives under the direction of his providence." It's amazing. Thomas Watson writes this, quote, from all the acts of God as recorded in scriptures, We are taught that He alone is God, that He is present everywhere to sustain and govern all things, that His wisdom is infinite, His counsel settled, and His power irresistible, that He is holy, just, and good, the Lord and the Judge, but the Father and the Friend of man." And one more quote I want to give you from Samuel Rutherford. He says this, I adore and kiss the providence of my Lord who knoweth well what is most expedient for me and for you and for your children. Let's turn in the brief time we have remaining to our text in the word Psalm 104 verse 27 to 30. And in this passage I want to draw four points, four points for our sermon this morning. First we see The world is dependent upon God. The world is dependent upon God. Secondly, we will note that the world claims independence from God. The world claims independence from God. Thirdly, we will see God often hides his face. And lastly, we will see that God brings renewal always. So first, the world is dependent on God. And in our text we read, these all wait for you that you may give them their food in due season. What you give them, they gather in. You open your hand, they are filled with good. Now from the context, we know that the psalmist is talking about the creatures of the earth being provided for by God, including the creature he created in his own image, man himself. So man is included in these creatures. Verses 10 and 11. of Psalm 104. He sends the springs into the valleys. They flow among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field. The wild donkeys quench their thirst. Look at verse 12. By them the birds of the heavens have their home. They sing among the branches. Verse 14. He causes the grass to grow for the cattle and vegetation for the service of man. that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine that makes glad the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread which strengthens man's heart. Verse 21, the young lions roar after their prey and seek their food from God. When the sun rises, they gather together and lie down in their dens. Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening. Every creature is completely dependent on God for all of life, all of their sustenance, for the maintaining of the cycles of the seasons, the rising and setting of the sun, the flow of the rivers and streams from springs of water to bring life and nourishment to the valleys and to fill the oceans, the rain in its seasons to bring food from vegetations for all and food for man from the animals that feed upon the vegetation. God is sovereign over the weather, over the tilt of the earth, over the survival of the millions of different species of animals. But oftentimes we get distracted from worshiping God in awe over this power he has of governing all things. His providence over all of creation and our utter dependence dependence on him because mankind has produced so much that tends to shroud this from our eyes. We get distracted from the awe and the majesty of God providentially sustaining all of the creation. Today we see before us a super complicated interdependent world economy and society which man seems to have set up for his own benefit and with which he interacts and contributes to daily. You cannot not be a part of this world city if you're living as a human being on this earth. Nobody can really get off the grid, right? We don't recognize God's provision of rain and good soil when we go to the grocery store because everything's packaged neatly in canned and butchered for us in nice little containers with price tags on them. We see the incredible technological advancements of the internet and the man-made algorithms of Google and AI and the super-fast speeds at which goods and people travel. And we think, this is all man-made. Man made this. Man is holding it together. Man created it. Man contributes to it. Man is benefiting from his own industriousness. And we get distracted. But we get distracted from the fact that it is God who is providing all this in reality. It is God who maintains and gives common grace to all of humanity. There could be so many more airplane crashes than there are, many more accidents on the freeway. We were just talking with some brothers this morning about the crazy driving up here, right? There could be much more crime than there is, much more. Even when the economy is reeling from things like we saw from the coronavirus or supply chain issues due to so-called natural disasters or wars, God is still upholding it. He's still sustaining it. He still has his hand firmly on the steering wheel. He is always preserving society's economic status from where it could really crash into. Would he remove his mercy and in a moment God could lift his finger off one tiny aspect of his providence and this world would be crashing in on itself in a chaos. beyond our wildest imaginations. We know from experience that when we are in a bad place, we tend to think on the good times of the past, right? Remember how things were better in the past. How easy it was compared to the bad times we're experiencing. But that's just it. Things are never as bad as they could be. Because God is steering the ship. In fact, things are much better than they should be, considering there is an ongoing pandemic of sin, corrupting the hearts of all the people who can move and shake the world around us. God maintains and upholds and he gives us grace in regards to sin, and division, and bickering, and maliciousness, and cruelty, and selfishness, and disobedience, and perversions. His grace is still with us even though these things are happening. In other words, he holds the world back from what it is actually really capable of. We believe in the doctrine of total depravity. That means there's actually no depth to where mankind is capable of going in his sin, yet God, in his common grace, holds man back from what he's capable of, holds the world back from where it could really go. Even in our Christian families, even in our Christian families, in our own hearts as individual believers, he gives grace through circumstances and provisions of truth and deliverances from financial hardships. And he pours out love in our hearts through his spirit, which all combined allow for us to live lives of godliness and peace and unity. We are dependent on God for everything. And the whole world is dependent on God. And we would declare this morning that what a wonderful place it is to be in, to be dependent and utterly relying on the one, the one who controls all things, who can provide water from the rock and manna in the desert. It's wonderful how it should encourage us to know that God is good. God is good and he is faithful. and he's merciful and then as we recognize our dependence upon him we can know the peace of God in that he cares for us and there's nothing he does not bring into our lives that is not expedient for our growth and our health as people being conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. No one is sufficient to pilot the world or the economy or our own family situations for that matter, no one is sufficient to pilot the people of the world and the Church of Christ through the raging seas of a world and a history that is plagued with sin and harassment from the devil, the enemy of our souls, as well as from the detriments of plagues and diseases and so-called natural disasters and wars. But God alone is sufficient. God can pilot the ship. And whether we recognize it or not, He has the helm of all the nations, all the states of our country, all the governments, all the economy, all the paths of viruses and pestilences. He is steering it all. We don't understand sometimes why he turns the ship certain ways, but he's in control. And my friends, this is a much better reality than thinking we are sitting on a ball of dirt careening through the universe randomly, utterly susceptible to the chances that may fall upon the entire planet at any time. This is a much better reality than the one in which the viruses of this world have popped up out of sheer chance. and in which we rely on the dumb luck of the people of the world to have enough brains to stop these things. The whole world waits for God that he may give them their food in due season. What he gives them they gather in. God opens his hand and the world is filled with good. But we know that secondly, the world claims independence from God. The world claims independence from God, though the entire economy hangs in the balance of God's decree. Though the whole planet with all of its life and resources brings the world its food, its clothing, and gives it access to all of its pleasures, though all of that is received from the world through God's common grace, through his kindness and mercy to the wicked, The whole world instead seeks to turn in on itself in self-worship and self-gratification, and to claim autonomy and freedom from owing obedience to their Creator who has given them every good thing. It's audacious. It's ridiculous. It's blasphemous. Because the world is filled with good from God, our text says. They receive the goodness, and they plunder and lust over the goodness they have received, and yet they turn their backs to the one who has given it to them. They turn their backs upon God with the very backs that God has created for them, and with the ability to turn their backs with the abilities God has provided for them. Now I want to pose a question to myself and to the church here. Do we as Christians sometimes follow the world in these things? Do we in so many ways, in so many words, in so many thoughts, declare that we are independent from God by our actions, by our thoughts? We who have not only received the provision of food and shelter and breath and life from our good and benevolent creator, but we have been provided with the blood of Jesus Christ, which he shed on the cross to wash us from the guilt and the penalty of our sins, and that has purchased forgiveness and eternal life in the presence of our King and Savior forever and ever. Do we who once were wallowing in the blood of our own sin, naked in the wilderness of slavery to the devil, destitute with no way, no hope to escape an eternity in hell, an eternity in hell. We who are taken up and chosen in the pity and the mercy of our holy God to be cared for and raised from the dead spiritually, to be washed and nourished in the truth of his word and his gospel, to have our paths enlarged under our feet so that we would not slip into misery and destruction in the ways of the world, do we as Christians Would we ever dare venture to act in a way that flaunts our sense of independence from God? Have we been too self-sufficient, too self-sufficient in times past? Are these dark and strange providences we see today in our world around us partly God's way of waking us up to our need for Him? showing us how much we need him. I think the whole Christian life, whether we are abased or whether we are abounding, sees us carried along by providence in order to cause us to draw near to God, to know him deeper. Please don't take the difficulties of maybe what you're going through or what our country's going through or what the world's going through The times we are living in is a message to sink under the guilt and shame for our past shortcomings. That's not what I'm trying to do here. We are raising these questions so that we would seek God with our tails between our legs. Ashamed of our past and feeling guilty for our own lack of motivation for the means of grace. If we feel we haven't prayed in the past like we should have, and haven't been earnest in seeking God like we should have, which includes every single Christian, I would argue. None of us have arrived or done things the way we should. Yet we must know that we are serving the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our great advocate before the Father. He ever lives to make intercession for us. He is always our mediator. We have access to God 24 hours a day. And we have access to a God who loves us and who desires our fellowship. Today we run to Christ again. Today we repent again. We confess our shortcomings. And we know that in Christ we will be cleansed from all unrighteousness. The love of God in Christ Jesus shines down upon us all the time if we are His. And there's nothing that can separate us from that. Not your shortcomings in the past. Not your failures this week. But sometimes, often in life, that shining countenance of God upon His children is hidden from our view. We don't see it. We don't feel it. It's there, but it's hidden from us. And that's our third point. God hides His face. Many times God hides His face. Verse 29, you hide your face. They are troubled. You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. God is hiding some of his face to the world right now as we speak. He has seen fit in his providence to lift some of the restraint of his common grace to allow evils to advance, to allow hurricanes to rage and ravage, and even the church to be persecuted in many parts of the world today. And this is not to be taken lightly. People are suffering. People are suffering. People are dying from the hurricanes and the earthquakes, from viruses, from cancer, from heart attacks, from war. There's wars all over the world right now, from persecution. The Church of Jesus Christ in many parts of the world is suffering acutely from persecution. And I don't mean in any way to say that human suffering is nothing. It's not. It's to be taken seriously. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. God delights in mercy. But brothers and sisters it is because of his mercies that we are not utterly consumed. And what the world is experiencing in its suffering today is nothing. Nothing compared to an eternity of his wrath against sinners in hell. The suffering today is nothing compared to that. When God hides his face in his providential dealings with the world, many times it is retributive. When I use the term world here, I'm not including the church. I'm speaking of the world that is set against Jesus Christ and his ways. When the nations of this world, and this is a fact of redemptive history, when kingdoms grow in their sophistication and perversion of sin and idolatrous independence from God, when the world hardens itself by making things hard for the church, and by bringing harm to the church, and when the world grows in its cruelty and its abuse of its fellow man, think of sex trafficking or whatever you want to think of, the Lord will lift his hand of common grace, and he will deal in providence in a retributive way. And many times nations will fall, and people are brought to their knees. He has done, I mean, we saw that during coronavirus, but the world didn't wake up to what their need for God really, did they? So what can we expect in the future? He has done this throughout history over and over again. One kingdom we know that God brought judgment to through retributive providences was the kingdom of Babylon. We know that in scripture. Listen to the prophet Isaiah declare the word of the Lord in Isaiah 47 in a proclamation against Babylon. And if you see, Notice, if you notice any similarities with the Babylon he's describing in the society that surrounds us today, take note. Here's what he says. Isaiah 47, he says, therefore hear this now, you who are given to pleasures, who dwell securely, who say in your heart, I am, and there is no one else beside me. I shall not sit as a widow, nor shall I know the loss of children, But these two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day, the loss of children and widowhood. They shall come upon you in their fullness because of the multitude of your sorceries, for the great abundance of your enchantments, and incidentally, I don't know what it's translated in the Hebrew in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, sorceries in the New Testament is the Greek word pharmakia, which is drug use for pleasure. We see that today, don't we? Because of the multitude of your sorceries, for the great abundance of your enchantments, for you have trusted in your wickedness, you have said, no one sees me. Your wisdom and your knowledge have warped you. You have said in your heart, I am, and there is no one else besides me. Think of secular science, atheism. Therefore, evil shall come upon you. You shall not know from where it arises, and trouble shall fall upon you. You will not be able to put it off, and desolation shall come upon you suddenly, which you shall not know. Stand now with your enchantments and the multitude of your sorceries. in which you have labored from your youth. Perhaps you will be able to profit. Perhaps you will prevail. You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Think of the political nonsense that goes on today. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators stand up and save you from what shall come upon you. He's being sarcastic here, right? Behold, they shall be a stubble. The fire shall burn them. They shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It shall not be a coal to be warmed by, nor a fire to sit before. Thus shall they be to you with whom you have labored, your merchants from your youth. Think of internet commerce. They shall wander each one to his quarter. No one shall save you. Now we know ultimately that's coming, that destruction of the world is coming when the Lord Jesus Christ returns, right? But in history, over and over again, God causes kingdoms and nations to crumble and fall. and he judges them through even, that's why I say so-called natural disasters, because natural disasters are really a form of the wrath of God upon this wicked world, though we are caught up in that as a church many times. Throughout history, oh, so this is describing the fall of Babylon, but it's prophetic as well regarding the Babylon of this present world system, which will one day fall at the coming of the just one who comes with all the saints to judge the world. And this is describing when God hides his face in judgment through his providential retribution. God hides his face in providence as many times throughout history. When he does, the world would do well to wake up and note what could be, how much worse it could be, and what will eventually happen to the world when God turns his back on the world completely. in his wrath. But for those of us who are Christians this morning, we must know that not only are we caught up in the situations that affect the world city around us when God, as it were, frowns upon the world in his providence, but we also recognize that God often hides his face from us directly, his children in chastisements and in testings and trials of our faith. What do we do when God hides His face and we are troubled? Troubled, as our text notes in Psalm 104. What happens when God takes the breath away of those we love? What happens when we feel Him taking our own breath away? When we find ourselves looking death in the face? It's at these times we need to consider divine providence, the truth of it, that God is our sovereign, loving, heavenly father who has given us his son for our redemption and his spirit is a guarantee of our glorification. When the emotions run dry, when the anxieties run high, when the finances are low and the job is threatened, When our health is wavering, and the providence of God seems all against us, we must worship and say, blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be His name. He remains faithful, no matter what my doubting heart and the devil shout into my ears. He remains faithful. Plumer writes this, if we are poor or sick or bereaved or defamed, how delightful it is to know that it is the Lord and not man, the Lord and not Satan, a friend and not an enemy, a most tender father and not a capricious master who thus ordains. David was wise when he said, let me fall into the hand of the Lord and not into the hand of men. Luther said, smite, Lord, for thou lovest me. Every child of God may say as much. God himself says, as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. This doctrine of providence is a great pillar of hope to all good men. When Jesus called you to himself to trust in him for salvation, to repent and place all your hope of life and death in him, he said this to you basically, Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it. And he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, let him follow me. And where I am, there my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, him my father will honor." Jesus, when he calls us, he lets us know that we're going to have to take up our cross to follow him. That this life we are ordained to suffer. And there's going to be troubles and trials. Through many tribulations we'll enter the kingdom of God. And though we depend upon God for everything, he will often hide his face from us for his own purposes of judgments, of drawing out repentance, of bringing chastisements, and bringing about the testings and trials of our faith. And we have to recognize that. We have to embrace that. We have to realize that's a reality. And when we do, we realize that we praise God that it's in his hands that we are falling into, not some random atheistic worldview, some random chance universe. But let's close with a note of triumph and hope. Verse 30 of our text says, you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth. Our last point is that God brings renewal always. God brings renewal always. The psalmist is speaking in this verse of God's renewal of the creatures which have perished in his providence. To the end of the age, God will continue to cause the vegetation to grow and to seed and to bear fruit, The animals to give birth and to multiply. And for mankind to continue to live and marry and be given in marriage. That's going to continue to the end of the age. And though kingdoms have fallen over and over again and wars have destroyed, God throughout history has caused people to rebuild. For new nations and governments to form up and bring order and security. And though there have been famines and pestilences, there have always been harvests and boons and rainfall. And though diseases have ravaged populations, God has often given man the wisdom to bring cures and inoculate and to stave off pestilences, to learn to grow more wheat for the fields. A wise person once said, this too will pass. We think of the evils that we're enduring in this life and this society. And though we may be affected by difficulties and hardships in our moment in history in such a way that for the rest of our lives, we may limp and never fully recover to where we used to be. We might never fully get back to the days before COVID, you know, or the days of our grandparents. But we know that for the Christian, God will bring us eventually into the greener pastures of the new heavens and the new earth, where righteousness dwells and where death does not exist. God always brings renewal. He will bring renewal. He brings beauty from the ashes. And though the fire scorches the earth, the green blades of grass soon begin to poke out from the blackened soil. And though the outward man is perishing, the inward man is being renewed day by day until one day the entire church of God will be perfected as fully mature in Christ Jesus. The bride will be ready on that day. She will be. And though the world is turning against the church of Jesus Christ, and the shadows of persecution are spreading throughout the world, the day star will soon arise above the horizon of the night, and the church will enjoy a world that favors her and her king in glory. That's coming, the day of renewal. God has sent forth his spirit into the world to create anew through the gospel of the son of God. And once we were dead in our sins, scorched by the lies of the devil, broken to bits by the guilt of transgressing the law of God, now we have been born again to a living hope. Our loving father tells us again through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 54 10, for the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed. But my kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall my covenant of peace be removed, says Jehovah who has mercy on you. When we put our hope in Christ, we never ran to him because he promised our circumstances to be always smooth and pleasant. But the spirit of Christ knows how to guide the church and sustain the hearts of his people through the darkest of providences. He knows how. He will give us the grace we need. Let me close with this word from Habakkuk chapter 3 verse 17 through 19. Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit beyond the vines, Though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food, though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord is my strength. He will make my feet like deer's feet, and he will make me walk. on my high hills." That is Jehovah Jireh saying those words. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you are a provider, you are a sustainer, and you will never leave us or forsake us as your bride in your church. We thank you that the day is coming when All things will be made new and we will enjoy sinless glory in your presence forever and ever. We pray that in the meantime as we. This week, go about our work and our labors and our mingling with the people of this world who do not know you. We pray you give us the grace we need to shine for you, to work as unto you, to speak a word in season that is fitting for those who have no hope and to give them an answer for the reason of the hope that lies within us. We pray, oh God, that you bless us and fill us with your Holy Spirit. Help us to think more often about the fact that you sustain and govern all things and that you're in control and that you're steering the rudder of this huge ship called the universe and even our own individual lives. You are controlling, you are sustaining, you are maintaining and you are good and faithful and you will bless us and work all things together for our good. We thank you for these realities. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen.