This is Pastor John Barnett inviting you to come and take advantage of our website. All of the messages that I teach are available free of charge for you to listen to over your computer or to download the actual study notes that I share with the dear saints at Tulsa Bible Church. Our website is called discoverthebook.org. That's discoverthebook.org. If you want to turn in your Bibles, we're going to be in a few moments in Revelation chapter 12. But this morning we are in the fourth of our looks at Paradise Lost. There's only one thing I want you to think about this morning, and that is that Satan wants you and me to doubt God's goodness. And if you think about it, nearly every sin that you and I are tempted to commit has something to do with us doubting God. And we're going to see in just a moment, that's the whole purpose of Satan. To make us doubt, as we saw last week, God's Word. Now remember, you don't have to doubt that it's inspired to doubt it. Neglect is equal to doubting God's Word. You don't think it's relevant or important. But we doubt God's Word, we doubt His plan, We doubt his authority to tell us what to do, but this morning we're going to look at doubting the goodness of God. The goodness of God is that everything that God is personally and everything he does is good. We doubt that sometimes. Let's study that this morning. When Adam and Eve chose to doubt God, they began a tidal wave of sin that floods our lives to this day. This morning is our fourth visit in our Paradise Lost series and each of us present in this room has felt the dreadful effects of Adam and Eve's doubt, their disobedience, their sin, and the fall of humanity. If we listen, we can hear the tragic results of the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. When they began doubting God, it was because they listened to the whisper of the dragon. And that's what we're going to see in chapter 12 in just a moment of Revelation. But side by side with every horrible consequence of the fall, God has always given hope. And that's why this morning, as we look at Paradise Lost, we see Paradise regained in Christ, and we see the hope we have in Christ. God, as Adam and Eve sinned, pronounced the curse that would stalk humanity in this universe for all of time. As Eve was tempted and Adam fell, a seed was promised, though, that would someday crush the serpent. Abel, the Child of Adam and Eve was murdered, but Cain, the murderer, was marked. And the race that was begotten was drowned because it was beyond hope. But the Scriptures tell us that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. The world after the flood united in rebellion, in religion against God. So at the Tower of Babel, God confounded the languages. But in the same time, He reached down and He chose one man, Abraham, and began him. the promise of the Redeemer. His twelve descendants, the twelve tribes, were corrupted, the true worship of God apostatized, and God was silent for four hundred years. But the promised seed, Jesus, was born, even as the babies surrounding Bethlehem were murdered. Then as Christ lived, He was tempted in person by the dragon, the slanderer, and the murderous liar, Satan, but He was triumphant. In Gethsemane, a second Garden of Eden. The snake dripping the venom again. The Savior sweating blood. But this time, the last Adam didn't turn back. On Calvary's Hill, he died. And at last, did Satan the murderer win? No. The promised seed had conquered. And that's the hope we have. As Jesus Christ rose from the dead, defeated death and the devil, and vanquished God's Great enemy, Satan. And the plan of redemption was paid. And what we see this morning in Revelation 12 is that the doubter can now be comforted. Revelation 12 verses 7 through 11 tell us Satan's current operation in this world is accusing us, is pointing his finger every time you and I fail, and pointing out our failures to God. He is the accuser. He is the bringer of guilt. He is the slanderer. He is the one who wishes to debilitate us and make us doubt God. But God has promised us that He is defeated. Let's read these verses as you join me standing. Remain standing for prayer. If you want to follow along in your copy of God's Word, I'm going to read Revelation 12, starting at verse 7, and I'll read through verse 11. And war broke out in heaven, this is in the tribulation time, this is a future event. Michael and his angels, Michael the archangel always doing God's bidding, fought with the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven, notice what it says, any longer. That means up until this point, they are in heaven, and Job tells us Satan comes before God and accuses us. Now look at verse 9, it's one of the more important verses on describing Satan in the Bible. The great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, so the serpent in Genesis 3 is the dragon. So where we're looking at Paradise Lost, same individual, called the devil, that's the one who came and tempted Christ, and Satan, that's who the apostles talk about, our adversary Peter, Paul, the apostles talk about him. What is he doing? He deceives the whole world. Don't think people cook up all these ridiculous things going on in the wickedness. Satan is deceiving the world. He was cast to earth, his angels were cast out with him. Satan has demons, these angels that followed him in the rebellion, and I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now, salvation and strength from the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come. And here's another line, for the accuser of our brethren, that's what Satan does constantly. Most people say, oh, the devil made me do it. No, no, no. Probably he's never been near you or me. He's accusing saints in front of God's throne, pointing out Every time we fail, every time we sin, every time we transgress, He's pointing it out and seeing what Jesus will do. Of course, Jesus, our great High Priest, intercedes for us and says, Father, I paid for that one, I paid for that one. But the accuser of our brethren, who accused them at the end of verse 10, before our God, day and night, has been cast down, and this is a climactic future moment when Satan is confined to earth. It's going to be awful. It's bad enough on this planet where he's kind of flitting around here and there, and the demons are too. They're all going to be... God's bringing in the barrier, and they can't get off the planet. And that's when, literally, all hell breaks loose in the tribulation. But look at verse 11. Here's the hope. overcame, that's the Tribulation Saints, by the blood of the Lamb, because they were cleansed. Remember, when we are washed by the blood of Christ, we have no condemnation. God does not condemn us. He never makes us answer for our sins. We never have to be judged for our sins, because Christ was judged. So the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us. And by the word of their testimony, they lived it out, and they did not love their lives to the death. You see, they trusted God so much. The Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve doubted God. But here we find saints, because of the resurrection of Christ and His power, who trust God. And they say, God, You're more valuable than even my life, and I'll live for You. What a great hope. Let's ask the Lord to put these words deeply in our hearts. Let's bow together. Father in Heaven, we don't want to doubt You. We don't want to doubt Your Word by neglect. We don't want to doubt Your plan by not seeking it. We don't want to doubt Your authority by refusing to yield to You. And most focused this morning, we don't want to doubt your goodness. We trust you. We love you. And your goodness is a refuge. Everything you are is good. Everything you do is good. And we yield to your goodness this morning. Help us to not be doubting you, O God, but trusting. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. As you're seated, let's turn back to Genesis chapter 3 again to those first five verses. In Genesis 3 we find paradise lost and we find that every day we, like Adam and Eve, face the same temptation The temptation from Satan, it's from his own evil nature, is for us to proudly doubt God. To doubt that God knows what's going on, to doubt that God is in charge, to doubt that God knows more than we do, to doubt that God is truly good. That's what Satan wants. But humility is a virtue of trusting God. And I want to just sift through the crash site as we began last week looking at this. In the first five verses of Genesis 3, we find where human race crashed into sin, the fall we call it, when paradise was lost. This is where doubting began. And as we sift through these verses, we can see how Satan caused Adam and Eve to doubt. In Genesis 3, 1 through 5, Satan plants four seeds of doubt into the lives of Adam and Eve. Number one, he says in verse one, Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said? Number one, focus of Satan, make us doubt God's word. We doubt God's word when we doubt that he has given us his revelation. We think this book is nice and helpful. We don't think it's absolute. And we avoid the Bible. That's doubting God's Word. Satan wants us to neglect God's Word. Whatever it takes, he wants us to not have regular exposure to this book. And that's doubting God's Word. Going on down to verse 4, a second area of Satan's wanting us to doubt is he wants us to doubt God's authority. He says in verse 4, you'll not surely die. Satan wants us to doubt God's authority, to believe God's not in charge, that he's not interested in what we choose, we're in charge, we determine our fate, and that God will not hold us accountable. That's doubting God's authority. That's what Satan wants. Verse 5, We saw last week, Satan wants us to doubt God's plan. Notice what he says in verse 5. He says, God knows in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God. That wasn't God's plan. He didn't want them to follow in Satan's rebellion. And when we doubt God, we doubt His plan. And Satan wants us to believe there is a better way to get to God, an easier way to go to heaven, a quicker way to be happy on earth. And that's an attack. on the character of God, because he's revealed himself as having his authority and his plan. But let's look at our focus this morning. It's the end of verse 1. And this is going to begin a walk through the scripture, because I want to underline in your mind the concept of the goodness of God, and specifically how Satan caused Adam and Eve to doubt God's goodness. It says at the end of verse 1 of Genesis 3, Satan speaking, he says, Has God indeed said, You shall not of every tree of the garden. You notice, just the way it sounds, is it wrong to eat fruit? I mean, is this some new diet? Immediately it sounds funny. What does it mean you can't eat all this fruit? And doubting God's goodness is, He says, I want you to believe God is robbing you of something you should have. He's robbing you of that fruit. Look at it. Why would He ever tell you not to have that? And you start wondering. Why is God limiting me? Why is it that God doesn't want me to be happy? Why does He allow me to continue in this condition I'm in, whatever it is? See, it's just planting those seeds. And He planted in Adam and Eve's mind, God is not good. Why? Because He's limiting me. And you know, we're tempted the same way. Young people are tempted that way. Every day, young people are tempted with a world that they are supposed to operate under rules and everything and wait, and specifically, in the moral realm, love can wait but lust can't. And they say, oh, God's trying to take away. I want my pleasure now. And that's Satan's lie. Well, when Satan makes us doubt God's goodness, this is a direct attack. on the moral attribute, the character of God. It's called His goodness. God's goodness can be defined, and I'll read from the dictionary, the goodness of God means God is the final standard of good and that all that God is and all God's does is worthy of approval. That's what the dictionary says. What does that mean? Everything God is, eternally, is good, and everything God does is good. Now, that's important to think about. Why? Because the way He made us, And the way He directs us through life, in our eyes, doesn't always appear good. But everything God does is good. And so what we have to learn is how to conform to seeing things in the perspective of God. How do we do that? Turn to the middle of your Bible. Just open right in the middle to the Psalms. Some of you might be new at this. If you just flip right to the middle, maybe a little to the left if you've got a lot of concordance stuff. You'll find the book of Psalms and find the 34th Psalm. Now this is the first of about 10 verses we're going to look at this morning. You might want to mark them. These are all teaching us about the character, the goodness of God. Psalm 34, verse 8. Now, if you can get this concept, it becomes very powerful in your lives because God's goodness, the Bible teaches, is a refuge. Did you know we're involved in a storm all around us where Satan is putting out his horrible lies and saying, God is not good. God is not good. And so what are we supposed to do? Flee to a refuge. Look at verse 8. This is a beautiful verse. O taste and see that the Lord is good. Now look at this. Blessed, or how blessed, is the man who takes refuge in Him. When we flee to God and throw ourselves wholly upon Him and say, you are good, and all you do is good, we find refuge. Because what we've done is, we're not proudly going our own way, we're not choosing our own way, we're not saying, I don't like this, and I don't like that, and I'm going to change this in my life. We yield to God and we say, God, you have said that you are good and that if we come to you, that you will be our refuge so that we can see what's good in a situation that looks horrible. And you say, what do you mean by that? Well, turn to the next one, Psalm 84. Turn to the right. 84th Psalm in our theology of the goodness of God. Psalm 84. And I just want to show several points. This is a psalm that you should have marked and underlined. I mean, this is a key psalm for your worship. It talks about worshiping the Lord. How lovely is your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts. Verse 2, the cry of a worshiper. My soul longs and faints for you. My flesh cries out for you. I mean, it's just saying, I'm totally seeking you, God. When we come to God and yield to Him as our refuge, He takes care of our problems. Verse 3, even the sparrow has found a home. That deals with worthlessness. A lot of people feel very worthless. I mean, in the animal kingdom, the sparrow, in biblical literature, is the worthless object. It's a picture of worthlessness. And God says, if you feel worthless, come to me. The swallow, verse 3, has found a nest for herself. If you know anything about birds, swallows are restless. They're just flitting all around. They never finish their nest. They're very restless. He said, if you're a restless person, you come to me. Look at the end of verse 3. your altars, O Lord of hosts." That speaks of God's blessedness coming to him. Now, look at verse 11. For the Lord, restless, worthless people that feel so detached from God's goodness. For the Lord is a sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. Look at this. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly. Yeah, that's a great promise. The goodness of God is that if I will walk uprightly, if I will walk in His light, if I will walk in yieldedness to Him, if I will come to Him with my hands, as George Mueller used to say, off from the scales. You know, most of us, when we're praying about something, we've got our finger, you know, like the proverbial butcher. You ever seen the Norman Rockwell picture where the butcher is pushing on the scale and on the other side the woman is pushing? up on the scale, you know, they're trying to change the weight of the chicken she's buying. I mean, he always captured those, you know, and, you know, the butcher knows what she's doing, so he's, and she's pushing up, and he's pushing down. You know, in prayer, it's kind of like that. We say, God, whatever your will is, but we're pushing that one down, right? We want that one. And if we do not push our way, look at this, no good thing will he hold back from those who walk in his way, walk uprightly. You know what that means? You want to have a godly husband or wife someday? If you say, God, with my whole heart I'll seek you, and I want your choice, I will wait, and I will trust, and I will obey, He will not withhold from you that great thing. Bonnie and I were celebrating our anniversary, and I remember last year we talked through our whole 15 years, and I said, honey, there's nothing in my life I ever prayed for more than a godly wife. She said, well that explains something. She says, because as soon as I saw you the first time, my heart was drawn to you. She says, and I never knew you. I just saw you preaching and my heart was drawn to you from the beginning. And when I met her, I just said to her, I said, you're the one I prayed for my whole life. How would you like to introduce yourself that way? Hi. First date. I prayed for you my whole life. You know, kind of like, oh, I've heard that story before. But if you do it, it's true. No good thing will God withhold from you in any realm of life if you walk uprightly, if I walk uprightly. Now, turn to Psalm 119. Here we go. Keep going to the right. A theology of God's goodness. Psalm 119, longest chapter in the Bible. Look at verse 68. This is what the Lord says, Thou art good, and doest good. See, that's the goodness of God. Now look at this, teach me your statutes. I'm not good, and I don't do good, and I'm not headed the right way. I want to. Do you see something about the goodness of God? There's a yieldedness to God. You are good. And God, I don't make good choices sometimes, and I don't always go your way. So, you're good, and I want to yield to you, God. You see, the non-biblical but very true little statement is, God gives the very best to those that leave the choice to Him. Now, the American way is, we do it our way, and we get it now. God says, if you leave the choice to Me, nothing good will I withhold from you. And the psalmist said, that's what I want, God. Psalm 119 verse 68, you're good, you do good, teach me your way. Okay, now turn over to Matthew. We're going to continue in our theology of God's goodness. The Gospel of Matthew, New Testament. Keep going to the right until you get there in the New Testament. Chapter 7, verse 11. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, and I think most of you that have children are planning and thinking about gifts you're going to give them, He said, if you earthly, fallen, sinful creatures know how to give good things to those you love, how much more will your Father, Matthew 7, 11, who is in heaven, give what is good to those who ask Him? Now, you notice this is unfolding. This is the theology of goodness. Psalm 34 says, you've got to taste and see the Lord is good. You meet Him. And if you take refuge in Him, you'll learn about the goodness. Then in verse 11 of Psalm 84, if we walk uprightly, He won't withhold the good from us. Psalm 119, we have to trust He is good and does good, and then He will teach us how to walk in His way. And now Jesus said, how much more will your Father in Heaven give what is good to those who, what? Ask. So often we don't have what is good in our life because we don't ask. We don't ask because we don't want to give up going our own way. We're pushing on the scale so hard, we do not come and ask before God and say, I want your way in my life. Your partner, your plan, your direction, your career choice. I don't want to be molded by the world. I want to be molded by you. Now, turn to Romans. Here's a very big piece in our theology. Romans chapter 8. Keep going to the right. Romans 8. This is the omniscient God who is sovereign. And we absolutely believe that. Don't worry about the stuff we don't understand, the little tiny details of whatever election and predestination mean. We do know this. Look at verse 28. We know that God causes He causes. He is sovereignly able to cause all things to work together for good. The active agent is God, and He is causing everything in our life to work together for good. Look at this, to those who love God. You know, when St. Augustine or Augustine read this in the 5th century, Augustine, a hippo, he lived in northern Africa, over in Libya and Tunisia area. When he read this, he formulated his life's philosophy. He said, love God supremely and do what you please. Now that's the Christian life. Did you know, if we love God more than anything else, we should love the Lord, that God, with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their spirit, and we love our neighbors, ourselves. If we love God in that way, God is causing everything to work together for good in our lives. He is making it work together. We just need to see that. Look at verse 32. He underlines how committed he is to us. He says, He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? That's the goodness of God. Well, keep going to the right. We have just about three more elements in our theology of goodness. 1 Thessalonians. Go to the right through the epistles. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Now, this is an important one. It says this, In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus." If I am in the refuge of God, and if He is teaching me His statutes, and if I trust Him as good, and if I am seeking Him above all else, and if I am asking Him for good things, and if my life is walking in harmony with Him, then everything He brings into my life, I say, Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you, I did not expect that, but that is part of your plan, and I want that, and I embrace that, and I yield to you." That's why Paul says, in everything give thanks, this is God's will, that we be a thank-filled people. Now keep going to the right, Hebrews 12.10, you say, does that mean that God's always promised, sky's always blue, and flowers strewn pathways all my life through, as the psalm writer put it? No. Hebrews 12.10 says this, keep going to the right, Hebrews chapter 12, verse 10, He says, for they, the writer of Hebrews talking about our parents, disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them. So that means godly parents discipline their children. But the end of verse 10, but He, that's God, disciplines us for good. What happens when we doubt Him? What happens when we go the wrong way? What happens when we make wrong choices? What happens when we love ourselves more than Him? What happens when we aren't trusting Him and we're doubting Him? He chastens us. You say, really? He chastens us for our good. He pulls the wheels off of our life. We crash, we have flat tires. I'm not talking about literal flat tires, I'm talking about in our life. But all of a sudden there's this inexplicable resistance, and God is resisting me. That's His discipline. What's He saying? I want you to get back on the pathway. I want you to go my way, because I want to work everything together for good in your life. And He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. You see, what this progressive theology of goodness is, is that goodness, number one, is a refuge if we'll taste and see the Lord, but He won't withhold anything if we'll walk uprightly. If we'll learn His statutes, if we'll ask Him, if we'll let Him work all things together in our life, and if we'll give thanks in the midst of it, but when we won't do those things, when we don't let Him, when we don't listen, when we don't yield, He disciplines us because He wants us to share in His holiness. Well, to distill all this down, Satan wants us to doubt the goodness of God. In theological terms, we could say this, God's goodness can be seen in His mercy, and that would be His goodness toward people in distress. God is merciful. God's grace is His goodness toward those who deserve only punishment. That's us, sinners, who come to Christ. And God's patience is His goodness toward those who continue to sin. And God is so patient. You know, God told Adam and Eve, in the day you sin, you'll die. They didn't. He gave them 900. in 50 years. That's his patience. And look at what God's doing in our world now as people blatantly sin in the face of a holy God. He's patient because his mercy and his grace are operative. Well, what should we do in response to God's goodness? Turn back. Our last Psalm 116. Okay, back to the middle of your Bible. Psalm 116. I hope it becomes a friend of yours this morning if you haven't discovered this psalm. Most people only know the 15th verse. That's when you read when someone dies that you love. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. That's when a Christian dies. But all the rest of the psalm is fabulous, and I'll show it to you in just a second. But we should respond to God's goodness by appreciating it. We should count our blessings. We should not take our natural benefits and endowments and pleasures for granted. We should thank God for them all. We shouldn't slight His word. We shouldn't be casual toward God. Rather, we should reflect. Verse 12. Look at verse 12 of Psalm 116. What shall I render to the Lord? for all His benefits toward me. The answer, verse 13, I will take up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. In other words, I'm going to drink Him. I'm going to participate in Him. I'm going to bless His name for saving me. Did you know that's what you're supposed to do at the Lord's Table? The Lord's Table is not an add-on to the service that's kind of like, oh yeah, we've got to do that. The Lord's Table is a literal worship, experience. In the tabernacle, this table of showbread, which had unleavened bread like our communion bread, that showbread was called the bread of the face. And the priests would come in and stand on one side of the table, and God was on the other. And so when you're coming to the Lord's table, you're literally coming in God is sitting on one side of this table and you're sitting on the other. And God is meeting with you for a meal. And what does He want from you? He wants you to render thanks. He wants you to, verse 13, call on His name. Drink of Him. Thank Him for what He has done. That's not all. Look at verse 14. He wants us not only to drink Him in worshiping His salvation, but verse 14, I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all His people. He wants us to obey Him. Keep our word to Him. If you said you're going to meet with Him, meet with Him. If you say you're going to give your life to Him, give your life to Him. Obey Him. Look at verse 16. O Lord, truly I am your servant. He wants us to serve Him. Verse 17, I'll offer you the sacrifice at Thanksgiving. He wants us to be thankful. Verse 18, I'll pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of His people. He wants us to live every day walking before His sight. He sees us. And how does He do that? Well, it says in verse Kind of what is in all of our hearts. Look at Psalm 116, verse 8. You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears. I no longer am sad, thinking my life is worthless. I'm not restless. I don't doubt why you made me. My feet from falling. We're more than conquerors through Christ. Therefore, I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. What does he want us to do? He wants us to follow him. So we follow Him, we obey Him, we serve Him, we thank Him, we live in His sight, all as we drink this cup that reminds us of our salvation. Are you doubting God's goodness? You doubt God's goodness when you don't come to Him for refuge, when you don't learn His ways, when you don't walk in His ways, when you don't thank Him for how He made you and where He has led you, and when you don't yield to Him the reins of your life and say, I want your way more than my own. Teach me your way. I will walk in it. No good thing will you withhold from me if I walk that way.