Second scripture reading is the rest of Psalm 27. Beginning at verse seven, reading to the end of the psalm. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also upon me and answer me. When you said, seek my face, My heart said to you, your face, Lord, I will seek. Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger. You have been my help. Do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me. Teach me your way, O Lord. Lead me in a smooth path because of my enemies. Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me and such as breathe out violence. I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Let's pray. Father, we desire to see what you would have us to see. Father, give us more faith through your word, and Father, we just pray for your glory in this time tonight. Bless your word now in Jesus' name, amen. A simple statement of faith, even that children can learn, and I'm sure you've heard, is a simple phrase, God is great and God is good. And there's a world of theology and sometimes simple phrases that we teach children. And that one is certainly full of good theology. God is, without a doubt, great. and God is, without a doubt, good. Tonight we'll be focusing mainly on verse 13, as in this section of the Psalm, David turns to prayer, possibly realizing his insufficiency, his weakness, his lack of strength in the face of his many enemies, which he declares in confident faith that the Lord would now enable him to overcome, And he declares it with praise and singing, offering those sacrifices of praise and joy in the tabernacle. And then he cries out in prayer to the Lord to have mercy upon him and to enable him to seek the face of the Lord where his blessings would certainly be. Then goes on to speak of four do nots. Almost as if we could hear the fear rising in David as he contemplates the danger that he's in from his enemies. And he says, do not, his worst nightmare, his worst fear, do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger. You have been my help. Do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation." Never, never would he want the Lord, be without the Lord's blessing and favor and presence, his sense of assurance. He knew by faith that he was saved. He knew that God was his God and had saved him. He was the God of his salvation. And yet we all know that When we don't sense the Lord's presence, when we don't feel his closeness and nearness, when we can't see his face, it's frightening. And so he declares in faith, when my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me. He cries out to the Lord to be taught by the Lord. Always a good thing. We want God's sheep, want to be led by him. We want him to lead us and guide us in the paths of righteousness. So he says, teach me, O Lord, lead me in the smooth paths, those plain paths, simple paths that are the safe paths for sheep to go. We don't want to go off onto our own way like Christian did in Pilgrim's Progress. We want to stay on that straight and narrow path and be led that way and kept that way. And then he goes back to his speaking of his enemies. Again, we as believers can be full of joy and confidence, faith one minute, and the next minute in fear and dread of dangers and enemies and falling and because of many reasons. He says, do not deliver me. to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and such as breathe out violence." In their words, their slanderous words, they were breathing out violence, enmity against him. And we can certainly I'll relate with that with all of our enemies as Christians. We have the world, the flesh, and the devil against us. Real enemies, real as real as any enemies that David had faced on the battlefield or in any other way, Saul or any of the other ones who he faced. And their spiritual battles, oftentimes, battles within and battles without, battles from the world and all its influence, battles in our own sinful hearts that lead us astray and don't... They're undependable. Our heart is oftentimes so undependable. And as Jeremiah reminds us, God, through Jeremiah, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it? We can't even know our own hearts. And of course, then there's the roaring lion, enemy of Satan, who is ever there to insinuate and accuse and fire those darts at us to take us down if he could. That's where we are. We need faith and we need courage, certainly, to persevere. But often our hearts are faint. We grow faint and weary and we need more faith. We need a cordial. Some of the old writers, they say, the cordial of faith. Put up to our lips so we can get refreshed and revived again. And that's what we would hope to do by focusing on verse 13 tonight, focusing particularly on the goodness of the Lord. God is good. It's one of the very basics of his nature and character. And we need to remind ourselves and know that for sure, and know it in not only in our heads, but in our hearts as well. When we're facing enemies, we can lose sight. Losing sight doesn't mean we go blind temporarily, but spiritually, we can lose sight of the Lord. We can lose sight of his goodness that's here and real and for us in particular all the time. Because not only is God good, but He's good to us. He's good for us. And we definitely have a need to know God's goodness. We need to know that God is for us. He tells us, but we can lose sight of it, that we can become spiritually blind or nearsighted or whatever. And it reminded me of the account in Genesis where Hagar is out in the wilderness and ready to die and puts her son off in the distance, ready to give up. God heard the voice of the lad, it says, of her son. Then the angel of God called the Hagar out of the heaven and said to her, what ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad and hold him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation. Then God opened her eyes and she saw the well of water. That's what we need. That's what the world needs. That's what we need. As well, we need God to open our eyes to see His goodness that's there. The well was always there, full of water, but Hagar didn't see it. And we need God to open our eyes to see His goodness all the time. Well, first we'll look at God's original goodness. Originally and always and only, God is good. It is part of his nature. Part of the nature that he desires us to know about him. He's expressed in his word, he's expressly told us he is good. and does good. In Exodus 33, we see his covenant goodness and blessings and promises to Moses. He says, so the Lord said to Moses, I will also do this thing that you have spoken for you have found grace in my sight. Moses, as well as Noah and others, find grace in the eyes of the Lord. He says, you have found grace in my sight. I know you by name. That's Good, that's the blessing, that's the personal love God has for his people. And he said, please, Moses said, please show me your glory. Then the Lord said, I will make my goodness pass before you. I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. His covenant blessings, his covenant grace, God declares himself, who he is, and he says he'll make his goodness pass before us. So we'll see that goodness. In Exodus 34, six, similar verse. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abounding in goodness and truth. God declares in his word that he is good. Many there are who say, who will show us any good? The Lord lift, Lord lift up your countenance upon us. When we see the Lord, when we see Him truly, His countenance, when we see who He is in His word, then we can know for sure He is good. Throughout the Psalms, The Lord tells us he's good. Psalm 119, 67 and eight says, before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep your word. You are good and do good. It's a declaration of faith. God is good in his being originally, part of his essence, and he demonstrates that good in this world. Psalmist says, oh, taste and see. that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in him. When we see by faith, with the eyes of faith, God's goodness in this world and especially for us, that he is for us and good, then we can trust him. That's the result, this trusting the Lord when we see his goodness. For the word of the Lord is right. Psalm 33, four and five. And all his work is done in truth. He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of his goodness. The world is blind to the goodness of God. We've had our eyes opened and we can know him and see his goodness. The world is full of the goodness. God pours out his goodness, his common grace, his goodness on the world, the ungodly, his enemies, every single day. He does good to those who hate him. He brings the rain and the seasons and pours out blessings, but the world is blind to it. We were blind to God's goodness before He opened our eyes. And so the world, the earth is full of His goodness and will continue to be full of His goodness until He ends this world. God alone is good and does good, truly good. Words of Jesus to the rich young ruler, God alone is good. And of course, he had the Son of God standing right before him. And he thought that just because Jesus was a good teacher, that he called him good. But God alone is good. And he does good, and he does good to all, even the unsaved, tells us in Romans chapter two. Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering? God restraining his hand of judgment and justice, and allowing this world to continue, there be good things in this world, His goodness, His forbearance, His patience with this world, and individuals in this world, and long-suffering, God is long-suffering in His mercy towards sinners, not knowing, He says, do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance, but in accordance with your hardness and impenitent heart, you are treasuring up for yourselves wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. You see, the goodness of God is there and it does lead to repentance when accompanied by the spirit of God and the grace of God, but it's meant to lead men and women to God is pouring out his goodness every day and yet, The blinders are on. Willingly blind we are before God opens our eyes. They don't see it. And they are not thankful. The great charge against the unsaved is that they reject the truth and they're not thankful. They don't see the goodness of God and they don't thank God. They aren't thankful. should always bring us up short and remind us that we have to not be like the ungodly. We, of all people, need to be thankful. We who've received not only the general goodness of God, but the special covenant blessings of God, we need to be thankful. It says that in Romans 21, because all they knew of God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, and became few in their thoughts, and foolishness, their foolish hearts were darkened. So the blessings are there, the goodness of God is there to see in creation, and in His providence, and in His mercy, and His long-suffering, and yet there's no eyes to see. We need to, again, to see it. We need to, as we read, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. We can fall into the trap of losing sight, losing sight of our God and his goodness to us. We experience the special blessings, His covenant blessings in Christ. That's the highest good that God can do to anyone, any sinner. His purpose to save, to set His love, to be gracious to whom He would be gracious and have compassion on whom He will have compassion. And thankfully, in that grace and mercy, we can say that's us. Undeserved mercy and grace of God. We need to have the eyes to see it. As someone, one of the commentators wrote, three ingredients in this flea of David's that we need to take to heart and appropriate as well. Three ingredients in this recipe, hope. We need to have hope to see the goodness of God. We can lose hope. Can't we? We can lose sight and then therefore we lose hope. We become discouraged and depressed and nearsighted as far as the goodness of the Lord is. We need to have the hope that we can see the goodness of God. It's there, but we don't always see it. We need to have the eyes to see it. God needs to initially open our eyes in salvation to see his goodness and his kindness and lead us to repentance, but we also need to see it as Christians. and we lose sight, we become weak, we become faint, we become discouraged, we lose sight, we need to have eyes to see that goodness, and we need to see it in the land of the living. That's a scriptural phrase that can be taken different ways here. Many commentators differ on what that in the land of the living means. And I always took it, as being in this land, in this life now, that there was a way for us and me to see that goodness of the Lord. Now it is true, as many of the commentators point, that the ultimate good for God's people is future. The ultimate perfect goodness is that reward in glory held out because as Job longed to see that his flesh, and in faith made a statement that his flesh would see God, that he knew his Redeemer lived, it was the future hope, and it has been the future hope of all God's people. They know that there's a land, the land of Beulah Land, the land of the, that's in heaven, that reward in heaven that we long for, that makes these momentary light afflictions minimal compared to that hope, that longing for eternity and the glory. But it's not the only goodness that we have. There is goodness of God for us in this world now. And that is a promise. It is in the land of the living. It's in our lives. We live, we live in Christ. And there is goodness for us in this time now. To see the goodness of the Lord, Albert Barnes says, in the land of the living. That is, that I should live and yet see and enjoy I should yet live and see and enjoy the tokens of divine favor here upon earth. We, as God's people, are blessed. We don't deserve it. The greatest goodness is in store in heaven, in the future for us, laid up, those treasures that are reserved and can't be taken away, and we ourselves are kept by the power of God until that day, and yet we can receive and see and be encouraged by the tokens of love and goodness that are there for us every single day. The promise in God's word, the promise in Psalm 23 is that surely goodness and mercy shall follow us. all the days of our lives. That means every single day that we live, goodness and mercy are there, following hard after us, are there for us to allow us to make it to the end, to persevere to the end. And we can be, by faith, believe that and live by that. It should give us joy and encourage for the journey. in our walk with God here in this life. Covenant blessings, particularly, what we are focused on. The world has blessings and goodness. They don't see it. We have covenant mercies and the promises the great and precious promises that attend to that covenant of grace for God, and they're all in Christ. Every spiritual blessing is in Christ Jesus. We can never lose sight of the Lord Jesus Christ and all the blessings that we have in Him. All those covenant blessings are, without a doubt, in Christ. And it should enable us to be encouraged and satisfied There is a degree, James Smith writes, of holy satisfaction experienced by believers now. When His evidences are bright, His Savior is near, and He can claim the promises as His own. He feels satisfied for the time. God's communications are of a satisfying nature, and He has said, my people shall be satisfied with my goodness. We can be satisfied. We can lay hold of our good gods goodness to us in this life, in this land of the living, and I think that's exactly what David had in mind, not to negate the future, his future hope for glory, but enemies we have in this world, and we need the sight of God's goodness now. All things and all times, blessings keeping us in faith, The words here of David are words of faith. He says, actually it's not in the original text, it's in italics, it's added on as the assumed meaning of these words and does have some validity there, unless, I would have lost heart, unless I had believed. Faith is key to us seeing the goodness of God. We need to believe the word of God, the promises of God, the very precious promises of God, and see the goodness of God, that God is for us. God is for us. Who can be against us? No enemies, no world, the flesh, or the devil. And so, by seeing this by faith, the goodness of God, and keeping us by faith, Promises, they're sure. Blessings are true. The goodness and mercy that follows us are there for us. Blessed is the man you choose. God, covenant blessings. He sets his love upon a people that he chose from before the foundation of the world. Us, for knowledge, for love. Blessed is the man you choose and cause to approach you. The Holy Spirit drew us to Christ. He made us willing in a day of his power, we were made willing by that grace that he may dwell in your courts in fellowship with him and in the house of God as we've come into Christ and now we fellowship with him and are blessed in his courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, of your holy temple. And I can testify to that. I've seen the goodness of the Lord in his church, with his people. and throughout the years, God's faithful blessings, and have been here in the church, and with God's people, and through the word of God, and the means of grace, and God being faithful week after week, and month after month, and year after year, and the years have flown by like that, but I'm looking at people that have encouraged me, and I can see the goodness of God, right here and it's true and it's real and it will be real for this in this generation and for the next generation if God carries and for the next generation and on his faithful blessings his covenant blessings and goodness are seen in his house with his people in the worship of God and we're to be thankful to that God we are to thank God and praise him for that Psalm 107 over and over again says, oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness. For His goodness. Oh, God is good. for his wonderful works, the children of men, for he satisfies the longing soul and he fills the hungry soul with goodness. How we can declare how often we've been filled, our hungry souls have been filled. We've been nourished on the word of God and prayer and the fellowship of the saints and just over and over again through the years, we need to declare it. We need to encourage one another and be thankful. Thank him and give him praise for that goodness. Oh, the goodness of God, and we need to see it and see it all the time. But we don't always see it. We truly easily can lose sight of it. What should it do? It should do, it should make us a contented people, a happy rejoicing people. That's what seeing the goodness of God should do. We should have the joy of the Lord as our strength. We should be able to rejoice in the Lord because he is good. And we should rejoice and persevere. It should get us through those dark times and difficult times. And we should have experienced that joy and peace as we see the goodness of God. But it is not always the case. as we are weak in faith and faint at times. That's why David, the translators, add that verse, and it's implied in the text. He says, take the first words out, I would have lost heart, which are in italics there, and you just read it, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. David knew that he needed to see the goodness of the Lord. And he would have fainted. He would have lost heart. He would have been slipping and sliding and worse off for not seeing, certainly. So it is implied, and we do become dim in faith, weak in faith. We falter and fail. There is great danger in our lives, and naturally, dissatisfaction, discontentment, complaining come natural to us. We have no problem complaining about our lives, and it's the root of a lot of bitterness and anger and dissatisfaction and depression, discouragement. It is natural for sinners to be dissatisfied. We find they generally are so. The saints have a remedy for this disorder, but we seldom find them manifesting it. Perfect satisfaction can only be found in God's presence and likeness. We must be like Him and with Him before we can say, I am perfectly satisfied. Still, we can have it to a degree here in this life and should more than we do. But we go through dark times. We go through times when we can't see the goodness of God. In those dark trials and testings, there's Many times when God's people are discouraged, depressed, and in that valley that's slough, is it slough of despond? And we can't see the goodness of the Lord. All we can see is darkness. There's a important verse in Isaiah 50. That's important for us to remember and teaches a good lesson. It says, Isaiah writes in chapter 50, verse 10, who among you fears the Lord? Who fears the Lord? Only God's people, right? There's no fear of the Lord, the ungodly. Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys the voice of his servant? And here again, who obeys the voice of Christ? Only God's people. So he's talking about God's people. Who walks in darkness and has no light? Oh, wait a minute. I thought he was talking about God's people walking in darkness, having no light. Yes. There are times and trials that God puts his people through where it is all darkness. It's the valley of the shadow of death. It's not death itself. It's like death. It's the shadow of death. It's the dark times where we feel no encouragement, no assurance. Can't find the face of the Lord. And there are dark and deep and discouraging trials. Who walks in darkness and has no light? And the remedy is, let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God. And that's what we must do by faith. We can't walk by sight. We need to walk by faith and find those rocks in the slough of Despond to stand on, to be lifted up out of those dark times. Look, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with sparks. That's the world that tries to make their own light. in the darkness, and it doesn't work. And we need to trust in the Lord and not go the world's way, not look, trying to make our own happiness with our own sparks. Walk in the light of your fire and the sparks you have kindled, this shall be from my hand, says the Lord, you shall lie down in torment. That's speaking to the ungodly who light their sparks. We need to not look, outside, away from our God, when we go into those dark times, and take worldly shortcuts. using the methods and the manner of the world and seeking to find happiness in other things that the world does, in alcohol and drugs and sex and whatever else we might seem to go to, but trust in the name of the Lord, even in the darkest times, and look for His goodness, and know that it's there, and not follow the way of the world. let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God. We will certainly, most certainly, go to trials and testings. And as the psalmist in Psalm 73 writes, truly God is good to Israel, and we know he means the Israel of God, all God's people, to such as are pure in heart. Blessed are the pure in heart. But as for me, My feet had almost stumbled, my feet had nearly slipped, for I was envious of the boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." It's one of those ways that we can be tempted to question the goodness of the Lord when we see the prosperity of the wicked. The most wicked people on this earth are fat, and no problems, and have it all, and they prosper, and they don't suffer like God's people do, like we do at any particular time. Why is God putting me through this? Why do I have to go through this trial? Maybe he really isn't good. Maybe he's not for me. And the psalmist is honest, as we need to be, with the Lord, and he says, all my feet had almost stumbled. My steps had almost slipped. He lost sight of the goodness of the Lord, and he lost his eyes were on the wicked rather than on their end, which eventually he comes to see. He says also, it's good for me to be near unto God, to be near unto God. We need to hold to the Lord and his goodness and see that goodness even in the trials. In the means of grace, particularly holding to the Lord, in the means that he's provided, They're there for us, those stepping stones, those mercies, those blessings, where we can see the goodness of the Lord. Come to church when we're discouraged and depressed and when we can't see any light, we lack assurance. Go anyway. Be with God's people. Those are means of grace that God is used and using and will use to lift us up, to show us his goodness once again. We'll be refreshed. We'll say once again, I see it. I see your goodness and be refreshed. None of us are beyond that. None are too strong to faint and to slip and to stumble. We've all gone through it. If we haven't gone through, we will go through it. None of us is an island unto ourselves. We need the brethren, we need our God, we need His fellowship, we need His word, and we're gonna find it most often, most surely in the church and with His people. We need to remember that. We need to praise Him and thank Him for His people, His church, His fellowship, the many, many blessings we have in the Lord. And again, as we hear, this is nothing new. Nothing new, nothing that we haven't heard before. Many, many times in different ways and in different preachers. In different times we've read the Word of God. And it's good. We don't need anything new. We were reminded this morning, we have His Word. We have our God. There's nothing new that we need. We just need to know that God is great. and God is good, and God is for us, and he's our God, and his goodness is for us, and his goodness is there always for us. His goodness and his mercy are following us and will follow us, will follow us until the day we close our eyes and he takes us home. That goodness and mercy will most definitely be there, and we can see it by faith, even as David did. in the wilderness and in the trials and in the face of fears and enemies and conflicts and trials, we can say, I would have lost heart unless I had believed by faith that I would see with the eyes of faith the goodness of the Lord. in the land of the living. He's shown himself faithful and good over and over and over again. We need to remind ourselves, and we need to store up that memory bank in our memory banks, in our hearts, when that time comes, when we're in that darkness, and we're tempted to mistrust the Lord, to go make sparks on our own, to go some other way, to not trust the Lord and do His will. And we need to remember that for that day especially and for every day. And rejoice. Rejoice. God is good and He's our God. And we're to declare it and be thankful for it and rejoice in our God. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would give us the eyes of faith to see your goodness, to see you, and to long Father, for your company, for it to be near to you as a deer pants for the water brook, so our souls, we would desire, would pant after you in hunger and thirst for the living God, the living God, our God. And Father, we just praise and thank you. Help us to trust you. Help us to see your goodness in you. in the darkness and in the trials and in the testings, Father of our faith, knowing that your goodness is meant to lead us to repentance. And Father, your kindness and long-suffering and mercies are there. Father, help us in every day. Help us this day, the rest of this day. Help us the rest of this week now as we begin a new week. For if we don't know what, we know that you will be with us. Father, we just thank you and praise you for your goodness and for yourself, for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we have all spiritual blessings in him. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.