Psalm 66. I titled the message, Trials, Providence, Purpose, and Worship. Trials, Providence, Purpose, and Worship. In the beginning of this psalm, we are called upon to make a joyful noise unto God. We are called upon to make His praise to be heard and to be glorious, majestic. And we are called to behold the works of the Lord. Everything going on that has gone on and shall go on is the work of God. He rules and He overrules. He allows things, He permits things in order to bring about His purpose. Just like Pharaoh. You think Pharaoh knew he was doing God's will? Pharaoh was doing exactly what he wanted to do. And in doing that, he fulfilled the will of God, the purpose of God. And we are told in this Psalm how that God delivers His people as He did there at the Red Sea, and there they rejoiced. They rejoiced in God their Savior. And He lets us know that God rules By His power. By His power He rules. And our Lord said this in John 17. He said, Father, You have given me power over all flesh that I should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Me. And Lord Jesus Christ right now rules over all flesh. He has that power. He said before going back to glory, that all power and all authority is given to Me in heaven and earth. It is vested in Jesus Christ. Now in verse 8 and 9, we are told to bless God and to make His praise to be heard, that it is God who holds our life, He holds our soul in life, or He put us our soul and life. He keeps us alive both physically and spiritually. We have life from the dead, spiritual life from the dead because God has given it to us. No one can take that from us. No one can take our life on this earth from us. Someone said we are immortal until God makes us mortal to take us home. We are safe. in all situations, at all times. We don't act like it. We don't always feel like we're safe. But we are. We are. We are safe in the shepherd's fold. And then in verse 10 and 12, the psalmist tells of God's dealings with His children. The church. 10 through 12, we see the Lord's dealing with the church throughout the ages. The church in every age will experience verse 10, 11, and 12. Every one of them. Every individual child of God will experience. Now, I'm telling you, you're going to experience it, and many of you have already experienced it. Verse 10, 11, and 12. Because it is the heritage trials are the heritage of God's people. They are the heritage of His people. Now, He says here in verse 10, For thou, O God, hast brought us, thou hast brought us, and thou, O God, hast proved us, He says in verse 11, thou hast brought us, but he says in verse 10, for thou, O God, hast proved us. You've put us to the test. You've tested our love. You know, in one place in the Old Testament, God said He left certain things in the land to prove their love to Him, to prove their love to Him. Thou, O God, has proved us. Thou hast tried us as silver is tried." Silver is tried and proven in the furnace. That's where it's tried. Trials, as I said, are the heritage of God's children. Listen to 1 Peter 1, verses 5 and 7. Speaking of God's children, he said, "...who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, to be revealed, ready to be revealed in the last time, wherein ye will greatly rejoice. Though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold many different temptations." Trials, that's what he's talking about. Temptations. "...that the trial of your faith," that's what he's trying, that's what he, "...thou hast proved us." proved our faith, that the trying of your faith, being more precious than of gold that perishes, whatever it is God puts us through is more precious than the gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire. that it might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. That it be found to be real and not counterfeit. Not counterfeit at all. We see by verse 10 that God is the author of our trials, all of them. He's the author of our trials and nothing happens to any of God's children by accident. Nothing happens to us by accident. Everything is designed by our Heavenly Father. Every trial is designed. It's literally tailor-made for you, individually, and as a church. Trials are designed by Him, right down to the very tear that it brings out of your eyes. That's designed of God. David said in one place, put my tears in a bottle. He's designed our trials. And that being so, then we know that they are good for us. They're good for us. And here's the providence of God. Thou broughtest us into the net. There's a time set for every trial. There's a time for us to meet it, or for God to bring us into it, And it'll be God who'll bring us through it. When you go through the water, He said, I'll go with you. It'll be God who brings us out of it. And when He brings us out of it, we'll praise Him. Our praise, and I'll get to this in a minute, but our praise will be more glorious and more rich, more heart. We'll sing with more heart. They'll cause us, when God brings us through them, they will cause us to sing unto Him with more heart than we did before that happened. That's why He said, there did we rejoice. After they brought Him to the Red Sea, there did we rejoice in Him. They could not have rejoiced in God on the other side of the Red Sea before they went through it. Not like they did after they went through it. My, can you imagine walking through that, seeing those walls of water way up over your head? Can you imagine that? And walking on dry ground? Walking on dry ground through where the ocean is standing up on like walls on left and right, and they're walking. They did that. They did that. That happened. They looked at that. And when they got to the other side, they watched that whole sea just come in. They watched that. And there, He says, did we rejoice in Him. The greatest rejoicing happens when God brings us through a real heartache. And when we look back, we say, there did I rejoice in Him. There. Thou brought us into the net, caught in the net. Thou laidest affliction upon our loins, You know, our Lord, it is said in Acts, was delivered into their hands, into the hands of sinners. God delivered Him up. He was delivered. And God delivers us up to afflictions. He brings us into the net. Yes, God our Father. God our Father does this. He does it. All God's children must go down this road. And it's a road well-traveled by all the saints of God. They've all traveled this road, and you and I are going down it too. We will go down it. You know, when Job spoke of all his losses, he said, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. He's the one who brought this on me. He's the one who allowed this. You and I can't see into that secret chamber of the Lord. We can't see into the secret counsel of the Lord concerning each one of us. We know that it has to do with our redemption. We know it has to do with being conformed to the image of Christ. We know it has to do with His eternal glory, our eternal good. But to know those things that He has appointed... Job speaks of God appointing his afflictions. They're appointed. They have their appointed time, and they have their appointed duration, and they have their appointed purpose. Every one of them. Every one of them. And here's something that's comforting to God's children in trials. When it comes to trials, Thou broughtest us into the net. Now, God uses means, He'll use men, he'll use whatever situation, everything serves God. But God brought us into it, he'll bring us out of it. That's what he said to the children of Israel over in Deuteronomy, I brought you in that I may bring you out. I brought you into Egypt, didn't he? He brought them in 70 strong, and they went out over a million, they think. Over a million. I brought you into that place and I might bring you out of that place to the land of flowing with milk and honey. Oh, here's the comfort to God's children in trials. God brought us into the net. The net's not in the hands of men. The net's not in the hand of Satan. He may use their hands, but it's in the hand of our God. It's in God's hand. You know, Paul, when he wrote Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, where did he write that from? Prison in Rome, didn't he? But you know, he never called himself a prisoner of Rome. Paul did not call himself a prisoner of Rome. He said, I'm a prisoner of Jesus Christ, not Rome. Rome has no power over me. He called himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I'm here because it's the Lord's will. The Holy Spirit revealed to Paul that in every city there awaited him bonds and afflictions. Trials, listen. Something else here, you know, Paul called himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ. But some of these trials that God sent on Paul, that God sent on David, that God sent on Abraham, and you can just go to the list of it. They can be severe, as we count severe. They can be severe. He said, "...as silver is tried." That's in the furnace. "...laid afflictions on our loins." That's a heavy load. A heavy load. Men rode over our heads." That means they were laid down prostrate, flat on the ground. He said, they just rode over our heads. The enemy did. He said, they went through fire and water. Verse 12, we went through fire and water. Heavy, heavy trials are appointed, especially to some of God's children. Not all of God's children go through really heavy, heavy, severe trials, but some do. Some do. Listen to this. Revelations 2.10. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer. Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that you may be tried. And you shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful... Now listen. Be thou faithful unto death. Look at the end of all the apostles on this earth. martyred, except John, martyred. You go back and look at many of the saints. "'Be thou faithful unto death, and I'll give thee a crown of life.'" He's saying here to his saints that some of them are going to suffer to the point of death. He said, you be faithful. Now listen to Zechariah 13, verse 7 and 9. Listen to this. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd. That's against Christ. That's the law dealing with Christ. And against the man that's my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts. Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered, and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones. And it shall come to pass, and in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts thereof shall be cut off and die. Two thirds of the land's gonna be cut off and die. But the third shall be left therein. Now listen. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and I will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried, and they shall call on my name, and I will hear them, I will say, it is my people, and they shall say, the Lord is my God. but here's how I'm going to have them. Here's what they're going to experience. They're going to go through the fire, and I'm going to refine them like silver. I'm going to burn the dross off. Our Lord put away our sins, all right? He put them away before God's law, before God's justice. Our sins don't exist no more. But you and I experience sin every day. And we sin. We sin every day. We sin every second, really. We sin a lot. And our Lord purges us through trials from our sins, our daily lives, daily living, and brings us closer to Him. And that brings me to the purpose of these trials. He says, Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads. We went through fire and through water. But you brought us out into a wealthy place. What's the purpose of all these trials? What's the purpose of God putting us through these trials that are called fire and water and men riding over our heads and causing us to be caught in the net like the bird, you know, is caught in a net or the fish? What's the purpose? Well, first of all, to conform us to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. You cannot be conformed to Christ any other way. You can't be. Spurgeon said this, God had one Son without sin, but He never had a son without trials. Not a one. Then, to make us see and feel our need of Christ as we pass through this life, You know how when the sun is shining all the time, how easy it is to get complacent? It's not until a storm rolls by that we begin to think. We begin to think upon the Lord. But it's to make us feel our need and see our need of Christ day by day and not become complacent. and then is to burn away the dross of sin, that we might be as Enoch and walk with God." I think this is so. I believe this is so, this statement I'm going to make. It seems the closer the walk with God, the hotter the trials. The closer the walk, I'm telling you, mark it down. The closer the walk, the hotter the trials. Look at the lives of Abraham, the lives of Abraham and Jacob and Job, and these men that walked with God. Look at their lives. They were tried. They were tried. To walk with God as Enoch. Enoch walked with God. We walk with God by faith. But to walk with God is to walk in sincerity, is to walk in holiness, is to walk in a manner that's pleasing to Him. I'm telling you, the closer the walk, the harder the trials. And then, these trials make us more youthful. There's a program on television called Forged in Fire. You know, they'll make a sword and they have to forge it and they got to quench it in oil, fire quench it and oil quench it. I'm telling you, God forges his children in the fire. He makes you fit for the Master's use. You're not fit for the Master's use until He forges you in the fire and gets rid of some of the dross. We always have dross, that's why we always have trials. We never completely get rid of sin. And then it's to make us more compassionate. I thought about this statement, and I sat down and I thought about, I look back at my years, my years, Especially after believing the gospel, I look back and I thought of this, because I'm guilty of it. Rarely have I seen young people visiting the sick and the elderly, unless it's a family member. But as we get older in the Lord, I'm speaking to believers, as we grow older in the Lord, we grow more compassionate. If we don't, something's wrong. Something's dead wrong if we don't grow more compassionate and more gracious. The young don't, I've never seen, I don't remember, I don't, I'm sure they have, okay, but I have not known anyone in their youth to go and visit the elderly or the sick and afflicted, unless it was a family member. But as you and I grow older, we realize the grace of God, we realize the needs of others. that we didn't realize when we were young. We don't realize the spiritual needs of others. Just a visit, I'm telling you, just a visit, it just can make a person's day. My dad thanked me for coming over. And then these trials, listen, they work for us. It says in 2 Corinthians 4, 17, 18, listen to this. Paul speaking of our afflictions, he said, for our light affliction. Now he's been speaking about going through fire and water and men riding over our heads and being brought into the net. And he calls them, Paul calls them light afflictions. Paul was stoned. They thought he was dead. I mean, he had so many, it was a shipwreck and all those things that he mentions in the Corinthians. And he says, these are light afflictions. Listen now, for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us. Do you realize how the trial is actually working for you? God is making that trial work for you. It worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. I thought today, I said, trials like investments work for us. They work for us. They bring spiritual investments to us, spiritual growth, spiritual knowledge of Christ. And then trials, if I can say it this way, and I believe I can, trials purify our worship. They really purify our worship. They really get rid of the dross and we're sincere. When God's put you through something, when you sing, you're sincere about it. When you work to worship, the worship becomes more sincere. They purify our worship. And then they bring us to God, not away from Him. They bring us to Him. They bring us to God, and listen, they bring us into a wealthy place. He said, all these that you have done, thou hast brought us into a wealthy place, a moist place. I'm gonna tell you something, if a trial makes you think upon God, you're in a good place, you're in a wealthy place. If a trial weans you from this world and makes you less interested in the things of this world and more interested in the things of God, you've been brought into a wealthy place, a wealthy place. And you'll notice here what it does, here's something else it does, and this brings me to worship. It brings us to truly worship. Verse 13, I will go into thy house with burnt offerings. What God requires, I will come into your house, I will. That's commitment. That's one of the vows that David had made. Assuming David wrote this, I'm sure this is one of the vows he made. I will come into your house and I will praise you. I'll go into your house with burnt offerings. I will pay thee my vows, which my lips have uttered, and my mouth spoke when I was in trouble." You ever promise to do something if God brings you through something or out of something? I know we'd be very, very careful making a vow, because you make it, you keep it before God. David said here, he did, he made a vow. And he said, I'm going to keep that vow. You know, it's not just something to get out of trouble, it's something that's very serious. It's serious. But I thought of this. I thought when I read this, I will go into thy house with burnt offerings. I'll pay thee my vows, which my lips have uttered and my mouth has spoken when I was in trouble. I thought, oh, to grace, how great a debtor I am daily constrained to be. debtors of grace, debtors to the grace of God. And I'll offer unto thee burnt sacrifices of fatlings, the best I have, the best I have. I'll give to God with the incense of rams. I offer bullocks with goats. Oh, he says, Selah. I'll tell you what, when we gather, when we come here to worship, we need to Selah before we come in here. Pause and think about it. Pause and think about it before you ever come in His doors. Now He says here, Come and hear, all ye that fear God. These are the only ones who will hear. These are the only ones who will hear. But the message is to you who fear God. and I will declare what He hath done for my soul." You know, before it was, come and see the works of God, how terrible they are toward the children of men. But now it's to the children of God, it's come and hear. And I'll tell you what God's done for me. Like that woman at the well, she went to the city and she said, come and see a man, come and see, come and hear a man who's told me everything I ever did. Come and hear. I have something to say. Listen, until God trains us and teaches us, we don't have anything to say. Until God saves us, we have nothing to say. But boy, after He does, we have something to say. We have a message. We have a message. He's redeemed my soul. He has made me whole. He has made me accepted in the Beloved. He has made me righteous. He has cleansed me from all my sins. He has taken me like a bran plucked from the fire. He has raised me up to glory. He's made me a son, a son of God. I'm looking at children of God. That's just over our heads. Coming here, and I'll tell you what God has done. Everybody here has got a testimony. Everybody here who believes the gospel, you've got a testimony to the grace of God. He has saved your soul. He has brought you through the fire. He's brought you through the fire. I used to love to sit down. I still do. Of course, Henry's gone, but to be with the Lord, but I used to love to sit down and just listen to him talk about different things and the past and things that the Lord's brought him through and just to listen to them men talk. Scott and those men, you know, those older men whom the Lord has taken. Oh, I tell you, I wish young people would take advantage of the elderly in Christ. Those who have been around a while and grown up in grace and they've experienced the trials and they got something to say. They got something to say as to what God has done for them. I cried unto him, he said in verse 17, with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue. Listen, it is true worship when we can cry and sing at the same time. That's true worship, when we can cry and sing at the same time. Now, he says here, know this, in verse 18, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. God doesn't hear hypocrites. But now, can a child of God regard that as favor, look with favor on iniquity in his heart? Can that happen? Yeah, it can. David says in Psalm 32, verse 3 and 5, this is after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba. He said, when I kept silence, he wasn't going to confess his sins. My bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. Day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me. My moistures turned into the drought of summer. Then he said, I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I'll confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. But I tell you what, it took him a while to get there. It took him a while to get to this point. Some say it was about a year. I don't know. I don't know how they come up with that number, but some say about a year. If I regard with any favor, Do not confess my sins before God. He said He will not hear me. He will not hear me. But look in verse 19, But verily God hath heard me. So it's evident He had confessed and He didn't harbor any thoughts of iniquity, choice iniquity in His heart. But we can apply this to the Lord Jesus Christ who knew no sin. This applies to Him. He knew no sin and He was always heard. He's the one who could say, search me and know me and see if there'd be any wicked way in me. John said this in 1 John 1 verse 9, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Aren't you thankful for verses like that? Those verses are for us. They are for us. And last of all, he says, he ends it with this, Bless God. Bless God. Give unto Him the glory due unto His name. Bless His holy name. Bless God. which has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me." He has not turned away my prayer. You ever have anyone turn you away when you try to talk to them? You ever have anybody just ignore you? You're trying to say something to them? Or they tell you to leave or get out? He said, God hasn't ran me off. He still lets me come to the mercy seat. And He's not taking His mercy from me. His mercy still follows me. Listen, God has every reason to do so. He has every reason not to hear me. I give a thousand reasons a day for God not to hear me and to take His mercy from me, but He doesn't do it. Because God's a covenant God, and God delights to show mercy. And He's never going to turn away any of His children. As Paul said, He has not cast away His people, whom He foreknew. Blessed be God, which has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me. That's a good one to end on, isn't it?