The Baptist Bible Hour now comes to you under the direction of Elder Lucerre Bradley Jr. O for a thousand tongues to sing, my great Redeemer's praise!
The glories of my God and King, the triumphs of his grace! This is Lucerre Bradley Jr. inviting you to stay tuned for another message of God's sovereign grace. He leadeth me, O blessed, thoughtful Word, with heavenly comfort fraught! What e'er I do, where e'er I be, still tis art, and that leadeth me. He leadeth me, he leadeth me, by his own hand he leadeth me. Is faithful, Lord, where I would be, for by his hand he leadeth me. I'm glad to welcome you to this, our first Sunday broadcast of the new year, and I hope you will make it a regular part of your schedule to tune in each week at this same time to listen as we bring messages from God's Word. I encourage you to write and let us know that you have listened to the address as the Baptist Bible Hour, Box 17037, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. We're going to continue the message, My Times Are In Thy Hand.
Our text for this message is Psalm 31, 15, My Times Are In Thy Hand. First, we have considered that it gives peace while living in a troubled world. Secondly, it provides comfort in trials. And then we will be considering today it brings contentment when we are prone to complain.
Number three, it brings contentment when we are prone to complain. Our human nature is rather quick to complain. Somebody complains, I just don't have enough money, I work hard.
They don't really pay me more, but they don't, and I can't get a better job, and I look around at what other people have, and why don't I have what they have? And they say, well it's not money that I'm hungry for, I want what money buys. I want to be able to have more things, bigger things, many things. Oh, if I just had more things, I'd be happy.
It's interesting how in this day people have gotten so many things, they now have stores and all they sell is things to put things in. And you accumulate them and you get older in life and think, what are we going to do with all these things? Or somebody says, well I just feel like I'm stuck in this job, been here for years and not really appreciated, nobody really rewards me as I should be rewarded. Or a mother says, I feel like I'm trapped. I'm here at home caring for children. I love my children, but it gets pretty tedious sometimes. And particularly if you decide for a little diversion you're going to turn on television and you hear about all of these women that have exciting careers and they're accomplishing great things, and here you are changing diapers and washing dishes and fixing meals and you say, I feel trapped. Overlooking the fact that God has blessed you to have one of the most noble positions anybody could occupy. He blessed you with children that you have the opportunity to influence, to instruct them, to nurture them, to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
What a privilege. And then somebody else complains and says, well I sure would like to be married and I can't find anybody. I've talked to a few people over the years that have made that complaint and asked this question. What are you doing to prepare yourself so that another Christian would find you to be a suitable mate? Sometimes the person that says I can't find a good Christian does not display many Christian virtues. They've grown bitter and sour and they complain about their state. They're self-centered.
They don't have a very in-depth spiritual conversation about anything. If you want to marry a good Christian, then concentrate on being a better Christian yourself so that somebody will find you interesting. Or it may be that in the providence of God it's not His plan for you to get married. Rather than complain about it the rest of your life, you learn how in your singleness to live to the honor and glory of God.
What a difference to recognize my times are in His hand. You can learn to be content first of all by being thankful for what you have. You're always thinking about what you don't have.
Think about what you do have and give thanks for it regularly. You can learn to be content by being submissive to the Lord. Back in the Psalm from which our text is taken, Psalm 31 verse 5, David says, Into thy hand I commit my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. Lord, I commit myself to thee. I'm surrendered. I'm not trying to make my own plans. I'm not trying to make my own way. I submit myself to thee.
That makes all the difference in the world. Recognize that God knows what is best for you. And when your desire becomes this, I want to be where God wants me to be, doing what God wants me to do, discontentment will flee away.
Number four, it gives courage against the fear of man. David had many enemies when he was writing this Psalm. His son Absalom had driven him from Jerusalem, the capital city, and was attempting to take the throne. Think of what pain this brought this servant of God. It's one thing to have an enemy at a distance, but to have your own son rise up against you and to seek to take the kingdom away from you. What pain!
And David's chief counselor Ahithophel had left him and gone with Absalom. My, when those that you have relied upon, those that have been your closest friends, those that have been your best advisors, turn against you and become your enemy. What a painful experience it is. In this 31st Psalm, verse 4, David says, Pull me out of the net that they have laid privately for me, for thou art my strength. My enemies have tried to ensnare me.
They've laid a net. They've tried to catch me into thine hand. I commit my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.
I have hated them that regard lying vanities, but I trust in the Lord. I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy, for thou hast considered my trouble. Thou hast known my soul in adversities, and hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy. Thou hast set my feet in a large room. I've been in a narrow place. I've been in a difficult place. But now, Lord, as you deliver me, you've put me into a large room.
Verse 13, For I have heard the slander of many. Fear was on every side. While they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life. His problems were serious.
They're thinking of killing this man. Get rid of him. We don't want him as king. We're going to make his son Absalom king. He had won the hearts of the people as he sat at the gate and promised to hear their cases.
And elevated himself to a position that he was not entitled to occupy. Verse 18, Let the lying lips be put to silence, which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous. You may encounter significant opposition.
Hopefully it will not be as severe as what David had that nobody will be out to kill you. Sometimes there are those that would like to destroy another individual, not by actually taking their life, but by slandering them, by falsely accusing them. You may experience persecution for righteousness sake. You may find many standing in opposition to you. You may be condemned as being narrow-minded and bigoted because of your stand for biblical truth. You're out of step at the time.
What's wrong with you anyway? But knowing that your times are in his hand will give you boldness. I can stand for the faith. I can stand for the truth. I don't have to be intimidated.
I don't have to fear what man says about me. Verse 1 of our psalm, In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Let me never be ashamed. Deliver me in thy righteousness. Bow down thine ear to me.
Deliver me speedily. Be thou my strong rock for an house of defense to save me. For thou art my rock and my fortress. Therefore, for thy name's sake, lead me and guide me. If the Lord is my fortress, if he is the place where I go for protection, if he is the one that is protecting me and holding me up, then I need not fear. Hebrews chapter 13, he says that he will never leave us nor forsake us that we might boldly say, The Lord is our helper and not fear what man may be able to do to us.
Isn't that a relief? When you put your trust and your confidence in the living God, you're free from the fear of man because my times are in thy hand. Number five, it provides a cure for worry. Worry is a sin. People sometimes have difficulty accepting that, but that's a fact because when you're worrying, you're not trusting, you're not believing God, you're not honoring him.
Worry is a sin, so it dishonors God. It marrs your testimony. If you're a person who is constantly expressing your concerns, your anxieties, people just look on you as one who is always worried about something, what kind of a testimony is that for Jesus Christ? What does it indicate? Would somebody say this is a person who obviously has a close walk with the Lord and I'd like to know more about their experience with him?
I know. I'd like to say whatever that person's religion is, it doesn't seem to be very deep. It marrs your testimony. Worry and fretting never has fixed anything. You worry about it, you express your worry, you fret about it, you complain.
It doesn't change anything except make you miserable and perhaps those that are around you but when considering my times are in thy hand, there is no need for worry. Jesus said in John chapter 10 verses 28 and 30, And I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man do what? Pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. Is there any place you could imagine to be more secure?
Obviously not. To be in his hand is to be protected. Protected from Satan, the great adversary who goes about seeking whom he may devour. Protected from sin and its consequences.
He is no safer place and no one who ever would or could provide more than your heavenly Father. Look at Romans chapter 8 verse 32, He that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? He has given you the greatest gift, his son Jesus Christ. So Paul argues from that vantage point and says, If he has given you the greatest gift, he will give you such lesser gifts as you have need of. So considering that you are in his hand and considering that he has already demonstrated his love by giving you the greatest gift, what cause do you have for worry? My times are in thy hand.
Number six, it gives reason to do what needs to be done. Trusting God does not release you from your duties. Somebody may say, well Courtney the way you are talking it sounds like, if God is in charge and my times are in his hands and I am trusting him, then I can just kind of sit back at ease and watch it all unfold and let God take care of everything for me. You pray for your daily bread, Jesus taught us that.
Give us this day our daily bread. But does that mean you sit on the front porch and wait for it to be delivered? No, it means that you go to work because that is what God has designed. The man that won't work ought not to eat, the apostle tells us.
So you go to work. Colossians chapter 3 verse 23, And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ. So rather than getting up in the morning and saying I dread to go to this boring job, this place that I just hate to have to show up there, you get up and say I am going to work for the glory of Jesus Christ. So it may not be the best place, I may not have the most congenial boss, I may not have the best working conditions, but I am going there to honor Jesus Christ.
That will give you a totally different outlook. The farmer sows his seed, but he is dependent on the Lord to send the rain. He says you sow your seed in the morning according to Ecclesiastes 11.6 and you don't know what is going to come up, either this or that. The farmer sows the seed, he doesn't sit back and say I hope I am going to have a good crop, he is not going to have one unless he plants the seed. That is when you think about the story Elder Trautner told at one of our meetings a few years ago. He said somebody had given him some sweet potatoes to plant and they had told him how special they were and he was looking forward to enjoying them and he kept going out to the garden and couldn't understand why they hadn't come up. And he called up his friends and said they ought to be up by this time and he fretted over it. One day he was out in the garage and there sat that bag of sweet potatoes, he had forgotten to plant them.
Now you can't expect a crop if you don't plant it. And so the farmer plants the crop, he sows the seed, but he is still shut up to the mercy of God for the Lord to send the rain that the crop may grow. You believe that God will take care of you, but you are still to pray. It doesn't mean ok my times are in God's hand, that being the case I don't even need to pray.
No you do need to pray because it is through prayer that God responds and gives you the blessing that is so needed. In this Psalm, the ninth verse, David is praying, Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble. Mine eye is consumed with grief, yea my soul and my belly. I know my times are in thy hands, but Lord I am calling upon you. And then Psalm 27 verse 9, Hide not thy face far from me, put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help, leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. Have you ever prayed that prayer? Surely when you see your unworthiness, when you've failed and sinned and come short of the glory of God, are there not times when it becomes, O Lord, don't forsake me, don't leave me, I need thee desperately. You say well why pray that?
Because if you are one of his, he is not going to leave you. He is promised, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. So why pray that? God is pleased for you to pray it because that is in harmony with his purposes. That is in harmony with his will.
You pray. Knowing my times are in thy hand, rather than leading to slothfulness and indifference and laziness and the neglect of duties, it inspires you to go forward in a positive, concrete way to do the things that the Lord has bid you do. Paul said in Philippians 2.13, For it is God which worketh in us both the will and to do of his good pleasure.
Alright, there is a work I need to do. There are things I need to do in my family life to the glory of God. Things I need to do when I am on the job to the glory of God. Things I need to do in giving a testimony and ministering to other people.
How am I going to do it? God works in me. Philippians 4.13, Paul said, I can do all things through Christ which strengtheth me. You are not going on your own. You are not going by sheer will power and determination. You are going because of the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit to bless you and enable you to do it.
How wonderful to know that. Paul expressed it this way in the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Here is a man that was mightily used of God, worked and labored diligently.
But he recognized the source of the blessing that made it all possible. Verse 10 of 1 Corinthians 15, For by the grace of God I am what I am, and by his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. You see, believing in the sovereignty of God, believing that your times are in his hands, does not discourage, if you understand it correctly, does not discourage activity, does not discourage diligent labor, it gives you an incentive, it gives you an encouragement to go forward because you know you are not by yourself. And then in the concluding part of that chapter, it says in verse 57, But thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. So, when you may be intimidated, and you may make excuses, and you may be discouraged, and you may sometimes say, What's the use? Your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And so you move forward. And number seven, to recognize my times are in thy hands gives hope for the future. The future is basically unknown to us. Many people try to figure it out.
They go to fortune tellers and they get the books on astrology and they want to know the future. Did you ever think of what a mercy it is that God does not allow us to see the future? Suppose you had to look right now on every trial you'll ever have in life.
And they're all heaped up here in one moment for you to look at at once. Well, the Lord doesn't show us the future. We live day by day, step by step, depending on Him for each situation as it develops. Often at this time the newspapers will contain articles where some are making predictions for the new year. What can we expect? What will the economy do? What's going to happen among the nations of earth and their relationship one to another? Predictions are made.
But, we don't know. And many times their predictions are terribly wrong. Proverbs 27 says, Boast not thyself of tomorrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, much less what's going to happen next year. But we can know my times are in thy hand. Whatever the future holds, we are not left to fate or chance or luck.
Aren't you glad for that? Our times are in His hand. We're in the hand of Him who guides the future. And He is our loving Heavenly Father that cares for us. His mercies are new every morning. Jeremiah said in Lamentations chapter 3 verses 22 and 23, It's of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because His compassions failed not.
They are new every morning. Great is Thy faithfulness. You can't know what's coming tomorrow, but you can know this, His mercies will be there.
His mercies are new every morning. Who knows what it might be six months from now? Some in this audience may already have gone on to be with the Lord. Some of you may have to go through deep trials and sorrows.
And if you knew all the ramifications of it now, you'd throw up your hands in despair and say, I can't make it. But His mercies are new. And here's something about the future that you can know. When you reach the end of the journey and you come to the valley of death, you'll not be alone. I sometimes sing that hymn, How Sweet to Die, and there is a sweetness about going home to be with the Lord.
But the thought of death itself can cause little anxiety because it's something we haven't experienced. What would it be like when I come to that moment? Will I die in my sleep? Will I die in the hospital?
Will I be in a car wreck? All of these questions may sometimes cross our minds. But here's the comforting thought. My times are in Thy hand. Sometimes I've had people say, oh, I had wanted so much to be there when my loved one died. And I got the call from the hospital and I was on my way, but they died before I got there.
I couldn't be there. But here's one who will always be there at the moment his children die. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. And then on the other side, what's it going to be like?
People like to speculate. There's some things we know because they're revealed in scriptures and some we don't know. But when you die, not only is the Lord with you in the hour of death, He's there on the other side. As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5, 8, we're confident to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. When you die, you don't go into a long sleep to wait the resurrection. You go immediately to be with the Lord.
He's there and you will be with Him forever. My times are in Thy hand. Remembering these words can give you peace in a troubled world. Provide comfort in your trials. Bring contentment when you're prone to complain. Give you courage over the fear of man. Provide a cure for worry. Give you reason to do what needs to be done when there's a difficult task ahead of you.
And it gives you hope for the future. But if you've not come to Christ, you cannot claim the comfort of these words. Yet today if you see yourself as a sinner and you know that you need a Savior, listen to the words of Jesus. Hear Him say unto me, All ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Hear Him as He says, Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out. Hear Him when He says, If any man thirsts, let him come unto me and drink.
And coming to Jesus and drinking of Him is to believe on Him. May you believe on Him today. And may we rejoice in the comforting truth and keep it constantly before us in the year to come. The times are in thy hand. Day by day and with each passing moment, Strength I find to meet my trials here. Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment, I've no cause for worry or for fear. There is a wonderful truth with which to begin the new year. My times are in thy hand.
None of us can know what we may face before the year is ended. No doubt there will be trials and challenges, but by the grace of God, He will hold us up and it gives us great courage, boldness, comfort to know my times are in thy hand. I hope that you will write us and until next time, may the Lord richly bless you all. Every day the Lord himself is near me, With a special mercy for each hour. All my cares he fame would bear and cheer me, He whose name is counselor and power.
The protection of his child and treasure, Is a charge that on himself be laid. The Baptist Bible Hour has come to you under the direction of Elder LeSaire Bradley, Jr. Address all mail to the Baptist Bible Hour, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. That's the Baptist Bible Hour, Cincinnati, Ohio 45217. Help me then in every tribulation, So to trust thy promises, O Lord, That I lose not faith's sweet consolation, Offer me within thy holy Word. Help me, Lord, winter and trouble me.
