Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world.
So that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church, located in Kernersville, North Carolina. That Evan Roberts, young minister, They said he really wasn't much of a preacher. You know, it's funny, but in special meetings, sometimes we put a lot of premium on. The preacher's ability to hold an audience and Sway a crowd and The reality is It's really just about all of us yielding to the Lord.
And they said that Evan Roberts made a priority in his meetings not just to come in and preach sermons. but to teach people to pray. It's part of the reason at the end of these meetings that I've taken such time and been so deliberate about our seasons of prayer because I think many times people come to church and it's a spectator sport. And we plop down in our comfortable seats next to all of our buddies, and we listen to some guy get up on a platform for a few minutes and hoping hold our attention and we don't go to sleep. Then when he finally says amen, we all close our Bibles and grab our junk and go home.
It's not supposed to be that way. The word should lead you to worship. The word should lead you to God. If, when you hear the Lord, you do not respond to Him, you have missed the point entirely. And so Evan Roberts would teach this prayer, and this was the prayer: Oh Lord.
Bend me. I don't know, Brother Matt, that you could have had the choir say a more appropriate song. You weren't here last night, but a more appropriate song where I'm going in the scriptures tonight. But in reality, it is just really a song that describes that prayer because real revival is not when you feel good, real revival is when God bends you. Bent To the will of God, bent to be in conformity to Jesus, bent low so he can be lifted high.
Oh Lord, bend us tonight. With that in mind, let's open the Word of God, shall we? Where would you like to go in the Bible tonight? You get to pick. All right, well let's go to Lamentations chapter 3 then.
It's where you want to go.
Somebody that is just joining and say, What kind of preacher is this? Let the crowd pick the text. We've been living in Lamentations chapter 3. It's rich and wonderful, isn't it, church? Let's just read.
Let's read all the verses that we've studied to this point, and we'll read on. to our text tonight. We break into the middle of Lamentations chapter 3, this great pinnacle of... Jeremiah's lament. By the way, let me pause just a moment.
If I said to you, where are the lamentations in Scripture? You immediately would go to this book of the Bible. But this is not the only lamentations in Scripture. The book of Job is full of lamentations. The Psalms are full of lamentations.
What are lamentations? Lamentations is the heart cry when you're so broken and bent that you can do nothing else but say, Oh, God, help me now. That's where we must get. And so we come to Jeremiah's lamentation. Let the lamentation lead you to the Lord tonight.
Look at Lamentations chapter 3, beginning in verse number 17. He says to God, And thou hast removed my soul far off from peace. I forget. Prosperity. And I say it.
My strength and my hope has perished from the Lord. Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall, my soul hath them still in remembrance. and is humbled in me. This I recall to my mind. Therefore Yeah.
Have I hope? Oh, there's a beautiful shift as this song that starts in the minor key gets modulated and now it's a note of victory. It's crazy, really. Changes from a funeral dirge. To an anthem.
It's almost like right in the middle of the memorial service, Jeremiah says, strike up the band. Let's sing a song of praise to our God.
Somebody said, that's strange. Not when the Lord shows up, it's not. And so he sings. Look at verse number 22. Is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion. Saith my soul, therefore. Will I hope in him?
The Lord is good. And to them that wait for him. To the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope And quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It is good.
For a man That he bear the yoke. In his youth. I'd like you to take your pen out tonight and underline something in your Bible. I'm going to read again. Every time I read, I want you to shout the next word.
And when you shout it, I want you to mark it. Are you ready, class? Verse 25, the Lord is. It's good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is It's good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
It is. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. This is really kind of unusual, but here we are sitting in the smoldering ruins of the city of Jerusalem, that city that was the apple of God's eye and the pride of the nation of Israel sits in Shambles and Ash And Jeremiah, who has had the heart of God capture him, stands on the precipice overlooking his hometown and weeps. And sobs. He's a broken man.
Broken over the sin of his people, and broken over the consequences of that sin, and broken before a holy God. And then right in the middle of it. It's like he just stops and said, it's all good. It's all good. As a matter of fact, it might interest you to know that in the Hebrew writing of this particular text, the first word of each of these verses is the word good.
We said this way, the Lord is good. The Hebrew people, because in language, you know, people express things a little differently, and the Hebrew people would have said, good is the Lord.
So the first word, look at the three verses. Good is the Lord. Good is it that man hopes and waits on the Lord? Good is it that a man bears the yoke in his youth? And I came to say to you tonight, we live in an evil world.
Can I get a witness on that? And let's get to the dirty truth. Your own heart is wicked. I mean, I said, Aren't you worried about all this wickedness around us? Yes, and I'm pretty worried about the wickedness that creeps into my own soul.
It's funny, you can spot somebody else's sin at 100 yards and miss the subtle sin creeping into your own heart. I'm concerned about the carnality in our churches. I'm troubled over the breakup of the family and the basic unit of a civilized society. I'm worried about the weak, anemic kind of Christianity that passes off for true Christianity in our day. I'm terribly bothered at the low expectation of the unbelieving people in our generation who think we all just cross our fingers and hold on.
Hope Jesus comes soon and expect the Lord to do so little in our day and hour. Yes, I'm troubled by every bit of that. But I'm gonna tell you what we need. We need a fresh glimpse. of the goodness of God.
Do you understand that it is the goodness of God that leads you to repentance? Do you understand that only when you see Jesus hanging on that cross on the good mercy of God is your heart pricked to respond to the message of salvation? That only when you think of the goodness back in the Father's house does the prodigal come to himself and arise and headtail it back home. Do you understand that it is the goodness of God that reaches out a nail-pierced hand and gently, patiently, lovingly, graciously leads you back to where you ought to be with God? Yes, we need a fresh glimpse of the goodness of our God.
And that is why. In the midst of so much bad and so much wrong and so much evil and so much wickedness, we get this glimpse of these good things. Would you mark them in your Bible? Let's look at each of them. Number one.
This is the right place to start because verse number Twenty-seven Is circumstances. Verse 26 is people, but verse 25 is God. How many of you think it's a good idea to start with God? It all begins with God. And so we begin here.
Number one, the Lord is good. And I love The fact that it is that same name in the old capital L-O-R-D, it is the covenant name for God. It is Yahweh. It is the Jehovah God. It is the one who always makes promises and always keeps his word.
Aren't you glad that it is impossible for God to lie? He said, I am the Lord. I change not. And it is he that God says is the good God. You know one of the great dangers?
Today in our modern kind of living, We have grown so accustomed to all of our conveniences and comforts, we have equated those things with God.
Now, listen to me just a minute. We're spoiled rotten.
Well, the best things you'll ever do is get outside. Of our own nation and see little children begging in real poverty somewhere, and realize that we have enjoyed an abundance and a bounty that far exceeds what most people in any generation have ever known. And if you're not careful, you'll start thinking that that prosperity is equal to God. I want you to know every good and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. He gives us richly all things to enjoy, but don't you ever set your heart and your hope on the things instead of the one who gave you those good things to enjoy.
In a moment. Those good things can be gone, but God is still good. See, we've gotten so enamored with the blessings, we've forgotten the blesser. We've started living on the gift so long, we've forgotten the giver. We're so stinking spoiled rotten now that we think we deserve all this.
No, friend, what you and I still deserve is an everlasting hell, and it is only the goodness of God that gives us any good thing. The Lord is good. This is not just Jeremiah's word. This is God's word. Go back with me in the Psalms for just a moment.
Would you please? Go back to Psalm 34. Follow me. Let's take a little journey. Take a trip with me just for a minute.
Mark them in your Bible. Psalm 34. It's a Psalm of David when he's... running from Abimelech for his life. He's hiding in caves.
He's being hunted like an animal and chased like a common criminal. The man after God's own heart is at low ebb. By the way, there are seasons like that in life. And it's at that season that he says, Psalm 34, verse 8. Ho, taste and see that what, church?
The Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Your faith is not to be in good circumstances. Your faith is not to be in good people. Your faith is to be in the goodness of Almighty God.
You trust people, they'll disappoint you. You trust circumstances, they will change. You trust your own heart, you'll get disillusioned. You trust your emotions, they will fade and change like the weather. You trust the Lord, the Lord never changes, the Lord is good.
Come over a few pages to Psalm 100. You know this Psalm. Look at Psalm 100, the beautiful Psalm of praise. He ends this way. Verse 5, the crescendo of the praise says, For the Lord is what?
Yes, he is. The Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations. Does your Bible say all?
Now look at it. I didn't hear you. Does your Bible say all?
Somebody said, all means all. That's all all means. Look at it. That means in this generation, at the end of the age, getting ready to see Jesus face to face, when it seems like the whole world has lost its mind and everything's coming apart as it seems, when there is an uncertainty about tomorrow, there is a certainty about eternity, and the Lord is still good. Come on over to Psalm 135.
You're close. Look at Psalm 135 and verse number 3. Praise the Lord. Why shall we praise the Lord? For the Lord is good.
Sing praises unto his name, for it is pleasant. Let's take a survey. How many of you had any unpleasant thing or person to deal with today? Would you raise your hand, please? Isn't that amazing?
How many of you have had at least one unpleasant thought or emotion in the last 24 hours? Would you raise your hand, please? Look at that verse again. Let me tell you one thing that's always pleasant. The Lord's name is always pleasant.
Sometimes When you just don't even know what to say, it's good just to speak his name.
Now, wait a minute. Don't ever speak it lightly. I don't like to hear people say the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, and you know, use his name lightly. We say that we're not taking the name of the Lord our God in vain. That's not just for cussing.
I'm against cussing too, by the way. Ever wonder, nobody ever takes Buddha's name in vain. I've never heard anybody get mad and say Confucius. Have you? There's a reason.
There's only one name on this planet Satan trembles at. By the way, it's not your name or mine, it's the name of Jesus. There's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. But don't you miss this? It's not just people who curse and swear that take the name of the Lord in vain.
Frank Sales used to say that we take the name of the Lord our God in vain, anytime his name is on our lips and not in our heart. Did you know I could stand up here and preach to you and take the name of the Lord in vain while I'm preaching? Sure I could. by not reverencing that holy name. You could sing the name of the Lord and be taking the name of the Lord in vain.
You could pray and use the name of the Lord and be taking the name of the Lord in vain. It means you don't use it lightly. You don't use it flippantly. You don't use it in an empty, vain way. It is full of meaning.
It is full of the power and wonder and glory of our God. When you say the name of the Lord, let it remind you of the goodness of your God. Come on over. Would you please to Psalm 145? Look at verse number nine.
Verse 8, he says, The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy. I love all these attributes, but then he says, This: Here's the bottom line: the Lord. is good to all. And his tender mercies are over all his works. It's interesting.
He's all good, and he's good to all. If you're breathing right now, God's been good to you. Have you eaten in the last 24 hours? Multiple times? The Lord's been good to you.
Wait a minute. Let's go beyond the physical and the material just a moment. How many of you know your names written down in heaven? Then the Lord's been really good to you. Anybody glad you're not going to hell?
The Lord's good to us, you say. Come over to the look of Jeremiah with me. And we're going, we're working our way back. We'll get to lamentations eventually, but. Stop off at his first book.
Look at Jeremiah 33, because this isn't just in the second book he wrote, it's in the first book he wrote. Look at Jeremiah 33. He's talking about the hope for the future. Yes, judgment is coming, but then there's going to be restoration on the other side. By the way, this prophetical book, just be reminded, God's not finished with Israel.
You ought to be praying right now for the peace of Jerusalem. While you're at it, you ought to pray America stays peaceable to Jerusalem. God's going to fulfill his work in Israel. There's no doubt about it. Israel's not the church, and the church is not Israel.
The Lord will always keep the covenant that he made with the nation of Israel.
So he's looking beyond the smoldering ruins. He's looking beyond the captivity to what God will do in the future. Look at verse 10. Thus saith the Lord, again there shall be heard in this place. I love that word again.
You know what again is? Again is a word of expectancy for the days ahead. Aren't you glad our God's the God of again? And might I say again and again and again. Again, there should be a hurt in this place.
Which you say should be desolate without man or without beast, even the cities of Judah, the streets of Jerusalem. That are desolate without man, without inhabitant, without beast. He said, There's not even a dog in the street. He said, But I want you to know, someday God's going to take the emptiness and fill it up again. God's going to take the desolation and bring celebration.
Someday God's going to take the sadness and the sorrow and the mourning and turn it to rejoicing again. Look at verse 11: the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that shall say, Praise the Lord of hosts, for, say at church, the Lord is good. For his mercy endureth forever. You notice how many times the goodness and mercy of God are coupled together? That's interesting to me.
See, the greatest expression of God's good character is that God has been merciful to sinners who do not deserve that goodness. You know the hardest people to have revival with? People have been saved a long time. They're the hardest. Give me a church house full of new Christians.
I'm serious. Fill it up with first-generation Christians who don't know all the hymns, don't know all the religious clichés, don't know exactly where to say amen, can't find Zachariah in their Bible. Give me a church full of those people. Because they're still excited, they're on the way to heaven. They haven't yet lost the wonder of it all, and then there's the rest of us.
Who knows exactly when to nod and what to say and what to do. And we check all the boxes and pat each other on the back and say, Our God bless you, but something is missing. You know what's missing? We have forgotten how good God has been to us lowly sinners. You understand you don't merit God's mercy any more today than you did 40 years ago when you first got saved?
You understand that you couldn't do enough good to merit the goodness of God in your life? God doesn't bless you because you are good, God blesses you because He is good. The Lord is good. Go over to the book of Nahum, would you please, just a moment?
Some of you say, is that in the Bible? It's in the Bible. We return to Nineveh and Nahum. God showed his goodness to that city and spared them and showed mercy and Jonah didn't like it either. And years later, God will revisit the city and judgment will come.
But even in the midst of judgment, again, a picture of mercy. Look at verse number seven of verse number one of Nahum. Nahum 1.7, the Lord is good. A stronghold in the day of trouble. I like this.
And he knoweth them that trust in him. Anyone else glad he knows those who trust in him? The Lord is good, people. And after a while, you listen to the news so long. I'm going to tell you, some of you need to turn the news off.
I think conservative news is one of the greatest hindrances to spiritual awakening.
Now I'm not preaching on liberal news.
Now, I'm going to tell you what happens. After a while, you start listening to enough politicians and commentators and prognosticators, and you like them because you agree with their political position, but they're carnal and fleshly, and most of them don't know God, and they can't tell you the real answer to start with. And just because you agree with them on the issues and they agree with you, doesn't mean they're pointing you to God. You need to turn that off, stop living in anger, because the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God, and get back to trusting what God alone can do in your life. Turn the news off and open the Bible again.
That was not planned. That one was extra. Where was I? The Lord is good to us. He is good to us.
But after a while, so much talk and negative and unbelief. Dear God in heaven, have mercy on us. What's wrong with us? We're not going down, we're going up. We're not looking for the Antichrist.
We're looking for Christ. Adrian Rogers said, What is this world coming to? It's coming to Jesus. I like that answer. The Lord is good.
And by the way, you've got to remind yourself of that over and over and over again. Do you understand that this is the revelation, the first revelation we get of the character of God in Genesis chapter number one? When God makes everything, what does he say? He makes it, and then he says, it was what? And he makes something else, and it was.
And he makes something else, and it was. And he makes something else, and it was what? And you get to the end, and he makes it all, and it was very good. Can I tell you only the Lord can do the very good? And do you know what the first temptation was?
Question the goodness of God. Isn't that interesting? First Revelation, the Lord's good. First temptation. Are you sure he's good?
Some of you right now have been listening to the whisper. You didn't stop listening to the devil, he's a liar and the father of it. He's questioning the goodness of God to you. And accusing a good God to you, and it's keeping you from all the blessing God has for you. Go back now to Lamentations.
Look at Lamentations chapter 3, verse number 25. The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. How do you experience the goodness of God? In a very real sense, we all enjoy the goodness of God every day. But I mean, how do you consciously experience the goodness of God?
How do you get near to the goodness of God? Look at that verse: two words: wait and seek. They almost sound opposite, don't they? I mean, weight has the idea of just stand still. Just stop.
And Seek has the idea: we're going after it, we're going after it. Look, please, you've got to have both. I love this. The Lord said to his people, Stand still. and see the salvation of the Lord.
And then while they're standing still praying, the Lord said to Moses, All right. Tell them to go forward. I love this. Some of you need to stop. You need to push the Sila button in your life.
and pause, And think a little bit about all the goodness that God has demonstrated in your life and ponder and meditate just a little bit. Get your mind working again. Remember the spiritual memory we talked about last night? And you need to wait just a little bit and think about what God is doing at this time in your life. And while you're waiting, look, please, because this wait is not a passive wait, it's an active way.
This is not the waiting of doing nothing. This is the waiting of seeking God alone. Stop trying to figure it out. Stop trying to fix it. Stop looking for a bestseller book to answer your question.
Stop asking everybody else to try to make your life a little better. And you seek the goodness of God alone. Number one, the Lord is good. The second thing, look at verse number 26. It is good.
What is this? It is good that a man Should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Let's say it this way. Would you write this down, number two? Number one, the Lord is good.
Number two, silence is good. How many moms of little children can say amen right there?
Some of you say, we don't have any silence around our house. We're in a new season of life. Our youngest is in college now. And it's quiet around the house. We're trying to get used to it, you know.
We're driving down the road the other day, and my wife said to me, She said, Do you ever think it's kind of strange nobody's in the back seat now? It's different. The reality is, we're living in a noisy world. And some of us are so in tune to the voices around us, what we really need to do is just get in a quiet place and be still and be silent before Almighty God. Listen to me.
Sometimes you just got to get back in tune with heaven. Matter of fact, look at verse number 28. He sitteth alone and keepeth silence because he hath borne it upon him.
Sometimes God gets you all by yourself. The greatest news that anyone can receive is the news of the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is our desire for you to know him personally. Would you take a moment to hear this today? Every man is born with a sin nature.
Romans three twenty three says, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. No matter how hard we try, we're not good enough to obtain God's glory. or to get to heaven. Because of that, sin carries the penalty of death. Romans 6:23 says, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.
through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of our sin, or the payment of our sin, only equals death and separation from God. But it's only through God's gift of salvation through Jesus Christ that we can accept him as our Savior. Jesus Christ paid for your sin debt. The Bible says in Romans 5.8, But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
All you have to do is receive Christ. by faith as your Saviour. Romans 10, 9 says, That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Verse 13 continues, For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's as simple as admitting that you're a sinner, believing that Jesus is the only way, and calling upon his name.
Bible says whosoever that's anyone can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Have you accepted Christ as your personal Savior? There is no greater day than to day to take care of this. Would you accept Christ as your Saviour? If you have any questions, please give us a call at 336-993-5192 or visit our website at CurwinBaptastChurch.com.
or visits that person at one of our three service times. We hope you have a great rest of your day. God bless you. Yeah.
