The sermon by Mike Davenport, titled 'The Comforts of God In a Multitude of Anxieties,' explores the themes of divine vengeance, judgment, and comfort as depicted in Psalm 94. It begins with the psalmist's cry to God, addressed by His covenant name Jehovah, highlighting a deep personal relationship. The psalmist prays for God to act against the proud and wicked persecutors of the church, emphasizing God's role as judge and avenger. The sermon outlines the certainty of God’s correction of the wicked, asserting that those who dismiss God are senseless and foolish. The psalmist reflects on God's omniscience and omnipotence, arguing rhetorically that God, who created senses and knowledge, is fully aware of human actions and thoughts. Davenport discusses the chastening of Christians as a divine providence, stressing the blessedness that comes from God's instruction through His law. This blessedness, according to the sermon, does not depend on the individual's progress in sanctification but on God's continuous work in their lives. The care of the church is presented as a promise of God, where adversity is used to establish righteousness and guide believers on the right path. The psalmist’s personal struggle with anxieties is acknowledged, but he finds comfort in God’s past help and ongoing mercy. Despite persistent fears, believers are encouraged to find joy and peace through God’s promises, knowing that God’s comfort delights their souls amidst anxieties. The sermon concludes with an assurance of God's ultimate justice, where the wicked will be cut off, and the righteous will be upheld, echoing Asaph's realization in Psalm 73 that understanding God's purposes brings peace.

Starting in verse one. Oh, Lord God, to whom vengeance belongs. Oh, God, to whom vengeance belongs, shine forth. Rise up, oh, judge of the earth. Render punishment to the proud.

Lord, how long will the wicked how long will the wicked triumph? They utter speech and speak insolent things all the workers of iniquity boast in themselves They break in pieces your people Oh Lord and afflict your heritage They slay the widow and the stranger and murder the fatherless. Yet they say the Lord does not see, nor does the God of Jacob understand. Understand, you senseless among the people, and you fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, shall he not hear?

He who formed the eye, shall he not see? He who instructs the nations, shall he not correct? He who teaches man knowledge? The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile. Blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord, and teach out of your law, that you may give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit is dug for the wicked.

For the Lord will not cast off his people, nor will he forsake his inheritance, but judgment will return to the righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it. Who will rise up for me against the evildoer? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul would soon have settled in silence. If I say my foot slips, your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up.

In the multitude of my anxieties within me, your comforts delight my soul. Shall the throne of iniquity, which devises evil by law, have fellowship with me? They gather together against the life of the righteous and condemn innocent blood. But the Lord has been my defense, my God, the rock of my refuge. He has brought on them their own iniquity and shall cut them off of their own wickedness The Lord our God shall cut them off Let's pray.

Oh Heavenly Father Lord. I thank you for being our rock Lord. I thank you for being the one that holds your people in your hand. Lord, I pray that as we listen, that we would apply what we hear. Amen.

Well, the focus of our attention this morning will be actually on verses 8 through 19. We will, however, consider the entire psalm in order to see how our text this morning in verses 8 through 19 actually fits into the context of the whole. The title of this message is the comforts of God in a multitude of anxieties. The comforts of God in a multitude of anxieties. As we gather this morning as a church body, I am convinced that each one of us comes with some measure of fears, of doubts, or of anxieties.

Some of these anxieties may have been shared at one time or another with the church body. It may have been at a prayer meeting that you've requested prayer. Other anxieties being of a more private nature may have only been shared with a close friend, a spouse, or an elder. And no doubt, At this very moment, there are things troubling you which no one knows anything about, things held deep down inside. While the devil would seek to drive you to despair, to make you think that you are the only one experiencing such fears, such doubts, and such anxieties.

He would seek to leave you helpless, hopeless, and discouraged. He would seek to drive you away from the God of all comforts, from the only place where you can find true help, true hope, and true delight. My dear brother and sister, you're not alone. You're not alone. The Christian life is not devoid of such fears and anxieties.

The scripture assumes that the Christian will have a heart full of cares, for Peter tells us in 1 Peter 5-7 that we are to cast all our care upon him. Why? Because he cares for us. So in the time before us, I would like to look at this psalm under the following headings. First in the first seven verses, the cry of the church as a persecuted people.

The cry of the church as a persecuted people, the cry of the church as a persecuted people, then the certainty of the correction of the proud and wicked in verses 8 through 11, then thirdly the chastening of the Christian in the providence of God, verses 12 and 13. Then the care of the church as a promise of God, verses 14 and 15. Fifthly, the comfort of the Christian in the plentitude of anxieties, verses 16 to 19, and then the complete cutting off of the perpetrators of wickedness in the last four verses. So the first thing that I would like to draw your attention to in this passage is the cry of the church as a persecuted people. The opening of this psalm, as is the case in many of the Psalms of Scripture, is a prayer.

It's a prayer of the psalmist. There is much that we can learn from the prayers of the men of God found in the Bible. Notice first how the psalmist addresses God by his covenant name Jehovah. It says, oh Lord, Lord, that word for Jehovah in the Hebrew, Oh Jehovah God to whom vengeance belongs. Oh God to whom vengeance belongs.

This draws attention to the covenant that God has made with His people. It acknowledges that there is personal relationship that goes beyond a mere familiarity with God. The one praying here knows this God and is known by this God, the covenant name Jehovah. But note secondly the acknowledgement of the character of God. He is addressed as judge of the earth, the one to whom vengeance belongs.

The psalmist is praying in accord with who God really is, who God has manifested himself to be. He is not in his prayer fashioning a god of his own liking. He actually in his prayer appeals to the self-revelation of God. God has declared himself to be the God who will judge the earth, the God who will take vengeance on his and the church's enemies. Thirdly, we see the very heart of this cry to God.

It is a desire for God to act on behalf of his people in conjunction with who he really is. And as a mouthpiece for the entire church of God, the Psalmist here cries out to the Lord, and the focus of his cry is that God would shine forth, and in that shining forth, that he would render punishment on those who are persecuting his people. And then fourthly we see in verses 4 through 7 the psalmist pleads his case with the judge. Having declared him as the judge of the earth, the psalmist then brings his case and lays it before the judge. He gives an account of the injustice being done by the persecutors of the Church of God.

These persecutors, we read, are speaking insolent things, breaking in pieces. They are afflicting, slaying, and murdering, and they seemingly do so without any consequences. The psalmist strengthens his plea by drawing God's attention to the fact that these atrocities are directed at your people, your heritage. And so these are things that we should implement in our prayers, realizing the covenant that we have with God, drawing attention to His attributes and praising Him for those attributes, pleading our case, but pleading it in such a way that it's not just our case that we're worried about. Lord, this is your people.

This is your heritage. And so in this psalmist's words here, we see the cry of the church as a persecuted people. But secondly, notice with me the certainty of the correction of the proud and wicked. The certainty of the correction of the proud and wicked. We see that in verses 8 through 11.

Here in verse 8, the psalmist turns from his cry to the judge of the earth on behalf of the church to an address aimed at the persecutors of God's church. Having already described these persecutors as proud and wicked, Look back at verse 2 and 3. Render punishment to the proud. Lord, how long will the wicked triumph? So having already described these persecutors as proud and wicked, he now speaking directly to them addresses them as senseless and foolish.

Understand you senseless among the people and you fools. When will you be wise?" Well, what is the source of the liberty that he takes to call these people senseless and foolish? Well, it's found in the previous verse, verse 7. Yet they say, the Lord does not see, nor does the God of Jacob understand. These who have taken it upon themselves to break in pieces God's people and to afflict His heritage have gone on record as stating that this covenant God so called by his people does not see or pay attention to their actions or to the pain and misery of those who look to him.

The psalmist says that such thinking is senseless and foolish, that those who think such things stand in great need of understanding and of wisdom. Then in the next three verses, verses 9 through 11, the psalmist begins to contemplate the glory and the attributes of his great God. He sets forth arguments in the form of rhetorical questions, questions for which the answer is obvious, so obvious that it requires no further discussion. He sets forth the wisdom and the power of God in a dogmatic and undeniable fashion, he who planted the ear, he who formed the eye, he who instructs the nations, The Lord knows the thoughts of man. Undeniable.

Unquestionable. But then based on these facts, he draws out Questions of God's wisdom and power that reveal the folly of the prosecutors The one who planted the ear How could it be that he himself does not hear? The one who formed the eye how could it be that he himself is unable to see? The one who is the source of all knowledge and instruction, having given man knowledge and instruction, how could he be so far removed from the nations that he would not require a reckoning in regards to how that wisdom and instruction was actually used and applied. And then verse 11 turns up the intensity in terms of the reckoning that God will require because the one who planted the ear, the one who formed the eye can do more than just hear and see.

The Lord knows the thoughts of man that they are futile. Unlike man whom he fashioned, Jehovah knows the very thoughts of man. That man and the thoughts of man are futile. He who sits in the heavens shall laugh. He brings the princes to nothing.

He makes the judges of the earth useless. Scarcely shall they be planted. Scarcely shall they be sown? Scarcely shall their stock take root in the earth, that he will also blow on them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind will take them away like stubble." Well before we move on from this point, I think it's worthwhile to point out the transition in the heart of the psalmist that has taken him from a desperate cry in the opening verses to a point of confidence and surety as expressed in the opening words of the verse that follows. Blessed is the man.

Blessed is the man. What has moved the heart of this man to such a point of bold declaration? And What is it that will cause such a transaction and a transition in our own hearts and minds when we find ourselves broken and afflicted? From whence will arise such a confidence in our own hearts? Well the agent of this change is a contemplation of who our God is, of what He has promised, of what he is sure to do.

Do you feel the weight of your fears, your doubts, and your anxieties? Then I will be so bold as to declare that your mind and your heart are being robbed of the fullness that comes from a holy contemplation of our God. And rather being filled with the fullness of God, you are filled with the fullness of your own worries and anxieties, so that there is little room for thoughts of God, little time to wait on him, and little effort given to trust in him. Well, Having seen the cry of the church as a persecuted people and the certainty of the correction of the proud and wicked, we come now in the next two verses, verses 12 and 13, to the chastening of the Christian in the providence of God. The chastening of the Christian in the providence of God.

In these next two verses, the psalmist narrows down from a contemplation of the state of the church, a state of the people of God, of his heritage, to a more focused contemplation of just one individual who finds himself among this people, part of this heritage. There is a blessedness that rests upon the individual whom God instructs and teaches out of His law. Out of his law. Please note this blessedness is not to be had apart from the instruction that comes from the law of God. Okay?

This blessedness is not to be had apart from the instruction that comes from the law of God. This blessedness is not to be had apart from the instruction that comes from the law of God. We live in a day, and in this sense not unlike any other day, but we live in a day where men even in the professing Church of Christ that desire and pursue blessing apart from the instruction of the law of God. They seek to derive blessing from a decision that they made in the past, from a past encounter with God, or from a period when they seem to have been serious about the things of God. In his commentary on the Psalms, W.S.

Plummer, contemplating the Hebrew word rendered instruct here in our Bible says the following, this word is in the future implying that the blessings are on the man whom God instructs disciplines and chastens to the end of his life or till the work of his purification is complete. And so the blessedness attributed to this man implies that God is about the business of instructing, disciplining, and chastening this man, and that he will continue in this business until the end of man's life, until the work of this blessed sanctification is complete. My dear brothers and sisters, This blessedness is yours in its fullness, no matter where you are in the progress of your sanctification. Let me say that again. This blessedness is yours in its fullness no matter where you are in the progress of your sanctification.

This blessedness does not come and go in conjunction with our progress or lack of it. This blessedness finds its roots, finds its anchor in the determined purpose of God to conform us to the image of his Son by means of this instruction and discipline and chastening. So that Paul in writing to the church at Philippi in Philippians 1 6 testified to the confidence that he had in praying for this church, being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ I Love that little word until He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. It speaks to me of continuation. It speaks to me of something that is ongoing.

And it also speaks to me of something of the greatness of this promise. The Greek word or the Greek root, the Greek root of the word translated until speaks of the farthest bounds, the uttermost parts, the highest, the extreme. So having begun a good work in his people, God will continue that work, taking it unto a completion that includes the farthest bounds, the uttermost parts, the highest and most extreme limits. This work of completion will be complete without gaps, without holes. Brothers and sisters, this is the blessedness of which the psalmist is confident.

Do you have such confidence in the work of God, especially in regards to his chastening, which for the moment may not be so joyful? Well, we see here in verse 12 that it's the law of God that teaches us how to receive admonishing and exhortation. Blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord, and teach out of your law that you may give him rest from the days of adversity." The writer to the Hebrews encourages his readers to remember what the law said regarding the chastening of God. My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives." So the law of God instructs us concerning the receiving of this chastening, this discipline, this instruction from the hand of our God.

And then verse 13 gives us the reason to trust in the providence of God, even in the midst of this chastening. Even if it comes by the hands of proud and wicked men, as was the case for the church here in Psalm 94, if we are able to see beyond the circumstances and to rest in the providence of God, we would be able to have confidence in the very purposes of God. In the midst of the adversity, God is at work, chastening and instructing us to the end that He may give us rest or relief. How often do we grieve the Lord by questioning the adversity that he brings into our life? And because we are preoccupied with questioning what our God is doing, our hearts become troubled.

And then we fail to understand the chastening. We fail to receive the instruction. We fail to anticipate and expect the relief to come. And we rob our souls of the confidence that we truly are blessed even in the midst of our adversity. And not only that, but the psalmist draws attention to the distinguishing purposes of God.

There are distinguishing purposes here in verse 13, that you may give Him rest from the days of adversity until the pit is dug for the wicked. Rest and relief for those who are His, and destruction for the wicked. For you, my dear brother and sister, the hands of your loving father are fashioning a rest and a relief, and those same hands are digging a pit into which the wicked will fall. I would like to interject a quote from John Calvin's comments on these two verses and it's a long quote but I trust that its length will not unnecessarily rob it of the benefit we can derive from it. So here Calvin, At no period of life is this a truth which it is unnecessary to remember, called as we are to a continued warfare.

God may allow us intervals of these in consideration of our weakness, but would always have us exposed to calamities of various kinds. Were it not for the comfortable consideration that they are a blessed people whom God exercises with the cross, our condition would be truly miserable. It is only in the Lord's school we can ever learn to maintain composure of mind and a posture of patient expectation and trust under the pressure of distress. The psalmist declares that the wisdom which would bear us onward to the end with an inward peace and courage under long continued trouble is not natural to any of us, but must come from God. Accordingly, he exclaims that, those are the truly blessed whom God has habituated through His Word to the endurance of the cross, and prevented from sinking under adversity by the secret supports and consolations of his own spirit.

Believers must in the first place be exhorted to exercise patience, not to despond under the cross, but wait submissively upon God for deliverance. And next, they must be taught how this grace is to be obtained, For we are naturally disposed to abandon ourselves to despair, and any hope of ours would speedily fail were we not taught from above that all our troubles must eventually issue in salvation. We have here the psalmist's testimony to the truth that the Word of God provides us with abundant ground of comfort and that none who rightly avails himself of it need ever count himself unhappy or yield himself to hopelessness and despondency. The only consideration which will subdue our minds to a tractable submission is that God in subjecting us to persecutions has in view our being ultimately brought into the enjoyment of arrest wherever there reigns this persuasion of arrest prepared for the people of God in a refreshment provided under the heat and turmoil of their troubles, that they may not perish with the world around them. This will prove enough, and more than enough, to alleviate any present bitterness of affliction.

Well before we move on allow me to give one warning in regard to the rest that God intends. Too often we are guilty of running ahead of God, of seeking rest and relief when God intends chastening and discipline of manufacturing our own rest and relief rather than waiting for the rest and relief that come from his hand. Quoting from W.S. Plummer's commentary on the Psalms once again, temporal ease is often procured at a price far beyond its value, but we never pay too high a price for spiritual and eternal blessings and comforts. So don't run ahead of God.

Bear up under the anxieties and the adversities knowing that God intends to bring rest and relief. So having narrowed his thoughts to the individual believer, the psalmist now takes that blessedness that belongs to each and every individual believer and places it under the umbrella of God's covenant with His church and the blessings that flow from this covenant. And so we see from verses 14 and 15 our fourth point, the care of the church as a promise of God. The care of the church as a promise of God. For the Lord will not cast off his people, nor will he forsake his inheritance.

But judgment will return to righteousness, and all the upright in heart will follow it." And so the backdrop, the backdrop of this blessedness that belongs to the individual believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, this backdrop is the promise of God's care for His church. For his church. We must never, we must never view God's covenant with us as outside or apart from his covenant with his universal church. Our tendency, our tendency in our American brand of Christianity is to make too much of our individuality, in Christ even, at the expense of realizing, recognizing the entire body of Christ. And the psalmist would have his readers take comfort in the care that God has promised his redeemed bride.

His church may be cast down, but they will never be cast off." The psalmist maintains a certainty. God has promised, and He will not relent. He will not abandon His people. They are His inheritance, his heritage. He will not forsake them.

Do you remember the charge that Judah brought against the Lord? That charge that they brought against him back in Isaiah 49, 14, but Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me and the Lord has forgotten me. They were overcome with adversity and they failed to see the sovereign hand of God or to recall His promises. And what was the reply of the Lord? Can a woman forget her nursing child and not have compassion on the son of her womb?

Surely they may forget. Yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me. Your sons shall make haste.

Your destroyers and those who laid you waste shall go away from you. Lift up your eyes, look around and see. All these gather together and come to you as I live says the Lord you shall surely clothe yourselves with them all as an ornament and bind them on you as a bride does for your waste and desolate places and the land of your destruction will even now be too small for the inhabitants and those who swallowed you up will be far away. God acknowledges that there have been destroyers, those who have laid them to waste, their remains in their wake waste desolate places and destruction. Yet God promises His people relief.

And as for those who were the perpetrators of this wickedness, a pit. The God whom they claim has forgotten and forsaken them promises a rest from these days of adversity. He cares for his own. He will have compassion on them. Well, the psalmist makes an interesting declaration at the first part of verse 15.

He says, judgment will return to Righteousness. Judgment will return to righteousness. I believe what he is declaring here is that the judgment of God, the judgment that's come through this adversity, through even this wickedness at the hands of these perpetrators, these evil, wicked, and proud men, that this judgment of God will result in righteousness. That righteousness will actually be the fruit that is brought about when all is said and done. Do you recall the words of Isaiah in verses 7 through 9 of chapter 26?

It was that song that he said would be sung in that day by Judah. The way of the just is uprightness. O most upright, you weigh the path of the just. Yes, in the way of your judgments, O Lord, we have waited for you. The desire of our soul is for your name and for the remembrance of you.

With my soul I have desired you in the night. Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek you early, for when your judgments are in the earth the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness When your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." So here in these verses, Isaiah states that righteousness is learned at the feet of divine judgment. When God brings judgment, whether it be to a nation or to a man, the result is that once again the way of righteousness is made clear and established as the right and just way. And this judgment, this adversity that comes upon the church, reestablishes the path that we should walk in. And the psalmist here assures us that those who are upright in heart will respond by doing what?

Following this clearly defined righteous path. This following of righteousness that is here declared, okay, this following of righteousness by the upright in heart, It cannot be separated from the instruction of God's law that he's doing in the individual's life. It can't be separated from the instruction of this law, Nor the intended rest that results from it. It's all coupled together in the midst of this judgment. God's instructing, God's disciplining, God's chastening, and how is he making us understand and receive this chastening, this discipline.

It's out of his law. He's teaching us out of his law. To the end he may give us rest And so when that rest comes and righteousness is established again and the path that we should walk in lies before us, the upright in heart follow in that path. The writer to the Hebrews in chapter 12 and verse 11 sums up God's intention in all of the chastening of His children. He says, now, no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful.

Nevertheless, afterward, afterward, it yields the peaceable fruit of what? Righteousness to those who have been trained by it. This chastening, this discipline of God, when it's complete, when it's done, it's looking for a fruit, this peaceable fruit of righteousness that will only be learned by those who are instructed by it, those who have received the instruction of God out of his law in the midst of the chastening and of this trouble. Well may God give grace to us as a church to be fully convinced and controlled by the realities that in the midst of persecution and adversity that God will not cast us off nor forsake us but will use these adversities to reestablish righteousness and to place us afresh on the pursuit of this righteousness. This indeed is the promised care of Christ for His church.

Well then in verses 16 through 19, we come to the comfort of the Christian in the plentitude of anxieties. The comfort of the Christian in the plentitude of anxieties. Here in these next four verses, the psalmist honestly reflects on his own personal struggles to live consistent with what his mind and heart have been assured of. He's just said, blessed is the man. I know this.

Blessed is the man. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God will not abandon his church. I know that God will not forsake his people. But alas, alas, he draws attention to this great chasm that exists in the 16 inches between his head and his heart, between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, between knowledge and application. Having stated the intentions of his father in heaven to personally bring him into a place of rest from the days of adversity, he declares his own personal anxiety, wondering who will rise up for me against the evildoers?

Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? And we should not think that the piety of the psalmist was such that he was directing this to God. The next verses indicate that he found himself in a spiritual slippery place to the extent extent that his soul had almost anticipated its utter end, lying silent in the grave. Well bless God for the testimony of the psalmist that the Lord drew near and helped him. He begins verse 17 with the word, unless.

17 with the word unless. Unless this small, seemingly insignificant word always gives hope when hopelessness seems overwhelming. My dear brothers and sisters, is this not your testimony today? Looking back at specific times of adversity in your life, specific moments when anxiety had you in its clutches, can you not testify to this very fact that God was your help? And does that all-important significant word, that all-important significant word, come to your mind unless, unless, where would you be Had he not been your help?

What would have become of you in those times when none would rise up for you or stand with you unless? The fact is that God has promised comfort even in the midst of the plentitude of anxieties. And these realities of God's help in times past produce a hope in the present circumstances. Do you see that? He says unless the Lord had been my help my soul would soon have settled in silence.

But what does he say next? If I say, if I now were to say, my foot slips, Your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up." The writer here says that even if he should be persuaded that his feet right now are slipping. Yet experience, experience has taught that the mercy of God will hold him up and keep him from utterly falling. He had come to the realization by experience that the mercies of God are truly new every morning. We sang that earlier.

Great is your faithfulness. Experience has taught me that you are faithful, and if my soul should say My feet are slipping, yet your mercies will hold me up. Now, did this knowledge, did this experience free him from all anxieties and from all worries? He's focused on God's help. He knows God's mercies are new every morning and will hold him up.

But did this knowledge and this experience free him from all anxieties and worries? The psalmist reveals to us that he was still dealing inwardly with a multitude of anxieties. Brothers and sisters, this side of eternity we will never know the eradication of fears and anxieties. It's not going to happen. This side of eternity.

And this is not due to a deficiency in the grace and mercy of God. This is not due to a deficiency in His to a deficiency in his sanctifying us. It is due to the reality that we are weak, mortal creatures, and that though we may be saved and in Christ Jesus, we still battle daily with the sins and the struggles of our own heart. John Calvin in commenting on this verse says the following, believers are conscious of two very different states of mind. On the one hand, they are afflicted and distressed with various fears and anxieties.

On the other, there is a secret joy communicated to them from above, and this in accommodation to their necessity, so as to preserve them from being swallowed up by any complication or force of calamity which may assail them." There are two things going on. There are two things going on. And he says this is true of every Christian and believers are conscious of it. It's not something that we don't know. We know it.

We know it. And the psalmist here speaks of it. But even though, even though the psalmist was well aware and declared openly to you, he didn't keep it secret, I'm not going to let anybody know about this, even though he was well aware of the multitude, the plentitude of anxieties within his very heart, he was also very aware of the comfort of his God. He had this secret joy that Calvin spoke of, this secret joy communicated to him by the mouth of God through the instruction of His law. My dear ones, are you sucking the sweet nectar of the comfort of God in His Word that He provides in the midst of adversity?

Do you know anything of the multiplying effect of grace and peace that come to us through the exceedingly great and precious promises of God that Peter mentions to his readers in the first chapter of the second epistle. One of my favorite hymns is, God moves in a mysterious way. Here are the words to that great hymn. God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform, He plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. Deep, deep in unfathomable minds of never failing skill, He treasures up his bright designs and Works his sovereign will Ye fearful Saints Fresh courage take The clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour. The bud, it may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err and scan his work in vain.

God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain. Now what escapes? What escapes? The enhancement of the experience of most who are blessed by the words of this hymn. What escapes him is the fact that it was written by a man who was actually plagued with anxieties throughout his entire life.

Anxieties and fears that at times brought him to the brink of taking his own life. His name was William Cooper. And his anxieties and fears were not due to a lack of the knowledge of God. I just read you his words. Did they not speak to you?

These are his words. His anxieties and fears were not due to a fact that he didn't know God. In fact, one of his closest friends, one of his best friends was John Newton. And John Newton sought to minister to his friend and he wrote to him often. So allow me to read an excerpt from one of the letters that John sent to William.

I'm reading from the works of John Newton, page 386 and 387, in the midst of writing to William Cooper, he says, I can only advise you to resist to the uttermost every dark and discouraging suggestion. The Lord has done great things for you and wonderfully appeared in your behalf already. Take encouragement from him to hope that he will not forsake his work of his own hands. There is much weight in the Apostles argument in Romans 5 10. Surely he who showed us mercy before we asked it will not withhold it now he has taught us how to plead for it agreeably to his own will.

Though sin has abounded in us, grace has super abounded in him. Though our enemies are many and mighty, Jesus is above them all. Though he may hide himself from us at times for a moment, he has given us a warrant to trust in Him even while we walk in darkness and His promise to return and gather us with everlasting mercies. The Christian calling like many others is easy and clear in theory but not without much care and difficulty to be reduced to practice. Things appear quite otherwise when felt experimentally to what they do and only read in a book.

Many learn the art of navigation as it is called by the fireside at home, But when they come to see with their heads full of rules and without experience, they find that the art is only to be thoroughly learnt upon the spot. So to renounce self, to live upon Jesus, to walk with God, to overcome the world, to hope against hope, to trust the Lord when we cannot trace Him, and to know that our duty and privilege consist in these things may be readily acknowledged or quickly learned, but upon repeated trial we find that saying and doing are two things. We think it's setting out that we sit down and count the cost, but alas our views are so superficial at first that we have occasion to correct our estimates daily. For every day shows us some new thing in the harder, some new turn in the management of the war against us, which we were not aware of, and upon these accounts discouragements may arise so high as to bring us, I speak for myself, to the very point of throwing down our arms and making either a tame surrender or a shameful flight.

Thus it would be with us at last if the Lord of hosts were not on our side. But though our enemies thrust sore at us that we might fall, He has been our stay. And if He is the captain of our salvation, if His eye is upon us, His arm stretched out around us, and His ear opened to our cry, And if he has engaged to teach our hands to war and our fingers to fight and to cover our heads in the day of battle, then we need not fear. And though a host, though a host rise up against us, but lifting up our banner in His name, let us go forth conquering and to conquer. And then he closes the letter by saying, let us strive and pray for an habitual resignation to his will, for he does all things well.

Well. It is never ill with us, but when our evil hearts doubt or forget this plainest of truths." And thus John Newton sought to speak comfort, to speak peace of God to his friend, William Cooper. Well, the final point is just taken from the final four verses of the chapter. I don't intend to spend any more time in these verses other than to give you the last heading along with just a couple of thoughts. It's the complete cutting off of the perpetrators of wickedness.

The complete cutting off of the perpetrators of wickedness. Yes, God has heard. Yes, God has seen. He has weighed the thoughts of men and found them futile. And though the perpetrators of wickedness gather together against the life of the righteous in order to condemn innocent blood, Jehovah will be the defense and strong rock of his people.

He will completely cut off the proud and the wicked in their own wickedness. Perhaps your mind has run to the words of Asaph found in Psalm 73. Asaph was overcome with anxiety as he contemplated the prosperity of the wicked as compared to his own lot as described in verse 14 of Psalm 73, for all day long I have been plagued and chastened every morning. Just like the writer of Psalm 94, Asaph was convinced, he was convinced of the goodness of God to his people, to those who are pure in heart. Yet he was not convinced that God was such to him.

He lacked confidence and comfort in his own personal condition before God. So he said in contrast, but as for me, but as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. Sounds much like the psalmist in Psalm 94. And two things released him, two things released him from the strong grip of anxiety that had laid hold on him. It was the purpose of God in relation to him and the purpose of God in relation to the wicked.

And guess what? These two things were brought to the forefront of his attention when? When he came into the house of God. Where are you today? You are in the house of God.

This is where these two things became so clear to him. He says, when I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me until I went to the sanctuary of God. Then, then I understood their end. Surely you set them in slippery places. You cast them down to destruction.

Oh, how they are brought to desolation is in a moment. They are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awakes, So, Lord, when you awake, you shall despise their image." Thus my heart was grieved and I was vexed in my mind. I was so foolish and ignorant. Remember how The psalmist had said that his enemies were foolish and ignorant because they hadn't thought of these things.

He said, I was foolish and ignorant. I was thinking that God did not see. He did not understand. I was so foolish and ignorant. I was like a beast before you.

Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with your counsel." There's the instruction of the law. "...You will guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you?

And there is none upon earth that I desire beside you. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For indeed, those who are far from you shall perish. You have destroyed all those who desert you for harlotry, but it is good for me to draw near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord God that I may declare all your works." And so there you have the Psalm.

There you have the Psalm. I would love to stop and read Lamentations chapter 3. Would you do that sometime in this week? Would you go and read Lamentations chapter 3? It's Jeremiah unveiling his heart to you, a man who knew anxieties far above ours.

And the song that we sang, great is your faithfulness, the mercies that are new every morning. Where do those words come from? Lamentations 3, where Jeremiah described to himself as being sought after as by a lion, by God. God was crouching as a lion. He has broken my teeth by making me to eat gravel.

Here was a man that was almost overcome by his anxieties, yet he set his hope in the Lord, and he knew that God's mercies would be new to him every morning. Well may God give us a help as a people that in the multitude of our anxieties that God's comfort will delight our souls. Let's look to Him in prayer. O gracious God, we thank You for your word. Lord, we thank you for the clarity, the openness of the psalmist to declare these things to us.

Lord, we find ourselves a people full of fear, full of doubt, full of anxieties. Lord, in the midst of all these things, May we learn how to cast our care upon you, for you do care for us. Help us, O Lord, to know that we are blessed in all of its fullness no matter where we are in our progression and sanctification. For, Lord, you've begun a work and you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. Help us to hope in you and to not be overcome by our cares and our anxieties.

In the name of Christ we pray, Amen.