In your Bibles this evening, congregation, we would invite you to turn to Psalm 31. We'll read the psalm in its entirety, but then focus our attention tonight especially upon verse 15. And we do note that the flower fades and the grass withers, but the word of our God has and indeed shall stand forever. We have an authoritative word being inspired by God, a word that is infallible and that is inerrant, that is to be authoritative for our doctrine and for our life. And so we turn to it with humble reliance. Reading Psalm 31. In you, O Lord, I put my trust. Let me never be ashamed. Deliver me in your righteousness. Bow down your ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be my rock of refuge, a fortress of defense to save me. For you are my rock and my fortress. Therefore, for your name's sake, lead me and guide me. Pull me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me, for you are my strength. Into your hand I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. I have hated those who regard useless idols, but I trust in the Lord. I will be glad and rejoice in your mercy, for you have considered my trouble and have known my soul in adversities and have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy. You have set my feet in a wide place. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble. My eye wastes away with grief, yes, my soul and my body. For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away. I am a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and am repulsive to my acquaintances. Those who see me outside flee from me. I am forgotten like a dead man out of mind. I am like a broken vessel. For I hear the slander of many. Fear is on every side. While they take counsel together against me, they scheme to take away my life. But as for me, I trust in you, O Lord. I say, you are my God. My times are in your hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me. Make your face shine upon your servant. Save me for your mercy's sake. Do not let me be ashamed, O Lord, for I have called upon you. Let the wicked be ashamed. Let them be silent in the grave. Let the lying lips be put to silence, which speak insolent things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous. Oh how great is your goodness which you have laid up for those who fear you, which you have prepared for those who trust in you in the presence of the sons of men. You shall hide them in the secret place of your presence from the plots of man. You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. Blessed be the Lord, for he has shown me his marvelous kindness in a strong city. For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before your eyes. Nevertheless, you heard the voice of my supplications when I cried out to you. O love the Lord, all you his saints, for the Lord preserves the faithful and fully repays the proud person. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord. Thus far our reading from the Word of God for this evening. a congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you bear with an anecdotal introduction, I well remember it, I don't think I'll ever forget, at my ordination and my installation into the ministry, I was told that there is and will always be a heart that is breaking in every single church pew. And over the years, I've come to realize the truth of that. Whatever it may be, whoever it may be, there is this common experience of sorrow, of discouragement, of trouble, you might say. And in our day, as in the psalmist's day, as in every day, there are a variety of circumstances and a variety of factors that come into play that cause the people of God anxiety, you might say, and fears and discouragement. It might be the weakness of elderly years. It might be the loss of a loved one. It might be the brokenness or the strain within a relationship. It might be on a global or a national level. It might be disappointment with the processes of the election year. It might be concerns about the economic trends. It might be something deeper. It might be the struggle that we have with our own sinful nature. It might be the times that we fall into the ensnarements of sin. Whatever it is, the Bible bears witness and experience testifies to the fact that in the pews of the churches sit people with troubled hearts. And that's why the Word of God comes so powerfully tonight, when it says, for you and for me, to be of good courage, to hope in the Lord, And I often think this is really what we need as we begin another week in our earthly pilgrimage. We need a moment of quietness. We need a moment of rest. We need a moment in which we can, before we face the realities of life here as a pilgrim, we need a moment to hear our God speak to us and remind us to be of good courage and to strengthen our hearts. Now the basis for that courage or the ground for that taking of heart is never to be found in anything in and of ourself. We don't come here tonight just to motivate ourselves, just to work ourselves up into some type of fervent frenzy, but rather we come here tonight to be reminded of who our God is. in the Lord Jesus Christ, and who he is especially for us as his people. And our God is an unchangeable God, a God who in Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. A God who in Christ has said that he would never leave us. that He would never forsake us. And so tonight, briefly, consider with me this theme taken from Psalm 31, verse 15. My times are in your hands. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me. A simple theme, our lives in the hands of God. Now, we want to consider that theme tonight underneath the need for the hands, and then secondly, the description of the hands, and then thirdly, the benefit from the hands. So, for the people of God, we are reminded tonight, amidst all of the trouble and all of the apparent discouragement, our lives are in the hands of God. And we'll notice why that is so necessary, and then the description of what that is, and then the benefits. The need for the hands of God. The hands of God in our lives, under our lives, above our lives, around our lives, is so necessary because of the troubles in life. And you'll notice that the psalmist speaks realistically. And he gives expression, not just to the reality of trials, but to the intensity of these trials. It's a emotional psalm. Now, of course, it's given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but it comes out of the experience of David himself. You can just pick at random almost, but verse 10, you might say, encapsulates his experience. My life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing. That's the experience, the intense experience that David has. And no doubt it is in part because of the troubling enemies that he faces within life. So the people of God speak through the psalmist David and they express the fact of the matter that we do indeed have the intense experience of trouble in part because of the enemies that we face. The enemy of Satan, the enemy of sin, the enemy of the world. Verse 15, Psalms expresses that. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies. The picture is that the enemies are all around him, and they look upon him with hatred, and they sneer at him. Even as he goes about his daily life, you'll notice verse 11, I am a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and am repulsive. to my acquaintances. Those who see me outside flee from me. I am forgotten like a dead man out of mind. I am a broken vessel. The wicked men of this world continue to sin, continue to plot, continue to work, continue to sneer, continue to laugh, continue to hate. It's a common experience for the people of God to receive something of that sneer and of that hate and of that plotting. Not only are there enemies in His life, but there are these troubling circumstances. The troubling circumstances are described in the first half of verse 9. Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am in trouble. And there's a wonderful vagueness to this inspired verse. I am in trouble. We don't know exactly what type of trouble he's in. But it bears fleshing this out that it includes all that brings pain and turmoil and fears and disappointments. And so it's applicable to a whole host of circumstances. And so the cry really is, Heavenly Father, I need your hands because I find myself surrounded by enemies and I am in trouble. but he goes on there is this need for the hands that we trust you can relate to already because of the troubles in life but also because of the sin of man and this important link needs to be made because it's made in scripture and it needs to be made in our theology that trouble in life and that pain and distress and fear and ultimately death itself is intimately linked to the sin of man. Notice verse 10, how this is woven in here. And so much of this psalm, of course, you know, we trust, will be taken up by the Lord Jesus Christ as He suffers and as He dies. But verse 10, my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away. Now in one certain regard, you can say that Christ also said this, only as he bore as the mediator the guilt of the sins of his people upon himself. So you can indeed say with Isaiah 53 that our iniquity was laid upon him. And that's why he sighed. And that's why his strength, you might say, failed. But not iniquity in the sense of his own inherent sinfulness. But the psalmist in Psalm 31 verse 10 recognizes the fact that in some way, direct way, the trouble that we experience is a result of sin. Now that's not to say that every single trouble we experience is a direct result of some personal sin which we have committed. But the pain and the brokenness that you see all around congregation, that's a result of sin. It was not that way, to say it this way, prior to the fall. Death, disease, disaster, turmoil, conflict, chaos, confusion, they were not there. in the beginning. Because in the beginning God looked upon that which he had made and he pronounced it was very good. And I trust even the boys and the girls know the story. Sin entered into the picture, sin entered into the garden, sin entered into the world, and all of the disease, death, pain, and sorrow that flows out of that reality. And so while many deny or ignore, overlook the reality of their iniquity, the people of God must come to see, must come to see that we have a need for the hands of God because of our own sin. and because of our own rebellion. And so it's all connected together. You and I, we, we need the hands of God because we're in trouble. A trouble that has at its very identifying source our own sin. The reality of the experience of troubles in life and the sin of our iniquity brings this pressing need for the hands of God. And I ask you tonight, beloved congregation, and as individuals, do you see your need for the hands of God? I hope and I trust that you're not self-reliant. I hope and I trust that you're not already making your plans, well I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that and I'm going to do these things and I have the potential within myself. You need the hands of God. And notice in our second point the description of the hands. There's really two things here also that we want to say about the hands of God. And of course, that's a figure of speech, boys and girls. God Himself does not have hands like we have hands. He does not have a body like we have a body. Now the Lord Jesus Christ, in His birth and His incarnation, took a very real human nature. And so Jesus Christ, you remember, He has hands, and He showed those hands to Thomas, and they bore the print of the nail that had pierced them. But God in His divine nature does not have hands, and yet God comes down and He speaks to us in this wonderful way, so that we can relate. And so boys and girls, I want you to think of your father's hands. Now, I know there's many, many things, dads, about our hands that are not true about God's hands, but there is some similarity. The first thing we would note about the hands of God is that they are covenantal hands. They're covenantal hands. Verse 14 describes this. If you look carefully, and I should have checked, but I believe that your Pew Bible is the New King James Version. But as for me, I trust in you, O Lord. And you notice that the translators have encapsulated all of the letters of that divine name, Lord. And any time you see that, it's like a golden nugget. Just hold on to that divine name. Yahweh, the unchangeable God of covenants. You'll notice also that the psalmist says, but as for me, I trust in You, O Lord. I say, You are my God. Now each and every word is inspired. The psalmist doesn't just say, You are God. That certainly is a theological truth, but the psalmist owns it. And he says, You are my God. I trust in You, O Lord. You are my God. You'll notice also verse 16 describes the blessings of this covenant relationship. Make your face shine upon your servant. And I hope that if you've been raised in the Reformed Church, you immediately begin to think of the blessing that God instructed Aaron to give to the congregation of Israel, the people of God. It's a blessing that you still hear Sunday by Sunday. that the Lord would cause his face to shine upon us. Now what does that mean? It means that the Lord would look favorably upon us with his love and with his grace and with his mercy. And that he would do so because he has established in his grace and in his mercy this bond, this relationship of a covenant and this idea People of God, we cannot lose this truth or this understanding that our God is a covenantal God and that He has bound Himself to us in an unbreakable relationship of communion and of peace and of fellowship. So how is it that we can walk forward amidst all of the uncertainties of life? It's with this heartbeat of faith. I will say, You are my God. Lord. And you have promised and you have bound, you have tied yourself to us as your people. This covenantal promise that includes us and our children is summed up in its very essence with God saying, I will be your God and you will be my people and I will never leave you. and I will never forsake you. Turn over in your Bible to one passage or just listen along. Isaiah 49, this is wonderfully expressed in reference again to the hands of God, this covenantal relationship, which again is something that is based upon mercy and grace. But in Isaiah 49, verse 13 and following, sing, O heavens, be joyful, O earth, and break out in singing, O mountains. For the Lord, you see that Yahweh name there again, the Lord has comforted his people. Perhaps you think of the first question and answer of our Heidelberg Catechism, what is your only comfort in life and in death? And you could really condense that answer down, that I have a covenant with the Lord God. The Lord has comforted his people and he will have mercy on his afflicted. But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me and my Lord has forgotten me. The people of Israel find themselves complaining and the prophet speaks the word of God. 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. Now it's a rhetorical question referring to a mother and a nursing child. What mother would forget her child in such a precarious situation when they're totally dependent upon their mother? I was always amazed, and I think it still bears out in a certain measure of truth. A child could be crying in a nursery or in a group of children, and fathers, it seems like the cries all sound the same, but a mother, she knows her child. Even in the midst of all kinds of cries, a mother will say, that's mine. She knows, she hears, she has an ear that's tuned. And that's what God is saying to His people. A mother may forget her child, but God will never forget His people. He has written our names into His hands. And with this knowledge of God's covenant hands and in the experience of troubling circumstances, there is at the beginning of Psalm 31, verse 1, in you, O Lord, I put my trust. They're covenantal hands, people of God. Put your trust into the covenant promise, the safety and the security put your trust by the exercise of faith. That's what the psalmist is saying. In you, O covenantal Lord God, I will put my trust and I will exercise my faith and I will focus my reliance. They're covenant hands and they're good hands. They're good hands. What that means is the psalm emphasizes the fact or the truth that the hands of God towards his people are hands of goodness. Now when we speak about God being good, that's an attribute, it's a characteristic of who he is. And he himself defines what is good ultimately. And when we say that God is good, it means he is good in and of himself. He is exactly what he ought to be. There is a perfection to him. But being good in and of himself, he also is the overflowing fountain of all good. And so notice verse 19. The psalmist, you might almost say, shifts gears. And that's the experience of faith. Faith looks upon all of the circumstances in this life, but then looks at the covenant hands of God. And the psalmist says, oh how great is your goodness. Again, as we read the psalm, we tried to emphasize that, but you can look at it again. This is all set against the context of verse 9 and 10 of his wasting away, of his strength failing, of him being a reproach, of him being repulsive, of him being broken, of him being slandered against. But then he says, but I will trust in you, O Lord," in verse 14. And then in verse 19, you might say he's on the mountain peaks of faith, and he says, oh, how great is your goodness, which you have laid up for those who fear you, which you have prepared for those who trust in you in the presence of the sons of men. And so these covenantal hands are good hands, in that from all of eternity, These covenantal hands have laid something up, have put in place through the provision and through the promise and through the gracious providence of redemption, there is that which is great, which is laid up and put in store for those who fear the Lord. He has prepared a new heaven and a new earth. He has prepared for a full redemption. And you see that unfolded in Revelation chapter 21, when the covenant relationship between God and His people comes to a full culmination. There it says, every single tear will be wiped away. All things will be new. That is what the good hands of the Lord our God has laid up for those who fear Him, for those who cry out to Him, for those who trust in Him. These hands are hands of goodness, hands of mercy. Notice verse 7, I will be glad and rejoice in your mercy. Mercy is that attribute of God. It's a compassionate pity, a benevolent heart. You see also verse 9, have mercy on me. You notice in verse 16, save me for your mercy's sake. The goodness of God directs itself to his people with these attributes and actions of mercy and of the twin grace of grace itself. And because these hands are good and filled with mercy, they are kind. I don't mean in a superficial way, but in the fullest sense of the word, that the hands of our Father are kind hands as they deal with His people, especially in the midst of affliction and especially in times of trial. Notice verse 21. You could spend all evening considering these attributes. Blessed be the Lord, for He has shown me His marvelous kindness. So here's what you have, the psalmist on the one hand, he says I need the hands of God because I'm in the midst of anguish and I'm in the midst of torment, I'm surrounded by enemies, I'm in the midst of my own sin, but then his faith is directed and he sees the covenant hands of a good God. And he comes to be reminded that in Christ, who ultimately spoke the words of Psalm 31, that in Christ and for the sake of Christ and on the basis of Christ, the hands of God are open to him. And that the hands of God are hands that are radiating goodness and mercy and kindness. And especially in a time of trouble. And maybe in your personal life you find yourself in a time of trouble. Maybe in ecclesiastical life we at times find ourselves in the midst of trouble. And when we look on the national scene or the global scene, maybe we say, well, in many ways indeed we are in a context such as Psalm 31. Just read a report that last calendar year, more Christians in this world were martyred than in the two years prior put together. And so in many, many ways, you might say, we need the hands of God. And they're there. And when we embrace the hand of God through faith, there is a benefit. And that brings us into our third point, the benefit from the good hands of God. We want to describe it to some extent and then also make application. So there is this deliverance. Deliverance or redemption. You think in the Old Testament especially, the concept of Redeemer, or of purchasing or liberating someone from bondage was a concept that ran all throughout the Old Testament, tying especially into the release or the captivity of the slaves in Egypt. But over and over and over, God says that He is a Redeemer, and that He brings about redemption, and that He brings about deliverance. And this deliverance is not just something that happens in an empty space of a vacuum. And this also congregation is why going forward in the providence of God as congregation and as congregations and as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, we need a biblical, healthy, robust, covenantal theology because deliverance comes only by the deliverer. the mediator, the one who has been appointed from all of eternity to obtain peace between God and man, and the one who has been qualified by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to take this psalm and to make it his own, and to say, I am a worm and I am no man, and I suffer the reproaches of all of my enemies, especially my neighbors. And that's why we say you can't just come. Well, I suppose you could. We shouldn't. We must not just come and speak some type of empty air promises that tomorrow will be even better than today. Now go out and get after it. But rather we need something more solid, something more true, something more biblical. And it is this, the triune God of heaven and of earth. because of reasons within himself, has established a bond of friendship and of communion with his people. delivering them from their sin and from their misery by the work of the mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. And the psalmist, and now you can debate how much of this whole work of redemption in his context in history he understands, but he understands something of it. He understands that his God will deliver him. And because he understands the certainty of the deliverance of God, even in the midst of troubling circumstances, he has a sure note of hope and of confidence. Now, we've already referenced verse 19. Oh, how great is your goodness, which you have laid up for those who fear you, which you have prepared for those who trust in you. But also notice verse 24. Be of good courage. and he shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord." And to be honest with you, I don't know if it's that I'm prone to have a pessimistic spirit, but I find myself having to say these words to myself quite a bit. And perhaps you do also. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart. And when you look at Reformed churches, and when you listen to Reformed churches, I believe that we all need to hear this echoing refrain. People of God, hope in the Lord and be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart. because he is a covenant God who has good hands filled with mercy and grace and of kindness. Now notice very, very carefully and very, very important that the psalmist does not take courage or strength in and of himself. He takes courage and he takes strength and he hopes in the Lord. Now if you've read your New Testament, which I'm sure you have, and especially the Apostle Paul, you know that the Apostle Paul's favorite prepositional phrase is, in him or in Christ. That's what the psalmist is saying. And that brings us to this truth that this is a particular benefit. In the Lord is where there is hope. in the Lord, by way of reconciliation, by way of redemption, by way of deliverance, by way of salvation. That is where there is the hope and the confidence of salvation. You'll notice that the Bible is a Bible that is marked by contrast. And you see that, for example, in verse 17. Do not let me be ashamed, O Lord, for I have called upon you. Let the wicked be ashamed. Let them be silent in the grave. The contrast is also marked there in verse 23. O love the Lord, all you his saints, for the Lord preserves the faithful and fully repays the proud person. And so this is a particular promise, a particular benefit, And the point simply is this, the hands of God are covenantal, the hands of God are good, the hands of God are merciful, and the hands of God are kind. And the hand of God, you might say, is open with the overtures of the gospel call. But there are many who refuse to extend the hand of faith. And thus they never link, you might say, to this covenantal God who is good and who is kind and who is gracious. Plain, you might say, on the word picture of hand, Isaiah 59, behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save. There's nothing wrong with the work of God. There's nothing missing in the work of God. There's nothing incomplete with the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear. And then God says to the rebellious in Israel, but your iniquities have separated you from your God. your sins have hidden his face from you. And if these words speak to anyone tonight who is unreconciled with God, who's living in unbelief, although it may be cloaked with a masterful disguise of hypocrisy, God comes to you and to me tonight and says, you're in a world of trouble. The hands of God are the only thing that can save. His arm is not shortened. Do not be like our fathers in Psalm 95. Do not harden our hearts, but believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, because I testify to you that the day will come in which God's hand of gospel overtures will be over. And that's why the emphasis today, if you hear His voice, not tomorrow, not next week, not next year, but today, the hand of forbearance, you might say, will fold itself into the fist of judgment. The hand that is open now with forbearance at the appointed time of the coming of the King of Kings will close into the fist of judgment against all the enemies of God. And so there is this distinction that is made. But that, of course, doesn't take away from the reality that the benefit is one that is of tremendous content for the people of God. My times are in Your hands. In You, O Lord, I put my trust. Have mercy upon me." And the greatness of the goodness of the Lord has laid up for those who fear Him in the exercise of faith unspeakable blessings. So in light of verse 1 and in light of verse 14, there is this call to faith, to trust in the Lord for our deliverance from trouble, both for time and for eternity. And so in closing, when you step back and think about this, right, we all read this psalm not only in its context, which of course is very, very important for a proper understanding of it, but we read this psalm in our context. And one thing that's interesting is that the contexts are really quite similar. The psalmist was in trouble, we find ourselves in trouble. The psalmist acknowledged his iniquity. We acknowledge our iniquity. The psalmist looked by faith to the Lord God who had established a covenant in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, and we also look to a Lord God who has established a covenant promise through the Lord Jesus Christ. The psalmist saw by faith hands of God that were good and were kind and were merciful, and that's what we also see tonight through the Word of God. Hands that are covenantal, that are good, that are kind, that are merciful. And so while our hearts may be breaking within our pews, we take those hearts by faith and we place them into the hands of our Lord God. And we say to ourselves on the basis of the word of God, O love the Lord, all you his saints, for the Lord preserves the faithful. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord. Amen. Our Father in heaven, we come acknowledging with great joy and thankfulness and comfort and confidence that our times are in your hands. We acknowledge that those are good hands to have our lives in, and we pray that you would remind us of those truths. Heavenly Father, bless us with the knowledge of who you are in the Lord Jesus Christ. May we go forth singing and praising songs of joy and gladness within our hearts as we reflect upon you and your covenantal promises. We ask this for Jesus' sake, amen.