It is true that he will punish sin, and punish it everlastingly but God is good for all that. But the child of God says that, though they will certainly be cast into hell, God is good for all that. “It cannot be,” they say, “that the wicked will be cast into hell, for God is good ” and they argue that therefore the ungodly will not be punished. The Lord is good.” There are some persons who, even in their theology, do not believe God to be good. Here is a man of God, in the midst of the overwhelming flood, standing up, and saying, I The Lord is good. Oh, what a rebuff the archfiend had when Job, on his dunghill scraping his sores, and with his children dead and his property gone, yet said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away blessed be the name of the Lord.” That is the spirit of our text. It is one thing to sit under your vine and fig tree, and to sing, “The Lord is good.” It is quite another thing when the vine and fig tree have both been cut down, and all your comfort is gone, still to say, “The Lord is good.” Do you not think that, if we fail to say it the second time, it will look as if, after all, it was the vine and fig tree that were good, and not God or, at least, that our view of God’s goodness was very much derived from the fact of our being in so much comfort? It was an accusation which Satan brought against Job that he loved God for what he got out of him: “Hast not thou made a hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side?” The devil is very apt to charge God’s people with having a cupboard love but it is well for us to refute that accusation by loving, praising, and adoring God when comforts fail, when the hedge is broken, and when the things that we received with gratitude are at length in wisdom taken away. It is well for us to be able to say so when the day of trouble is really upon us. ![]() First, then, let us think of GOD HIMSELF: “Jehovah is good.” First, let us think of God himself: “The Lord is good.” Then let our minds ponder a little upon what God is to us: “a strong hold in the day of trouble.” And then we will change the theme a little, and speak of God with us: “He knoweth them that trust in him.” I invite you, dear friends, to consider this text, and may the Holy Spirit make the meditation which will follow to be useful! There are three things here to be thought about. Nothing shall harm them though the earth be removed, and the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea, they may rejoice in the goodness of the Lord in the day of his fierce anger. Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.” Then, just as there has sometimes been a break, and a delightful silence, in the very midst of some tremendous chorus of sacred song, so here the thunder pauses, the hurricane is stayed, and we hear the sweet music of this still small voice: “Jehovah is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble and he knoweth them that trust in him,” - from which we may gather that there is always a hiding-place for his people, his eyes of love are fixed on them even when they flash fire upon his adversaries. ![]() The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein. ![]() He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth. “The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. Listen a minute to the prophet’s words of terror. It boils, and seethes, and flows with overwhelming force, bearing everything before it yet, right in the middle of the surging flood stands out, like a green island, this most cheering, comforting, and delightful text. HAVE you read this chapter through? It is a very terrible one it is like the rushing of a mighty river when it is nearing a cataract. “The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble and he knoweth them that trust in him.” - Nahum i.
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