Philippians (Quality: Good)

[0:00] I direct your attention to the 19th verse in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians.

[0:12] The Epistle to the Philippians, chapter 4, verse 19. But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

[0:33] The 19th verse, the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians. We read this chapter last Lord's Day and in our remarks we made a further reference to the love the Apostle bore toward this Philippian church.

[0:57] There is another reference to it in the first verse of this fourth chapter where he calls them, my brethren, dearly beloved and long for, my joy and crown.

[1:15] In writing also his Epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul said, Ye are our Epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men.

[1:34] In writing also to the church at Thessalonica, he said, Ye are our glory and our joy. And you will notice through this chapter how that the Apostle, in speaking of his love to them, he also commends them for their labor of love, respecting himself in particular.

[2:01] How he rejoiced, as he says in the 10th verse, that their care of him flourished again and again.

[2:12] He spoke a little of what he himself endured. He knew both how to be abased and how to abound. He said, Everywhere and in all things I am instructed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

[2:31] He says, I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. But in consideration of what these Philippians had done for him, coming now right down to the words I've read as a text, the Apostle was in that place where in effect he might say now, there is nothing or at least very little I can do in return for you.

[2:54] You have been instrumental in the hands of God of supplying my need. Now then, my God shall supply yours. Here then, friends, you will see the sense of these words as spoken by the Apostle Paul.

[3:14] The Apostle could say this, having proved the faithfulness and the goodness of God in his own pathway.

[3:47] And, dear friends, you know there are times when, although maybe we can speak of so little, of what we hope the Lord has done for us, there are times when faith bubbles up in our heart and we give vent to an expression which does really portray the real nature of that faith in our hearts.

[4:20] And I believe I can say, at this time, even as the Apostle Paul did, that in the case of those among you here this evening who fear God, that my God shall supply all your need.

[4:41] I thought of it now in regard to our desires for those whom we love. You parents, I do not know what you desire for your children or any of you, what you desire for those whom you love.

[4:56] I do know this, that there is one thing which transcends all other things, and that is that the Lord might bless them in their own soul.

[5:07] And, dear friends, here, look at this wonderful truth. There are those of you this evening who have a hope through the mercy of God. And if it is indeed true that God has quickened you into divine life, called you by his grace, then this word is true of you.

[5:27] My God, this God, this God of which the Apostle speaks here, shall supply all your need. You have been brought, maybe in some measure, to feel your need.

[5:41] Day by day, your needs in grace, your needs in providence. But see the scope of this promise. My God, shall supply all your need.

[5:54] What a wonderful truth. There is no want to them that fear God. If God is yours, it shall be well. It shall be well in time. It shall be well in eternity.

[6:07] It shall be well with you in body. It shall be well with you in soul. It shall be well with you in life, and well with you in death. In every state, secure, kept as Jehovah's eye, it is well with them whilst life endure, and well when caught to die.

[6:28] Oh, my dear friends, sometimes when we are brought to realize a little of the blessedness of those who truly fear God, when we look at others who are destitute of that gracious, saving knowledge of Christ, then we see them in their poverty, and well might we mourn on their behalf.

[6:53] Ah, you know, how little do the ungodly know what they miss. And I mean what I say. I suppose there are many among the ungodly, and I fear among those who are found in some sort of a profession, who will readily despise God's people, when, particularly when they are called to walk in dark paths, as indeed many of God's dear people are.

[7:22] I've spoken before of some of those paths which David walked in. How thankful we've been many, many times for the prayers of David.

[7:34] But he knew what a prison house experience was. He knew what it was to walk in darkness. He knew what it was to mourn over his felt absence from God, and over his own sins, whereas then, there are those in the professing world, and I'm sure there are those in the world which lies in the wicked one, who would say, well, I do not want such an experience as that.

[8:00] Yet, my dear friends, even in providential matters, I can tell you this, if you are out of the secret, you have missed much. Because those who have the fear of God implanted in their heart, they have a God to go to.

[8:19] Some of you, doubtless, have lived in the first hymn we sang this evening, a wonderful place to be brought to. Think just for a moment, friends. May I apply it to myself.

[8:30] If this God is mine, and I trust he is, there never will be one need from this time to the moment, yea, the hour and article of death, but what my God will surely supply it.

[8:47] Oh, do you not covet such an experience? Doubtless, there are some of you too, who, with whom the Lord is dealing, maybe he's laid upon you his hand in providence.

[8:59] Maybe there's, there's a cloud in the future, on the horizon, some affliction, some trial, and you begin to wonder what it means.

[9:12] But oh, to have recourse to this God, oh, to know the throne of grace, and oh, to have this hope that we are numbered amongst those to whom, those concerning whom the apostle speaks this word of promise.

[9:31] My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now, the needs of God's people, they are many.

[9:45] Take first of all, how that the apostle here, in speaking of his God, he says, my God shall supply all your need. His God was the God of all grace.

[9:58] Oh, dear friends, what grace we need to walk in that path the Lord has set before us. Let us notice, first of all, how that this word is most assuredly true, seeing that the Lord will never lead his people in accordance with his own will and not make abundant provision for them whilst walking in that pathway.

[10:35] You may be sure of this, dear friends, in the Lord's dealings with you, that if the Lord has called you to walk in a certain pathway, your every need in walking out that path he will surely supply.

[10:51] This is strengthening and encouraging to our faith that the Lord will never leave off what he begins. And if you do indeed fear God, you will have a concern as to what the will of God is in everyday matters in your pathway.

[11:09] No child of God can readily move here or there or do this or do that. A child of God at least where faith is in exercise, he is found in this place, Lord, make known thy will to me.

[11:23] Cause me, O Lord, God at all times to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up mine eyes unto thee. We are exhorted in Scripture, wherefore be ye not unwise, understanding what the will of the Lord is.

[11:42] Now you follow out in Scripture, whether in the Old Testament when the patriarchs and prophets of old were led by the Spirit of God in a certain pathway, then you will find how their every need in walking in that path was abundantly supplied by God.

[12:03] And also in the New Testament, wherever the Lord Jesus constrained his disciples to walk in obedience to his command, their every need in walking in that pathway of obedience was supplied by Christ.

[12:22] My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. What a need is felt in the heart of sensible sinners.

[12:36] And here, my dear friends, I believe I can speak a little out of what I feel in my own heart. because doubtless, before I go any further, there are some of you in that place where, as before God, you feel where no man on earth has ever been where I am now.

[12:56] But dear friends, my Bible says there hath no temptation come upon you but such as is common to man. And the Lord will with the temptation make a way of escape.

[13:10] you will find this, again I would not seek to bolster you up by negative evidences, but you will never find a dead professor or a hypocrite come into that place mourning before God and complaining before others, saying nobody's ever been where I am.

[13:32] My dear friends, it may be negative, but I'll tell you this, it's the result of the exercise of the faith of God's elect in the heart. For I say that the dead professor never gets there.

[13:47] Well now, this word of the apostle, my God shall supply all your need, we often feel as David did, he could look back to the time when the Lord had quickened him into divine life, he could look back to the time when God's power had been made known in the first place, but he still wanted that same power to be made known all through his life, so do I friends.

[14:17] I do not know how you get on with your own self, how you can manage the corruptions of your heart, the vileness of your nature, but it often brings me to great distress before God.

[14:30] My mind often goes to that word of one of our poets, he said, oh I sink beneath the load of my nature's evil, full of enmity to God, captived by the devil.

[14:51] I cannot refer to the whole verse just at the moment. Is there one here this evening in that place where your sins bring you, almost to a stand before God, slavish fear coming in upon your spirits, produces in your heart the fearless God will come and cut you off in a moment.

[15:16] Maybe some of you have known what it has been, I remember once if I may refer to it, in a thunderstorm some years ago, and you know there in a thunderstorm we do see the almighty power of God and the absolute impotence of man.

[15:33] And there I felt as if I stood on the very brink of hell, as if the Lord in a moment would cut me off because of my sins. Oh my God shall supply all your need.

[15:46] What does it do, dear friends? And where are you looking to for relief? There's only one place where to we may fly, and that is to this God of all grace, even to the Lord Jesus Christ, that we might receive fresh manifestation of his pardoning love to our soul.

[16:10] Daily to feel thyself undone will make thee haste to kiss the sun, and on thine knees for pardon sue, and praise and bless and love him too.

[16:24] Another one of our poets, he came to this place, where, at the throne of grace, at the feet of the Redeemer, pleading for mercy, he says, supplies of every grace I want, and each day one supply, and if no grace the Lord will grant, I must lie down and die.

[16:48] My God shall supply all your need. And again, we may speak of the various experiences of God's dear people, how they are brought into those places of need, how we need the Lord to come and uphold us in the hour of temptation.

[17:09] And not only when we are tempted to evil, but even when we are tempted to despair, when Satan comes in like a flood and sweeps all before him, all very well for you to have made your resolutions, what you are going to do next time you are tempted to evil, but let Satan come and where are you then?

[17:30] Oh, bless God for this promise. Dear friends, I would exhort you where to look. Ah, you will never save yourself, you will never stand in your own strength, there is only one who can uphold you, and if that power has once been made known in delivering you out of nature's darkness, bringing you into God's marvelous light, you need no less an almighty power than that to uphold you and to keep you in the way.

[17:59] David did, and so have many of God's dear people. Where was David when God's restraining hand was withdrawn from him? Where should we be in like circumstances?

[18:11] my God shall supply all your need, a sense of one's natural sinful propensity, some realization of the corruptions of our own nature, does it not drive us to look to the Lord alone?

[18:33] And dear friends, only he can control your nature and mine. He that bought thee on the cross, can control thy nature.

[18:45] Ah, my God shall supply all your need, and then not only does Satan come as a roaring lion, but he often comes as an angel of light.

[18:56] Friends, look abroad among the numerous denominations on earth today, and see where there are countless multitudes of people with a form of godliness, and yet denying the power there are.

[19:13] I certainly do not stand here as the judge of any man, but it is very open for all to see today the multitudes of people who are left in that terrible doctrine of free will and creature power, in effect resting on their own works for salvation.

[19:36] My God shall supply all your need, and as far as being kept in the future pathway, only the Lord can keep us. Are you brought here?

[19:46] Hold thou me up, Lord, and I shall be safe. Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not. Dear friends, your own weakness may bring you to perplexity before God, and yet instrumentally in your felt weakness will be your safety.

[20:10] For as often as we are brought to feel thus our own weakness and our own utter dependence for being upheld by divine power and not seeking to stand in our own strength, then we are on safe ground.

[20:27] That my God shall supply all your need, and whatever grace we need, dear friends, is found in him. We just sung in that hymn, a fullness resides in Jesus our head and ever abides to answer our need.

[20:42] The Father's good pleasure has laid up in store a bountiful treasure to give to the poor. Now just take for a moment our needs, maybe in providence as the Lord is leading and teaching some of you, my God shall supply all your need.

[21:04] Can you take troubles in providence in your stride? Have you sometimes looked at the ungodly and envied them and you've wondered why little things which they take in your stride brings you to distress and to cry out before God?

[21:19] My dear friend, you will find God's hand is in it. The Lord will bring you to feel your own weakness. And maybe there have been some insignificant things in your pathway which you have been brought to lay before the Lord.

[21:38] For they've been so small you've been ashamed to speak of them to your fellow creatures. But you've laid them before the Lord. Well dear friends, Satan may tempt you about it, but you can't do better.

[21:52] For as I have mentioned before, our Bible declares, that the very hairs of our head are all numbered. My grace is sufficient for thee, saith the apostle.

[22:06] The apostle Paul proved it in his own experience. My grace is sufficient for thee, no matter how heavy the trial, no matter how sore, no matter how the wound may run, no matter how weighty that burden the Lord is laid upon you.

[22:25] My grace is sufficient for you. Ah, but you say it comes one day after another, one trial on top of another as we say, and yet do we not read, he giveth more grace.

[22:38] There is a word of a hymn writer I like very much. He said, he giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater, he sendeth more strength when the labors increase, to added affliction he addeth his mercy, to multiplied trials his multiplied peace.

[23:05] When we have exhausted our store of endurance, when our strength has failed, ere the day is half done, when we reach the end of our hoarded resources, our Father's full giving is only begun.

[23:23] His love has no limit, his grace has no measure, his power no boundary known unto man, for out of his infinite riches in Jesus, he giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

[23:41] But my God, to supply all your need, ah, one said, all I need in Jesus dwells, and there it dwells for me.

[23:54] For maybe, friends, you hope you may be brought to that place, maybe by faith you see, and maybe when the word of truth is set before you, you echo in your own heart, yes, I see just what I need in Christ.

[24:14] Maybe in some measure you have seen the suitability of the Lord Jesus Christ to your need, to your case, and in your heart you said, ah, now if only he's made that to me is just what I need, if only he will come and say that word to me is just what I need in my present case.

[24:39] And again, maybe you mourn, because you cannot find in yourself that which God has never purpose shall be vested in you.

[24:53] You know, when we are brought to look to the Lord Jesus Christ as our all and in all, then when we are left to look in self, we shall find nothing to help there. I'm going to quote here another line of Goodfield which seems to be very much upon this particular point.

[25:15] He said, I find I'm always expecting to have grace in me instead of looking for it out of me. I read of the God of all grace and receive it as a most solemn and certain truth that all grace comes from him.

[25:33] But when I come to experience, I want to find that grace in me which is stored up in the Redeemer. In other words, I want to find some stock of faith, prayer, hope, spirituality and love stored up in my heart to which I can go as to money in my purse.

[25:53] I want the spirit of prayer to dwell in me and not to be lodged in the hands of the Redeemer. I want to believe when I like and to be spiritual when I like and mortify sin when I like.

[26:07] But where would grace be then? Would Jesus be its author and finisher? Should I pray and cry to him for it if I could find it in myself? No.

[26:18] I should act as the rich man does who when he wants a supply goes to his own coffers and not as a beggar who has to beg for it.

[26:30] The true word, friends. My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

[26:42] He is able to make all grace abound toward you and you child of God will prove the sufficiency of God's grace in upholding you in that path where you now are.

[26:58] You may be in the place where you need wisdom. You may be in the place where even this day you've come before God and you said Lord I don't know what to do.

[27:09] Well Jehoshaphat was there and so have many of God's dear people in their day. Neither know we what to do but our eyes are upon thee.

[27:22] Dear friends want we wisdom he must give it. My God shall supply all your need. He's the fountain head of every good. And how can we want if this God is ours?

[27:39] Ah how can we want if this God is ours? And knowing the throne of grace as we do or to have recourse to prayer.

[27:51] For that reason I read in your hearing that chapter in Matthew's Gospel. What beautiful words are contained there. The words of the Lord Jesus himself.

[28:03] Your heavenly father knoweth ye have need of all these things. What a wonderful word it is. It doesn't matter where you are. The Lord knows he's an omniscient God.

[28:16] What a great mercy that is when we think of our loved ones scattered abroad here and there. We gather them in in our affections. My dear friend the eye of our God is upon them.

[28:29] And our constant cry is that our God might supply all their need. But here's the mercy. If he has granted them divine life then their every need will surely be supplied.

[28:41] Good Gatsby he sang out to the bottom of his heart. He said my every need he richly will supply nor will his mercy ever let me die.

[28:53] In him there dwells a treasure all divine and matchless grace has made that treasure mine. My God shall supply all your need.

[29:07] We need that wisdom that grace that strength that faith that patience to walk in his way. I wouldn't leave the subject without just mentioning one more need or one more aspect of that need.

[29:25] I believe if we look at this word in its general application then we shall have to agree that there are many things we need we do not want.

[29:36] you need valor you need trial you need sorrow you need affliction you need chastening my God will supply it friends you may be sure of it I have no doubt here but what the apostle had particularly in mind those blessings treasured up in Christ but when we view the faithfulness of God to do all that is necessary respecting the salvation of his people so then from the beginning right down to the end your need will be supplied and my dear friends how many of us have to say how we need the chastening hand of God where would you be in prayer but for those things those unmanageable things the Lord lays upon you how light and trifling and empty and dead and formal your prayers would be my God to supply your need according to the riches in glory by

[30:39] Christ Jesus well the apostle he could speak here out of the depth of his own heart his needs were supplied he wrote this epistle out of prison and he could speak from the bottom of his heart respecting these Philippians he knew the faithfulness of his God David did he said I have been young and now I'm old yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread that is begging bread in vain all to know this God friends what is he to you you know him day by day you know what it is to take your all your every care to him you know what prayer is does the Lord bring you as a poor suppliant at his feet continually bless God if he keeps you there for it is trials that make the promise sweet trials give new life to prayer trials bring us to his feet lay us low and keep us there but my

[31:50] God the apostle speaks of his God I believe that in some measure I could say the same my God shall supply all your need the psalmist in one place in speaking of this God he desired that this God might be his God even unto death yea lo he said this God is our God and he will be our guide even unto death my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus see the freeness of it not according to our deserts if the Lord dealt with you according to your need as you feel it at this very moment friend where would you be ah where would you be but he will supply the need according to the riches in glory by

[32:54] Christ Jesus oh then in Christ there is that fountain he is the fountain head of every good and there is treasured up in him all that a poor sinner needs from the beginning to the end be not surprised then if the Lord brings you to feel your need and the Lord makes a special mention of the poor and the needy when the poor and the needy seek water and there is none their tongue faileth for thirst I the Lord will hear them I the God of Israel will not forsake them I will open rivers in high places and fountains in the midst of the valleys I will make the wilderness a pool of water and the dry lands springs of water just one more word oh how we need faith you in your pathway and I in my how we need to be upheld in that path unto which the

[33:58] Lord has called us my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus and the apostle in the conclusion of this chapter his desire is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all amen here are the Lord and his blessing amen to be to- as cause my name is a be