Psalms

[0:00] I ask the Lord to be, please, to help me. I to call your attention to a subject you will find in Psalm 31.

[0:16] And the first sentence in the fifteenth verse. My times are in thy hands. The first sentence in the fifteenth verse.

[0:33] Psalm 31. This is a word which dropped from Godly David Smith when out of the abundance of the heart the mouth was speaking.

[0:56] And it sets forth what may be termed a foundation truth. On which any sinner who has the mercy to be taught of God can stand by living faith and view the dealings of God a right.

[1:21] And when you view the dealings of God a right, you have a feeling deep down like this.

[1:33] It is the Lord. And let him do what seemeth him good. If any of you dear people here before God, in the attitude of worship, at any time in life's journey, have echoed these words of the Selmist, my times are in thy hands, and you have had a sweet confidence within, O God, I wish them to be there.

[2:12] You have got sure evidence of what it is to be taught of God. Remember that. I want the Lord to help me to look at the subject from three or four viewpoints.

[2:31] And the doctrine set forth in this beautiful declaration, My times are in thy hands, is the sovereignty of God.

[2:46] I have told you many times in my long ministry, the keystone in the Arch of Truth is the sovereignty of God.

[3:00] And it is a wonderful mercy to be helped to enter into that great doctrine, the sovereignty of God.

[3:11] And if you are helped to do it, you will understand what the Selmist meant when he said, Our God is in the heavens.

[3:28] He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. And the sovereignty of God, known of right, enables you to feel that what pleases God concerning you and yours will please you too.

[3:47] You will have that gracious consciousness that he is too wise to earth, too good to be unkind. You will view his dealings and think of another scripture.

[4:03] The loss is cast into the last, and the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. And you will want your heart to be disposed to receive all the dealings of God, a right.

[4:28] Not to kick against the pricks of his sealings. Not to be rebellious, or fretful, or murmuring, or petulant.

[4:40] But to enter into another scripture. Be still. And Godly Calvin says, in his comment on the Selm, that word means in the original, Stop!

[4:56] Be quiet! Be still! And know that I am God. My times are in thy hands.

[5:09] I would that God in his great condescension would unfold to us more of his divine sovereignty in his dealing.

[5:24] Because when that doctrine is known and felt aright, it communicates the peace of God which passes all understanding, to possess our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

[5:43] And in his dealings with you, you can then feel that you can rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.

[5:59] And you will also be able to tune your heart on a high note. I know thy ways, O Lord, with wise designs, are framed upon thy throne above, and every dark and bending line meets in the centre of thy love.

[6:20] In our denominational life, the devil has gained a great deal of advantage in turning people aside from the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, and making them view things with a fatalistic outlook.

[6:46] And that is always inimical to being spiritually minded, and living near to God, and feeling as you want to feel, that matters are right between your soul and God.

[7:05] And now, I want the Lord to help me to look at this subject then, say just a little about some of these times.

[7:17] The wording is very significant. My times are in thy hands. And it is to lead our thoughts to the varying things that come on us in journeying through life, and all its changing things.

[7:41] things. And that these things are in the hand of God to be overruled for our ultimate good.

[7:54] My times are in thy hands. And now, godly David did not always feel like it.

[8:08] But at this time, the Spirit of God had brought him to be in a right mind, a right spirit, and that is so desirable.

[8:24] Oh, I often think about that man in the Gospel sitting at Jesus' feet clothed and in a right mind. Godly David could have told us a deal about some of the times that passed over him, beginning with his teenage life, when he had some trying times, testing times, when he said, I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul.

[8:58] But even that time was in the hand of God, and Saul was to die, and David was to live and succeed Saul as Israel's king.

[9:10] And yet, Godly David felt there is but one step between my soul and death. In one sense of the word, you and I could say that every day, if we got down to the bedrock truth of it.

[9:29] Think of it like this. Only this trail and fleeting breath preserved me from the jaws of death. Soon as it fails, at once I am gone and plunged into a world unknown.

[9:46] If you had that realization kept lively, in your heart, it would help you to live with a deeper down concern to be right for eternity than you often do.

[10:08] I am not fitting any caps on. I only want to remind you of the prayer of Moses, the man of God. So teach us to number our days that we may apply our heart unto wisdom.

[10:24] wisdom teach me to live that I may dread the grave as little as my bed. My time.

[10:36] Now, if we begin at the beginning, there is a time to be born, the word of God tells us. and where you were born into this world was not by chance in a rapid, underneath it was a purpose and it came to pass in accordance with it.

[11:02] with it. Parents, native life and time, all appointed were by them. And what a solemn thing it is to have been born into this poor, sin-cursed earth, and to know that we are journeying through it to an eternal sight. And if you and I should never know what it is, with indubitable evidence to confirm it, that we are born again, alas, it would have been well for us if we had never been born. At the end of life's journey to go down to eternal misery, a very solemn consideration. And you should be looking within and asking, am I born again? Has that time to be born again come into my life? Let your conscience weigh the matter up. Here you are before God, and what are you living for? Are all your concerns to do with this life only? Are you after the flesh, the things of the flesh, and nothing more? Or are you after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit, as you are here in the attitude of worship? And have you had a feeling? Assure my conscience of her part in the Redeemer's blood and bear the witness with my heart that I am born of God. Oh, there is that time in the hand of God when as many as were ordained to eternal life believe. A wonderful time it is to come into a sinner's life, and it might be that some of you could not define the time.

[13:19] And yet you have got the evidence that you are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

[13:31] Blessed are they, which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Or is it a great mercy, so great that no preacher can describe it, to be born again?

[13:47] Do you say any of you, I wish I could be sure I was born again? The word of the Lord encourages you. Those people desires and wishes so weak, as Jesus inspires and bids you, still see.

[14:05] My times are in thy hands. And now there is one time that I sometimes think is overlooked as being in the hand of God. And there you see the doctrine of divine sovereignty in evidence.

[14:25] What we might call the time of one's unregeneration. How long did you live before you had any concern about being born again? There are many in God's dear blood-bought family who in life's mourning are brought into deep concern about it. And they can say, with Moses, the man of God, O satisfy us early with thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

[15:05] When I was a lad at school, we used to sing, Grant me, O Lord, thy early grace. Now let my soul complain that the young mourning of my days has all been spent in vain.

[15:20] A day of the Lord. But you see in the word of God, where you get sure evidence of those who were born again set forth by the Spirit of God, some of them live long. The dying thief was in life's latest hours when came the time to be born again. But as a rule, do listen, God's God ordains that the majority of his people should be born again in early life. Life's morning.

[16:01] Shall we say, speaking with great reverence, life's early afternoon. Because he wants those people to live their lives, you're in, you're out. And says, you're my witnesses. The dying thief at the end of his godless life made but little witness. And he made hardly any at all in his life, except with his confession, which he made on the cross while he was dying.

[16:32] Those who remembered his life, remembered him as a scoundrel. But those who were taught of God, seeing his death, remembered him as a sinner saved by grace.

[16:44] And now weigh that matter up. God needs his people to live. That they shall show whose they are and whom they serve. And it is a wonderful mercy for poor sinners to be born again in life's morning or early afternoon, as I said.

[17:10] So the time of one's un-regeneracy is in the hand of God. And sometimes you think about it. I know that I do. And I say, remember, not against me, the sins of my youth.

[17:29] And you understand the hymn writer, preserved in Jesus when my feet made haste to hell, and there I should have been, but thou dost all things well. Thy love was great, thy mercy free, which from the pit delivered me. My times are in thy hands.

[17:51] I can only give you hints about these times. And now there is a lovely scripture in the Psalms which says, it is time to seek the Lord.

[18:05] And now you think about that time. And when it came into your life. A time to seek the Lord. A time when you felt as you never felt before. And you found within an aching void which this world could not fill.

[18:29] Till. A time when you felt as if you were to say, I hunger now for heavenly food. And my poor soul cries out for God. A time when it was said of you, Behold, he prayeth. Behold, she prayeth.

[18:49] Did you ever stop to think what you sing about sometimes, after the wonder of it. Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice.

[19:06] Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice, returning from his ways. And angels in their songs rejoice and cry. Behold, he prayeth.

[19:17] Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice, and that time has come for him, for her, to seek the Lord. And the angels rejoice. There is joy in heaven itself among the angels of God over one sinner that repented.

[19:38] Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice. I fear that scripture is very much overlooked. As to the wonder of it. My times are in thy hands. And there comes a time when one scripture is made known in a poor sinner's experience.

[20:00] Prayer is a very solemn time. And a very solemn time it is. And when it begins to be made known, it seems a very strange time. Which shall know every man the plague of his own heart. And when a sinner begins to have opened up to him the leprosy that lies deep within, it is a very solemn time.

[20:26] It is a time which brings to the sinner the solemn awareness that sin is to be measured by its intent and not by its extent only. So that if a man is angry with his brother, the sin is murder in the intent.

[20:54] Remember that. And when a sinner finds that time passing over him, when the eyes of the blind are opened and his sinnership is being opened up to his enlightened understanding, he will have many thoughts, he will have many thoughts, can ever God dwell here?

[21:19] Is this polluted heart a dwelling fit for thee? Swarming alas in every part, what evils do I see? And now it is that plague of the heart known and felt that brings that sinner to stand alongside the publican and to do as the publican did, smite his breast and say, as the publican said, God be merciful to me, a sinner.

[21:50] And that the soul be without such knowledge is not good. They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

[22:01] And then my times are in thy hands. There is a time when a sinner born again finds his mind is made up.

[22:19] And he has not made it up. God has made his mind up. And he has to choose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

[22:40] He can no longer live the life he has been living, but he must evident in his life and his lips separation from the world. And he says with the psalmist, I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.

[23:01] And he turns his back on the world and from being concerned to be in it and of it. And he finds in his heart a very wonderful persuasion.

[23:19] Let others stretch their arms like seas, grasping all shore. Grant me the visits of thy faith and I desire no more.

[23:31] He finds a blessed determination like the psalmist was the subject of one thing if I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

[23:54] My times are in thy hands. And then there is a time when this sinner whose case I am seeking to describe becomes a believer.

[24:12] Living faith as a grain of mustard seed it may be makes that sinner to be a believer. the things of God are made real in his soul's experience.

[24:32] And from that time in his life in a right mind eternity has to take precedence of time.

[24:43] and he wants the concerns of his soul to be uppermost and his feeling is to know my Jesus crucified by far excels all things beside.

[25:02] Is that how you feel? Because you are here before God? I leave it between the Lord and you to weigh up my times are in thy hands.

[25:16] And now there was a time when this sinner who is now born again used to say and behave according to it we will not have this man to reign over us.

[25:29] And now ask him what think ye of Christ? And you will find he has got a feeling like this. We believe and assure thou art the Christ the Son of the living God.

[25:43] Lord to whom can we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. To me Christ is more precious far than life and all its comforts are.

[25:57] And then he finds in his life a time has come when he has a different attitude altogether towards the truth.

[26:09] and the gospel as he listens to it. Here a sinner is born again he may listen to the gospel but he does not possess what Solomon asked for when the Lord said ask what I shall give thee.

[26:30] And Solomon said give therefore thy son a hearing heart an ear to hear a heart to receive the things of God are right.

[26:46] Can you remember when that time came upon you? when you no longer listen for the amen to conclude the sermon and let you go but when you had a feeling in listening I seek and hope to find a portion for my soul.

[27:08] Blessed are your ears for they hear the Savior said to his disciples and it is a wonderful mercy when there comes a time into a sinner's life and he begins to love the truth as he listens to it.

[27:30] You may sometimes listen to the truth and it may be you feel it is either too deep for you to understand or too high in its setting forth for you to attain to but there will be times when you will feel in listening as in water face answer it on to face so does the heart of man to man when the gospel will be set forth and you know in your conscience that it describes how you feel before God and the things are set forth that you do hope here a little there a little you have tasted handled and felt and that time of love of the truth is a wonderful time when it comes into a sinner's life the apostle

[28:33] Paul said to one church the church at Thessalonica you did receive the love of the truth have you received it oh you listen to it and as a rule you listen to it wonderfully well but the great thing is what goes on between God and you in listening I like that description and you know I often refer to it where it speaks about the saviour coming to see what every man had gained by trading I may open that up to you if the Lord shall help me one day if grace is given but it means as you are here in the attitude of worship it is the equivalent of being in heaven's marketplace and it is not just for you to be walking about and looking on but you must be doing business and that business is done before God show me a token for good make matters plain in my soul's experience that I am indeed a pilgrim to Canaan bound in such like exercises unto godliness so that in all the means of grace as you are found therein you will want to do business with god with whom you have to do and get something for your soul's eternal welfare remember that my times are in thy hands and then you will have times when you are put very much to the test as to whether you have got any religion after all that God is the author of if the devil should see and he will see if it is so that you are in real earnest to win

[30:46] Christ and be found in him he will be opposing you he will aim to rob and spoil you he will inject ifs and buts and hows if he can gain any ground he will bring you to question even what you hope God has done for your soul and they are very solemn times times that tempt us power to prove and there is only one way to behave then the remedy lies before thee pray you must never argue with the devil because you cannot do it and gain any victory he is much more acute wily cunning cruel than you realize and you must be found on your knees

[31:50] Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees you must realize that time of temptation is indeed a time to pray O Lord I am oppressed undertake for me Lord say or I perish and then in journeying on through life there will be times of trouble oh you could preach scores of sermons about the troubles that come upon people taught of God but if you have the mercy to be taught of God you will have times of trouble and they will come upon you and yours in such a way to exercise the discipline in your soul that

[32:51] God sees you need and you know some of us who hope we are taught of God have got very buoyant minds and very lively imaginations and I was going to say and I will aspirations but God in his infinite wisdom lays on his people just those weights that discipline their minds and they cannot always put into practice what they plan in their minds to do and in the ultimate issue they have to come to this my times are in thy hands oh God I wish them to be there and to realize to do the will of

[33:56] God is of all things to be desired let but my pain and heart be blessed with thy sweet spirit for its guest though God to thee I leave the rest thy will be done it may be a time of affliction if that time comes to the husband who is the bread winner then it makes a great change in home life and you need to see the hand of God uplifted on your behalf or if it should be the mother on whom the afflicting hand is laid that makes a revolution in home life too but in all of it whatever time of trouble it may be it is to bring you to have to do with God and to realize thou art our potter we are the clan

[35:02] I like that illustration there is a very striking one in Jeremiah's prophecy where the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying arise and go down to the potter's house and there I will cause thee to hear my words then I went down to the potter's house and behold he wrote a work on the wheels and the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter so he made it again another vessel that seemed good to the potter to make it then the word of the Lord came to me saying all house of Israel cannot I do with you as this potter said the Lord behold as the clay is in the potter's hand so are ye in mine hand all house of Israel I look back to my early life when my plans were as

[36:08] I have told you to be a printer and have a printing office of my own and I was apprenticed to it as a trade and I learned it and I loved it and I tried to pray about it that my plan might come to pass and it was hung up in my mind as a pleasant picture but the time came when I contracted lead poisoning and my days in the printing trade were ended the vessel was marred that is to say my plans were marred but then God made the clay over again to another vessel that he purposed and I hope was the outcome of it that God made me to be a minister of his which I desire to be and you may see some things in your lives like that you dear young people you may find in your early life or as you journey on that sometimes things you desire to see come to pass they may be frustrated and not allowed to be and you may be cast down at the time and disappointed but if you can humble yourself under the mighty hand of God at that time and if you can wait upon God guide me oh thou great

[37:42] Jehovah a pilgrim through this barren land I am weak but thou art mighty hold me with thy powerful hand you will live to say thank you to God that he overturned your plans marred your pleasant pictures and revealed to you what was his will for you to be and to do and the way wherein you should go and it gives you wondrous happiness when sometimes God will kindly say I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit and which leadeth thee in the way in which thou shouldest go my times are in thy hands whether they are times of affliction times of adversity times of stress and strength times of bereavement times of disappointment yes my times are in thy hand and then you will have some strange times you will have good times times of health times of happiness times of hope but sometimes you will have a winter time and you look within and then it will be well if you can feel though bleak winds the boughs defaced the rooted stock shall still remain leaves may languish fruit decrease more shall grow again yes we hope the winter time is now beginning to pass and spring time is coming along and there is a word in Isaiah which is very striking as an illustration as the days of a tree for the days of my people you get you get all kinds of days as you journey through life if you have the mercy to be taught of God

[40:13] God sendeth sun he sendeth shower alike a needful for the flower and joy and tears alike a scent to give our souls fit knowledge men my times my times are in thy hands and now there is one time that is outstanding and that is called the time of love and you sing about that the time of love will come when each shall clearly see not only that Christ shed his blood but each shall say for me you say I wish that time had dawned in my life eh but then I've got yet to tell you of one more time and now that is a waiting time my times are in thy hands and if God has ordained for you a waiting time you will be helped to wait on the

[41:16] Lord wait for the Lord with this conviction the vision is for an appointed time and though it tarry wait for it for in the end it shall speak and not lie it will surely come it will not tarry thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion for the time to favour her yea the set time is come and that time is in the hand of God and it does not come sometimes to many people taught of God till they are just about to leave time and go into eternity and enter into the rest that remaineth for the people of God but you cannot miss that time coming into your soul's experience if you have the great mercy to be asking the way of Zion with your faces dither ward my times are in thy hands looking at the subject from another viewpoint my times are in thy hands think how wonderful this is

[42:40] I really do fear especially as I am in life's evening time and weigh these things up more and more I really do feel that many of these things which set forth such beautiful truths have become so familiar to us in their wording that we little realize their beauty and their blessedness and not only so the wonder of the words and the truth set forth and now think my times are in thy hand whose hand is this the hand of him who said in the beginning when he created the heavens and the earth let there be love and there was love the hand of him who controls all that is happening beneath the sun the hand of God and to think that our little lives with all their varied details are subject to his eyes in the minutest circumstance and his hand is overruling controlling with one aim and that to do us good in time and eternity it is a wonderful consideration my times are in thy hands there is a word in

[44:34] Isaiah I would like you to lay to heart but now thus saith the Lord that created thee O Jacob and thee that formed thee O Israel fear not he that formed thee and now the hand of God is a forming hand and I thought sometimes in all the ills and evils that overtake us and the diseases that poor people are the subjects of all who are taught of God can appeal to him with whom they have to do that as their creator he has formed them as his creatures and he knows all to do with their body and how fearfully and wonderfully we are made he knoweth our frame he remembereth that we are dust and that is an argument to use before

[45:49] God and to ask him in using his forming hand to enable you to be whatever he wants you to be go wherever he is concerned that you should go and to do whatever he asks you to do remember that the hymn writer speaks about it under thy forming hand oh God give me the frame which thou think best my times are in thy hand thy forming hand and if you look back over life's journey as you have lived it any of you thought of God you will see that all his dealings have wonderfully dovetailed in that you cannot see any alteration that could be made to better it improve it you can only say

[46:59] I hope you can say it he hath done all things well my times are in thy hand thy forming hand thy sovereign hand and that means and the government shall be upon his shoulder is that how you feel about your life as you live it do you want God with whom you have to do to govern you and yours order all your going for your good his glory it is a wonderful mercy to feel like that and then this word has got this hidden in it my times are in thy hand thy bountiful hand thou openest thine hand and satisfiest thee desire of every living thing all things live in he doth peace his full hand supplies their need can you sit down before

[48:09] God the Lord help you to do it and think on your mercies which have followed you along in life's way and you will see the hand of God has been to you a bountiful hand a providing hand the hand of him who is Jehovah Jireh the Lord will provide it is a sweet life to live like Manoah and his wife and the angel did wondrously and Manoah and his wife looked on my times are in thy hand eh but you will prove this it will be a chastening hand whom the Lord Jehovah loves he in various ways reproves and it is not against you to be chastened no as many as

[49:10] I love I rebuke and chasten be zealous therefore and repent you will look back on some times of trouble and say that in them you were helped to feel it is good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn thy statutes the Lord is good a stronghold in the day of trouble and he knoweth them that trust in him as I come to the amen think of it like this whose hand is this my times are in thy hand the hand of him to whom you can say as grace is given our father which art in heaven hallowed be thy name a fatherly hand yes a heavenly father who knows all about you and whatever your need is and has made all provision to meet your need and to do you good as long as you live in time and in eternity too and one more thought must not be left out and that is the hand of

[50:38] God for every sinner born again will be known to be a pierced hand the hand of him who was fastened to Calvary's cross when Christ died in the stead of poor sinners like you and me fastened thereby rude iron but much more so by your sins my sins oh it was our sins that fastened him there under such an awful obligation so you read that wondrous scripture for for he made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him Christ died for our sins years and when you see the hand of

[51:41] God in your life overruling all things to do with you and in the times that pass over you and yours and you look on and see his goodness passing before you in the way and that goodness is sanctified to your soul's peace and profit You can say, my times are in thy hand Whatever may betide The hand my cruel sins did pierce Is now my guard, my guide My times are in thy hand Amen