Thou Crownest the Year WithThy goodness

By Ps Jeff O’Neil

"Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy pathsdrop fatness" (Psalm 65:11).

The first part of this psalm eulogises the grace of God in Hissovereign choice, and the blessedness of the forgiveness of sin, and the entiresatisfaction in and to the church; whilst the second part magnifies theProvidence of God, particularly in His ordering of the seasons and of natureitself. Nature is not an entity in itself as some environmentalist groups averwhen they speak in terms of mother earth. Nature, is rather, the consequence ofGod’s decree in creation. The regulating of a continual pattern in the lifecycle of things is an outworking of His word through His power and providence.God swore to Noah, "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, andcold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease"(Gen 8:22).

And those people who are persuaded of this, and have closeconnections to the land, or even an environmental interest, or perhaps enjoygardening, can, at the end of the autumn, and of the year, join with thepsalmist and confess, "Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness."Indeed, this is probably the reason for the harvest services that are still afeature in many British churches, but even more so in days gone by when Britainwas a more pastoral and agricultural society.

I well remember, as a boy, marching in procession around theAnglican church to which I belonged, singing:

All is safely gathered in

e’er the Winter storms begin

God our Maker doth provide,

for our wants to be supplied.

Come to God’s own temple, come,

Raise the song of, Harvest home.

Now whilst this text has reference in our psalm to an agriculturalscene, I would broaden it to include the first part of the psalm. Indeed, it isapplicable to the whole life of the Christian experiencing God’s grace andprovidence, and particularly remembering it at the end of the year. Naturally,the seasons and the chronology of the year differed with the Jews then from usnow, but the principle holds true. The puritans had a practice that on theirbirthdays they would retire privately and spend the day in fasting and prayerin order to examine their lives over that past twelve months. This was in orderto mark their sins, and to recall God’s mercies and blessings.

Now, I would suggest that at the conclusion of this year, theChristian ought to spend some time in quietly contemplating all the blessingsthat God’s goodness has graced our lives with. So letting the mind range overthe many instances and proofs of His goodness that visited each of our lives.This word "crownest" means to compass, to encircle, just as a crownencircles and compasses the head! There is no break in the circle, andsimilarly from one end of the year to the other, His goodness compasses everymonth, week, day, hour and moment. "For in him we live, and move, and haveour being" (Acts 17:28). And therefore, we live constantly and continuallyunder His goodness, though most of the time we are selfishly unconscious of it,and attribute our various comforts to our own endeavours and industry.

Remember Moses speaking of the promised land to his people?"A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy Godare always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of theyear" (Dt 11:12). And that is certainly true of our lives, for says thepsalmist: "The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous" (Ps 34:15).Now the Jews marked and observed the beginning of the year, as historically thechurches in Scotland held, and still hold special services on New Year’s day.But I think, whilst that may be a good practice, that the Lord’s people shouldabove all reflect on God’s goodness in the passing year, knowing that He hascircled the beginning to the end, for He is Alpha and Omega.

We should note His goodness 
personally

Moses was placed in the cleft of the rock, and beheld the goodnessof God passing before him. If we but look over the past year from the cleft ofour Rock, which is Christ, then we cannot fail to see the same goodness passingbefore the eye of memory. We cannot see any of His goodness unless we are inChrist. Moses petitioned God, "Show me Thy glory" (Ex 33:18). And Godgraciously replied, "I will make all my goodness to pass before thee"(v. 19a). God had given many instances of His goodness to Moses, but now Hewould make all His goodness known. He woulddemonstrate His essential goodness. It was not the glory of His majesty that Hewould show, but the majesty of His goodness. His glory is His goodness!

And the glory of His goodness is the sovereignty of it: "Iwill be gracious to whom I will be gracious" (v. 19b). We trace Hisgoodness to His sovereignty in election and predestination. This is highlightedin v. 3 of our psalm, "Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest." Godexercises His grace and mercy to whom He wills, and this springs from Hisbeing, "Abundant in goodness" (Ex 34:6). And thereafter, it coversall His dealings in our lives, so that we personally experience, day by day,the continual stream of His sovereign goodness flowing into our lives. JohnOwen puts it this way: "All divine operations in the communication of GodHimself, are from His goodness, by the intervention of a free act of Hiswill."

Would you not be moved to remember that you are in the cleft ofthe Rock, because of the operation of His grace toward you? In singular mercyand out of the infinite springs of His abundant goodness and eternal love, Hehas called you to Himself, and washed and cleansed you from your sin, andadopted you, so that now you are a child of God. He has separated you fromuntold millions, and caused you to know and experience His salvation throughJesus Christ. And as Toplady puts it: "The work which His goodness began,the arm of His strength will complete."

Consider again, then, the past year, and behold how He hasmaintained your spiritual life! How could you have coped with the world, theflesh and the devil or, fought against principalities and powers, —except thatin His goodness, He supplied grace for grace, and sent strength into your soul,and upheld you with the power of His might?

See how He preserved you, notwithstanding your daily ingratitudein not being aware or alive to His protection, preservation and supply. Butwhen we have sinned against man and God, and grieved the Holy Ghost, and donedespite to the spirit of grace, instead of His judgment, we are brought by Hisgoodness to realize our sins, and to confess them. Yes, His goodness does this,for "the riches of His goodness leadeth to repentance" (Rom 2:4). Andin the words of John Calvin, "If we use not His goodness to that end, weabuse it." Think again on His goodness as you hear the words ofPsalm103:4,—"Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies."Day by day, for 365 days, His blessings have fallen as manna around your tent.

Have you noticed His tender mercies; the exhibitions of His love;the demonstrations of His long-suffering; the multiplying of uncalled forbenevolences in what we would think of as the common happenings in life? Do yourecognize the maintenance of your physical health and life; His kindness inyour temporal affairs; the comforts you enjoy in the bosom of your family; thekeeping of your children from the arms and harms of the world? How manyprovidences have you reason to bless God for; how many dangers has He preventedin your life, and those of your loved ones; what journeys He has encircled tokeep you safe; what difficulties He has solved by His counsel and wisdom; whatworries He has lifted from your hearts, as Samson lifted the posts of the citygates and carried them away on his shoulders? And what of those sadnesses thathave invaded your life, and descended on your soul, and suddenly "A lightsurprises," and your mourning was turned into joy. Think again of thosedays when you awoke and experienced that "New every morning are Hismercies, and His compassions fail not" (Lam 3:22).

Oh friends, we are often unmindful and unnoticing of all themanifold blessings that continually bedew our lives. Listen to the prophetHosea: "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I dounto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew itgoeth away" (Hos 6:4). Our goodness is transient and fleeting as the mist,but the goodness of God to each one of us personally is stated thus: "Thegoodness of God endureth continually" (Ps. 52:1).

We should note His goodness 
to us as a church

As a church, can you not testify that, in His goodness, He haskept you together, and provided for your spiritual needs. He has opened up"The wells of salvation," to drink from, and kept pure the means ofgrace whereby you have increased in knowledge of Him, and I trust, in grace! Hehas manifested Himself in and through your Head and King, Jesus Christ, whosevoice has been heard in His word Sabbath by Sabbath. So that with thanksgiving,you can sing with the psalmist in v. 4,—"That you dwell in His courts, andthat you shall be satisfied with the goodness of His house." He has givento you fellowship and communion with brethren, so strengthening one another;assisting in mutual regard, and helping in word and doctrine,—iron sharpeningiron (Prov 27:17). By His spirit and truth, He has kept you from dissension,and causing you to pray for each other without ceasing. His goodness haspreserved the truth in your midst, and given you appetites for more of Christand the savour of His grace. Can you not raise up a stone of witness, and writeon it: "Ebenezer, hitherto hath the Lord helped us" (1 Sam 7:12).

These are not light things to overlook, or underestimate in thesedays of declension and the love of many waxing cold. But you can identify withSolomon’s subjects, when it is said of all the people that they "went untotheir tents joyful and glad of heart for allthe goodness that the LORDhad done for David his servant, and for Israel his people" (1 Kgs 8:66).

It is a singular act of His goodness that He has kept here and inother places, "a remnant according to the election of grace"(Rom11:5), whilst we see everywhere a great falling away, and the rapid rise ofungodliness, immorality, atheism and the inroads of false religions with theirprefabricated gods. Remember friends, that it is not flesh and blood that we arecontending with, but "principalities and powers and the rulers of thedarkness of this world" (Eph. 6:12). Pray and pray hard that He willcontinue to display His goodness in defending His Church from these evilforces, so that we can experience what Zechariah taught: "And the LORDtheir God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people: for theyshall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land. Forhow great is his goodness, and how great is his beauty!" (Zec 9:16-17a)

We should note also Hisgoodness 
in adversity

Perhaps the year has not been a good one in some respects forsomeone; yet you may look on the providences that have crossed your desires,and altered your plans, and by faith say: "His thoughts are not mythoughts, and His ways not my ways" (cf. Isa 55:8), "and therefore,what has happened to me was best for me: God was in it, and I knew itnot."

Are you not able to say with Job: "Though He slay me, yetwill I trust Him" (Job 13:15)? His goodness has preserved me, and sustainedme, notwithstanding all the disappointments and inexplicable frustrations Ihave received, yet He knows the way I take. And though I have sinned ingrumbling, and not understanding the providences, yet I can pray,"Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according tothy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness’ sake, O LORD" (Ps 25:7).

It is difficult to see His goodness when we only see darkness.John Mason puts it well: "Providences are sometimes dark texts that wantan expositor." There are also arid times in one’s experience, when yoursoul has been famished for one favour from Him, one drink at the fountain orone kiss of His lips, and then He drew near and satisfied "the longingsoul, and [filled] the hungry soul with goodness" (Psalm 107:9), and you"[tasted and saw] that the LORD is good" (Ps.34:8a). So you rise uprefreshed and renewed, and go on in the strength of the Lord, with the new songagain rising to your lips. "It is a true rule in divinity that God nevertakes away any blessing from us, but that He gives us better; when Elijah wastaken from Elisha into Heaven, God doubles His spirit upon Elisha; thedisciples parted with Christ’s bodily presence, but He sent them the HolyGhost" (Richard Sibbes). Though His goodness seems hidden from your eyes,it nevertheless encircles your life, and will be doubly enjoyed when it becomesapparent.

Oh friend, the future is as bright as His promises. And so it waswith the psalmist after experiencing God’s dealing in providence, that he said:"It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thystatutes" (Ps. 119:71). Though it was hard for thee, yet it was good for thee! His goodness was at work allthe time!

Application & Conclusion

Such is the grandeur of this attribute of God, and the experienceof it, that eight Levites in Nehemiah stood before the people and rehearsedtheir history. How that God took them into the Promised Land, and gave themeverything, houses, wells already dug, vineyards, olive yards, fruit trees inabundance: "And they… delighted themselves in thy great goodness"(Neh 9:25). Ah, my friends, it is the proper response at the end of the year,to delight in His past and present goodness. That word, ‘delight’ means todelight self. Each one of us, then, ought to delight personally in the greatgoodness of our God, as we join with David in singing the refrain: "Thouart good, and doest good" (Ps119:68).

We ought, privately, and as a church, to recap over the year, andtry and count the many blessings, noting especially significant happenings anddealings of our gracious God. And then confess with David, "surelygoodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life" (Ps.23:6).That is to say, that in every condition you have entered into, every circumstancethat has occurred, every exigency that has happened, goodness has followed youthere, and even extricated you when needed! Think of Ps.23 as the shepherdpsalm, and goodness and mercy as two sheepdogs sent to follow and gather theflock. Think then of goodness as the mother of mercy, and they work together asa pair. Goodness is quick to spot, and mercy quick to act! Isn’t it a gloriousthought that they have followed us all our lives, and shall do until we arebrought into the eternal fold, "Oh, give thanks unto the LORD, for He isgood" (Ps.107:1)!

But we are also to remember that having union with Christ, we are,"partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet.1:4). Therefore, if weconfess that the Lord is good (and that is His nature, which is expressed alsoin so many acts of goodness to us), then we should likewise abound in goodnessto others. John Mason puts it aptly: "We are never wellinformed of truth, until we are conformed to it." So goodness should begetgoodness, for as Mason adds: "To render good for evil, is godlike; torender good for good, is manlike; to render evil for evil, is beastlike; torender evil for good, is devil-like."

Finally, if you do not know the blessedness of sins forgiven, andof pardon and peace with God, then you have, even if you are unconscious of it,experienced His goodness over the past year. In that, you have repeatedlyresisted His calls to repent, and to believe, and yet He has not entered intojudgment with you. His forbearance is a commentary on His goodness to you. Butdo not presume upon His goodness, but take heed to the admonishment of theapostle Paul: "Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearanceand longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee torepentance?" (Rom 2:4) W