Seeking for the helm of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Psalm 145. And we'll read
for our text, verses 4 through to verse 7. From verse 4, one generation
shall praise thy works to another and shall declare thy mighty
acts. I will speak of the glorious
honour of thy majesty and of thy wondrous works, and men shall
speak of the might of thy terrible acts, and I will declare thy
greatness. They shall abundantly utter the
memory of thy great goodness and shall sing of thy righteousness. Psalm 145. verses four through to seven. One generation to another. In our chapel this morning, we
have three generations. You children are one generation. Your parents are the next generation. And your grandparents are the
next generation. That is three generations. And what is before us this morning
is speaking one to another. Grandparents will speak to your
parents, your parents will speak to you, and you can find out
things that have happened some 60 years ago because of what
is passed out from one to another. When the world was first formed,
and Adam was formed. In those days they lived many
hundreds of years. And we have in the first chapters,
chapter 5 especially, in Genesis, the list of how long Adam lived
before he had a son, which was Seth. And so he lived 130 years
and then Seth was born. And so it goes on right through
to Methuselah and to Lamech both of them who died just before
the flood, and their lives overlapped by a long way the lives of Noah. And so Adam would have been able
to share with some seven or eight of his descendants, and going
right up to Methuselah, the events of the creation, all what had
happened right at the beginning, the fall, he would have been
able to tell Methuselah. Methuselah then would have told
Noah, Noah could have told Abraham's father, and Noah would have told
his son Shem, and Shem could have told Abraham. So it would
only have to pass through some four people, only one more generation
than we are here, And what had happened 2,000, 2,150 years before
could have been known just by telling through four people. And we realized then the great
benefit and blessing of being able to share and tell from one
generation to another. If we think about it, even in
natural things, not just spiritual things, Every following generation
needs the knowledge of the previous generation. Our knowledge of
how to make a motor car engine, many of us don't know how to
do that, but there are those that from the time that the engine
was invented, it's been passed down from one person to another,
and improving on it each time. If the Lord was to, or if it
was in the case of in the days of Noah, when we have suddenly
the whole world wiped out and just eight people left, they
had to start from the beginning. Whatever things that they'd learned
or understood right through those first 1,650 years, that would
have been lost unless it had been transmitted to no one who
remembered it and knew it. So it's a very important thing
that we do speak. Those of us that are older, we
speak to you that are younger. We tell you what things have
happened in our lives, what the Lord has done. We share with
you the things of God. And you can ask as well. Ask your parents. Ask your grandparents. What happened in your days? What
happened in your childhood? How did you come to know the
Lord? How did you know the things of
God? And to pass it on from one to
another. Well, I want to look this morning
at three points. The first is the means used of
making known. How do we convey the information
from one person to the next person? Secondly, the aids to memory. God has given us aids to memory
in his word to help us to remember what has happened before and
to help us then to pass it on to another generation. So I want
to look at those aids to memory that God has given us. And lastly,
that which is passed from generation to generation. What do we actually
pass? And of course, I'm basing the
points there under that heading. There's 6.6 headings all in our
text. The headings are there in the
text. So on to look then firstly at
the means used of making known. In verse 7 of our text, it says
they shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness. They're uttering it, they are
speaking it, and it says abundantly. So that is not just a little
bit, they're speaking a lot of it about the great goodness of
the Lord. The first thing is utterance.
We are to speak those things that have happened to us and
God's wonderful works. Then we are to declare it. Declare means to announce something
in a very clear way or to publicly declare something. And especially
in the preaching of the gospel, it is a declaration. when Paul wrote to the Corinthians
his first epistle to them and in verse 15 he gives a summary
of the gospel but he begins by saying this moreover brethren
i declare unto you the gospel which i preached unto you which
also ye received and wherein ye stand so it's a declaration
it's not I think, or it might be this or might be that, it's
a very clear declaration of the truth. We think of the John's
epistles in 1 John and chapter 1, we have in verse 3, that which
we have seen and heard declare we unto you that ye also may
have fellowship with us. In the preaching of the Word
especially, it is a declaration of the Gospel. It is a clear,
authoritative bringing forth of those things that have happened
before. Then we have again in verse 7,
that it is through singing, and shall sing of thy righteousness. We read in Paul's epistles that
we are to edify one another, to teach each other in psalms
and hymns and spiritual songs, and it is through that way, the
psalms, they are to be sung, and they are passing on information. And so with the hymns in the
New Testament, in the clear revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ coming,
that not only is to be shared to the generations following
by preaching or by word, but by singing. The clear coming
of our Lord, His name, all of these things are to be taught
by singing as well as in word. Then we have in writing. Now that's not specifically,
you might say, in our text, but it is because the Psalms are
written and You think of the Word of God, the inspired Word
of God. In fact, without that, we would
not know anything of what has been done or the works of the
Lord. It's so important for us to have
the Word of God and to read what is recorded there. That which
was written aforetime was written for our learning, that we, through
patience, comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. the letters
of Paul, the part of the Word of God, but remember at first
they began with letters. He was conveying and telling
to the churches those things he'd gone through and the truths
of God, he was conveying in the form of a letter by writing it
down. And the last one I mention is
that of praise, of worship, in verse For, at the beginning of
our text, one generation shall praise thy works to another and
shall declare thy mighty acts. In the attitude of worship, in
praising the Lord, it is not just meaningless, it's not just
choruses with no meaning and just vain repetition. It is actually
praising the works of the Lord, identifying them, and through
verse sharing it with another generation. When we think of
our hymns and we think of those who've gone before us some hundreds
of years before and they are sharing their own experiences
and sometimes in verse it's much more easy to remember it even
than it is in written or even spoken. So may we use those means
to speak from one generation to another, an older person to
a younger person, one that doesn't know these things but one is
told them from their fathers and their grandfathers. The Lord
uses these means. With a second point, is the aids
to memory. The Lord does give aids to memory. In our text, it says that there
shall be the memory of the Lord's great goodness. Verse 7, they
shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness. And the
Lord has given those things that do help us to remember. If we were to go back into the
early parts of the Word of God, we think of the flood, Noah's
flood. And the Lord has given there
the rainbow. He says, I do set my bow in the
cloud. When a cloud comes upon the earth,
he will set the bow there, he will look upon it, we look upon
it, and he will remember his covenant But it gives us also
to remember God's covenant, God's promise that the waters shall
not arise to a flood to destroy the whole earth anymore. We think
really of His creation. It is all the way around us.
We see the creation day after day after a speech, no place
where His voice is not heard. And we see in the creation a
reminder that many, many don't even see. It's a great blessing
if we do. By faith we understand the worlds
were formed of things that do not appear. But He has given
it to us, our own bodies. They all testify there is a God
and He made us. There was a creation, we are
in His creation, and He maintains that creation. There's been those
times the Lord has really blessed knowledge of the creation to
spiritually strengthen and encourage his people and lift them out
of unbelief and from Satan's temptations to believe in their
God. We think of what the Lord gave
to the children of Israel at the Passover, he instituted that
Passover. And he gave them that command
when in years to come, their children were to ask them, what
mean ye by this service? It's a lesson, isn't it, to us,
to older and to you children, if you have the service of the
Lord's house or a particular service like the Lord's supper,
what do you mean by that? Why do you observe it? What does it mean? And the Lord
used that for the children of Israel. Whenever they did the
Passover, It would provoke the children to ask, what does this
mean? Then they told them about what
happened in Egypt and how God, the angel, was to pass through
Egypt that night and kill all the firstborn in Egypt. And so
they sheltered in their houses, they killed the paschal lamb,
the blood was put on the doorposts and upon the lintel. And the
Lord said, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. and their
firstborn sheltering beneath the blood, they lived, but the
Egyptians who did not have that blood to shelter under, they
perished, they died. And so the Lord used that ordinance
as a help to remember what He'd done in Egypt, even though those
may be that actually were there in Egypt, they had died. They
had perished years later, but the Passover was still observed,
and it was still then passed from one generation to another
as to what God had done in Egypt. There was another, when they
came out of Egypt, 40 years later, they went through the River Jordan.
And after they went through the River Jordan, they had to put
a pillar of 12 stones. One pillar was in the middle
of Jordan. You couldn't see that, it was hidden. And the other
was outside of Jordan. And so, again, it was done. And Joshua was told in Joshua
4, verse 6, that when the children of Israel asked, what mean ye
by these stones? And they were then to tell them
that the Lord stopped up the river Jordan so that it stopped
flowing and they could walk across on dry land right into the land
of Canaan. And they were to remember that
as well. the Lord giving these things
for this real purpose, to pass on from one generation to another,
and actually to provoke and make the children ask questions. To make them ask questions. We learn by asking questions. Of course, the aids to remembrance,
another one, a vital one, is the Word of God. As often as
we read it, our memory is refreshed again of what God has said, what
He has done. And we should regularly read
the Word of God as a means of bringing back to our remembrance
what things otherwise we would forget. That which was written
aforetime, written beforehand. Regular preaching as well. And
the apostle says to Timothy, that I would, that thou would
affirm constantly that they which have believed in God, they should
maintain good works. And the Lord has ordained that
we regularly gather for worship, we regularly gather for the word
of God to be declared. So that which we spoke of in
the beginning as the means of telling from one generation to
another We have the minister who has the word of God, who
preaches the word of God, but he has also lived the word of
God. He's experienced it. And so he
is preaching a living word. He's preaching the experience
of the truth and passing it on to the following generations. And it's very important then,
like it was in Ezra's day, that all of understanding would gather
under the word so that they would hear and so that they would understand
the word and what was said to them. So those are the aids that
God has given. But there's one other one as
well. We have ordinances the same as the children of Israel
had. In fact, the Lord instituted
the Lord's Supper at this same time or just after he'd observed
the Passover for the last time. He said to his disciples with
desire, I have decided to have this last Passover with you before
I suffer. And it was while they were eating
that that he instituted the Lord's Supper. As often as you eat this
bread and drink this blood, drink this cup, you do show forth the
Lord's death till he comes. The bread sets forth his broken
body, the cup his shed blood. And the members of the church
and the congregation, they're never to forget that it is through
Christ's blood shed at Calvary, through his broken body, that
we are saved, not by our works, but by what the Lord has done. And he's given us to Remember
that in that ordinance as often as it is observed. Sometimes
once a week, other times once a month. It's not set forth in
the Word how often, but as often as you do, it is that remembrance. Instruct me in reading our first
psalm, Psalm 22. Psalm 22 was written a thousand
years before Christ suffered, and yet how clearly It set forth
the manner of Christ's death. Crucifixion was not known in
David's day. The things that were told here,
those would not have been able to know what kind of death it
would have been. It must have been strange to
them what was being set forth. And yet so exactly, I may tell
all my bones, the Lord's bones were not broken. They look and
stare upon me, they part my garments. Now all what had been said, dogs
have compassed me, that is the Gentiles, the assembly of the
wicked have enclosed me. Such a picture of that crucifixion
scene that is set before us here and that was so many years before
it happened. Such a evidence of the inspiration
of the word of God and of the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. Those things that were to be
accomplished and were to be done, they were done. So the Lord gives
these aids to remembrance. And in our lives as well, sometimes
we have aids to remembrance. Some of us have had injuries
and we might look upon a scar, a scar on a knee or a foot or
something like that, and you remember what happened. the whole
story associated with that injury, and maybe mercies and helps and
answers to prayer that were joined with that. And so in all of our
lives, the Lord does give us things, so we can't forget, we
mustn't forget what he has done. And in the context of our text,
we are to transfer that, speak of that, show it to the next
generation. One generation shall praise thy
works to another. So on to look then at the actual
works. What is it that is set forth? And remember the introduction
here is not just telling of the works, but it is praising them. It is lifting them up high, glorifying
in the works of the Lord. One generation shall praise,
and it's put in the way, not one generation might praise,
but shall praise. God will make sure it does happen,
that there is a speaking one to another. There will be generations
that follow on. is one generation, you might
have noticed it when we read Psalm 22, at the end of that
Psalm, in verse 30, it says, "...a seed shall serve him, it
shall be accounted to the Lord, for a generation." So, accounted
for, is not actually a generation like we've explained it in the
beginning, but it's from every generation of people gathered
together, and they are the people of God, they are saved people
of God, and that is to the Lord as a generation. It is a gathering
of all people that at last shall be with the Lord in heaven, that
seed that shall serve Him. Well, in our text, dear, It gives
some headings for us to know what we are to pass on and what
to actually concentrate on. In verse 5, 6 and 7, there's
two points in each one of those verses. So in verse 5, we read
of the glorious honour of thy majesty. That is what is to be
conveyed or Praise from one generation to another. So, at first, it
is not God's works, but it is Him. It's His person. It is who
He is. I speak of the glorious honour
of thy majesty. Just reading those words, you
get a picture of someone that is very great, very majestic. Remember when our Lord was on
earth, He spoke of Solomon. He says that Solomon, in all
his glory, was not arrayed like one of those lilies. But he says,
I tell you that there is a greater than Solomon here. Well, they
knew from the Word of God how wonderful that Solomon's kingdom
was. He said that the Queen of Sheba
came from the utmost part of the earth to hear of the wisdom
of Solomon. But Our Lord is greater than
him, more glorious, more majestic. And indeed, with Solomon, when
he dedicated the temple, he said, will God in very deed dwell upon
the earth? The heaven of heavens cannot
contain thee. How much less this house that
I have built. And he was praising and extolling
the Lord. And there's a difference there.
We could have someone, perhaps a father, grandfather or something,
and they've done something very wonderful, and you praise what
they've done. They might have painted a painting,
or they might have built something, a shed or something like that,
and you praise them for what they have, praise what they have
built. But then it's a different thing
to actually praise them personally, not looking at the gift or what
they've done, but looking at them and you are speaking of
them. And the people of God are brought
to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. They're brought to know
the Lord and to praise his name and to speak highly of him. We read in the Psalms of the
world that they only consult to cast him down from his excellency. So the world that knows not God,
they're doing the opposite of what is in here. And you children,
you will find many that in the world, perhaps even at school,
that will speak evil of the God of heaven. They will seek to
pull him down from his glory and his honor. They might even
take his name in vain. But then we read in the Psalms,
but in his temple, everyone does speak of his glory. When you
come into the house of God, when you come amongst the people of
God, they're speaking very highly of the Lord. And the truth is,
they know the Lord. We have tasted His goodness,
His kindness. We know what He's like. The world
do not know Him. They're speaking evil of someone
that they do not know and they do not love. And so this very
first thing, and may we that are older be able to pass to
another generation what we see, the majesty and beauty and gloriousness
of our God and of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In Isaiah
53, that begins that there is no beauty that we should desire
Him. He hath no form nor comeliness. There's nothing to be attractive
to the Lord by a natural sinner, but one that is called by grace,
one that knows the Lord, one that values Him or see Him very
precious. When our Lord was on earth, this
was the case. The Jews, even the religious
leaders, they spoke evil of Him. They didn't see His beauty. They
didn't believe He was God's Son. But those souls like the man
that was born blind, he spoke very highly of Him. He loved
him and he didn't mind being treated evilly by the Jews because
of his love to the Lord. He was unashamed of the name
of Jesus. And so that is the first point
that we should convey to another generation. And thinking that
around us, the world, they're doing the opposite. They're trying
to undermine, they're trying to pull him down from His Excellency,
but we should, to the next generation, lift Him up and speak highly
of our Lord, that He is a good God, a gracious God, a merciful
God, and we're speaking of actually His person. The second thing
in verse five is His wondrous works. I will speak in the glorious
honour of thy majesty and of thy wondrous works." And now
it's turning from him to his works. Well, in a way we could
put his works under three heads. The first one was the creation,
the heavens declaring the glory of God, and we think of Psalm
139 and The psalmist there, speaking
of all the works, even in making us, in the worm, forming us in
the worm, and the wonderful works of God. So whatever the Lord's
work in creation, that is to be spoken. But then there's a
greater than creation, that is that of salvation, how the Lord
saves His people from their sins. That is to be spoken of, the
works of the Lord. We began to speak to you of what
Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 15, where he
said that he was declaring the gospel. And this is one of the
most concise declarations of the gospel that there is. And he says that he declares
it, by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory, and here
we have is the memory again, what I preached unto you, unless
ye have believed in vain. So then this is the summary of
the gospel that he gives. For I delivered unto you, first
of all, that which I also received. So it had been passed to him,
but really he had been partaker of it. God had shown it to him
and blessed it to him. The Spirit had revealed it to
him. how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according
to the Scriptures, and that He was seen of Cephas, that's Peter,
then of the Twelve. After that, He was seen of above
five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain
unto this present, but some are fallen asleep, as they've died. After that, he was seen of James,
then of all the apostles, and last of all, he was seen of me
also as one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles,
that am not made to be called an apostle, because I persecuted
the church of God." But he says, by the grace of God, I am what
I am. So the works of salvation. What
the Lord did upon earth, what he did upon the cross, those
things are to be declared and passed from generation to generation. And then there is providence,
what the Lord does in the world, in our lives. Everything is ordered. Who is he that saith, and it
cometh to pass when the Lord commandeth it not? And the Bible,
really, from beginning to end, is recording God's providence. If we were to sit down and write
down the story of our lives, we'd be writing about God's providence,
how we came to live where we live, how we got the job that
we got, how we were trained, how we were brought to know the
Lord, how we were taught by Him, how we came into church membership,
how we join with the people of God. There's a story on all of
those things and many of the things we'll be telling of God's
providence. If you were to say to Joseph,
going back to Jacob's son Joseph, Joseph, what's the story of your
life? How did you come into Egypt? Well, he said, God gave me dreams
as to what I thought about would happen and he showed me what
would happen that my family would bow down to me, but then I went
to see how my brethren did when they were with the sheep, and
they took me, and they cast me into a pit, they stripped me
of my beautiful coat of many colours, and they sold me as
a slave, and while I was a slave I was falsely accused, and they
put me into prison, and I stayed there, and I was forgotten there,
but at last, I was brought out of prison and to Pharaoh and
then I was made next unto Pharaoh because I interpreted the dreams
that God had given him that there would be seven years of plenty
and seven years of famine and so we stored up all of the corn
in the good years and then when the famine came we had the food.
Then he would say how his brothers came during those years of famine
and how he's made known to them. And they did bow down to him.
And through that, they were brought into Egypt. So he could tell
all what God had done. And he said, it is not you that
sent me hither, but God, to save your lives by great deliverance. And there's many accounts in
the Word of God like that, that we are reading of God's providence.
Often think with Joseph, If there was ever a man that did not need
to say in his life, what will I do? Will I do this? Will I
go there? How will I know the Lord's will
what to do? It was taken out of his hand
again and again. He didn't decide to be put in
the pit. He didn't decide who he was going
to serve. He didn't decide to go into prison.
God ordered all of that without him having to put his hand to
it or make a single decision. And it's a good thing to remember
that, that sometimes we do not need to make the decision ourselves. It's taken out of our hand. God
makes it for us. And so it's these things that
we are to tell to another generation. Not just the works, the wondrous
works of God. We see a wonder in them, a beauty
in them, that the Lord has done these things. Then we have in
verse 6 another two points as well. The first one is the Lord's
terrible acts. And men shall speak in the might
of thy terrible acts. And just before we think of that,
I just want to mention the way the psalmist is changing here,
how he says in verse 5, I will speak. And then in verse 6, and
men shall speak. So he's including himself, what
he will do, but then he's noticing as well, other men, men will
speak of these things as well. And it's good for us to think,
these are not just speaking about what other people will do, but
we need to come into it saying, I will do this, I will speak
this, I will show these things myself, not just leave it to
some others to do it. So then we come to the terrible
acts. Well, we think of some of the
terrible acts in the word of God. We think of the flood, what
that must have been. The whole world deluged and destroyed,
and Noah and all that were with him in the ark, they were preserved. But what a terrible judgment
upon a wicked, wicked world. They deserved that, and the Lord
brought it, And Noah was a preacher of righteousness. He warned them
what was coming, the same as today. We that are preachers
are preachers of righteousness. We warn that there is the wrath
to come. We warn that there will be a
judgment, not by water, but the world shall be burned up by fire
one day when the Lord comes again, and we all must die. And so with
Noah, by faith he prepared an ark to the saving of his house.
But what a terrible act that was. We think of it again with
the children of Israel in Egypt. The Lord gave nine signs, and
Pharaoh's own people said to him at the end, they said, knowest
thou not that Egypt is destroyed? The Lord's judgments upon that
land had been terrible. And then at the last, with all
the firstborn of men and a beast, all slain, that were not sheltering
with the blood." These are terrible acts, terrible judgments of the
Lord. Then at the Red Sea, the Lord
parts the Red Sea, His people go through safely, the Egyptians
come through, and the Lord brings the Red Sea all upon them and
destroys them all, and the children of Israel see them dead on the
seashore. And they are terrible acts of
the Lord. I'm not saying terrible in the
fact that they're very wrong or ungodly or unfair, but they're
terrible in... It causes us to really fear,
to see what the Lord is capable of and how He's able to do these
things. The wrath of God is a terrible
thing to endure. And when we think of the Lord
Jesus Christ on Calvary, He endured the wrath of God for His people,
for everyone that is saved. More than what was done in Egypt,
more than what was done in the flood, more than what was done
in the Red Sea, the wrath of God fell on the Lord Jesus Christ. You think of the terrible act
on Mount Carmel, with the fire coming down from heaven upon
the altar, being shown who is the true and the living God,
whether it was Baal or whether it was the God of Israel, they
must have been fearful to have that fire come straight down
from heaven and to burn up even the altar, the stones and the
dust and the water in the trench, everything destroyed with it.
It'd be a fearful sight, terrible acts. The second thing in verse
six is the Lord's greatness. I will declare thy greatness."
Now, we've spoken of Solomon, how he saw heaven, and heaven
of heavens cannot contain the Lord, what David saw in Psalm
139. It is the greatness of the Lord. We cannot comprehend how great
the Lord is. Might say physically, filling
heaven and earth, but how great He is in all what He has done,
all His purposes, all his plans and everything that is being
done, there's none greater than the Lord. If it was said of Joseph
that there was none greater than him but Pharaoh upon the throne,
how much more can it be said of the Lord? In the Church of
God, the work of the Father to the Son in giving him the preeminence,
that in all things he might have the preeminence. You read of
that in Paul's epistle to the Colossians chapter one. Our Lord
is lifted up to the greatest preeminence. And this is what
needs to be conveyed to the other generations following, is to
how great the Lord is. Now verse seven, we have two,
and the first one is thy great goodness. The Lord is good. We read in verse nine, the Lord
is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. In Exodus 33, the Lord says to
Moses, I'll make all thy goodness pass before thee in the way. We're to convey that to our following
generations, They should have no doubt as to how much we see
His greatness, His goodness, His mighty acts, His terrible
acts. These are things I'll never get
from the world. They'll never be passed down
from the ungodly. But from the Lord's people, they
are to be passed down to the following generations. The last
one. is thy righteousness. And this
is where they shall sing. They shall sing of thy righteousness.
That is what the Lord has done on this earth and at Calvary
to give to his people what they don't have for themselves. All
our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. That's all our best works
are stained and died with sin. The Lord has done that which
he gives to us as if it was ours. as if we'd lived the life that
he lived, as if we'd paid the debt that we were due, but he's
paid it on our behalf. In Jeremiah, we read, this is
the name wherewith he shall be called the Lord our righteousness. And a few chapters later, this
is the name wherewith she shall be called, that is the church
of God, the Lord our righteousness. And this is what we then are
to speak to our children and children's children is not by
works of righteousness that we have done, it's what the Lord
has done, what He has done at Calvary. That's our hope, that's
our trust for heaven, not our works. And so the praise and
the honour and glory is on the Lord's head, one generation to
another, This, the heading over this psalm, David's psalm of
praise, and may that be with us as well. One generation shall
praise thy works to another. The Lord add his blessings.