I am very thankful that the Lord has been pleased to keep us and keep us hungering and thirsting for his gospel. And I pray that he would increase that in us. I pray that the things of this world would just get less appealing to us, and that Christ would be evermore our one need, that we truly would grow to see he is the one thing needful.

It's so easy, this world is full of sin, this world's full of troubles, and it's so easy just in the day-to-day cares that we have, trying to provide for our family, trying to provide a place we can worship, just the things we need. It's so easy to get caught up in it and carried away in it and miss what the day is for. The day is to worship the Lord, to be thankful and to think on Him and learn of Him And so it's so easy to just miss sight of what we're here for. It's just so easy.

This psalm is a psalm of thanksgiving. We don't know really who wrote it, probably David. I'm just gonna read the first three verses here, or first two verses, to get us going here. David speaks to us right here, and he speaks to his own heart. He speaks to us and to his own heart. First, he says, praise ye the Lord. That's a compound word from two words, and when you put those words together, it's hallelujah. And that's what praise ye the Lord, that's what hallelujah mean, praise ye the Lord. Then he speaks to his own heart, and he says, praise the Lord, O my soul. While I live, will I praise the Lord, I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being.

That's the new heart the Lord gives us. That's the new heart. When he gives you the new birth, births you into his kingdom, he gives you a new heart and a new resolve. You want him to have the glory, all of it. You see now he's deserving of it all. And you want to praise him as long as you live. And the Spirit creates that resolve in us that we want to live to Him, for Him, and praise Him.

And as we get into the troubles of the world and our needs that we have, who should I trust? That's our subject. Who should I trust? And I get that title from our psalm. First, He's going to tell us who not to trust. Secondly, He's going to tell us who we should trust, and thirdly, he's gonna give us the reasons why we trust him. Now let's look at these together.

First of all is a warning concerning who we're not to trust. He says, verse three, put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. The margin says salvation, in whom there is no salvation. And later he's gonna say, happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, for his salvation. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help, no salvation. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, and that very day his thoughts perish.

Now this is the word from our king, brethren. He says don't trust in earthly princes, but this is the word from the heavenly prince. This is the word from the king who rules everything. And our Lord says, put not your trust in princes nor in the son of man in whom there is no help. The first man was in a perfect world with no sin, and he disobeyed God. That's the first man, and he disobeyed God, and his heart was completely, totally ruined. And so all his children are guilty by what he did, and we come into the world and our hearts are ruined.

How ruined are we? You know this verse, but really think about this. This is not just so of some people. This is so of everybody. This is so of everybody the Lord saves. The heart is deceitful above all things. and desperately wicked. He's gonna say down at the end here, he's gonna talk about the wicked. Well, that's the heart of everybody by nature. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Nobody in this world, no man, whether he's a prince or any other son of man, can give you any help. No salvation.

Now just read that. Just read what it says. Sounds simple. Sounds clear. And the next thing you know, we're going to be complaining about the president. Or we're going to be complaining about this other ruler and this mayor and this governor, whatever. Why complain about them? You didn't trust them, did you? We didn't put any confidence in them, did we? The Lord says don't trust in any prince. Don't put your confidence in any prince. Don't put your confidence in any man. Well, cause all flesh is grass. This is, this is the, this is the message of the gospel. And it's right here. It's right here in this, in this psalm.

The two points, all flesh is grass, thy God reigneth. That's what this psalm's telling us. There's no help in any man. All flesh is grass. and the very best glory you have, the very highest achievements, the very best honors, the very utmost goodness, whatever a man does is like the flower of the field. You know why the grass withers? You know why the flower fades and just falls away? Isaiah 40 said, because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. The Lord's not gonna let us find salvation in a prince. He's not going to let us find salvation in another man, not even in our own flesh. He blows upon it. It's going to wither, it's going to die, because there's no reason to put any confidence in it.

Listen to this now. The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. You know what man is? Our flesh is dust. But you know what our life is? A breath. That's it. We're one breath away all the time from being no more in this earth. Man is only breath. He's only a vapor. Psalm 62 9. Now listen to this. Surely men of low degree are vanity. That word means a breath, a vapor. That's what it means, a breath, a vapor. Surely men of low degree are vanity, just a vapor, and men of high degree are a lie. To be laid into balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity, lighter than air.

Listen, here's another one, Psalm 144.3, Lord, what is man? What is the son of man? He answers it. Listen, man is like to vanity. His days are as a shadow that passeth away, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood. Now, can we take our place there and say that's me? Can you say that's me? Because that is me. That's us, brethren. We're vanity, we're lighter than air. Every man's just a breath away from death. God breathed breath into man, and we became a living soul. But you're one breath away from dying, from being dead.

Look here, verse four, Psalm 146, four. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to the earth. And in that very day, His thoughts perish. Man gave you, man formed us from the dust. The body's going back to the dust. Man breathed into us life, and you're gonna breathe out that breath for the last time and die. And that's what's gonna happen. That's what's gonna happen, and it's just like that. The day that we take our last breath, If a man's trusting in his own thoughts, what he thought God was like, if a man's trusting in his own works for acceptance with God, maybe he's achieved high honors in the world from men and made some great achievements, and maybe he has a great bank account and a great estate. and maybe he has hopes for the future and ambitions and things he wanted to do when he, you know, tomorrow comes. But all the grand ideas and all that he accomplished and all his thoughts of God and all his works, it's going to perish. All of it's going to perish the moment he takes that last breath, exhales that last breath. All those works, all that he achieved, All of it is over. And the soul is going to stand before God and answer to God.

Solomon learned this. He learned this. You read through Ecclesiastes. He says it over and over and over. Vanity of vanities. Everything is just vanity and vexation of spirit. That's what he said. So what's the point? Not your trust in princes. No, we're in the Son of Man. Don't trust in an earthly ruler. We have one ruler. It's our Lord. Don't put your trust in another man. Not this one. Not any other. Not even yourself. We're vanity. We're lighter than air.

All right. Here's the second thing. Who do we trust? Who do we put all our confidence in and trust? This is happiness right here. He's gonna tell you what happiness is. You wanna be happy? You wanna be happy? You hear people all the time, I'm just not happy, I just wanna be happy. You wanna be happy? Listen, verse five. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help. for his salvation, whose hope is in the Lord his God." That man's happy. I guarantee you, folks hearing this, whether it's today, tonight, or 20, 30 years from now that hear this, and they heard, you want to be happy? They perked up, I want to hear that. And then I read this verse, happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. And unless God's gracious, a man will say, that's not what I meant. That's not what I consider happiness.

If the Lord ever makes you know that first point, if he ever makes you know why you can't trust in you and your works or any man or anyone else, if he ever reveals your sin to you and makes you know Christ, that verse right there, it takes on all meaning and all value when you know I need salvation. That man's happy that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. It's instructive here that he says the God of Jacob, that you have the God of Jacob. Because Jacob, Jacob is what we are. Jacob's a sinner. Jacob is, he's one that was a sinner, weak, helpless, and he was made to know it. But by the free grace and sovereign electing grace of God, Jacob belonged to the Lord. There was no other reason in Jacob. There was no other reason, no reason in Jacob, period. Just like there's no reason in me and you for God to choose us. God did it freely. He did it freely, he chose freely by his grace. And by God's regenerating grace, Jacob's hope was in the Lord his God. That was his hope, the Lord his God.

I love to read that verse where, that passage where the Lord came to him and he had his head on a rock out in the middle of nowhere, sleeping, and the Lord wrestled him. The Lord wrestled him. He wasn't strong wrestling in prayer until he got the Lord to do what he wanted the Lord to do. That's not what happened. The Lord came and wrestled him and pinned him and put his thigh out of joint to where Jacob could do nothing but cry out for God to save him. That's how he saves every sinner. The details may vary from this and that, but the gist of it is this. He comes to you and wrestles you and makes you see you cannot, you can't accomplish anything in your strength and your power, and He makes you stop wrestling, stop trying to do it by your strength. He shows you you're the sinner to where all you can do is cry out, Lord save me, have mercy on me. And that's how He has mercy.

And every true sinner now, Every true sinner, I mean one the Lord's made to know you're the sinner, that's good news to us. That's what really makes us happy. When the Lord's revealed Christ to you and makes you know, happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, for his salvation, whose hope is in the Lord his God.

You take that first point, man's breath goes from him and his body goes back to the dust. But the Lord God is he who made the dust. He's the one that formed our body. He's the one that formed man and breathed life into man. He's the life. A man, it says, a man goes back to the dust, his breath goes out, but we're not trusting in us. We're not trusting in anything of ourselves. Who are we trusting? We trust in the Lord and when you When you breathe your last breath and your soul departs from your body, the Lord's still your life. If you're trusting in that body of death, when that body of death dies, that's it. You got nothing else. All your works are gone. But if the Lord's your life, nothing's changed. You're still with him. We're not looking to any of our thoughts within us of what we thought and trying to hold on to our vain thoughts. When God makes you know Him, when all your life is over, nothing's changed with God. He's immutable. Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. When this flesh goes back to the dust, when it dies and that's it for us, The Lord, our life, and our righteousness, and our holiness, and our salvation, is right there. And we're with Him. He'll bring you home to be with Him. Nothing changed.

What I'm saying is, everything about us is gonna change, it's going back to the dust, and there's nothing in it to trust in. But the Lord is salvation, and nothing will change. We'll still have Him, we'll be with Him. And that's so right now, every day of this life, I don't know what tomorrow is gonna hold. But as the old saying goes, I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow. And I'm in his hand. And if you have him, you're gonna be happy. You're gonna be happy. No matter what, you're gonna be happy. If it's troubling and it's sorrowful, what the Lord's gonna teach you in it, and how he's gonna show you more of himself in it, you're gonna come out happy. That's just so. That's just so.

Now, here's the reason. Last part. Here's the reason we're happy, right here. This is why we have all our confidence in Christ and none in us. It's all in Him, right here. This Lord God is our sovereign creator. He's the sovereign creator. Verse six, He's the Lord which made heaven and earth, the sea and all that therein is. is sovereign God. He spoke everything into existence. His word, His word. He was sovereign in creation and He created it all by His word. What do we learn in Isaiah 40? All flesh is grass, all the glory thereof fades, but the word of the Lord endureth forever. The one who created everything by His word. Everything. You know, there's places, we've explored more off this planet in space than we have on this planet. There's places in the ocean we've never seen, never been. Two thirds of the world is covered in water, places we've never seen. He created everything that's there, upholds everything by the word of his power. This is our sovereign creator, and he's not only sovereign, he's faithful.

He's faithful, look at verse six. which keepeth truth forever. Christ is the life, so when this life goes, we still have life, immutable. And not only that, brethren, but Christ is the truth. He is the truth, and he keepeth the truth. He is the truth, and he keepeth truth forever. What does that mean? It means he's faithful. He's holy, that's his character. He's holy. When somebody asks you what's God's chief attribute, brother, don't say love. It's not love. It's holiness. It's holiness. That's what makes his faithfulness and his love and everything he works for, that's what makes us happy because he's holy. He's sovereign to work what he will, but because he's holy, what he works is going to be good and right. See, holiness is at the head of everything. He's holy, it's his nature, and so he's immutable, he doesn't change, and he's faithful, and what he does for you is gonna be holy, it's gonna be right when he works for his people.

God the Father's faithful to his Son, Christ Jesus, and Christ Jesus is faithful to his Father, and you and me just reap the benefits. We got a faithful God and Father, and a faithful Savior, his Son, and they're faithful to each other, And because they are, they're gonna be faithful to his people. Therefore, he's faithful to those he chose, those that Christ laid down his life for. He's gonna call each one, and he's gonna keep each one. He's faithful. His holy character means he's faithful and just. He's faithful and just. He's faithful, he's just, he's merciful. He's gonna fulfill every covenant promise he's made. He's not gonna fail. to fulfill every covenant promise he made.

Because the father, see, you know what he's saying in Galatians 3 is those promises he made to Abraham, he made them to Christ before he made them to Abraham. Christ stood as the one believer, represent all his people as the head, representative, the substitute of all his people, the surety of his people. And so God made the promise to him And those promises he made to Abraham, the reason they were sure is he made them to his son. And his son, when Israel, Moses told them he's gonna give them the law the next day. Wash up, be ready. And so they did it, and they said, everything the Lord says do, we'll do. Well, you and me couldn't do that, but Christ did. And he promised the Father, I'll honor your law, I'll magnify your law, and I'll do it for your glory and your name, and I'll save my people in the process. And that's what Christ did.

So you got faithful God in all his promises to the one believer representing all his people, the Savior, Christ, the anointed. And then you got Christ, faithful to God on our behalf, fulfilling every promise he made to God. And you and me, reaping the benefits by free grace. By grace, God chose to give you the benefits of his faithfulness. And every promise is true. We observed the Lord's table Sunday, and when the Lord gave that cup of wine, he said, this represents the New Testament in my blood. That's how sure this covenant promise is. Christ wrote it in his blood. He wrote it in His blood. And so He's going to execute judgment for His people.

Verse 7, which executes judgment for the oppressed. The oppressed are you and me, who God saves. The elect who God saves are the oppressed. That's the oppressed. We were under the oppressive curse of the law because it demanded we die because we broke it. We were under the oppressive burden of our sin nature, weighing heavy upon us, and we couldn't get out from under that. We were under the oppressive bondage of Satan and the fear of death. Oppressed, just pressed down. Our Lord said, who of you is heavy laden? We were heavy laden, we were pressed, oppressed. And God the Father sent his Son, and he executed judgment for his people. He came, and our Lord Jesus laid down his life for his people. He took all our sin, and he went under that curse in the place of his people, and God justly judged him in the place of his people, and when our Lord Jesus said, it's finished, that's what it means for us, brethren, it's finished. He's executed judgment for us. He put our sin away. He made us everlastingly righteous in him, and he accomplished that. He executed judgment for his people.

Now, God's just to be merciful to you. And he comes in mercy and makes you know he justified us. He justified us in Christ. And so anytime you're oppressed in this world, the Lord's gonna, he's gonna come and help you. He's gonna come and take that oppressive burden off his child. That's what he's gonna do.

He hath remembered His mercy and His truth toward the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. And then He feeds us, says verse 7, which giveth food to the hungry. Our Lord came after He came and executed judgment and saved us and justified us. Because we were dead in sin, He came then and gave us the bread of life. He fed us, He gave us the bread of life. We were so oppressed by our sin nature, we weren't even hungry for Him. And He came and created life in you and gave you a hunger and a thirst for Christ, and then He fed you the bread of life. He fed you the water of life freely. He gave you the wine of His blood that rejoices our soul. He said to that group, I'm the bread of life. I'm the bread of life. eats my flesh and drinks my blood, the man that believes on me, he'll never hunger, he'll never thirst. He said, I'm the bread of life. He said, murmur not amongst yourselves, no man can come to me except my Father which has sent me, draw him. And our Lord Jesus draws all his people, and he gives us the hunger, then he meets the hunger. He feeds us the bread of life.

And then verse seven, the Lord luceth the prisoners. He luceth the prisoners. Look, if you're with me up to this point and you're thinking, well doesn't that have practical meanings to people in the earth? Is the Lord letting prisoners go? Is he going to prisons in this country and demanding prisoners be set free? This is talking about what he does for us spiritually, brethren. He feeds us the bread of life and he looses the prisoners. Did you know, this is so of all the Lord's people, we're prisoners, we were prisoners bound by the law, the law demanded we stay in prison because we were guilty, and then our nature was like this jail cell. We could take on a form of religion, we could go to church, we could read a Bible, we could say this prayer and that prayer, and we could do all these works, but the one thing we could not do, because our sin nature wouldn't let us do it, we couldn't believe him. We couldn't repent from trusting ourselves and repent from our works and believe Him. We could not do that. We couldn't.

And the Lord came and loosed you from that prison. He took you out of that prison. He said, you won't come to the light because your deeds are evil. Our deeds were our best deeds, our works. We weren't going to let those go. We weren't going to confess we couldn't contribute. We wouldn't come to that light and be reproved to admit I am the sinner. We were in the darkness in our prison cell.

And God is so pleased with His Son and how He honored His law and how He justified His people and gave God all the glory. He's so pleased with His Son that He gave Him the glory of sending the gospel to us and Christ coming and speaking in power. and saying, come forth, come to the light, come to me.

Listen, Isaiah 49, eight, thus saith the Lord God, he said this to Christ. He said, I'll give thee for a covenant of the people to establish the earth, to cause, to inherit the desolate heritages that thou mayest say to the prisoners, go forth. To them that are in darkness, show yourselves.

I love that illustration. We've seen it before, but when, My memory lately, the one that was in prison, that was a notorious prisoner, and all he could hear them say when they said, who do you want me to release? Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbas. That's all they heard. That's all he heard. Barabbas, Barabbas. And then they said, what do you want me to do with this man? He pointed to the Lord. And they said, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him. And all Barabbas hears is, Barabbas, Barabbas, Barabbas. Crucify him, crucify him, crucify him.

He's talking about, I bet he was in the back corner of that prison cell trying to squeeze up in there and stay in the darkness so nobody could see him. And he hears that jailer coming with those keys. And that jailer walks to his cell. And he opens that jail cell door. He said, Barabbas. People have spoken. You're free to go. Somebody's dying in your place. I bet you they might have had to hawk time to get him in that jail cell, but I bet you they didn't have to hawk time to get him out.

That's what he did to us. He came to you. You heard the law screaming your name, crucify him, crucify him. And he came with his gospel, and he said, I took your place. You're free to go. And here's what he did, verse 8. The Lord opened the eyes of the blind. We were blind. We couldn't see him. We were blind. Scripture says the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness to him, neither can he know them because their spirits are this hour. We couldn't know him. He come and gave us sight to see him, to know him.

Look at Luke 4. This is what the Lord said. This is one of his first messages right here, Luke 4. Verse 18, the Spirit of the Lord's upon me. He's reading from Isaiah. The Spirit of the Lord's upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. He sent me to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind. That's what we're seeing in our psalm. All the things he sent me to set at liberty them that are bruised. to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, and he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and he sat down, and the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began to say unto them, this day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears.

He gives sight to the blind. He takes the oppressive yoke off. He sets the prisoners free.

Go back to our Psalm here. We were bowed down due to our sin, He made us know we're righteous in him now. That's how he took the load off. We were Gentiles, strangers. He came to us and made us know he made us citizens. We were orphans and widows. We had nobody to care for. He came to make us know he loved us and gave himself for us.

Look here, verse eight. The Lord raised up them that are bowed down. Paul said he's the God that comforted those that are cast down. He came and lifted you up. He said, the Lord loveth the righteous, those he's clothed in his righteousness, those that he's given a new heart to trust him alone for righteousness, those he's given a heart to do right.

Verse nine, the Lord preserveth the strangers. We were the alien. We were the illegal immigrant. And the Lord came and loved us and drew us and made us know we're citizens of his country. He relieveth the fatherless and the widow. Is anything more helpless than a fatherless child, an orphan? That's what we are. We're the widow. But now we see we have Christ as our father, we have Christ as our husband.

But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. Who's the wicked? Well, in the context, the wicked are people aren't happy with this God. They're not happy with Him getting all the glory and all the praise. They're those that want to have the glory for doing it themselves. And they don't love Christ, they don't believe Christ, and they hate God's people too.

Listen, this is from Psalm 37. I'm about done here, but I just want you to see this. Psalm 37, 12, the wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. Says in Psalm 37, 32, the wicked watcheth the righteous, seeketh to slay him. The Lord will not leave him in his hand nor condemn him when he's judged.

Verse 35, I've seen the wicked in great power, spreading himself like a green bay tree. He's proud. Yet he passed away, and lo, he was not. Yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.

Verse 39, But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord. He's their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them and deliver them. He shall deliver them from the wicked and save them because they trust in Him. He'll turn the wicked upside down.

I pray that we're not found trusting in ourselves. I pray that we're not... I don't want anybody I preach to to pass through this world and come before God and say, The preacher didn't tell me the truth. I want you to know the truth. I don't want you to leave this world trusting in your works and trusting in a man and an earthly prince. I want you to trust in the Prince of Peace, Christ the Lord.

Because if you're found coming to Him, maybe the world called you holy and good, but if you come to Him trusting anything in yourself, God will tell you, you're the wicked. Anybody comes trying to trust in their works, they're gonna meet God and find out everything they ever did was wickedness. Couldn't there be anything more wicked than not believing God, not giving praise and glory to his son?

But look what he does for you, verse seven. I'll just look at these action words, brethren. Verse seven, he executes judgment for us. He gives food to us. He loosed us. Verse eight, he opened our eyes. He raised us up when we were bowed down. He loves those he's made righteous. Verse nine, the Lord preserves us and he relieves the followers and the widows. All that action, and it's all the Lord's work. It's what he's done for his people.

Oh, don't trust yourself. Don't trust any other man. Look to the Lord Jesus, trust Him alone. Trust Him alone. Call on Him alone and give Him all the praise. That's what this psalm's telling us. Men that want you to preach works, they always pass by these works right here. This psalm is saying, praise the Lord, give Him all the glory, and trust Him only. Boy, it don't get more practical than that. Praise the Lord only, and trust him only.

Why, verse 10, the Lord shall reign forever, and thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. He's the same, and if you're in him, you're everlastingly righteous. Nothing will change. Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.

Father, we thank you for this word. Lord, bless it to our hearts. Cause us to hear and understand Lord, it's the middle of the week and we're tired. Help us to leave here and think on what we've heard. Help us to listen to it again. Help us to look at this psalm again. Help us to keep feeding on the word you've given us, Lord, and give us blessing from it. Encourage us, strengthen us, keep us looking only to you. Thank you, Lord, for your mercy. Thank you for this word. Thank you for Christ Jesus, your son, grace and mercy in him. In his precious name we pray, Lord. Amen.