We turn to God's word this evening
and we'll read from the book of Psalms and Psalm 116. Psalm
116. I love the Lord because he has heard my voice and my supplications. Because he has inclined his ear
unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. The sorrows of death compassed
me, and the pains of hell got hold upon me. I found trouble
and sorrow. Then called I upon the name of
the Lord, O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. Gracious is
the Lord, and righteous, yea, our God is merciful. The Lord
preserveth the simple. I was brought low, and he helped
me. Return unto thy rest, O my soul,
for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee, for thou hast delivered
my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from
falling. I will walk before the Lord in
the land of the living. I believed, therefore have I
spoken. I was greatly afflicted. I said
in my haste, all men are liars. What shall I render unto the
Lord for all his benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation
and call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto
the Lord now in the presence of all his people. Precious in
the sight of the Lord is the debt of his saints. O Lord, truly
I am thy servant. I am thy servant and the son
of thine handmaid. Thou hast loosed my bonds. I
will offer to thee the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and will call
upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord
now in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the
Lord's house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye
the Lord. Well, I want to turn to God's
word at this point this evening before we come to prayer. And
for a moment consider these two verses 12 and 13, but really
the psalm as its whole. Verses 12 and 13 read, What shall
I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me? I will
take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. Notice, I think as we read this
psalm together, there are three times when the psalmist says
he will call upon the Lord. Verse two, he says, because he
has inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him
as long as I live. The text we've just read, I'll
take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.
And also down in verse 17, I will offer to thee the sacrifice of
thanksgiving and will call upon the name of the Lord. And what
was it that encouraged the psalmist to call on the name of the Lord?
That is, what was it that encouraged him to pray to his God? Well, surely it was because his
God had been good, his God had been with him, his God had blessed
him, and his God had heard him before. Because he hath inclined
his ear unto me, he says. Because of his goodness in the
past, because he has heard my prayer before, Therefore will
I call upon him as long as I live. What shall I render unto the
Lord for all his benefits towards me? Here's an important question. What shall I give to the Lord?
What shall I offer to God for all of his goodness and all of
his blessings? And what goodness we have from
God? What blessings, what benefits
He has poured out upon his people answered prayer in the past. The psalmist is clear that there's
been prayer answered and then we have, I hope we all do, tokens
of answered prayer. What a benefit from God that
we have come in our need as we are, brought ourselves to God
in heaven and he is heard and he is answered. and perhaps there
are those times we can look back and be amazed that he did and
we didn't expect it, we hardly even looked for it and there
was the answer. What a benefit from a gracious
God, what blessings we have received. What other benefits are there?
Well, what about his presence itself to his people? There's
times when we've known the Lord drawing near, there's times we
have known that He has looked upon us and met with us those
times of worship, and we have been helped to lift up His name,
give thanks unto Him, and as it were, lift up our hearts in
true worship to God as we consider who He is and what He has done. What a benefit! We've known a
time of hardness, a time of coldness in our hearts, and then the Lord
comes and blesses us with a time of worship. What a real benefit
that is that the Lord gives to us. To see His work, to know
His blessing. What a benefit that is. To see
Him working. To be able to witness His hand
going out for us and going out for other people. To see His
work for us. And many, many other things which
we could all think of, I'm sure. the benefits that God pours out
upon us. And the psalmist says, well,
what shall I render to him for these goodnesses, for these blessings,
for these answered prayer? What shall I render to the Lord? I will take firstly the cup of
salvation. This, I believe, has a takes
up the image of the head of the house at the end of the meal,
would take the cup of thanksgiving, would lift it up as it were,
an offering as he gave thanks unto God for his goodness. And here we have the cup of salvation.
It's as it were, we lift up our salvation and give thanks unto
God for all that he has done. We hold it in our hands to him.
We hold what he has given us and we give thanks, we praise
him, we lift him up. for his benefits towards us.
It's a spirit, an attitude of praise and thanksgiving here.
Oh, take the cup of salvation. So we give thanks to God for
his benefits. But then he says, I will call
upon the name of the Lord. And this is what really struck
me and what I wanted to focus on just for a couple of minutes
this evening. I will call upon the name of
the Lord. You see, answered prayer encouraged
him to continue praying. It was the benefits, the goodness,
the blessings which spurred him on to call again on God's name,
to call again in prayer. And as we come together at times
of prayer meeting, it's good to be reminded in our own thoughts
of His goodness towards us as we come again to bring our prayers
to God. to remember that He has been
mindful of us in the past and therefore we are encouraged to
come again. What shall I render to the Lord?
What shall I offer to Him in thanksgiving? but to bring ourselves
again, but to bring our needs again. In a sense, this is a
sense of thanksgiving because we honour the Lord by acknowledging
that he has heard us before and that we believe he can and will
hear us again. This is a sense of praise in
itself. I will call on the name of the
Lord. As we come together tonight,
perhaps there are new things on our minds, new things in our
church, to consider new things to pray over and to bring to
the Lord. We've been in a situation, I'm
sure the pastor here won't mind me saying, where we've had to
pray over new things, an unknown path that we've had to walk through
together in the last few weeks. We've had new concerns to bring
to the Lord in prayer. But if he has heard prayer before
and he has helped in the past, then we are encouraged that these
new things that we walk through can be brought again. What shall
we render to the Lord for His benefits? I will call on the
name of the Lord. We can bring these new concerns. Perhaps there are things that
we've been praying over for many times. We've been praying that
the Lord would appear for months. for years perhaps. We've been
praying that the Lord would work in a particular way or in a particular
soul that's in our mind and we think, will the Lord answer?
Can the Lord answer? Why is he so long in waiting? Well, here's the encouragement
again. He has given so many benefits,
so many blessings in the past, so many times that his hand has
appeared that now again we will call on the name of the Lord,
we will persevere and keep praying, though perhaps for years there
has been no answer. Also, we may be in a situation
where we've been praying and we have received answers, but
yet we must keep praying. What do I mean by that? Well,
there are certain things especially in a church situation, where
the Lord, we believe, answers our prayers every week, and yet
we come again another Friday evening, and we have, in a sense,
the same prayers to bring again. Again, we seek that souls will
be blessed. Again, we seek that souls will
be saved. There is a lost world around
us. There are so many outside of
the knowledge of the Lord, we pray again that souls will be
saved, though we may see answers to that prayer, we again need
to be kept And he may have heard that prayer. We hope he has in
the last week. We need to pray it again. We
again need to be fed when we come to another Lord's Day. We
again desire His blessing. We again desire His help. There
are prayers that we have answers to. We can hold them to the Lord
and say that prayer has been heard last week, we believe.
And therefore, now, I will call upon the name of the Lord and
I will bring the same need again. I will bring it again. because he has heard. What shall I render unto the
Lord for all his benefits? What does he say? Let me hear
thy voice. Let me hear your prayer. Let
me hear your cries. He loves to hear his people pray
to him. What shall we render? What shall
we give? What shall we bring? But bow
again together now and say, Lord, we need again. Lord, we need
thy help again. I will call upon the name of
the Lord. Well, may God be with us this
evening as we come before him now and pray together and help
those who lead us in prayer.