I am glad to be here, glad to
be able to do this for Brother Paul. And I know, and he knows,
this is providential. Everything's providential. There's
a reason and a purpose for everything under the sun. I'm glad to do
this, and as often as you need me, just call me. And by God's
grace, I'll do what I can do. The title of this message, Praise
God in All His Works. I'm in over my head, I know.
But to praise God in all his works, this is what I came here
tonight for. Praise God with my brothers and
sisters in Rocky Mountain, Virginia. This is what I'm here for. This
is what we are here for. What you came out tonight for.
It's to sing praise, not about Him, unto Him. There's a difference. You can
sing about the Lord and use facts, and use true facts. But to sing
to Him is to sing to a person. There's a relationship here.
When you're singing to Him, they sing unto Him in heaven, and
we sing unto Him on earth. Now He says here, praise ye the
Lord. Hallelujah is what this means. We are to do this now. We are called upon to do it now.
What an opportunity we have right now to praise the Lord. As we sang that song, How Great
Thou Art, I was thinking of Enoch walking with God. I thought Enoch
could have written that song as he strolled along through
the forest and looked at creation. But let's do this now, let's
do it each day, and let's do it always. This is what we were
made for. This is exactly what we were
made for, Isaiah 43, 21. This people have I formed for
myself. They shall show forth my praise.
They shall do it. That's what we're doing tonight.
And it tells us here how to do something. He says, I will praise
the Lord with my whole heart. He does so, first of all, with
resolve, I will. There's not only resolve in this,
I will, but there's preparation. You know, true worship is not
an accident. We do not accidentally worship the Lord. There's real
preparation, and I've learned this as I've gotten older. There's
real preparation that goes into worshiping the Lord, to think
upon Him. To meditate. That's a good word. In our day, you think of some
guru sitting around, but no. David meditated upon the Lord. And we meditate upon Him, we
prepare to worship Him, and we do so with resolve. And we do
so with the whole heart. The whole heart. God receives
nothing half-heartedly. There's no such thing as a half-hearted
worship. It's either all worship or no
worship. It's one or the other. Not only with my understanding,
we do so with our understanding, but with my affections also.
My heart's in it. We love the one we are praising.
We love the one we worship. We love Him. We adore Him. And we praise Him. And where
will we praise Him? Well, first of all, in the heart,
but also here, listen, in the assembly of the upright and in
the congregation. Together. Together. This speaks of our gathering
together to worship the Lord. This is why we are told in Hebrews
not to forsake the assembly of ourselves together. We come together. You know, we worship the Lord
individually, but we come together as His family and we worship
Him as His family In the congregation, we worship Him together. We do
so in private, we do so publicly. Now, reasons to praise Him are
given in verses two through nine. The psalmist starts out with
his great works. You know everything God does
is great? You know, when He made a gnat,
it was a great work. You put a brain in a gnat, You
put eyes in something that small. You know, we look at mountains
and we say, whoa, what a, what a, what a, what power, what,
what wisdom to make such certain. I tell you what, I'm more fascinated,
I'm really more fascinated with a gnat. That God could take something
that small and give it life. Give it a brain. Give it a purpose. Give that gnat a purpose. That's
amazing. That's amazing to me. When I look at the works of God
now, and I look at the works of creation, when I was young,
it was a place to play. Now, I stand amazed. I stand
amazed. My God made this. My God did
this. I can say to the world, and I
can say to anybody, I say, My God did this. My God made that
tree. My God made that cow. My God
made that sun. My God made the stars. My God
made the universe. My God did it. The same one that
died for me is the same one that made it. The same one. He says in verse two, the works
of the Lord are great, are great and are sought out of all them
that have pleasure therein. Now you'll notice as we go through
this that our works are not mentioned in any of these verses. Would
you hold a candle up to the sun? Would you do that? Would you
rather have candlelight out there right now or sunlight? Let's
take the sunlight and blow the candlelight out. Let's blow ours
out. It's embarrassing. Here we have his works. And we're
going to start with the works of creation because this is important. On this earth, this creation
is where redemption is played out. That's why God created this
earth. God purposed to have a people.
God purposed to redeem a people. And it's going to be played out
on this earth. That's why he said the earth is established
forever. It cannot be removed. It can't be removed because this
is where the story of redemption is played out. This is the stage. We're on the stage. So we start
with God's creation. If you'll go back, well, pay
attention. When you read in the Old Testament,
almost all the time when the prophets identified God, they
first identified Him as the God of creation. That's how they
identified Him. When Paul preached to the heathens,
there in the book of Acts, often he identified God as the God
of creation, the God who created heaven and earth. He got their
attention, and then he was able to preach the gospel to them.
Because the one who created all this is God. It's God. He made this world, now listen,
he made this world out of nothing. You know, here's what I was thinking
about at 1.30 this morning. I woke up and started thinking
about this message. And I thought about all that
I see right now, all that I see, all that you and I see in the
universe of stars and moon, at one time was just in the mind
of God. It was in his mind. And then one day he spoke and
it came out. And here's his revelation, all this creation. And then we
come all the way down to the story of redemption. And that
was in his mind, his eternal purpose, that which he purposed
in Christ before the world began. I stand amazed. I absolutely
stand amazed. He created this world. He just
spoken. It's like, it was like, it's
like, you know, I used to watch a guy on TV. His name was Bob
Ross. Was he a painter? Remember something
y'all said PBS? You know, he would start with
a blank canvas. And there's nothing on it. And to me, it was blank.
I mean, I could see nothing on it. And then he took a brush
and he started to stroke here and a stroke there. And man,
all of a sudden, this beautiful picture started to develop. And
this is what we're seeing in creation. We're seeing what was
in the mind of God. And this brings it all the way
down to redemption. I'll get to that in a minute.
But He made this world and He made, listen, He made it out
of His wisdom, His power. He spoke it into existence. He
says in Isaiah 40, 26, lift up your eyes on high and behold,
who hath created these things? They didn't evolve, they were
created. Someone said, I was thinking
it was Ralph Barnes, said man didn't, I don't know if it was
him or not, but anyway, he said man didn't evolute, he devoluted. He didn't have a loop. He says
here, lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath created these
things, that bringeth out their host by number. He calleth them
all by names. All these galaxies and stars,
he calls them by name, by the greatness of his might, for that
he is strong in power, not one faileth. Not one. Not one planet has fallen out
of the heavens. This earth hasn't moved one iota
since he said, since he commanded it to be. Psalm 104, O Lord,
how manifold are thy works and wisdom hast thou made them all.
The earth is full of thy riches. I never saw that before. I never
saw that till God saved me. I never saw it till he saved
me. And then all of a sudden I began to see the world and
the earth as All the world is evil, but the earth is His creation. It's beautiful. Even with sin
in it, it's beautiful. It's His. And then His works
of providence, day by day. I tell you, I don't turn on the
news to see what's going on. I just see what's going on. I just see what's going on. That's
the providence of God. You know what the providence
of God is? It's the fulfilling of His purpose that He purposed
in Christ before the foundation of the world. That's providence. Right now, this is providence. And the Lord's will is being
done. It says in Psalm 76.10, Surely the wrath of man shall
praise thee. That wrath out there, those men
who look like they're out of control, they're praising God.
They're doing God's will. They're fulfilling God's will.
It's such a mystery over my head. I can't get into that, but I
do know this. He says, "...the wrath of man
shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain."
He'll restrain it. If he didn't, wars would never
cease. He makes wars cease until the end of the earth. If not,
they wouldn't stop. He wouldn't stop, but he makes
them cease for our sake. And these works are sought out
of all them that have pleasure, then searched Search. You know, you look at these things
and you search the scriptures. You search the scriptures. And
then you look at creation and you meditate upon these things
and you see the hand of God in them. You see the wisdom of God
in them. You see the power of God in all
these things. And you have pleasure in it.
You have pleasure because your father made it. Your Father made
them. He made all of it. Those whose
praise is the Lord find their pleasure in His works. That's
where we find our pleasure. We look at them in the light
of the gospel, in the light of His Word, and we find pleasure
in them because His hand is in them. His purpose is in them. Now, verse 3, here the psalmist
goes from works His works are great. He goes from his works
to work. His work is honorable and glorious,
and his righteousness endures forever. There's one work in
which all his other works serve. You know that? All the other
works of God are serving this one work. It's the work of redemption. It's serving the work of redemption.
His work of redemption is served by creation. I said it's the
stage in which it's being played out. It's served by providence. He's making all things work together
for our good. He's bringing it all together. It's the whole purpose of it.
It is the one work that glorifies God in all His attributes, this
work of redemption. We see more of the wisdom of
God, the power of God, the glory of God in this one work accomplished
by His Son, Jesus Christ. And it's an honorable work. It's
an honorable work because an honorable person did it. Your
honor did it. The judge of all the earth did
it. We see the glory of God in this
one accomplishment by the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God manifest
in the flesh. The work of Christ in redemption
justifies and satisfies Him. No other work does that, but
it serves to that purpose. I thought about this Just before
leaving the house, I thought about Genesis. I thought, in
the beginning, in the beginning led to, it is finished. Isn't
it? That's what it was leading to.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That
led to Jesus Christ crying out on the cross, it's finished.
It's finished. That's the whole purpose of creation.
It's the whole purpose of everything. It's to glorify Jesus Christ.
to finish this work of redemption and to put away sin. I used to
just think of sin as a thing you did, you didn't do. It's such a mystery to me. Who can comprehend sin? Who can comprehend evil? I was telling my son Jeremy the
other day, I said, only God can see. The real death of evil and
sin. I said, when I look at the cross,
what does that say about me when such a person had to die such
a death? How evil must I be? How wicked must I be? And sinful? But Jesus Christ, by His sacrifice
of Himself, has put away sin once for all. It will never raise
its ugly head again. When there's that new heaven,
new earth, sin will never be an issue. This thing of sin,
that's such a mystery to me, is finally put away. God dealt
with it. God has dealt with it. And it's
gone. It's done away. And it'll never
be back. It'll never happen. On that new heaven, that new
earth, it'll never come back. It's gone, it's over with. The
thing that causes us so much heartache and trouble and pain
and death is gone. Now, isn't that something to
praise the Lord over? Amen. Wow. Amen over my head. And it's a work done in righteousness.
It's honorable. It's done in righteousness. No
sin in His work of redemption. No sin in the work of Jesus Christ. I've never done anything that
has sin in it. I mean, there's enough sin in what I'll probably
do in the life. Condemn me. I've never preached Christ as
I ought to preach Christ. I've never glorified Him as He
deserves to be glorified. Even as I stand here, I don't
love him as I ought to love him. Isn't that awful? Isn't that
awful? But I tell you what, his work
is honorable, it's done in righteousness, no sin in it. In Revelation 15,
3, and they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and
the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are thy works,
Lord God Almighty, just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. God has saved us in a just way.
He's done so. And verse four, and here's the
wonder of God's grace. Here's the wonder of His mercy.
He hath made His wonderful works to be remembered. Creation was 6,000 years ago. The Lord Jesus Christ died on
the cross 2,000 years ago. What are we doing right now?
Remembering. We are remembering from one generation
to the next. There's some younger people in
here. And here we stand, it's older ones. We're preaching the
gospel. Someday we're going to leave.
And that generation will pick it up. God and they will pick
it up. And they'll remember it. And
they'll remember it to their children and to their children
until Jesus Christ comes back. He. He had made his wonderful,
wonderful works. Aren't they wonderful? His works
of grace, my, isn't that wonderful? Your work of grace, isn't that
wonderful? And the reason his works are
called wonderful, because the one who did them, his name is
wonderful. The wonderful one did it. Only wonderful can come
from him. That's all that can come from
him. He has made His wonderful works to be remembered. The Lord
is gracious and full of compassion. His great works, His honorable
work, His wonderful works, He's made them to be remembered. That's
what we're doing right now. Oh, remembering His works. They're
written in His Word for our remembrance. Preached from the pulpit week
after week after week. You know how gracious God's been
to you? Give you a faithful pastor. Faithful pastor to take the word
of God and remember Christ one more time? And then give you
the ordinance of the bread and the wine to do this in remembrance
of me? You and I are a forgetful lot. We are a forgetful lot. All his works are to remind us
of this, of his wonderful work of salvation. That's what they're
all, they remind us of his wonderful work of salvation. Listen to
Psalm 103, verse one through five. Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me, every fiber of my being, bless his
holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
forget not all his benefits. Remember them. Can you just look
back on today and remember any benefits? Here's one, you're
here. Here's a benefit. I bet you not
one of us thought about that driving over here that this was
a real benefit tonight. Somebody may have, but this is
a real benefit. It's a spiritual benefit. You'll
go home focused again on the Lord Jesus Christ and your soul
lifted up. Forget not all these benefits.
Who forgiveth? And here's one of those benefits. Who forgiveth
all thine iniquities? The ones you don't even know
about. The ones you can't even remember. He's forgiven them.
Who healeth all thy diseases, thy spiritual diseases, and physical
if it's His will. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction. Who crowneth thee with loving
kindness and tender mercies. Who satisfies thy mouth with
good things so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. Oh,
wow. Remember these things. These
are his works. And the reason he makes us to
remember them is this. He's gracious and full of compassion.
That's why. He's gracious and full of compassion. And so he calls you to remember
it at seven o'clock. We have a worship service. He
makes you to remember what he's done for you. He makes you to
remember that. We forget it. We would forget
it. We get so caught up with living,
we forget it. But this here, this, the Lord
is gracious and full of compassion, speaks of his character. This
is who God is. And then in verse 5, verse 5
is just an act of His grace. He giveth meat, food, that word
could also be portioned. But He hath given meat unto them
that fear Him. What's He giving you right now?
The meat of His Word. If you're hungry, if you've got
an appetite, you came with an appetite, it tells me, first
of all, one thing, I've learned this. If you come with an appetite,
it's evident you're empty. Because if you're full, you don't
have an appetite. You say, I don't want to eat, I'm full. You know, when
you have an appetite, you're empty. If you come empty and
you're looking to be filled, He'll fill you, I promise you.
God will fill those who come hungry. He has given meek unto them that
fear Him. He gives them their portion.
Those who fear Him, He feeds them. He never forgets His promises.
He supplies our needs, our physical needs and our spiritual needs. My soul, He has loaded us now
with benefits. Loaded us now with benefits. Has He not given us the bread
from heaven? Not everybody has what you have
tonight. Very few people have what you have tonight. Does He
not give us the meat of His Word? You know how much shallow preaching
there is in our day? It's shallow, shallow preaching. And He does this, here listen,
He gives, He has given, He hath given meat They're food unto
them that fear Him. He'll ever be mindful of His
covenant. This is why He does it. He's mindful of His covenant
with His Son, Jesus Christ, and with you in Christ. He's a covenant
God. God does everything by covenant.
You and I, or I am anyway, I'm a lot of times spur-of-the-moment.
God isn't. God doesn't have to do anything
spur-of-the-moment. He has purposed it before the world began. Everything.
Everything. And everything he does with us,
he does by way of a covenant that he made with Jesus Christ
before the world began. And those covenant blessings
are sure, they're sure because they rest on the merits of Christ
and not on us. We'd be gone, wouldn't we? We
wouldn't get anything. No, no, no, no. giving us, he's
ever mindful, he's ever mindful of it, we're not, but he is.
It never leaves his mind. He's ever mindful of it. And
then he gives us, not only does he feed us, he has showed his
people the power of his works. Hell, everything is working together
for our good. Everything. It doesn't matter
if you have a good day or a bad day, it's working for your good.
You needed it. It's a need be. Everything we
get is a need be. The trial is a need be trial.
I've learned if something comes my way and it's tough, I needed
it or I wouldn't be getting it. It's a need be. He has showed his people the
power of his works that he may give them the heritage of the
heathen. The Lord, you know, the Lord
showed Israel the power of his works in Egypt. You know what
they saw. Can you imagine physically seeing
the Red Sea party? Can you imagine walking across
on dry ground and a wall of water? Probably one or two million or
so people walking across there on dry ground and then watching
it come back together and drown that whole Egyptian army. They
saw that. They saw that. They saw the party
of the Red Sea. In the wilderness, their shoes
never wore out. Their clothes didn't grow old.
The manna was on the ground every morning. The water came out of
the rock. They saw that. But you and I
see something greater. Don't we see something greater? I mean, they saw that, and for
the most part, they missed it. They didn't enter in because
unbelief. You know, seeing a miracle has never saved anyone. It's
never saved anyone. It's the power of God that saves.
It's the Spirit of God that saves. But just seeing something is
a sin. They didn't save them. They saw
great miracles. He even gave them the land of
Canaan and made their neighbors tributaries to David. Paid taxes. But you know one day, one day,
God Almighty robed himself in flesh, walked on this earth,
walked down the streets of Jerusalem, healed the blind, raised the
dead, made the lame to walk. Fed thousands and thousands.
He fed them. Five thousand, not including
the children and women, however many there were. He did that
twice. He fed them. How many times? Then he goes to the cross. He
goes to the cross. And does on purpose what everybody
else tries not to do. Dies. Everybody else trying not
to die. And he did it on purpose. He
went to die. Barry rose again. Sent it on high. They had captivity
captive. And set a bunch of prisoners
like you and me free. Free from the power of Satan.
Free from the power of reigning sin. That sin nature doesn't
reign as a king anymore. Christ reigns in you. Have you
seen the power of God in Christ? If God saved you, you have. You
have. Eyes of faith, you've seen the
power of God. And then in verse 7, that he
may give, there in verse 6, the last part of it, that he may
give them the heritage of the heathen. The verse 7, the works
of his hands are verity and judgment. All his commandments are sure.
You know, you can't charge God with sin. He didn't run the Canaanites
out just so he could put them in. They were idolatrous. They
deserved what they got. They deserved what they got.
And God gave to Israel what they didn't deserve. The land of Canaan. And the way he did it was in
a just way. There's no sin in what God does. Never charge God with sin. The
judge of the earth will do right. When he's saving, it's right.
When he's damning, it's right. If he's running the Canaanites
out, it's right. And he's giving it to Israel,
it's right. One thing, it's his. The earth is the Lord, the fullness
are of it. They who dwell therein, it's his. Now, if God cast the people out,
he'd cast them out because of their sins. Not showing favoritism. They're getting what they deserve. And listen, what harmony there is
between the works of God and the Word of God. He does not
say one thing unto another. Judgment and all His commandments
are sure. And they stand fast, verse 8,
they stand fast forever and are done in truth and uprightness.
This speaks of the immutability of God. They stand fast forever. His works and his word are immutable. God's immutable. He doesn't change.
His purpose doesn't change. God's purpose has never changed. It's never changed. His works
reveal his purpose and that never changes. And then let me wind
this down. I'm going to wind it down, but
it just keeps getting better. Verse 9, He sent redemption unto
His people. They're His by election. They're
His by purchase. You know, Israel was His people
before He gave the Passover. They were His people in Egypt.
And then He gave them the Passover. We were chosen before the foundation
of the world. And I know Christ is the Lamb slain before the
foundation of the world. But He sent redemption unto His
people. He's commanded His covenant forever.
Holy and reverent is His name. God sent them Moses to deliver
them, which was the type of Christ. And He has sent us His Son to
redeem us. God the Son. I think about this
often. God the Son. walked over there
in the streets of that place called Jerusalem, Israel. 2,000 years ago, he literally
walked those streets. He walked. Walked around all
over that place. God sent his son to redeem us,
to purchase us. Those whom he had chosen, if
he hadn't chosen us, wouldn't be nobody saved. They wouldn't. You know, the angels that did
not fall, they're called the elect angels. They didn't fall because
they're better, they got chosen. And the ones that did fall, when
he was casting out demons, do you ever read where one asks
for mercy? You'll never hear a sinner ask for mercy either
unless God's chosen him and redeemed him. Those angels that fell,
they don't ask for mercy. They didn't say, Lord, they said,
if you come and torment us before our time, they didn't say, would
you save me too? Would you save us too? Would
you be our savior? They didn't want that. That's
exactly what the human race is. A bunch of devils and a body.
The only difference between us and devils is that we have a
body. We have a body. Man is nothing
but a devil. He's as mean as a devil. Isn't
it? Look what they did to Christ.
What they did to Him. And now listen. He did this. He sent the Redeemer as according
to the everlasting covenant that He made with His Son. And He
identifies Himself here as holy and record. You can count on
Him. You can count on Him. You can take Him at His word.
You can trust His covenant, because holy and reverent is His name. He can do no wrong. And then here, a bright fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, he says. This is how
he closes. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom. The beginning of wisdom doesn't
start in the seminary. The beginning of wisdom starts
in the heart. It's a right fear of God. It's not a right intellectual
grasp of theology. It's a right fear of God. That's
the beginning of wisdom. That's the beginning. Where's
the evidence of grace? Begun in the heart. It is. It's the beginning of grace.
The first evidence of the work of grace in the soul is a right
fear of the Lord. It's a reverential affection
for Him. And last of all, and a good understanding,
have all they that do His commandments. His praise endureth forever.
They're praising Him now in heaven, and He'll now be there a little
while, and it'll be forever and ever. Listen, I think James says
it here in James 1.22, be ye doers of the word and not hearers
only, receiving your own self. A good understanding have they
that are doers of the word. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. And you do. He that is baptized You want to do His Word, don't
you? I want to do His Word. I want
to do His will. I pray, God, make it known to
me. When I read the Scriptures, I'm
not reading for entertainment. I'm reading for direction, guidance,
spiritual growth. I want to grow in grace and in
knowledge of Christ. I want to do the Lord's will.
I want to do His Word, whatever it is. Because it's His Word. Let's praise Him in all of His
words. Alright.