Well, it's a delight. It's always
hard for me to come up with the words that I feel are sufficient
to thank you for having me and thank the Lord for allowing us
to get together again, see each other. And I was sitting there
looking at Gare and Jim and I was thinking, I can remember quite
well when we were the young pups. full of spitting vinegar and
not a whole lot of wisdom. And now we're the old guys. And
I look out among this congregation, I see many people who used to
have no gray hair, now they have all gray hair. And I think of the wonder it
is that for these many years and decades, the Lord has kept
us together and in love, and there's hardly nothing like that
on the face of the earth. But I do thank you, and I thank
you for having me, brother. Psalm 138. Psalm 138. I will praise Thee with my whole
heart. Before the gods will I sing praise
unto Thee. I will worship toward Thy holy
temple and praise Thy name for Thy lovingkindness and for Thy
truth. For Thou hast magnified Thy word
above all Thy name. In the day when I cried, Thou
answeredest me and strengthened me with strength in my soul.
And all the kings of the earth shall praise Thee, O Lord, when
they shall hear the words of Thy mouth. They shall sing in
the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord. Though
the Lord be high, yet He hath respect unto the lowly. But the
proud he knoweth afar off. Though I walk in the midst of
trouble, thou wilt revive me. Thou shalt stretch forth thy
hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall
save me. The Lord will perfect that which
concerneth me. Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever.
Forsake not the works of thine own hands. This psalm of David is a psalm
of praise as is all of David's psalms. In fact, this book is
about poor sinners praising God and worshiping God. And praise
is a unique thing. It has to do with God and not
with men. In Scripture, men praise God
for His love, for His mercy, and for His grace, and for His
sovereignty. In the Revelation, men say, We
thank Thee, O God, that Thou hast taken Thy power to Thyself
and has reigned. And the heart of praise is thanksgiving. So this is a psalm of thanksgiving. And praise never occurs in a
vacuum. When in Scripture men praise
God, they do so because God has done something for them, or because
they see His glory. And His glory, according to His
own words, is what He has done and will do in the matter of
the salvation of the elect, for which His people are overwhelmed
with thanksgiving. He said to Moses concerning what
His glory was, I will make My goodness pass before you, I will
proclaim the name of the Lord before you, I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy, and I will be gracious unto whom
I will be gracious. That's the only time in Scripture
that God actually defines His own glory. And I know men might
come up with a whole lot of ideas about what it's about, but God
says it pretty clearly right there. It's about His salvation
of His people through the proclamation of the gospel all by His goodness
and His mercy. When men truly praise God, it
is never generic. I remember Jack Shanks telling
a story one time about him when he would go out walking. I think
it was after he had his knees replaced. And he would go out
walking and he'd stop by a 7-Eleven store on his way home and get
him a cup of coffee or a drink or something. And he said, there
was a young lady in there that always had her Bible open and
study books open on the counter. She would always say when he
walked in, praise the Lord, praise the Lord. And one day Jack looked
at her and said, for what? And the room grew silent because
for most people the words praise the Lord are nothing more than
a punctuation mark at the end of a religious sentence full
of prattle. Praising God is never generic.
It is particular and it's always for some reason. Always for some
reason. And the reason for praise is
thanksgiving. It's thanksgiving. And that word means to be thankful
for what you have been given. Thanks-giving. And the believer
learns that he has been given what he has been given in the
declaration of the gospel. We don't find out what we might
get when we hear the gospel. We don't find out what might
be possible out there or even what might be probable out there.
When you hear the gospel in your heart with ears that God has
given and eyes that God has opened, you find out what God has done
for you. You don't find out a way to be
saved, you find out you have been saved, that you have been
redeemed, that your sins have been put away by the blood of
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Over in 1 Corinthians chapter
2, Paul having set forth the glorious
mystery of the gospel, And the very first part of the chapter
is saying, I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. He says in verse 9 of chapter
2 of 1 Corinthians, But as it is written, I have not seen nor
ear heard, neither entered into the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love Him. Now most people when
they, most preachers when they handle this, they talk about
heaven. They talk about the wonderful streets of gold and the pearly
gates and such and such, but that's not what this is talking
about. This is talking about the gospel. It's talking about what the gospel
does. But as it is written, I have not seen nor heard nor entered
into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them
that love him, but God hath revealed them unto us. His people, by
His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things,
yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things
of man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the
things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now we
have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit
which is of God. And here's what the gospel does,
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of
God. Not what He's going to freely
give us. Because if you're a child of God this morning, you've got
everything you're ever going to have. Yes, you have. You're not going to get something
else when you go to glory. You're just going to leave something
behind. You're going to live behind the old flesh and the
old nature, which sins the sins of God. You're going to see God
right. You're going to see Christ right. You're going to believe
the gospel right. All these things will be right. You've not got
anything that you don't already have. You're not going to get
anything else. Heaven's not going to be anything other than the
full revelation of Christ without sin. That's what heaven is. God has already revealed to us
in His gospel. And it stands to reason then
that the heart of thanksgiving is the heart that attributes
glory to God alone. Thanksgiving is singular in that
it is never and can never be toward God and toward self. It can't be toward God and toward
self. Or toward God and also toward
some panoply of other deities. Those who believe that God is
the co-author of salvation, that He cannot and does not act apart
from man's cooperative effort or decision, will have no reason
to thank God whatsoever. They simply don't have a reason
to thank God. So when they preach that God can't do anything unless
you let Him, and then they say, praise God, they're lying. They
have no reason to praise God. No reason to praise God at all.
Praise is not a religious punctuation mark, a stinger attached to the
end of some litany about what man has done. Praise and thanksgiving
are not some starry-eyed trance. They're not some starry-eyed
trance that men enter into when they lose control or give themselves
over to some ersatz spirit that eventuates in calling attention
to themselves. That's not praise. Praise is
a willing, willful act whereby men and women in full possession
of their natural and spiritual mental faculties and emotional
faculties determine, determine, as Paul determined to preach
the gospel, they determine to give all the glory to God and
no one else. This is one of the reasons that
praise is called a sacrifice. over in Hebrews 13, because it
is a willing removing of one's self from the equation of salvation. That's what praise is. This is
the language of this psalm that David says here. In the first
three verses, David determines to praise God and praise God
alone. He says, I will praise Thee,
I will praise Thee with my whole heart. Before the gods will I
sing praise unto Thee. I will worship toward Thy holy
temple and praise Thy name for Thy lovingkindness and for Thy
truth. For Thou hast magnified Thy word above all Thy name.
In the day when I cry, Thou answer to me and strengtheneth me with
the strength in my soul. The praise that he determines
to render to God. He said, I will. That's what
I'm going to do. I will. And I'll do it with my
whole heart. It's offered in the face and
in the midst of and in the discounting of all other deities and gods
that have been conjured up in the imaginations of men. I will
praise Thee right in front, in the midst of. I'm going to praise
Thee alone right in the middle of all these other gods that
men talk about. And listen to me, if a man talks
about God and describes Him as any other way that God describes
Himself in this book, he's not talking about God, he's talking
about another God, he's talking about a false God. Talking about
a false God. Praise is distinctively pointed,
distinctively pointed, it's targeted and in a sense is rendered from
a militant stance. I will praise thee in the midst
of the other gods. And those who have praised God
singularly have experienced their religion ceases their praise
as a declaration of war. When you praise God singularly
and thank God singularly, men hear it, religious men hear it
as a declaration of war. They hear it that way. The gospel,
the true gospel, the gospel of free and sovereign grace glorifies
Christ alone and thus by default completely discounts all other
gods. And the gospel is rarely spoken in a manner that openly
disregards other gods or even mentions them. But it's almost
always heard and perceived that way by the enemies of the cross.
That's why when you talk to folks who are religious, it don't take
long for them to stop talking to you. They don't want to talk
to you because you just seem to have only one string on your
guitar, one note, and that's the only thing you play over
and over again. And when they talk about being a Christian,
they're not talking about loving Christ, they're not talking about
honoring God, they're talking about what they do. They're talking
about the fact that they go to church on Sunday, they give, they tithe,
they do this, they do that, they pray, and so forth. They go to
revival meetings, all those things. They've been down front a number
of times, they've rededicated a number of times. This is what
they talk about. But not the child of God. He says it's all
Christ. And I ain't doing anything. What
would you do? I ain't done nothing yet. What
will you do? I'll never do anything to gain anything. Christ has
done it all for me, and that's the sound of war. That God chose
me before the foundation of the world, that God predestinated
me to be conformed to the image of His Son. Moreover, having
predestinated, He called me, justified me, and glorified me.
What can I say to these things? Well, God was for me, you know. Who can be against me if God
is for me? And that's a declaration of war, and men say things like,
well, my God's not like that. And I agree with them wholly.
Their God is not like that. Praising God is the heart of
worship. Worship, we've gathered here to worship today. Worship
comes from the heart of thanksgiving for the loving kindness, mercy
and grace of God. Worship is praising God for the
truth, that singular thing, that absolutely wondrous, inalterable
message, that majestic word from on high that discloses every
lie and puts all things in their proper place. That's the gospel.
We praise God for that. Worship. We come to worship to
praise God and to thank God. Some people say after the worship
service, well I didn't get anything out of the worship service. Well
you wasn't supposed to. God's supposed to get something
out of the worship service. We give praise to God. We don't
get stuff from God in worship. We give praise and thanksgiving
to God. He's the one that gets things
in worship. Worship is thanking God that we do not have to flail
about in this world looking for some meaning in every rock, in
every twig, having to decide what's best for us, selecting
one motto to live by among the endless list of other wacky possibilities. There is one way, one truth,
one life, and the believer is thankful that it's that way,
that it's that way, and that the matter is forever settled,
written in iron with the pen of a ready writer. The last phrase
of verse 2 is an astonishing phrase. For thou hast magnified
thy word above all thy name. That's an astonishing phrase.
I remember I read the Bible a long time before I ever saw it. In
fact, I didn't actually see it. Some preacher said it. And I
said, did he say that? I think it was Henry Mann. He said it
in an article or something. I have magnified thy word above
thy name. And I was knocked out. What a
thing. What a thing! Whatever the meaning of that
is, I'm sure it's too high and holy for me to conceive in my
poor, sad mind. But whatever the meaning is,
it surely places a high and profound value upon the Word of God. Not the notions of dying minds,
the Word of God. I think that it's safe to say
this refers to Jesus Christ. I think that's safe to say. It's
about Him and His Gospel. Peter at Pentecost said that
Christ's name was above every name. The only name under heaven
given among men whereby we might be saved. Peter said in another
place that we have a more sure prophecy than seeing Christ in
person. That's an amazing phrase too. And he wasn't talking about,
you know, seeing Him in a picture in a museum. He wasn't seeing
some picture of Wabill Hickok or some guy kneeling by a rock
with a little halo around his head and a sweet arrow and looking
up to the sky like they had at Rosemont. You remember that?
The church we used to preach at, belonged to, had a sign on
the pulpit that said, Sirs, we would see Jesus. Then you look
up and they had this great big picture of Jesus on the back
wall. I think it was a velvet painting, wasn't it? Like Elvis,
but something like that. But anyway, Peter said this. Like I said, this was no small thing. He's talking about
being on the Mount of Transfiguration. He's talking about being there
when some really stupendous things happened. He was there when the
Lord's robe glistened whiter than any fuller could make it,
brighter than the noonday sun. He was there in person and he
saw two men whom he had only heard of. Two men, the law of Moses and
Elijah, the law and the prophets. come across time. How does that
work? I don't know. But they come across
time. The space-time continuum was
warped and folded like Einstein said, and somehow Moses and Elijah
was right there on that mountain, talking with Christ. And they
was talking about the political situation. And there's talking
about abortion. And there's talking about, oh,
the cruelty of man. And there's talking about all
this stuff. What was the message? What were they talking to Christ
about? They were talking to Christ about what the message of heaven
is. What the whole thing is about. What we're about. Why our existence.
Why we exist on this world. They spoke to Him of the decease
which He should accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter was there. He said, I've seen that. I've
seen that with my own eyes. He said, not only that, I seen
it when that cloud rolled in because I opened my mouth and
got myself in trouble and decided to build three tabernacles, one
to Moses, one to Elijah, and one to Christ. And there came
a voice from heaven and said, this is my beloved son, you hear
him. I was there for that. He said, I don't believe cunningly
devised fables and wives tales and such. And he says, you know
what? I was there and it was a big
day. But verse 19 of 1 Peter chapter 1 says we, or 2 Peter
chapter 1 says we also have a more sure word of prophecy. What is
it? Look down in your lap. Right
there it is. Isn't that something? We'd always
say, boy, I'd like to be in there. Well, you got a more sure word
of prophecy. A more sure word of prophecy, where unto you do
well that you take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark
place until the day dawn and the day star rise in your heart.
What's he talking about? He's talking about the Word of
God. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture
is given by private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in
old by the will of men, but holy men of God spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost. He's talking about this book
of all things. This is better. And more sure
than seeing Christ transfigured and honored by God the Father
on the mountain. This is more sure. My goodness. It would seem that thou hast
magnified thy word even above thy name. God's word is the instrument
that brings realization of salvation. Salvation accomplished by Christ
to the elect. And this phrase is one of those
that simply puts the skids on silly ideas of men and causes
one to ponder the preponderance of the riches therein. Thou hast magnified Thy Word
above Thy Name. Verse 3 shows us that the praise
and thanksgiving has a basis for it, a reason for it. He says,
The day when I cried, Thou answeredest me. and strengthens me with the
strength in my soul. In my soul. David thanks God
for hearing and answering his cries and strengthened him inwardly
in his soul. And verses 4 and 5 reveal that
this psalm is, as all psalms are, messianic psalms. I went
to a class one time, I think, did you go to that class where
we had the Psalms, and some of them were imprecatory, and some
of them were historical, and some of them were this, and some
of them were that? No, they're all Messianic Psalms.
They're all about the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Luke chapter
24, as our Lord spoke to those disciples of Emmaus, that's what
He said, and the Psalms spoke of Me. They spoke concerning
Me. These words speak of the salvation of the elect. through
the preaching of the gospel. It speaks of the coming of Christ,
the desire of all nations. He is the desire of all nations.
You say, well, everybody don't seem to want Him. Well, that's
not what that verse is talking about. I got a little outline
from Rupert Reibenbach. He found it in some obscure book
and gave it to me. I'll give this to you all. I
don't know if you've ever preached from this or not. All nations do not desire
Christ, but they desire that which only He fulfills. They don't desire Him. They don't
know Him. They don't want anything to do with Him. But they desire
One who has done exactly what He's done. First, all nations
desire a visible deity. All of them do. Secondly, all nations desire
an atonement or a means of appeasing God. All nations desire divine
revelation and an authentic enunciation of the divine will. All nations
desire that. And all nations desire some assurance
of immortality, a promise of eternal life, a hope that this
life is not all there is. All nations want that. And yet
they reject the only One in whom all these things are so. He's
the desire of all nations. He came to save some out of every
nation, tongue, tribe, and people. And here's what He calls them
in verse 4. All the kings of the earth. shall praise Thee,
O Lord, when they hear the words of Thy mouth. He has washed us
in His blood, and made us kings and priests
unto our God." You know what I'm looking at
here? A bunch of kings. Kings in Burghaw. Ain't that
something? What you are? Kings from Michigan. Kings from all over. And all
those kings, all who are made kings by Christ, all of them
praise the Lord. All of them do. In the remainder
of this psalm, the Lord continues to declare this salvation. Verse
6 speaks of His wondrous condescension. Though the Lord be high, yet
hath he respect unto the lowly, but the proud he knoweth afar
off. He who is high, holy, and dwelling in a light whereunto
no man can approach, has left his glory to dwell among men. He came to save his people from
their sins, and though he is no respecter of persons, he has
respect to the lowly. What does that mean? Well, there's
no contradiction here. His respect for the lowly reveals
that his salvation has nothing to do with respectability. Nothing
whatsoever. The proud, he knoweth afar off.
He don't know them. He has respect to the lowly.
What does that mean? Those who can't recommend themselves to
him. It's all about his choice of whom he saves. Respect here
does not mean that the lowly have qualities that recommend
to him, but they are void of any qualities that would recommend
them to him. Respecting the lowly assures that salvation is for
those who are without hope and without help. His respect of
the lowly is diametrically opposed to that which is highly esteemed
among men. He came not to call the righteous,
but bring sinners to repentance, He said. And this is declared
in the last phrase. Those who think themselves worthy
of any attention from Christ will receive no attention from
Christ, but His displeasure and His vengeance. For the proud
He looked at them afar off, not having anything to do with them.
Verse 7 declares the repeated theme of the salvation of the
elect. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive
me. Thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath
of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me. It is through
much tribulation that we enter the kingdom. The very concept
of salvation is nothing if it's not deliverance from trouble. That's the very concept of salvation,
isn't it? Deliverance from trouble. This
lays the ax to the root of salvation being an offer. or an available
commodity be snatched up or rejected at the whim of some man? Well,
that's just a stupid notion, and it means the folks that talk
like that don't understand what salvation is. Such a stupendously
ridiculous notion. No one in the prison of despair
or the huskow of helletry ever rejected deliverance. None of
them ever did, and none of them ever will. Ever been in jail? I won't ask for a show of hands.
Well, I've been in jail a couple times. One time I was in the
Air Force. Another time when I was a...
Before I went into service back in Atlanta when I was a stupid
young man. I'm a stupid old man now, but
I was a stupid young man. That meant I had more vitality
to do the stupid things than I do now. But I remember the day they locked
me up down there in that Atlanta prison. It's not a very pleasant
place to be. And when they come, unlocked that door, and looked
at me and said, you can go. I said, no, I reject that. I don't want to be delivered. I
like being in here, scared of all these guys, these dope fiends
and things. I love this. I think I'll stay.
I reject your offer. Isn't that stupid? See how stupid
that is. Those who feel they can choose
deliverance or refuse it, simply aren't in trouble. They're delusional,
but they're not in trouble. They see God is in trouble or
falling short of His quota. That's how they poor God. And
they feel pity for Him and decide to cut the old beggars some slack
and walk down an aisle. That's the way they view Him.
Find me a lowly man. Find me a man in trouble, in
his soul. Find a man plagued and burdened
with sin, and I'll show you a man God will save. Also in these
words we find the fact that salvation is a violent thing. It's an upheaval. To deliver the Lector, our Lord
must destroy the enemy of His people. David said, Stretch forth
thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right
hand shall save me. To deliver His elect, the Lord
must destroy the enemy. And that's always the case in
Scripture. If you read it, when God delivers His people, He delivers
His people after wiping out their enemies. And that's the way it
is today. Somebody is going to live and
somebody is going to die when the Gospel is preached. Just
like you said, it's a saver of life and a saver unto death.
One or the other. Paul said, I'm not sufficient
for this. I don't want any part in this. I don't want to know
which one is which. I just don't want to know. It's
not my business. My brain won't handle stuff like
that. So we just, with sincerity and honestly and simplicity,
preach Christ to you and stand back and see what God will do.
Because He's the one that makes the difference in this situation,
not us. This is wonderful wording in
the original language that suggests that God backhands the face of
the enemies while gathering His elect with His right hand. He
slaps them down and takes His people to Himself. Then verse
8 is a passage that is full of glory. The Lord will perfect
that which concerneth me. That just ought to be underlined
in everybody's Bible, don't you think? Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth
forever. Forsake not the works of thy
hand. This passage is a declaration that the saints of the Old Testament
were saved the same way as the saints of the New Testament.
That's one thing. They were saved by God's grace. They were given
faith to look to Christ. There is but one dispensation
in Scripture. This is the dispensation of grace.
It starts in Genesis 1 and ends in Revelation 22. David is declared
that Christ will come to this earth and by His work perfect
His people. Perfect them. That's not a word that It's thrown
around. Sometimes it can mean maturity
and growing up. It can mean that. But in reference
to salvation, it means perfection. The word is teleo. Our Lord used
it twice. Or it's used twice in John 19
when it says, when all things were accomplished. Now that all
things were accomplished, that word, teleo, perfected. Then He says, it is finished.
Those three words are actually teleo, perfect. And over in Hebrews
chapter 10, when He says, He's perfected forever them that are
sanctified, same word, perfect. Now, we cannot really fathom
what that means. Because our person, both spirit
and flesh, cannot really think a thought without the presence
of evil. They just can't do it. Donnie
Bell said, I'd love to do one thing for the glory of God before
I die, just for the glory of God. He won't, and neither will
we. When I would do good, evil is
present with me. So when we think about perfection,
it's kind of like we're trying to feel our way through, trying
to get some notion of what it is. But it means without fault. without blemish, without spot,
or any such thing. And this is the declaration that
Christ will perfect His people. The Lord Jehovah will perfect
that which concerns me. A lot of things concern me. My
sin concerns me. My inability to do anything about
my sin concerns me. My lack of righteousness concerns
me. My inability to produce an acceptable
righteousness concerns me. The wrath of God against sin
concerns me. The exacting nature of the law
of God concerns me. The fact that the law offers
me no help but only condemns me of my sin and places upon
me the just sentence of death, that concerns me. My want and
lack of love for Jesus Christ, that concerns me. My impotence
to change concerns me. My patent and blatant imperfection
concerns me. The requirement of faith concerns
me because I can't produce it. My knowledge that God will accept
nothing that is to any degree less than to perfect, that concerns
me. But the Lord will perfect that
which concerneth me. So I guess I'm alright. In one
fell swoop, all my concerns are allayed. My thirst is a swage. It is the Lord that does my bidding.
It is the Lord that has undertaken my cause. My concern is erased
by Him who cannot fail. The Lord will perfect that which
concerns me. He will accomplish this magnificent
feat by mercy and by grace and by substitution. He will show
mercy to whom He will show mercy. It is not Him that willeth. nor
of him that runneth, but God that showeth mercy. And having
shown mercy, He will never retract that mercy, because His mercy
endureth forever. That's what this passage says.
The believer understand and gladly averse that all his salvation,
the entire process of his perfection, is in no part accomplished by
himself, yet is fully accomplished by his God and Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ. His plea is that the Lord would
not forsake the work of His hand. Keep it up, Lord. Saving, keeping,
sanctifying is the work of God's hand. The believer knows that
if he should forsake his work, there is no hope. As David in
this verse looked forward to the cross, and we look back to
the cross, and we understand that there the Lord perfected
that which concerns me. For by one offering He hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Thanks for having me. God bless
you.