The reading this morning is on
the hymn sheets on the back of the sheet. It is Psalm 104, and
we'll read from verse 19. Psalm 104, commencing reading
at verse 19. He appointed the moon for seasons,
the sun knoweth his going down. Thou makest darkness and it is
night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their
prey, and seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth, they gather
themselves together, and lay them down in their dens. Man
goeth forth unto his work and to his labor until the evening. O LORD, how manifold are Thy
works! In wisdom hast Thou made them
all. The earth is full of Thy riches. So is this great and wide sea,
wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships, there is
that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. These wait
all upon thee, that thou mayst give them their meat in due season,
that thou givest them they gather. Thou openest Thine hand, they
are filled with good. Thou hidest Thy face, they are
troubled. Thou takest away their breath,
they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth Thy
Spirit, they are created, and Thou renewest the face of the
earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure
for ever. The Lord shall rejoice in his
works. He looketh on the earth, and
it trembleth. He toucheth the hills, and they
smoke. I will sing unto the Lord as
long as I live. I will sing praise to my God
while I have my being. My meditation of him shall be
sweet, I will be glad in the Lord. Let the sinners be consumed
out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou
the Lord, O my soul, praise ye the Lord. The verse that I desire to bring
before you is verse 34. My meditation of him shall be
sweet. I will be glad in the Lord. And what I am bringing before
you here is something that is vital for a living soul. We may have many devotions, readings,
prayers, hear many sermons, but if we never meditate upon that
Word, we are not going to profit from it. The clean beasts in
the Old Testament, they chewed the card. They not only ate at
first, but they brought it back up again, and they chewed that
card, went over it again. And to meditate on something
is to focus one's mind for a period of time, and to think deeply
about something. And I think if we are all honest
with ourselves, we can. We can sing hymns and just be
concentrating on the music, and if someone were to ask us afterwards,
what words did you sing? then we'd be hard put to actually
tell them. Or we can read a passage, we
can have our morning devotions, we can go through a service,
and our mind is taken up with just the externals, and we're
not thinking upon the Word, upon the Lord, we're not deriving
any benefit and blessing for our own soul. And this is the
remedy for a sickly soul, a remedy for one that feels far off from
the Lord. And so I want this morning to
just give you a few of the verses in this passage that we have
read. Our text says, My meditation
of Him shall be sweet. But God has not seen fit to give
us either a picture or to know Him on earth as the disciples
did. We know Him by His works, we
know Him by His work in us, we know Him how He has been revealed
to us in the Word of God. and in His creation. So I want
to just give you just five verses through this passage that through
the day that they can be for you to meditate upon, to think
deeply upon to go over in your mind, to focus your mind upon
it, and may you have the benefit and the blessing of this Word
throughout the day. So the first one is where we
started there in verse 19. We have an appointing God. He appointed the moon for seasons. The sun, Noah, is going down.
God is an appointing God. He appointed His Beloved Son
to be the Saviour, and all that He was to do upon this earth
and upon Calvary, and His position as High Priest above. But all
that you and I go through here below, the Lord has appointed
these things. And we're to look at that, and
we're to meditate and to think upon these things that they're
His wise appointments. Some of them we might not understand,
we might struggle with, but if we see a good, kind and gracious
God appointing these things, then that is something to meditate
and to think deeply upon. What things has he appointed? Our trials, our tribulations,
this virus, all that we're going through, but also salvation and
appointed the blessings of the people of God. Then we have in
verse 24, the works of God. And what a vast subject for meditation
is here. O Lord, how manifold are thy
works in wisdom, hast thou made them, all the earth is full of
thy riches. And he's dwelling upon those
things that we actually see. Our Lord says in one place that,
how can a man say that he loves God, If he does not love man,
God he cannot see, man his brother he can see. How can we say we
rejoice in God and in his works when we don't rejoice in those
works that we actually see before our very eyes. So throughout
this passage, throughout the Word of God, there's the works
of God, the creation of God. We were not in Eden. We did not
see how the Lord first formed that beautiful garden, how he
formed man and put man in that garden. We didn't see the Canaan,
but we know that God prepared it for his ancient people and
brought them into it as already a prepared land for them. We
are not yet in the heavenly Canaan. We are told it has not entered
into the heart of man, what God hath prepared for them that love
him. But it shall be better than the
original Eden, and certainly better than the world that we
are in now, that is under the curse. And yet, though it is
under the curse, and the whole creation groans under sin and
the effects of sin, Yet still we see the beauties of God's
creation. We still see what the Lord has
done. And so when we view these works,
that should be a cause of our meditation upon the Lord, our
deep thinking of what the Lord has made and created and done. And then we move to the spiritual
side. What has the Lord created? A
people. This people have I formed for
myself. They shall show forth my praise. David says, Create in me a clean
heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.
And he that hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto
the day of Jesus Christ. And all of his people are the
works of his hands. He has formed them, he has made
them, he has created them for his praise, and he has taught
them, and he is preparing them for that prepared place above. So there, verse 24, a key verse
to start to meditate upon the works of the Lord. And may our thoughts, may your
thoughts throughout the day run in many ways of what the Lord
has wrought and done. Then we have verse 27, a providing
God. These all, and he's going back
for those that, the beasts and the fishes of the sea, and those
that the Lord provides for, these wait all upon thee, that thou
mayest give them their meat in due season. God is a providing
God. The Lord will provide. What a blessed provision. What a blessed thought is that.
the Heavenly Shepherd, leading forth by the green pastures,
providing for His sheep, meat in His house, my flesh is meat
indeed, my blood is drink indeed. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. He provides
naturally for our food, for all that we need in all His creation,
And He provides for the spiritual food of His people a rich provision
and banquet. And may that be through the Word
this morning, a provision to be meditated and fed upon throughout
the day. May we be amongst those, in verse
27, that wait upon the Lord. Look for the Lord, that He'd
open His hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. Then we have verse 28 and 29,
our dependence upon Him. that thou givest them they gather,
thou openest thy hand, they are filled with good, thou hidest
thy face, they are troubled, thou takest away their breath,
they die and return to their dust. Our dependence upon the
Lord When Paul would begin with them at Mars Hill, he says, in
Him we live and move and have our being. We are dependent upon
the Lord for our breath, our food, our very being. He it is
that gave us life, naturally, spiritually. He maintains it. He says, without me you can do
nothing. I give unto them eternal life,
they shall never perish. But the life is bound up in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Because I live, He says, ye shall
live also. And so we are dependent upon
Him. Our comforts, our blessings,
our helps, they all come from Him. You know, when there was
many departed from the Lord, the Lord said to the disciples,
will you also go away? Peter says, to whom shall we
go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. They were dependent upon him.
The Lord's beautiful illustration of the vine in John 15. Except ye abide in the vine,
ye can't bring forth fruit. There must be the sap, there
must be the life, and we need that. And in meditation, this
is provided for the people of God. This is when they feed upon
the Lord, when they derive that nourishment and strength from
the Lord. So then we have in verse 31,
the glory. The glory of the Lord shall endure
forever. The Lord shall rejoice in His
works. If the Lord rejoices in His works,
how much more should we do? And if we don't, may we say we're
not seeing it as the Lord is seeing it. The glory of the Lord. That should be our aim, shouldn't
it? In all that we do, to the glory of God. May that be a source of meditation,
focusing our thought, our mind, our affections today on the glory
of the Lord and rejoicing in His works. Now it takes as my
meditation of Him shall be sweet, I will be glad in the Lord. Those
are precious times when the meditation begins and then it comes with
real sweetness. Those things that we're thinking
upon, pondering over, and I believe I've known some of those times
that as the mind goes over what the Lord has done and what the
Lord has done for us personally, that it's so softened my heart. It's been sweet, it's been precious. what I've been thinking upon
and meditating upon, and this is my desire for you for this
day. I will, says the psalmist, be
glad in the Lord. Glad, because the Lord is in
control. Glad that we are dependent upon
Him, that we are walking through paths that are appointed by Him,
and our provision is from Him. These things are a blessing,
a help, a comfort. So there may be many other things,
but may these, just these few key texts through this psalm,
be your meditation today. And not just today, but may you
think about what I've said, how vital it is that we don't just
do rounds of dead service. but actually have time to stop
and think and meditate upon the word that we've heard or the
word that we have sung.