Well, G'day everyone. It's Father's
Day here in Australia. And while our earthly fathers
are remembered today, they're a picture, aren't they, of our
Heavenly Father. So what a blessing that in spite
of all the difficulties we have, we have an opportunity to start
our day worshipping our Great Father in Heaven. We're going to look at Psalm
149 today. If the Lord allows, I'd like
us to consider two aspects of the gospel in this psalm. The
first is the nature of the gospel, as so often, especially in organized
religion, the gospel is presented as a theory that can somehow
be simply learnt by men, as a theory that can somehow be taught by
men. The second, and Lord willing
we'll deal with this next week, is the impact of the true gospel
as it goes forward in all the earth. But today, I'd just like
us to concentrate on the nature of the gospel. So, we might pray
before we start. Heavenly Father, thank you that
you are a perfect Father, that you are perfectly faithful, that
you are perfectly loving and kind and generous to your people. Thank you, Father, that all that
perfection is blessed upon us in our great King and Saviour,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, these are difficult times
for us, and yet in the midst of it all, please cause us to
remember that you're a sovereign God, and whether they're difficult
times, or whether they're good times, all things have come from
your hand, Heavenly Father. So in these trying times, I pray
that in the midst of all the troubles and dramas of their
lives, you will turn our eyes back to you, that you'll cause
us to see how wonderful you have cared for us in your dear Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we can't be together
physically, but cause us to be together today spiritually. cause us to be mindful of one
another, cause us to long for the time when we will be able
to gather together again. But in the midst of all this
today, Father, as you've promised, feed us with your gospel, Heavenly
Father. So we thank you. We thank you
for church. We thank you for the gospel. We thank you for
the work of your Holy Spirit in us and amongst us. We thank
you most of all for the finished work of your dear son, our Lord
Jesus Christ. We pray in his name, Father,
for your glory's sake. Amen. Okay. Anyone who's been part of organized
religion would know something of the pressure put upon people
to evangelize. You'd know of the guilt placed
on members if you're not winning souls or supporting others in
declaring what they would call the gospel. You also would have
seen and experienced the various manipulations used to get people
to be more effective in their witnessing programs. The various
tactics like parading their prominent evangelists on stage. I'm sure
a number of you have experienced that. Tactics like making a big
deal about their mission programs, even to the point of over-exaggerating
their success. I've seen that myself. Tactics that make you feel guilty,
tactics that challenge you to be more involved. Now, if you've
been subject to something like that, you'd know how it makes
you feel. In my own experience, it either
motivated me to be more like them, or it just crushed me because
I wasn't faithful enough to the Lord and His people. And that
just depended on how strong I was on the day. These organizations
make witnessing seem like a chore. They obligate people and they
put them under law to declare their gospel. But is that how scripture presents
evangelism? Let's read our psalm and then
we can begin. Psalm 149. Praise ye the Lord. Sing unto the Lord a new song
and his praise in the congregation of saints. Let Israel rejoice
in him that made him. Let the children of Zion be joyful
in their king. Let them praise his name in the
dance. Let them sing praises unto him
with the timbrel and harp. For the Lord taketh pleasure
in his people. He will beautify the meek with
salvation. Let the saints be joyful in glory. Let them sing aloud upon their
beds. Let the high praises of God be
in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hand to execute
vengeance upon the heathen and punishments upon the people.
to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters
of iron, to execute upon them the judgment written. This honour
have all his saints. Praise ye the Lord. As I said, my hope in this psalm
is that the Lord will give us a better understanding of both
the nature and the impact of evangelism. My prayer is that
each one of us would realize that declaring the gospel isn't
an obligation put upon saints, an obligation brought about by
law manipulation, but rather a joyful declaration brought
in us by our God. The first thing we need to consider
about evangelism is that it involves declaring the gospel or the good
news of scripture to others. The organizations I mentioned,
they don't have a message of good news for people. Rather,
they have strategies relating to how a person, through their
own wisdom and activities, can reach a state fit to enter heaven
and to cause God to be obligated to them. Now that's just not
good news. In fact, it's the same lie that's
safely propagated in the Garden. It's the same lie which has infected
men throughout all the ages. The second thing I want to point
out about evangelism is that it's simply proclaiming, Thy
God reigns, Isaiah 52.7. It's not presenting men with
a formula or a theory, trying to entrap them and make them
trophies of the organization. It's declaring God to be sovereign
and giving Him all the glory, especially in regard to the salvation
of men. Now, this brings us to the third
consideration. Evangelism leaves men looking
to God for salvation rather than looking to themselves, as these
organizations do. We don't tell men how they can
save themselves. We tell them of the only hope
that they have of salvation. We send them to beg God to be
merciful toward them. The last and most important thing
I want to mention here is that evangelism involves a witness. Witnessing is conveying a real
and powerful experience that God himself has done within you.
It's testifying of an experience of His saving grace toward you
individually. Witnessing is giving a real and
personal account of God's salvation in spite of your helpless inability
to do anything to please Him. So true, faithful and effective
evangelism involves all four of these essential characteristics.
declaring good news, declaring God to be sovereign, declaring
that men need to seek salvation from God, and finally declaring
a genuine experience of a personal salvation. And yet the witness of these
organizations is void of all form. So the question we have
to ask, if we want to call ourselves a gospel church, is how do we
declare the gospel faithfully to a fallen, rebellious world? Now, thankfully, we have scripture
to answer questions like that. So let's look at the first verse
of our psalm today. Praise ye the Lord. Sing unto
the Lord a new song and his praise in the congregation of the saints. commands given to the elect saints
of God. And as with all commands, what
our God calls for, He provides in us. We're called to praise
our God with a song, a new song, a song of praise to the Lord. We're called to sing this song
of praise, not only personally in our own hearts and lives,
but in the assembly of the saints, together as a church. This is
the chief reason and the foundation that we do gather together as
a church of God, to declare His praises by worshipping our Saviour
and God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we don't have to look too
far either to see the nature of this song. As I said earlier,
it's a song that God creates in us. You see, it's a song that
he continually raises up in our hearts. It's a song that he brings
forth from within us. In Isaiah 57, 19, our God promises
to be the one that creates the fruit of our lips, which according
to Hebrews 13, 15, is the sacrifice of praise to God, giving thanks
to His name. This song is a personal testimony
of salvation, one that God reveals, one that's experienced in the
hearts of His saints. Now, I can't think of a better
place in scripture to see this illustrated than Psalm 22. In
Psalm 22, the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ, the great
forerunner of our faith, are revealed in acute detail. And after much pleading with
his Father in heaven, our Lord is finally heard in verse 21. As soon as the Lord's heard by
his Father, he begins praising his name. He commits himself
to declaring the Father amongst the brethren, and he does so
by simply praising him in the congregation. That's what true
witnessing is. It's a sincere testimony of the
goodness of God that's been wrought in our hearts personally by a
very real and desperately urgent experience of saving grace. So true witnessing begins with
a command from God. Now let's look more at who this
command is directed to. Verse two of our psalm. While this is a command of God,
it's also a rightful and personal expression of an overwhelming
gratitude which flows from a joy-filled heart toward our God. This is
the new heart that God creates in us, a heart which flows outwardly
towards our God. And did you notice, this command's
not directed to all men, it's directed to Israel. In Genesis
32, Jacob wrestled with God, and he prevailed, and he received
a new name, Israel, which means prince with God. Now, this is
a picture of our own conversion experience, and it's through
this conversion experience that we actually become, or rather,
it's revealed that we are princes with God. Brothers and sisters,
we're princes born from above. We're children of the great king
of all kings. We're children of the heavenly
city sign. And in a similar way to our Lord's
experience in Psalm 22, as the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin
and righteousness and judgment, John 16a, we experience something
of the wrath of God. We experience something of the
necessary abandonment by Him because of our sin. We experience
something of the weight of His judgment against our sin. We
experience something of the consuming fire of His holiness. And we
also experience something of our desperate need of a salvation
that must come from outside ourselves. And in all of this, we're brought
to a real and saving knowledge both of ourselves and of our
God. We're brought to have a sincere
reverence for God, which in turn fills us with a genuine appreciation
and a consuming joy for our great God and Saviour. Brothers and
sisters, this is where true witnessing comes from. This is how we're
made by God to sing that new song that we read of in Revelation
5. And this is what church is all
about, declaring the praises of our God publicly to one another. Verse three, let them praise
his name in the dance. Let them sing praises unto him
with the timbrel and the harp. Now, the first thing we need
to do here is put out of our heads the modern day thinking
we have of dancing and singing. Most dancing and singing these
days, especially in modern religion, only serves to gratify either
men or the organizations of men. The dancing and singing of scripture,
however, has at its heart a reverence and a focus toward the worship
and glorification of our great God. Not of men, but our God. You see, it's through the creative
activity of God that the new creation within us, that new
man, overflows with joyous praises to our Father in heaven. This
joy has come from the agony of our conversions, and now it flows
forth as specific, and personal praises to our great Saviour
who has saved us and called us with a holy calling. These joyous praises are then
expressed externally. They work outwardly from our
hearts, like those rivers of living water in John 7, or the
wells of water springing up into everlasting life in John 4. There's a number of really good
examples in scripture of this. In Exodus 15, when the Lord brought
the people out of Egypt, Moses sang a song in great detail of
how the Lord rescued his people. And then in verse 20 and 21 of
the same chapter, Miriam responds. Listen to this response. Miriam
the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her
hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and
with dancers. And Miriam answered them, Sing
ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously, the horse and his
rider hath he thrown into the sea. Likewise, in 2 Samuel 6,
when King David brought the ark of God up into the city of David,
he did it with gladness. He did it with a reverent respect
to the Lord. And he danced before the Lord
with all his might. As with that new song in Revelation
5, these are outward expressions. They're revelations or manifestations
of a very real experience of God's salvation and their expressions
by and through which we worship our God. The last thing we need to mention
here in regard to these verses is that we're called to praise
our Lord. Not His great works, but Him
alone. It's our Saviour. the Lord Jesus
Christ who receives all the glory in our salvation. He's the subject
of our praises, and he's the one in whom the Father is well
pleased. It's our Lord Jesus Christ who's
the great yes and amen of all our God's promises, and it's
through our intimate union with him that we're actually made
joint heirs of our Father in heaven. Now having said that, while it
is our Lord who's the focus of all our praises, it's through
these amazing works of grace that this witness is created
within us. And it's by these same works
that our worship overflows from within us. So why do we praise
him? Look at verse four of our psalm.
For, or because, The Lord taketh pleasure in his people. He will
beautify the meek with salvation. Salvation begins with God. Salvation
is sustained by God. As Jonah said, salvation is of
the Lord. The reason our God can look upon
us so favourably is that he first chose us in the Lord Jesus Christ
before time, in the everlasting covenant of His grace. This is
the only, it's the only reason He takes pleasure in His people.
But it's also a reality as fixed, as sure, as eternal as God Himself. This reality, it's this reality
that continually humbles us. It's this reality that continually
reminds us that salvation is by grace alone. And it's through
this reality that our God continually makes us mean. And His purpose,
that we might give all glory and salvation to our Lord Jesus
Christ, His dear Son. As we read in Revelation 5, it
was the giving of the everlasting covenant before time that our
Saviour took full responsibility for all that the Father had given
Him. In this amazing act of grace, He took all of our sins, every
single one of them, and then He robed us in the robe of His
own righteousness. He eternally presents us holy,
and unbelievable and unapprovable in His sight. This is why in Revelation 5,
in the midst of the throne, there's a lamb as it had been slain. It's a picture of our Lord's
continual advocacy on our behalf. You can read about it in Romans
8. Our Lord presents His wounds as proof, proof of our eternal
redemption, proof of our everlasting righteousness. By the substitution
of our great Saviour King, we've been made the righteousness of
God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5.21. Again, it's this creative work
of our God in us that inspires all genuine praise. Verse five, let the saints be
joyful in glory let them sing aloud upon their beds. Why are
we so joyful in glory? Because we've been reconciled
to our God in the finished work of our saving. By this finished
work of redemption, we have peace with God. And through this peace,
we have unity with our Father in heaven. In this finished work
of our Lord Jesus Christ, He actually imparts His glory to
us. And by the grace of God, this
glory sustains us in that union. Listen to what our Lord prays
in John 7, verse 22. He prays, Now did you notice,
just before we go on, that that was before He went to the cross. This is past tense our Savior's
talking about. We've had this glory from eternity. In our Father's eyes, we've had
this glory from eternity. And our Savior then goes on to
pray, the reason that they may be one, even as we are one. It's amazing, isn't it? We're
as one with our Father in heaven, as our great King and Savior
is. And many have said that that's too good to be true, but we just
need to continue to pray to our Father to give us childlike faith
to believe His word. Brothers and sisters, we rejoice
because all that's necessary for us to enter heaven and to
be in relationship with our God has already been provided for
in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is why we can sing aloud
on our beds. We rejoice as we rest in our
God. We rejoice trusting all our salvation
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we rejoice as we just wait
on him to reveal more of his mercy towards us. There's one more thing I need
to mention about this And it's that we actually, in this resting
and rejoicing, we actually pay our vows and present our sacrifice
to God. What can you give God in exchange
for such wonderful salvation? Well, I'm sure people in modern
religion have plenty of ideas about obedience and the ways
that they can give back to God. All I can tell you is that whatever
we're required to give God, it has been provided in us by our
God. Listen to what David says in
Psalm 61a. He says, So I will sing praise
unto thy name forever. And he's reasoned that I may
daily perform my vows. This new song is the way we pay
our vows. Again, Jonah in Jonah 2.9 says,
but I'll sacrifice unto thee. And how? With the voice of thanksgiving. Again, we sacrifice through this
song of praise. And he goes on to say, and I'll
pay that which I vow. And here's the nature of our
song. Salvation is of the Lord. See, amazingly, it's in and by
simply praising our God for His salvation. And remember, a salvation
is wrought in us, that we both acknowledge His sovereignty and
we declare His name in this world. Now we're gonna leave our psalm
there for this week, but before we finish, I just wanna recap
on what we've looked at so far. This psalm makes it clear that
declaring the gospel, or evangelism, is completely a work of God. From start to finish, it's a
work of God. And in spite of what we see in
modern day religion, the gospel is not something that can be
taught by men, and it's certainly not something to be manipulated
by men. The gospel is a work of God,
raising an authority witness within his chosen children. Look back at the verses again.
In verse 1, it's a work that begins with a command from God. In verse 2, it's a work of God
that happens within us. In verse 3, it's a work that
God then makes overflow from our hearts in praise. In verse
4, the praise is to God for His salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. And in verse 5, it's a salvation
which is all His work, therefore it's a salvation in which we
rest. At our best, we're frail and
we have many needs in this life, and those needs just become greater
when we come to know the Lord. because now we have two natures
warring against each other within us. How can we, in our inability,
even know what's needed in each situation in life, let alone
provide what's right? Thankfully, all these questions,
by God's grace, have just one answer. All that's necessary
for salvation, every part of it, both physically and spiritually,
has been provided for by our God in his glorious gospel. Church is all about the saints
gathering together and sharing our individual testimonies. Even our pastor, when he steps
into the pulpit, shares a personal testimony of something God's
revealed to him about the gospel in the passage he's considering.
And we not only share our personal
experiences of God's grace towards us, we also share our personal
experiences of his presence as he draws alongside us in life. As we gather together, we share
the gospel with one another, and in turn that energises us,
it rebukes us, it comforts us, it nourishes us. Whatever the
need may be, our God's promised to provide it in church through
the testimonies of His gospel. May our great God be in the midst
of our conversations when we meet together in church. May
He refresh our souls through those many testimonies and may
He equip us while we struggle through this life. Angus mentioned
last week where he's been talking about Exodus and many facets
of Exodus from historical representations in scripture. to the final exodus
when our Lord ascended on high and took his people with him
and sat down at the right hand of our great God. What we've
been talking about today is just another one of those facets.
When the Lord comes and he meets with us and he frees us from
the bondage of Satan and of our flesh and of this world by creating
a new man within us. That's the nature of this gospel.
It's about the exodus that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Angus also mentioned, though, that with this exodus comes judgment. And Lord willing, we'll talk
more about that next week when we look at the impact of this
gospel as it goes forth into the world. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you that
in the midst of many trials, you continue to revere yourself
and you continue to draw alongside your people and you continue
to grow them in their faith and you continue to cause them to
know more of the wonders that we have in our great Saviour
and God. Father, as we go forward this
week, Just do the same. Just cause us to remember that
all things necessary for salvation here on this earth really have
been provided for in your great gospel. Cause us to remember
the times when you've drawn near to us and strengthened us. Cause
us to remember the many promises that we have in scripture. Cause
us to long for our brothers and sisters to be gathered together
again. Most of all, Father, cause us to long for a time When our
faith is made silent, remind us, Heavenly Father, that the
scene in heaven is a scene which continues and will continue for
all eternity. Thank you again for your gospel,
Heavenly Father. And we praise you in the name
of your dear and precious Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.