We'll just look at probably about
eight verses or so tonight. I will extol thee, my God, O King, and I will bless
thy name forever and ever. What this word extol is lift
you up, I'll lift you up, I'll exalt you. What it boils down to is I'll
brag on you. I'll never forget, I think I've
told you this before, but one time, you know, back 30 years
or so ago, 25 maybe, I remember a lot of things that
my pastor Jack Shanks said. But of course, if you take, you
know, All the years I was with him over a little over 20 years. I remember very little percentage
wise, I suppose. But I just remember, I don't
know why he said this. He wouldn't even started preaching
yet, but we got there and we all kind of settled in and he
read scripture. And he said, y'all are here tonight
to hear me say something good about the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I thought, yeah, that's why I'm here. That's exactly why
I'm here. And that's what David said, I'm
going to say something good about you. I'm going to brag on you.
My God and my King. All you really need to do in
order to brag on the Lord Jesus is just tell about him. Just tell about him and who he
is and what he's done. And that's exactly what David
does in this song. He said, I'm going to brag on
you. And then he does that very thing. The first things first,
he is our God, my God, he's not, you know, our personal assistant.
What can the Lord do for me today? You know, He's not our heavenly
grandpa that just exists up there to, you know, for when we get
in trouble, you know, we can call on him. This religious world doesn't
want a god. They don't want a king. They
want a copilot. The cry of this religious world
is the cry of the citizenry in our Lord's parable in Luke 19,
which was and is, we will not have this man to reign over us.
David said, I will. I will. He is our God. This amounts to
the same as what Doubting Thomas said. when he stopped being doubting
Thomas and became believing Thomas. My Lord and my God. My king,
my sovereign and my God. David said he reigns over me
and I like it. That's that's I own him as my
Lord and my God and I'm going to bless his name forever and
ever. I'm going to extol him now and
I'm going to do it from now on. He's always gonna be my God and
King and I'm always gonna like it. So I'm always gonna be praising
him for it. Verse two, every day will I bless
thee. And I will praise thy name forever
and ever. I like this and I want this for
all of us. Not only will I bless my God
forever and eternity, And that's wonderful. I look forward to
that. I'll bless him and praise him much better than I do now.
But I want to bless him today. You see where he, every day,
I want to bless him today. He just got through saying, I'm
going to bless his name forever and ever. Now he says, I'm going
to bless him today, tomorrow, the next day. I want to bless
him right now. I want to bless him every day
that I live on this earth. It's going to be wonderful to
bless God when we can do so perfectly. When we are then we're going
to just be just like him and so that's all we'll do is bless
him and praise him and glorify him and we couldn't do anything
else even if we wanted to. We won't ever want to. But understand, I want us to
understand something. It's another thing all together.
It's a unique and wonderful blessing. I have this somewhere up here.
I thought I had it. I want to read you this because
this is not in my notes, but I knew it was up here somewhere.
And it reminded me of this when I thought about this from verse
two. Every day will I bless you. By God's grace, right now, today,
tomorrow, every day, while we're in the bodies of this death,
as Paul described it in Romans 7, while we're groaning, as he
described it in chapter 8 of Romans, while we groan with the
whole creation waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption
of these bodies. Even so, when we're in the presence
of his enemies here on this earth, when we're imprisoned in this
flesh, We're hurting and we're bloody from the battles that
we fight in this world, which are many. To bow before our God
now, there's something special about that now. I know we'll
do it better then, but we won't do it like we will now. You understand?
Listen to what Scott Richardson wrote about this. If God has
given you the privilege and opportunity to go through difficult and heavy
trials, then you ought to make the most of that privilege and
opportunity to glorify him by being in subjection to him. We
won't be able to do that in glory. We won't be able to glorify him
in trial and when our heart is broken. We won't be able to do
that there. We'll do it better than that, but not like that. And he says this, by being in
subjection to him, because it might only happen once in a lifetime.
You might just once in your whole life have a heavy, heavy trial
and have that one opportunity to praise God with a broken and
contrite heart. I don't know what I would do
should a severe trial come my way, he wrote, but I know what
I ought to do. I ought to bless, thank and worship God because
it came from God. I ought to conduct myself in
such a way under this difficulty that the people of God who love
me and who I love would say, This thing called grace really
works. In my experience, I've seen so many people that have
the opportunity and privilege afforded them by the hand of
God to react during trial in such a manner that would display
what they say they have experienced. And they miss that opportunity.
It's one thing to talk of Calvinism. It's one thing to talk of how
sovereign God is, but it's another thing to actually submit ourselves
to the Lord of sovereignty. I've got that framed. And I plan
when I have an office that actually looks like an office one day,
which is my fault, by the way, that it don't. That's going on
the wall because that's the truth right there. You see what I'm
saying? I look forward to that time when
we praise him better than we do now. But I want to praise
him now in spite of all this. That's grace right there. That's
grace. And that's a precious, precious
thing. May he cause that in us on our dark days and on our bright
ones. David said every day I want to bless him. And I want to be faithful to
honor him. Now. I know how you think, because
I think the same way, and often we think, you know, if I can
just get through all of this, everything will be good and I'll
be I'll be what I want to be. Guess what? We better get to
getting to be what we ought to be because it ain't ever going
to be over. This this the sorrows and troubles and distractions
and fears and. We're not ever going to get past
him in this life. So let's just just be still.
In all of it, in the midst of the storm. And honor our God,
may he give us grace to do that. Verse three, great is the Lord
and greatly to be praised. We're talking about praising
Him. So we need to know that since He's great, He is to be
greatly praised. How do you greatly praise Him?
Is that just a matter of choosing eloquent words with which to
praise Him? No. I don't think so. I don't think it's about that.
We should and must praise Him with all that we have. And with all that we are, and
with all that we do, that's great praise. We must praise Him in
season and out of season. We must praise Him with our very,
very, very best. Whatever that is. I know it's
pathetic. I know there's not much to it. I know we wouldn't
even have that if it wasn't for Him. But let's not bring our halt
and lame to the Lord. As they did in the Old Testament,
when the Lord said, would your king accept that from you? Let's
let's do what we can as the woman who broke the alabaster box of
woman. Let's do everything we can. With all of our hearts,
we can never praise him enough. His greatness is unsearchable.
We don't even know how great he is, much less Could we possibly
be able to match the greatness with the greatness of our praise?
But we ought to try. Let's just put it that way. Let's
just try. For his honor and glory, verse 4. One generation shall
praise thy works to another. And shall declare. Thy mighty
acts teach your children. Who will teach their children?
To praise him. As just about everybody in here
knows, God has saved my two daughters. And I'm confident, I'm confident
that if the Lord ever blesses them with children, however many
are, and me with grandchildren, I know they're going to teach
them to praise the Lord. Because the Lord has taught them
to praise Him. And that's what David's saying
here, generation to generation. The mighty acts and greatness
of the Lord are going to be told. They're going to see to it that
they hear the gospel preached and they're going to teach them
themselves. And everything that he's done, it mentions his mighty
acts. Everything God does is mighty.
He don't do anything halfway. He created a universe as a stage
upon which to show forth the praises and glory of his son.
That's what this earth is. The purpose of it is to show
forth the glory, the riches of his glory and his grace toward
us in Christ. Speaking of Christ, God became
a man. Talking about the great mighty
acts of God. He created a universe and he
became a man and came down here on this earth that he might be
a merciful and faithful high priest for his people, born of
a woman made under the law that he might redeem us who are under
the law. He was made a curse for us that
he might redeem us from the curse of the law. The prince of life
laid down his life for sinners like us. God forsook and crushed
his own well-beloved only begotten son. And that's a mighty act. Not only in just the doing of
it, but because of the effect of it, the result of it. By his
stripes, we're healed. By the power of his precious
blood, we're redeemed. Atonement is made for our sins
before God. Tell your children. Tell your
grandchildren. And when we're gone, may they
tell their children and grandchildren and others. Have you ever thought
about this? I thought about this as I was
looking into this. where David says, generation unto generation,
if God doesn't end this world for some time, I might meet,
I may meet grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren
in glory that I never met on this earth. My dad never got to meet my girls,
but he will. And I wondered this, and that
means something to me. Does He already know them? In
the eternal presence of our Savior? Does He already know them? In
eternity nothing happens after anything else. There's no before,
during, and after. We're already seated in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus in eternity now. Has He already met them
there? I don't know. I just got in over
my head in case y'all didn't know. I don't know. But if not,
He will. He will know them. And I may
know some grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-greats. Generation
to generation, the praises of the Lord resound and reverberate
throughout all eternity. This is our God. I will speak, verse 5, of the
glorious honor of thy majesty and of thy wondrous works. He
mentions his works over and over because how can we get over what
God has done? And we speak of who he is. If
he had never done anything for us, he'd still be glorious, wouldn't
he? If he had never dispensed the first mercy to a sinner,
he would still be majestic and honorable. and glorious but his glory is revealed in
his mercy towards sinners so we delight in his works but let's
think of the things mentioned here in this verse glory glorious
honor his glory in his honor his honor his majesty and his
works And in order to understand any
of those things, what they even are, what is glory? You have
to know Him to be able to answer that, don't you? You have to
know Him. He has to reveal something of Himself to us for us to even
know what that means. People talk about the glory of
men, you know, and how the glory of victory or something, you
know, that we do. If you don't want to know what
glory is, you're going to have to know Him. We haven't done anything glorious.
But he has an honor. We don't know what honor is unless
we look to Christ. Majesty. That speaks of how exalted
he is and high. I know this. I know this here.
The key word in this verse is thy. T-H-Y. Thy. It's all His. Whatever glory
is, it's His. Whatever honor is, it's His. It's gonna be His even those
who do not render it unto Him are still gonna bow one day and
acknowledge Him as Lord. And He's gonna be honored in
spite of us or He's gonna use us to honor and glorify Him. honor and majesty he is. Thy
is the key word there. And his works, only his works
are worth talking about. Verse six, and men shall speak
of the might of thy terrible acts. And I will declare thy greatness.
The word terrible usually is used as a bad thing in our language
now, but terrible, it just means to inspire fear and reverence. Religion loves to give testimonies
of what they have done for Jesus. Their decisions and their ministry
and things like that. God's people talk about what
He did. Men shall speak. What men? His men. The world is going to
be talking about all the things that interest this world. His
family, His sheep, His men and women, His people will speak of what
He did. And what we talk about now, we're
always going to talk about with regard to Him. What is it that
we talk about? It talks about the might of His
terrible acts. What has God done that inspires
awe and reverence? Well, we talk about it now, we're
going to sing about it in eternity. It says in Revelation 5, 9, and
they sung a new song saying, thou art worthy to take the book
and to open the seals thereof. In other words, the Lord Jesus
Christ alone. John saw before that nobody could
open the book and he wept. But they, then the Lord Jesus
Christ takes the book and he opens it. And they sung a new
song saying he's worthy to take it. That book is the book of
God wherein all of His purposes and decrees, everything is written,
everything that God has willed and done is in that book. And
the only way those things come to pass is if Christ opens the
book. Nobody else can open it. But
He's worthy to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain. No wonder. Moses and Elijah and
the Lord Jesus talked about the death that he should accomplish
Because his death is the accomplishment of all accomplishments It's not
an accomplishment when we die, it's just what what we deserve
for our sin this body's gonna die But those who know him those
who live in Christ he said those who live and believe in me shall
never die this body's gonna die because And here's the thing,
if we're believers, if we know the Lord Jesus Christ, this is
what Paul talked about in Thessalonians, we desire it. We want this body
to die. Not that I would be unclothed,
but clothed upon. It's not that I just have a death
wish, but I want to put on something better than this. Don't you? That's what he said. We desire
to be clothed upon. Our Lord shall change these vile
bodies and fashion them like unto his glorious body. That's
what we want. And for that to happen, this
one's got to die. It's got to perish. But we'll
be changed and we'll be raised. And he's going to redeem this
body just like he's redeemed our souls. But we will be changed. It won't be like this. But they
sung a new song. And all of that is accomplished
in that he was slain. and has redeemed us to God by
thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation,
and has made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall
reign on the earth." That's what David said we're
going to talk about, the mighty acts of God. That's what he wrote about in
the Psalms, the mercies of God in Christ. He probably didn't know it at
the time, but he was quoting much of the things that the Lord
would say. Some say that in the Psalms,
where he says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? David
says that in the Psalms, and some say that whole Psalm is
everything that the Lord said from the cross, that the Lord
repeated all of that, or not repeated it. He's the one that
said it, period. And David saw it in prophecy and may not have
even known. But this whole book concerns
our Lord Jesus Christ and what He did for sinners on Calvary.
He redeemed us to God and we're not ever going to get tired of
talking about that. Christ and Him crucified, we're
always going to talk about that. And indeed it was a terrible,
that is awe-inspiring, act of God what happened at Calvary.
Where our sin was laid upon our Savior And God crushed his son,
where it says in Isaiah 53, it pleased the Lord to bruise him.
That word bruise means to crush. He destroyed his own son. The
Lord Jesus bore God's wrath in our place against our sin. David,
he also said this, he said, we'll tell of the might of that terrible
act. The might of it, the strength
of it. It was not only terrible, awe-inspiring, something to inspire
reverence in all who know anything about it, but it showed his mightiness
to say, because it wasn't just an effort. We sing a song sometimes
called, There's Power in the Blood. That's about the size
of what David said here. The might, the might of his acts,
his terrible, awesome acts. The might of them, the power
of them. He accomplished redemption. He accomplished our salvation.
He finished the work that the father gave
him to do, which is going to end in us being just like him. He accomplished something unspeakably
great and it satisfied God and it redeemed his people. Verse
seven, they shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great
goodness and shall sing of thy righteousness. I like this phrase,
the great goodness, the great goodness, great in that it gets
the job done and good in that all he does is right and good
and proper, righteous, holy. I'm glad that God is not great
without being good. He can be great and put you in
hell and me, but he's also good. And he, you know, the truth is
he could be great and good and put us all in hell. He'd still
be good, wouldn't he? But his goodness, he said, I'll
make my goodness pass before you. And we're going to read
this in a minute and look at it closely again. I'll make my goodness
pass before you and I'll have mercy. So that's part of his
goodness. It's essential, I would say,
to his goodness that he's gonna have mercy on somebody. It may
not be me. It doesn't have to be me. I have
a good hope that it's me. And many of you. I'm glad he's not great without
being good, and I'm glad he's not good without being great.
I'm glad the Lord doesn't just have good intentions. He can
get them done. Abraham believed that what God had promised And
he's promised some wonderful things. Abraham said he's also
able to perform them. He's a great goodness. And we'll
sing of his righteousness. We'll sing how that he is righteous. We'll sing how that he requires
righteousness. We'll sing how that he provides
righteousness for his people. Again, Christ crucified. And
how that he is himself Our righteousness, we'll sing of all those things
and more. The righteousness of God. Verse
8. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger
and of great mercy. Now this is the first verse that's
really actually where he just stops and begins to do what he
said he's going to do. Extol, praise, lift up, exalt
God. Clearly, we've seen already some
things about him in him just saying, I'm going to praise him.
And he gives some things, some reasons for that in that. But
notice in every verse one through seven, he says, I will extol,
verse one, every day will I bless thee, verse two. Great is the
Lord and greatly to be praised. Verse three, verse four, one
generation shall praise thy works to another. This is all telling
about what we're gonna do, who we're doing it to, who we're
talking about when we do it, why we do it, how we do it. I will speak of the glorious
honor, you see that? And men shall speak of the might
of that terrible act. They shall abundantly utter,
this is all what we're gonna do, building up to what? The
Lord is gracious. We talked about it, I think,
Sunday night. About how there's just, there's
really just two messages. Two religions in this world,
if you want to call them that. Grace and works. Our message
is grace. Our motive is grace. Our method
is grace. Because our God, is the God of
all grace. The Lord is gracious, and because
He is, we're saved. This is just a simple
statement about God. It's not saying, I'm gonna say
something, I'm gonna do this, we're gonna do that, somebody's
gonna do that. This is just a simple statement about who He is, and
it starts out with grace. That's a good place to start.
The Lord is gracious and full of compassion. Slow to anger and of great mercy. Now think about this for a minute.
I want to close with a, I want you to see a parallel in the
Old Testament and New between two passages of scripture and
we're through tonight. I know this winter weather is
killing me. I don't know about y'all. I've
been tired all week. And I know y'all are tired tonight.
But think with me just for a little bit longer. When Moses said to God, show
me your glory. I want us to look at that again.
I know you're familiar with it. You probably know where it's
at, Exodus chapter 33. But think about what happened
there. Moses said to God, I need to see your glory. I've spoken
with you face to face as with a friend. It says that in the
script. Moses spoke with God face to
face as with a friend as a friend talks to his friend. That's wonderful. He had gotten gotten word and
instruction. Regarding the law. And what to
do when you break the law. You know when God told gave gave
Moses the Ten Commandments, he also said make a mercy seat.
in the same context. Why? Because he didn't give that
law so that we would please God and make God happy and go to
heaven when we die. He gave that law knowing we were
going to break it. Even before there was a law, we were breaking
it. And he said, make you a mercy
seed. And I'll commune with you there. Splash blood on that thing.
And I'll commune with you there. But what is Moses saying here? After all of the privileged communion
that he'd already had with God now. Privileged information that
he had from God. He said, show me your glory. Somehow Moses knew what he was
asking about. He knew that it was something
he hadn't seen yet. But how do we even know what
glory is? In how the way that God answered him. Do you want to see God's glory? Let's see what he showed to Moses.
Let's look at it together. God defined it for us in Exodus
33 verse 12. Exodus 33 verse 12. I want us to get quite a bit
of the context here, because it's important. And Moses said
unto the Lord, See, thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people,
and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me,
yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found
grace in my sight. It's not that the Lord hadn't
done anything to help him here, obviously.
He says, you found grace in my sight. And I know you by your
name, Moses, and I've chosen you, and I'm going to use you,
and I'm sending you. And Moses said, you've set me
on a monumental task. How am I going to get it done? How in the world am I going to
be able to do this? Now therefore I pray thee, verse
13, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way
that I may know thee. You've told me that you know
me by my name. I don't feel like I know you. I want to know you. How can I
do anything for you? Show me your way and who you
are that I may find grace in thy sight and consider that this
nation is your people. This is a This is important Why
would you choose me? You remember at first he said
don't I can't do this and God said you're gonna do it I'm gonna
go with you. I'm gonna speak for through you
But look at it verse 14, and he said my presence shall go
with thee and I will give thee rest It's not gonna kill you. I'm gonna take care of you. I'm
gonna comfort you. I'm gonna be with you I'm gonna
equip you and Moses said oh Lord, if thy presence go not with me,
carry us not up here. I ain't going if you're not.
So that's good to hear that you're going with me. You see what he's
saying? I'm not going if you're not. Don't let us go. Verse 16, for wherein shall it
be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy
sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? So shall we be
separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are
upon the face of the earth. Who makes the difference between
us and everybody else? Christ. Christ. A person is the difference. Do
you see that? It's so plain, isn't it? And
the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou
hast spoken, for thou hast found grace in my sight. And I know
thee by name. Moses is seeking constant reassurance. If I found grace in thy sight,
do this that I may find grace in thy sight. You said I found
grace in thy sight, and God keeps reassuring. Isn't that what's
happening here tonight? I need reassurance too, don't
you? All the time, I need to hear it from God, from the Word
of God. And Moses said, verse 18, I beseech
you, I beg you, show me your glory. And God knew what he was asking
here, because God said, you can't see my face. That's what Moses
is asking. I want to see you as you are,
with no sin to hinder, no limitations of the flesh. He wanted to see
God like we're going to see him one day, when we're like his
son. We know that we shall see him
as he is, for we'll be like him. And God said, I will make all
my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before you, and will be gracious to whom I will be
gracious. And will show mercy on whom I
will show mercy. I'm going to show you everything
that I can show you while you're in this flesh that won't kill
you. Thou canst not see my face, not
now. For there shall no man see me
and live, but I'm going to show you my glory. I'm going to declare
all my goodness to you, and I'm going to have mercy on whom I
will have mercy. And the Lord said, Behold, there
is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock. You know,
when Moses smoked the rock in the wilderness and water came
out of it, Paul said that rock was Christ. And it doesn't directly
say that about this rock. But I'm telling you on the authority
of God's word tonight, that rock is Christ. If you're not standing
on the rock, you're not going to see the glory of God. If you're
not in that, there's a place by me. How can we be by God? How can we be? How can we come
to the very side of God and not be destroyed? And then that's
a concern here. God said to Moses, if I show
you myself as I am and as you are now, it'll kill you. But
what I can do without killing you is bring you right up next
to me. Even in the wretched flesh that
you're in, you can get right up next to me. And I'm going
to put your feet on a rock and it shall come to pass while my
glory passes by. I'll put you in the cleft of
the rock and I will cover thee with my hand. Does God have a
hand? You bet he does. While I pass by, and I will take
away my hand and I shall see my back parts, but my face shall
not be seen. Now this could be us saying here,
like Moses, you've given us a great task. And Moses reminded him,
these are your people involved here. This is important. And
we could remind God the same thing. To some, we are the saver
of death unto death, and to some, life unto life. And who is sufficient
for these things, Paul said. You've given us a great ministry
here. It's not my ministry. It's not
our ministry. It's His ministry. We're ambassadors
for Him. This is important. And how are
we going to do it? How can God reassure us that
He's with us and that His blessing is upon us? How are we going
to do anything? How are we going to accomplish
what God has given us to do? God's answer to Moses and to
us, I pray, is to reveal to us how it is that He can be gracious
to sinners in Christ and to reveal His glory to us in the face Jesus
Christ And I want to I want you to look at one more text with
me tonight In 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 and see how this parallels
Exodus 33 2nd Corinthians 4 1 Therefore, seeing we have this
ministry, Moses said, God, you've told me to bring up your people,
to go and deliver your people. And we're traveling through the
wilderness. I'm over my head. And Paul said, seeing therefore
we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, We faint
not. Isn't that what Moses is saying?
Lord, be with me. Have I found grace in your sight?
I don't want to go unless you're with me, unless your blessing
is upon me. We've received mercy now. We have this ministry by
the grace and calling of God. We're stewards of his grace.
What a task. And we faint not because of his
mercy, not because of the constitution of this flesh. There are inequalities
about us. but have renounced the hidden
things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness nor handling the
word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God. We're just going to honestly
and straightforwardly and simply and plainly and boldly declare
the truth of God. Verse three, but if our gospel
be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. in whom the God of
this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of
God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. And here's why we do, and here's
what we preach. God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness. God who in the beginning said,
let there be light, and there was light. He didn't say, I hope
there's light. He didn't make light available.
He commanded it, and it was done. And that same God has shined
in our hearts. And look what he did. Just like
with Moses, he has set us on a monumental task. But by his
grace, he has equipped us for the task by showing us his glory. He shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. I can't describe in any detail
what Moses saw with eyes of flesh, but I know what he saw by faith. I know who he saw. And I know
the only way a sinner can see the glory of God is in the face
of His Son. The only way we're ever going
to see Him face to face and not die is if we behold the face
of His Son as He's revealed in this glorious gospel that we
preach. God commanded it. He said, I will. And He did. And though we're in over our
heads and we're overwhelmed, By His grace we've seen His glory. And so we faint not. And may
He give us grace as David all through our psalm has been saying,
let's declare His glory. Let's praise Him in His majesty
and honor and greatness. You can't do that unless you've
seen it. You hadn't seen it unless you've seen it in His Son. And
may God more and more reveal Himself to us. in the glorious
Gospel of His dear Son. Let's pray.