Psalm 113. We'll read this together. Praise
ye the Lord. Praise, O ye servants of the
Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord
from this time forth and forevermore. From the rising of the sun and
to the going down of the same, the Lord's name is to be praised. The Lord is high above all nations
and his glory above the heavens. Who is like unto the Lord our
God who dwelleth on high, who humbleth himself to behold the
things that are in heaven and in the earth? He raiseth up the
poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill,
that he may set him with the princes, even with the princes
of his people. He maketh the barren woman to
keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye
the Lord. This is the third psalm that
begins with hallelujah. Praise ye the Lord. This was
one of the psalms they sang during worship before and after the
Passover. And for that reason, many think
that this is probably these psalms, these praise psalms, are among
those that were sung by our Lord the night that he observed the
Passover and instituted his table, the night he was betrayed. Verse 1, he says, Praise, O ye
servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord. And by His grace, His servants
have great reason to praise His name. You know, if this is a
psalm that our Lord sang that night when He was with His apostles,
if this is, this might be why our Lord said, From henceforth
I call you not servants. Servants knoweth not what his
master does. But I call you friends, because
all things that God has told me, I've told you. This might
be, if they sang that, this might be why he said that. Praise the
name of the Lord. His name alone is worthy to be
praised. Verse 2. Verse 2, he says, Blessed be
the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. From
the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, the Lord's
name is to be praised. You know, in this gospel age,
the Lord has sent the gospel to the Gentiles. And from the
rising of the sun to the going down, from east to west, from
north to south, he's calling out his people out of every nation,
kindred, tribe, and tongue under heaven. This is what he promised
to do. Israel thought they were fruitful
and the Lord rejected them. And he said in Malachi 1.11,
from the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same,
my name should be great among the Gentiles. In every place
incense should be offered under my name and a pure offering for
my name should be great among the heathen, said the Lord of
hosts. You know who the heathen are? That's us. us Gentiles,
we're the heathen. And he said, I'll make my name
great among them. The pure offering will be, we're
going to come with Christ through faith, praising him by his grace,
giving him all the glory, all the glory. So this psalm gives
us two reasons to praise the name of the Lord. One, we praise
the Lord Jehovah himself for who he is. for who he is. And then two, we praise the name
of the Lord for what he has done for us. And that'll be our division,
himself and what he's done for us. The Lord's name is to be
praised because of who he is, because of his glory, the greatness
of his glory. He said in verse four, the Lord
is high above all nations and his glory above the heavens.
The Lord is high above all nations. He's over all nations. He's ruling
all nations. He's sovereign, working His will
in the people in all nations. He said in Isaiah 40, He said,
Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket. As a drop of a bucket. and count it as a small dust
of the balance, just that little bit of dust that's left in the
balance when something's weighed and poured out. He says that's
what all the nations are to him. He taketh up the isles as a very
little thing. He said all nations before him
are as nothing and they're counted to him less than nothing in vanity.
This is the greatness of our God. It's he that sitteth upon
the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as
grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens
as a curtain, spreads them out as a tent to dwell in. He brings
princes to nothing. He makes judges of the earth
as vanity. And then our Psalm takes us out
farther than that. above the nations, farther than
the nations, and takes us beyond the heavens. Above the heavens,
it says. The Lord's glory is above the
heavens. We see the pictures taken with satellites and the
galaxies and the space and just the vastness of it. He made all that. And He sits
above it. His glory is above all of it.
He called Paul up to the third heaven. We don't know where that
is. We've never been there. To the
third heaven. Beyond everything that, anything
we know about. There's a lot we don't know about.
But even beyond that. You go outside some night when
it's very clear and the stars are from one side to the other.
And just look at the vastness of it all. And remember. who hath measured
the waters in the hollow of his hand. Take all the waters in
the earth, measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, meted
out heaven with a span, comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure,
weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance. God
is His great, great glory. Verse 5, He says, Who is like
unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high? This is what we're brought
to praise Him for, His greatness. There is none like Him. That's
the very nature of God. That's what makes God, God. There is none like Him. There's
none like Him. He's holy. There's nothing that
exists that's greater than God. Nothing. He dwelleth on high. All man-made
gods are just idols. what man imagines and a very
poor, very poor God, very weak God,
no greater than a man. God said, to whom then will you
liken God or what likeness will you compare unto him? There's
nothing. That's what he's saying. There's
nothing like him. He's holy. He's separate. He's the one true
God. He's the Lord our God. The Lord
is great. He's greatly to be praised. He's
to be feared above all gods for all the gods of the nations are
idols. But the Lord made the heavens. We're going to try to bring something
to Him of ourselves. Something we produced. I'm sorry, verse 6. Look at how great He is. He humbleth
Himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the
earth. He's so high above all. He's
so great in His glory. He has to humble Himself to behold
things that are in heaven. Way out there where we've never
even seen He's beyond that and he has to humble himself to behold
that. To behold the heavens we can
see. Now how much more to behold this
earth? The things in this earth. And
this is the amazing thing. This God who's so high above
the heavens, who has to stoop to behold the heavens, He looks
upon His people and saves His people and cares for His people
all our days. We're like grasshoppers and yet
He looks on us and cares for us and saves us. The psalmist
said, When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the
moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that
thou art mindful of him? or the Son of Man that thou visitest
Him." Now, thinking of this and thinking of how great He is,
He said, as far as the heavens are above the earth, that's how
far above His thoughts are, how far they are above ours. Now, think of Him so high, so
glorious, none like Him. This is God who came down. Who came down to where his people
are. And took a... Came down into the womb of a
virgin. And was born as an infant. and grew up as a child and made
himself a servant, humbled himself and took the form of a servant
to serve for his people. He's ruined people. He's wretched
people. He came to do this for us. And the amazing thing is when
he went to the cross, This One who is so high, who was made
flesh, took our place, made sin, made
to suffer, made to suffer the curse for His people. Do you know the scripture that
says He was rich? Think of how rich. This is a
description of how rich, and think how poor he became. The death of the cross, the shameful
cross. That's the height of glory though,
that he comes from there to here, accomplishes that work, and now
this same God who's this high, this great, and this glorious,
as a man, is the God-man. seated in glory on his throne. He's the fullness of the Godhead
bodily, seated there at God's right hand. Who is like unto
the Lord our God? Do you see why he says, praise
my name? Such a high priest became us. This was what was fitting. This
was what we had to have. This is what, the only way we
could be saved. It became us to be saved this
way. A high priest who's holy. This
is what we're talking about. Not like us. None like him. Harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners, made higher than the heavens. And that's where
he is now. Without controversy, great is
the mystery of godliness. Can you explain the glorious
God high above all who, there's none like it, coming down and
taking human flesh, sinless human flesh. God was manifest in the
flesh. This is the great mystery of
godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit,
seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in
the world and received up into glory. So the first thing we
praise when we praise His name is His person. We praise who
He is. We praise the greatness of His glory. Now we looked a
little bit, talked a little bit about what He's done for us,
but let's look some more at that. This is the second thing, verse
7. This one we're praising. Not only glorious and in all
His greatness and being unlike any other, He raiseth up the
poor out of the dust and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill.
Now this is His people. This is His people He chose in
eternity. This is so of everybody He saves. Everybody He saves. By our fallen
Adam, we fell into sin and death. And by our first birth, we came
forth nothing but sin. And in our sinful nature is nothing
but sin. We are the poor of the dust. We're the needy on the dung hill. You've seen pictures or maybe
you've been to a landfill. They used to have them where
I came from and you could drive to them and dump whatever you
needed to dump. But you've seen a landfill and
it just, all the trash and all the refuse and just, just huge. expanse of just dung, just trash,
just an ash heap. That's what this whole cursed
earth full of cursed sinners is. And He came here. He came down here to where we
are. We got the opposite extremes here, don't you? You got God
high above everything, high above all, none like Him, as high as
you can possibly get. And you got us as low as you
can possibly get. And he came down. We can't plumb
the depths of how low we are by nature, and he comes down
here to where we are. And this is what we need to think
about. Here's the amazing thing. This
is why our Savior sweat great drops of blood in the Garden
of Gethsemane. In order to save us in accordance with that greatness
of His glory and the greatness of Him being holy and separate
from sinners, in order to save us who are the cursed, He had
to take our place. To do it justly and uphold His
holiness and His holy name and magnify Himself, He had to take
our place. And do it for us. Do the whole
work for us. He gave us the law to show us
we can't do it. And not in the righteousness
he demands and come to him. Just think how high and holy
he is. But he came down then and made
himself under his own law. And he went to that cross, this
high and holy one, this sinless one, to save these dusty, dung-heap
sinners. Poor, bankrupt, needy. What loving condescension. What
loving condescension from the greatest height to the lowest
low. That's how we behold something
of God's glory. This is how we see His name.
This is how it pleased Him to manifest His name to us. God's not like us, is He? We
just, we won't bow. We won't come down off our lofty
perch. We won't come down for another
dung-heap sinner who's offended us and spit in our face. We surely
wouldn't come down and bow and give God all this glory that's
due His name. And yet He came down for His
people to show us something of His glory and His holiness and
His love and His mercy and His long-suffering and His forgiveness
and all that He is for His people. Righteous and holy and just,
He came down and was made sin for us, took the sin of his people
and was made a curse and bore the curse that we deserved. We're going to get tired of talking
about this. Is there any way somebody saved
by this very greatest condescending, loving condescension and greatest
sacrifice ever made. There's no way we can stop talking
about this. We're going to be talking about
this for eternity. This is who God is. This is who
God is. And what did he accomplish for
his poor and needy people? What did he do for us? You know
Daniel 9.24. Let me just give you these things.
But here's what he did. Think about each of these now.
First it says, he finished the transgression. Finished it. Now, there was one transgression
that made us poor and needy. That's the one transgression
of Adam in the garden. Our first head committed one
transgression and by that all his seed died. Everybody that
come forth, every child born into this world. But for his
people he finished the transgression. And then it says, and he made
an end of sins. All the sins of all his people
for whom he died, every single person for whom he died. He wasn't
trying He made an end of sins. All we see in ourselves is sin.
The more He grows us in grace, the more we see our sin. But before God, as God sees it,
He made an end of sins. He made reconciliation for iniquity. Here we are the enemies of God.
Here we are at war with God, hating God, wanting nothing to
do with God. And he reconciled his people
to God. The first thing that had to be
done is before God we had to be reconciled
so that God could receive us as his friend. And it's this
message of him doing it that breaks our heart and makes us
be reconciled to him. He brought in everlasting righteousness. Everlasting righteousness. He made his people the righteousness
of God in him. Everlasting righteousness of
God in him. He sealed up the vision and the
prophecy. He said in the volume of the book it's written of me.
Everything in this Old Testament scripture It was written of him. Everything. If we don't see it,
it's just our own fault. But it's there. He's there. And
every word of it. I believe when we get to glory,
we're going to see it in every page and every word and every
passage. And think, I didn't see that. But he came, he said, in the
volume of the book it's written to me, and he said, I come to
do thy will, O God, and he sealed it up. He came to fulfill the
law and the prophecy, and he sealed up the vision and the
prophecy. and then he anointed the most holy. He has entered
in with his own blood into the holiest of holies, the one that
the holiest of holies pictured in the tabernacle. He's entered
into the holiest of holies with his own blood having accomplished
eternal redemption for us and sat down because the work is
finished. He did it. Now that's not a, that's not
a he's done all he can do. He's trying to. That's none of
that, is it? He did that. He accomplished
that. Do you think, think about it,
the God who is high above all, who created everything, who's
described here as above the heavens, who has to, he has to stoop to
look at the heavens, much less the earth, and the inhabitants
are his grasshoppers, and all of these things. Can you imagine
attributing to him that he came down here and tried
to do something and didn't get it accomplished.
He accomplished it. He came to do what he did and
he accomplished it. He's not frustrated. Not at all. And now from his throne above
everything, that great and high and lofty place, the God-man
is there as our prophet, priest, and king who knows everything
about us, knows, touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
knows where it does, been right where we are. He took our place
in every single way you can imagine without being one who himself
rebelled. He didn't do that. And by his spirit now, he comes
to where we are and he reaches down. This gives us some idea
of how far down, doesn't it? Way, way, way down. Here we are in the dust. We don't
know him and we hated him. We didn't want to know him. On the dung heap. and happy to
be on the dung heap. You see those birds out there
on the dung heap? They're just happy to be on the
dung heap. Crows and everything else come there. That's where
they're feeding on the dung heap. That's where we were. He came to where we are and he
reached down Verse 7 says, and He lifted us up. He raiseth up
the poor out of the dust and He lifted the needy out of the
dunghill. He came in spirit and He turned
us to Him to behold what He did for us and made us know what
He did for us and made us behold His glory and what He did for
us. And I'm telling you, we don't resist that. You don't resist
that. When He shows you what He's done
for you and what He's accomplished, we can't resist it. You believe
Him. You trust Him. You see, you're
the dung heap dust. And you can't be saved without
Him. You're the needy. You're the
poor. You can't be saved without Him. And you believe Him. You
trust Him with everything to save you. And He keeps you knowing. Keeps you knowing. He's your
salvation. While you're in this earth, He's
going to keep us knowing. We need Him every hour. And in verse 8, why did he do
this? That he may set him with princes
even with the princes of his people. He has made all his people
princes. Kings and princes. Priests unto
God. When he gave you that new heart
and made you see that you were already seated there with him,
he had already raised you with him when he arose and sat down
and he makes you see you are there with him. Sometimes he makes you see that,
doesn't he? Sometimes he makes that real,
so real in our heart that we see. We're seated there with
him. When he does that, it's like you can just tiptoe across
the water. There's nothing that bothers
you, or can. That's how the flesh is mortified.
There's some sweet seasons when you see Him and you can't do
anything but see Him. And you can't do anything, you
can't, nothing can interrupt it. You see Him, you know Him. And a little while, you're back
poor and needy, back to the dung heap. And He just keeps lifting
you, showing you, I've lifted you up. I've set you among princes. You're mine. And this is what
keeps us growing. in grace and knowledge of Him
and seeing His greatness and His glory and seeing our sinfulness
and trusting Him more and trusting self less. He has set us among princes.
When He makes you see this, we start singing a new song. Revelation
1 to 5, unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in
His own blood and that made us kings and priests unto God and
His Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. That's
what's typified in Him raising Joseph from the dungeon and sitting
him beside the king. That's what's typified in him
taking David from the sheepfold to the throne of Israel. And he won't let us go. He won't
let us go. He remembers we're dust. He keeps
lifting us up, setting our affection on him at God's right hand. And
this is what he does in all his poor and needy people. From the
rising of the sun to the going down of the same, from the east
to the west, from the north to the south, wherever his people
are, he sends the gospel of what he has accomplished to his people.
You know why the gospel is so important? You know why it's
so important? Because it is the message of
what this high and glorious God has accomplished for his people.
It's the message of his name. That's why he's saved by it.
It's the message that declares his name. Those he uses are nothing. Those he saves are nothing. It's
not about glory in men. And men will start, you know,
you put too much emphasis on the preaching of the gospel.
No, I don't. God does. It pleased him to save this way.
Is this high and glorious one able to send the gospel to his
people? Is he? Is he able? Was he able to speak
and create the world? Yes. And I know what men will
say. They'll say, well, if he's that
sovereign, he could save in any way he wanted to. Yes, he could.
But he said it pleased and saved through the preaching of the
gospel. And that shows how much more sovereign he is because
he put, he told us beforehand how he's going to do it and does
it just that way. That shows you how sovereign
and holy and glorious and powerful and wise he is. And when he brings
his people, we all sing it. We all sing the song wherever
they are, east to west. Thou art worthy. Thou art worthy. To take the book and open the
seals thereof, for thou was slain. He didn't travail. He did. You have redeemed us to God by
Thy blood out of the every kindred and tongue and people and nation
from the east to the west. And has made us under our God
kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth. He sets us
among princes. Now listen, you remember how
Hannah was barren and Peninnah was fruitful. And Peninnah used
to let Hannah know about it. She's so fruitful, she's so fruitful,
she's so fruitful, and poor Hannah was barren, not bearing any fruit. Sarah was barren. Well, the Lord
graciously made Hannah bear a son, and the Lord graciously made
Sarah bear a son. Hagar had a son, but the Lord
made, he said, putting him out. Picture of the old covenant,
picture of works. He made Sarah have the son. And
through him the promised seed came, Christ Jesus. What is that
picture? When he came, when the Lord Jesus
came, his true church, his true people, the few that remnant
he'd called out appeared barren. Completely barren. While there
was a host in religion, using his word, using the scriptures,
using the oracles of God, and doing nothing but boasting in
themselves and what they had produced, just like Peninnah
to Hannah. And our Lord, our Redeemer, Verse
9 said, He maketh the barren woman to keep house and to be
a joyful mother of children. Our Redeemer came and He established
His church and He's been sending forth His gospel and calling
His people and producing children since before He arose on high
and He's still doing it now and He's not going to stop doing
it until He's called the last one, produced the last one. This was His promise. Sing, O
barren, thou that didst not bear. Break forth into singing and
cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child. You did nothing
to produce these children. You didn't do anything to produce
yourself. For more are the children of the desolate than the children
of the married wife, saith the Lord. You shall break forth on
the right hand and on the left. Thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles
and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. He said, fear
not. You shall not be ashamed, you
won't be confounded, you won't be put to shame, and you will
forget the shame of youth. For thy maker is thy husband,
the Lord of hosts is his name, and thy redeemer, the Holy One
of Israel, the God of the whole earth shall it be called. He
said, I forsook you in a small moment, with everlasting kindness
I've drawn you. I'll have mercy on you. There's
nothing too hard for our Lord. Nothing too hard for our Lord.
I look back up there in verse 2, it said, Blessed be the name
of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. If our heart's
been renewed so that with all our heart we really want to praise
the name of the Lord. Right now today if He's given
us a heart to give all the glory and all the praise to Him with
everything He's made us and everything He's given us and that's the
heart you have. Then bless His name from this
time forth and forevermore. Every day He reveals to His saints
some new reason to praise Him. Every day. Every day. Maybe we didn't praise Him as
we wanted to yesterday. Maybe we didn't praise Him as
we wanted to in years past. Well, today is the day of salvation.
Do you believe Him today? Do you believe Him right now? From this time right now? Then
bless His name from this time forth and forevermore. And when He calls us to glory,
we will. Paul said, brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended,
but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind,
reaching forth into those things which are before, I press toward
the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as
be perfect, be thus minded, and if anything you be otherwise
minded, God shall reveal this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto
we've already attained, Right now, that's what he's talking
about. Let us walk by the same road, let us mind the same thing.
Can't expect the little ones running around here to walk like
the big ones walking around here. Wherever you've attained to,
walk there. Why? Because our citizenship
is in heaven. We're looking for the Lord Jesus
Christ who one day will change this vile body and fashion it
like unto his glorious body with that power whereby he's able
to do all things to himself. This glorious God. And we'll
praise Him from this time forth, even forever. The psalm begins
with, Praise ye the Lord, and it ends with, Praise ye the Lord.
When He first called you, you start praising ye the Lord. Throughout
the whole life, as He keeps showing you what He's done, you praise
the Lord. And you know what we're going to do for everlasting,
forevermore? We're going to praise the Lord. Singing this song. Praise be to His name. Glory. All the glory. Amen. Father, we thank you for this
word. Thank you for these many blessings. Thank you for letting
us gaze into your greatness and to your throne room and seeing
how far down you came for us. Lord, help us to remember, help
us from this time forth to praise you, walk before you, glorify
you, And Lord, we thank you that you keep lifting us up. We thank
you. You keep raising us up and won't let us go. Lord, would
you continue to keep us, continue to show us what great things
you've done and are doing for us. Thank you so much, Lord,
for our Redeemer and all the blessings we have in him. Lord,
forgive us. Give us our unbelief. Forgive
us for thinking more of ourselves than we all. Forgive us for every
sin, every thought, every deed, everything we are. Thank you,
Lord, for your righteousness. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
In the name of our dear Savior, we pray. Amen.