Alright brethren, let's go back
to Psalm 96. I'm just going to go verse by
verse through this, but this is a psalm that's exhorting the
Lord's people to sing unto the Lord and to preach Christ to
the whole world. to send forth the Gospel into
the whole world. It's not just for the Israelites
only, it's to be sent forth into all the world to call the Lord's
people from among the kindreds of the earth to enter into His
courts, to come together like this to worship the Lord. He
begins in verse 1, O sing unto the Lord a new song. Sing unto
the Lord all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, bless His
name." Those three divisions there pretty well make up my
divisions, because each one expresses something a little different,
but a little further than the last expression. I've titled
this, Singing the New Song. He says there, first of all,
O sing unto the Lord a new song. Now God's people sing unto the
Lord. We're not singing to hear each
other. We're not singing to be applauded
by men or approved of by men. We're singing unto the Lord.
It really doesn't matter if we can carry a tune or not. It doesn't
matter who hears us or not. You're singing from the heart.
The Lord looks on the heart. And we sing unto the Lord. And
He says here, three times singing to the Lord, and we're truly
singing to the Lord God in three persons. We worship one God in
three persons, and each receive the glory for a part of the salvation
that God works for His people. But notice He says here, we sing
unto the Lord a new song. Let's go over to Revelation 5
and see that new song. He makes this song new and keeps
this song new in the heart of His people. It's new every morning. It keeps you looking to Christ,
rejoicing in Him. Now, the Apostle John was shown something that made him very
sad. He was shown a book in the hand of God and it had seals
binding it, and no man was worthy to open it. There was nobody
to open it. And then we read in verse 5,
One of the elders said unto me, Weep not, behold, the lion of
the tribe of Judah, the root of David, hath prevailed to open
the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I beheld,
and lo, in the midst of the throne, and of the four beasts, in the
midst of the elders, stood a lamb as it had been slain. a lamb
as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which
are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him
that sat upon the throne. And when he had taken the book,
the four beasts and the four and twenty elders fell down before
the lamb." They fell down before the lamb. having every one of
them harps and golden vows full of odors, which are the prayers
of saints, and they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy
to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for Thou 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 book that was sealed, that
represents God's will, God's decree, God's purpose concerning
everything that comes to pass in time, but particularly the
salvation of His elect. God willed and decreed from eternity
to save His people, chose a people, gave them to Christ, entrusted
Christ to do everything to save us by His righteousness, by His
blood, and He hath prevailed. Christ hath prevailed. And so
this is the new song. It's how Christ established the
new covenant in His blood. The new everlasting covenant
in His blood. He established it. He's the Lamb
slain. We see a new way Christ is the
Lamb slain. It's not an Old Testament Lamb.
It's Christ the Lamb. And we're singing about how He's
made His elect new. He's made us kings and priests
unto God. a royal priesthood. So now we
can come into His house, into His temple, into His presence
as priests under God. And we're reigning with Him in
the earth now, we'll reign with Him forever. He's made us under
our God kings and priests by His blood, by redeeming His people.
And we're singing about a new and living way to God, into His
presence, into His holiness. This new and living way is Christ. It's not the old lamb. It's a
new lamb and it's not the old priest, it's a new high priest. It's a high priest who ever lives,
who is at God's right hand continually making intercession for His people
so that we can come into God's presence. It's altogether new. And so by the Holy Spirit blessing
this message to our hearts and purging our conscience, with
the blood of Christ. Now we're entering in a new way
rather than the old. We're entering in, not in the
oldness of the letter, but in newness of spirit, through faith
in Christ, trust in Christ's blood, and enter into God's holy
presence. And so here's our song, look
there at Revelation 5.12. We sing, worthy is the lamb that
was slain. Worthy for what? To receive power. and riches, and wisdom, and strength,
and honor, and glory, and blessing. He received all that from God
when God raised Him. He had all that as the Son of
God, but He raised Him as the God-Man and gave Him all this. But it's also that we give Him
the glory for having all this and being all this to us. This
is our song. In verse 13 we sing, Blessing
and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon
the throne and unto the Lamb forever and ever. And just like
these four beasts, when they said Amen, and the four and twenty
elders, they fell down and worshipped Him that liveth forever and ever. That's the new song, brethren. It's like the psalmist said over
in Psalm 118.14, he said, the Lord is my strength and my song. The Lord is. He's my song. He's
become my salvation. We're singing a new song, singing
of a new way, a new covenant, new mercies, all together new
by the blood of the Lamb. And then, it's not just It's
not just God's elect in Israel. It's now anew in that it's gone
forth into all the earth. He says there secondly, Sing
unto the Lord all the earth. All the earth. Christ redeemed
His people. We saw there in Revelation 5.9,
Thou was slain and has redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of
every kindred. and tongue, and people, and nation."
Notice here in Psalm 96, he declares this. Verse 3, he says, "...declare
his glory among the heathen." That's everybody outside of Israel. The Israelites are considered
the heathen. And he says, "...declare my word to them, his wonders
among all the people." He says in verse 7, "...give unto the
Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, He said in verse 10, ìSay among
the heathen that the Lord reigneth.î This is what the New Testament
Scripture is talking about when it speaks about the world. It's
not talking about everybody in the world, but it's talking about
Christ redeemed, who He redeemed, His elect out of all the kindreds
and nations and tongues and people in the earth. Christ said, ìI
laid down my life for the sheep.î That's who He laid down His life
for. He didn't try to redeem us. He successfully redeemed
His people. He redeemed His people. He paid
all the debt His people owed. He purged all the sin of His
people. And He actually truly redeemed His people. And so those
that He redeemed, they must be called and they shall be called
out of every kindred, tribe, tongue, and nation in this earth. He said, ìOther sheep I have
which are not of this fold.î He was standing there and not
only speaking, he said, ìIt is not only among the Jews, not
only in this nation Israel.î He said, ìBut I have some other
sheep too.î And he said, ìAnd them also I must bring, and they
shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.î
This is new. This is altogether new. He's
declaring this is the new song. It's not only the new song concerning
all things new that Christ has made new, but it's also new in
that now He sent this gospel into all the world. And aren't
we thankful? We're Gentiles sitting here.
Our Lord, as God our Father chose some of us to salvation, Christ
came and redeemed us. The Spirit of God called us out
of the kindreds of the earth. And we're thankful. So we sing
the new song unto the Lord. And then here's the third thing.
What is it we're singing? He says, sing unto the Lord,
bless His name. Bless, extol, give glory to His
name. Show forth. Publish, make known,
what's that? His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the heathen,
His wonders among all people. Now this is what He's called
us to do. He put this new song in our heart
for us to sing this new song out to all the earth and to all
the world through the preaching of this gospel. And this is what
He tells us we're to do. We're to bless, we're to ascribe,
we're to give honor and glory for salvation and for all spiritual
blessings to His great name. To His great name. God's name
is manifest in His Son. He's Emmanuel, God, with us. That's who Christ is. When Christ
appeared to Abraham in the burning bush, Moses said, he said, I'm
going to say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to
you. And he said, and when they asked
me what is his name, what am I going to tell them? What is
his name? And he said, God said to Moses,
I am that I am. And he said, Thus shalt thou
say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. He said, The God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob hath sent me unto you.
This is my name forever. This is my memorial to all generations. That's Christ. Christ told the
Pharisees before Abraham was, I am. I am. And so we gather
by His grace, by His strength and His power, where He gathers
His sheep together, to come into His courts, to sing this new
song, to publish this message through all the earth, to ascribe
all the glory to Him, to His name, to Christ for saving us. He is God our Savior, the Great
I Am. And He commands us, verse 2,
show forth, publish, preach, proclaim His salvation from day
to day. Declare His glory among the heathen,
His wonders among all people. This is our message. You know, men only declare the
message that they were saved by. The message a man was saved
by is the message he is going to preach. It's God put a new
song in your heart. You don't want to hear any other
message and you don't want to preach any other message. And
you want everybody to know that it's Him who saved you. It's
Him who saved you. Christ is God's salvation. We
show forth, we preach His salvation. He's God's salvation. You know,
when the Lord was eight days old, they brought Him into the
temple to be circumcised, and Simeon was sitting there waiting,
and he held Him up, and he said, Lord, I've seen Thy salvation. We declare His salvation. That's
God's salvation, the Lord Jesus. Declare His glory among the heathen. Christ is called the brightness
of His Father's glory. The brightness of His glory.
God has shined the light into our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ
Jesus. So we preach Christ, Christ. Declare His wonders. In Christ's
person and works we behold God's salvation. In His person and
in His works we see His salvation, we see His glory, we see His
wonders. His name shall be Wonderful. That's His name. Counselor, the
Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. What have
we preached? What have we declared to men?
This is how vile of a sinner that God's people are that He
had to send His only Son. And what a wonder, what a manifestation
of God's glory and of God's wonder that God came down and was manifest
in human flesh. He came down, what a wonder He
came down and was manifest in the flesh to save His people
from our sin. He's God's wisdom and He's God's
power to salvation. Aren't you thankful God was so
wise and He did not leave salvation into our hands? He sent His Son. His Son is the only one with
the wisdom to work what God demands. That's the whole purpose. When
God put Adam and Eve in the garden and told them, don't touch that
tree. Just don't touch that tree of
knowledge of good and evil. What is that tree? That's the
law. That's the law. And they reached
forth and touched it. And all from then on, God says,
now I'm going to send forth my son and he's going to honor me
and fulfill the whole law and take it out of the way for you.
So now you can reach forth and take of the tree of life and
live by my grace. That's what he came to do. It's
the glory and wonder of God's righteousness. God honored His own law for His
people. God came down and honored His
own law for His people so that He is both a just God and a Savior. A just God and a Savior. I don't
mean that we broke it in the garden. We did break it in the
garden. But we never once kept God's law as we ought. Not one
time. Not one time. If we could. If we could. What was the point
of Christ coming? That's exactly what Paul said
in Galatians. Christ died in vain. If righteousness could
have in any way come by the law, God would have saved us by that
law. But He sent His Son, so He is a just God and He is a
Savior. We see the glory and wonder of
God's faithfulness, of His love, of His grace. He declared from
the beginning He was going to save through the Lamb, through
His Son. And in His faithfulness, He did
exactly what He said He was going to do. And this is His love to
His people. He sent His only begotten Son. His only begotten Son. For a worm like you. For a maggot
like me. He sent His only begotten Son.
Not for good people. Not for people that had just
a little hopeful thing in them and a little glimmer in their
eye. No, no. For worms like us. He sent His only begotten Son. That's His love. And Christ laid
down His life for us. The glory and wonder of His resurrection. No man ever arose from the grave.
No man ever laid down his life for himself. And no man ever
took it up again for himself. But Christ did. He's the glory
and the wonder of God's of life. This is resurrection. He's declared
the Son of God with power. He arose and His people arose
in Him and sat down in Him. Salvation accomplished. Salvation
finished. He'd gone to the cross and He
accomplished the redemption of His people. He declared it's
finished and we know it because He was raised again for our justification. Sat down at the right hand of
God and His people in Him. And now we have the wonder and
the glory of reigning with Him right now, right now. And we're
reigning with Him through the power of His gospel and the power
of His Spirit working in our heart. It's a kingdom made up of kings
and priests who are reigning by the power of one, by the power
of Christ our King. That's the only way. That's the
only way. Without Him, it wouldn't take
a feather to take us away. We're kept in His hand, we're
kept in His grip, we're kept by His grace constantly or we
would be gone, completely gone away from Him. And completely
stop believing Him if it wasn't for Him keeping us constantly
by His grace. We've got to be kept by Him.
We've got to be kept by Him. He lets you see it sometimes
and you just You just fall on your face in
gratitude. Fall on your face in gratitude.
And He's calling His people, He's interceding for those He
died for, and He's calling His people through this Gospel. He's
preserving us through this Gospel by His Spirit, by His power.
He's growing us, and He's keeping each one of us, and He's working
in our midst His will and His good pleasure. That's why He
says, do everything with fear and trembling, because He's here. And that's what the Psalms, we're
going to see, this is what the Psalms declaring right here.
Wherever Christ is, that's His sanctuary. That's where He is.
It's the glory and wonder of His coming again. He didn't just
come and give people a chance. He saved His people. And He's
calling His people now, and when He's finished calling each of
His elect to faith in Him, He must, He shall, He will not let
one go. He's going to call each one,
and when He's done calling the last one, He's coming again. Our Redeemer's coming again. I was reading about this new
telescope they just sent out into space. Y'all heard about
this telescope? supposed to be so powerful that
they worked on this thing for 10 years, spent billions and
billions of dollars on it, and they said, we're going to be
able to see all the way back to the Big Bang. That's what
the scientists said. We're going to be able to see
all the way to the Big Bang. Somebody put something on the
internet with a picture of the first photo taken from that telescope,
and you could read it backwards, and it was like a cap on the
lens cover. It said, please remove before
launch. I thought that was pretty funny. But he's before anything. He's before anything. And man
is trying to prove that he does not exist. But he's coming back. And when he comes back, every
eye's going to see him. Every knee is going to bow to
Him and every tongue is going to confess to Him that He is
the wonder and the glory of God. He is. He is. And so as we're
given this privilege, brethren, the privilege we're given is
not only to sing the new song ourselves and worship the person
and work of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, it's the privilege of
being able to send the Gospel into this world and declare it
to all. Preach it far and wide. That's
what He's given us the glory to do. And then through the Gospel,
He calls His people into His house to worship the Lord alone. Look here in verse 4. Here's why He calls us to worship
Him. And this is our message. For the Lord is great and greatly
to be praised. He is to be feared above all
gods, for all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord
made the heavens. Gentile nations, then and now,
just like Israel and all nations, worship idols. It's just man
by nature worships idols. made the moon and the stars and
all creation and angels, and men in every age have worshipped
the moon and the stars and creation and angels, rather than worshipping the Creator.
And even when men are worshipping the works of their hands, and
whether it's a work that they've carved out into an idol, or just
the works of their own doing, it's still worshipping the creature,
worshipping that which He's created, rather than worshipping Him.
And that's what He says here. He's to be worshipped above all,
to be feared above all. He is above all. That's why a
sinner must be born again. We have to be made to see God
alone is great. And God longs greatly to be praised.
And one way He makes you to know that is He takes a sinner who
hates God. And that's me and you, brethren.
We hated God. We didn't hate the God of our
imagination. We didn't hate the God of our
vain religion. We didn't hate our idol. But
we hated God. We hated the true God. And we
hated men who preached the true God. And what does He do? He makes you see His greatness
by making you go from not being able to believe Him to trusting
Him. And casting all your care into
the hands of the very one you hated. And He makes you know
by that He's great. He's great. He's greatly to be
praised. Now listen to the description. This is Christ. This is God our
Savior, risen, seated in His holy sanctuary, in all His glory,
in the holiest of holies. Verse 6, honor and majesty are
before Him. Strength, power, and beauty are
in His sanctuary. Hebrews 1.3 says, when He finished
purging our sin, it said, Christ sat down on the right hand of
the majesty on high. The honor and the majesty. Or
He is. It's all before Him. He's made
so much better than the angels. His inheritance obtained a more
excellent name than they. You picture a king on his throne.
He's got his robes on. His majesty is all before Him. His honor, He's got His crown
on. He's seated in glory and honor.
That's Christ our King. He's in His glorious sanctuary. He's in the holiest of holies.
He's in glory above. He's seated on the throne. He's
the Lamb on the throne. And that's who we're to come
before. That's who we're coming before. Wherever He's gathered
us, it doesn't matter how many it is, that's not the thing.
It's has He gathered us. And where He's gathered His people,
He said, I'm there. And wherever He's gathered His
people, we're coming before His presence. We're coming before
His majesty, before His honor. And His honor and His strength
is before Him. What He's done by His honor,
by His glory and His strength, what He's done in His people
and for His people, it's all before Him. And it's all the
work of His hand. It's the majesty of the Lord.
that we're to have in our heart. Now, under the old covenant,
the Gentiles could not come into the sanctuary. They could not
come into the temple of the Lord. There was an outer court for
the Gentiles and they could come there, but they couldn't come
into the inner court. They couldn't. And that's what
you remember they accused Paul. He defiled our holy place because
he brought these Gentiles in here. Well, our Lord's declaring
right here that He's calling His people in all the earth to
enter in. By His righteousness being made
holy by Christ, He's saying we can enter in. We can come into
His presence, we can assemble together in His name, and we're
coming before His honor and His strength and His majesty. But
we do so giving Him all the glory that's due to His name, and we
do so from the heart. We're giving Him all the glory
due to His name. Verse 7. He says here, Honor
and majesty are before Him. Strength and beauty are in His
sanctuary. That word sanctuary is His dwelling
place. It's His holy place. Wherever
He dwells, He's the holiness. Wherever He dwells, He's the
sanctifier. He's the sanctification. Wherever
He dwells is His sanctuary. His holy place. His dwelling
place. And He says, And we come, and
here's what we declare, and this is what we come doing by His
grace, give unto the Lord. Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds
of the people, this is His people from Jew and Gentile, give unto
the Lord glory and strength. Well, I thought the glory and
the strength is already His. It is His. He's saying, give
Him the glory. Give it all unto Him. Declare it's all His. It's
His glory. It's His strength. Give unto
the Lord the glory due unto His name. Thankful to God's great,
there's no more outer court for the Gentiles. You and I are not
cast out now. He by His blood has made us to
come in as His sanctified people from among all the nations so
that we can approach Him. But when we do now, we come giving,
attributing to Him the glory and the power, the glory and
the strength, the glory due to His name. Why do we have to do
this? We want to do this. Why? Because
we don't have any. We don't have any. We don't have
any glory, we don't have any strength, we don't have any beauty,
we don't have any majesty, we don't have righteousness, we
don't have holiness, we don't have anything but what Christ
is to us and what Christ provides for us. That's what we have.
So we come and here's the thing, the heart that he has created
anew. This is all you want to do. You
want to give Him all the glory due to His name and ascribe it
all to Him. All to Him. The person that He's
made holy, he doesn't see himself as holy. He doesn't see himself
as righteous. The person He hasn't made holy
doesn't see himself as wicked. But where He's given you a holy
heart, you gladly give Him all the glory and the praise because
you know He's the only one that it's due. And it's this offering
He calls us to bring. This is the offering. Look. He
says in verse 8, bring an offering and come into His courts. Bring
an offering and come into His courts. Let me read you this
from Hebrews 13. He describes heart worship. using symbols that were common
at the time. They were coming and making offerings. He is the Lamb of Atonement. He has already made that offering.
He is the burnt offering. He has already laid down His
life and accomplished the redemption of His people. What are we bringing
to Him? What kind of offering? A thank offering. We are coming
and giving Him thanks and praise. Listen to this. Hebrews 12, this
is what He is saying to us. Wherefore Jesus also, that He
might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without
the gate, let us go forth therefore unto Him without the count, bearing
His reproach. For here we have no continuing
city, but we seek one to come. He is calling His people out
of the nations of the earth into His church, into His house, into
His temple, into His holy presence. And He says, By Him, therefore,
by Christ, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually,
that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. This
is the offering he's talking about. Give it unto Him. Give
Him the honor. Give Him the glory. Give Him
the glory due to Him. giving continually fruit of our
lips, giving thanks to His name, but to do good and to communicate,
to give to those in need, forget not, for with such sacrifices
God is well pleased. Well, the sacrifices that God's
pleased with is a broke heart. What's a broken heart? It's a
humbled heart. It's just the heart I was just
talking about. It just doesn't see yourself as anything but
a worm before God. really and truly. You just see what you are. But you see He is everything,
and that's the humility of heart He gives. That's what true humility
of heart is, and your heart's broken before Him, you're humble
before Him, and you want Him to have the calves of your lips
in prayer and praise and thanksgiving to Him. And as well we bring
a willing offering, a willing offering for brethren in need.
And for the furtherance of this gospel, to send it forth into
this world, and it's no sacrifice to His people, it's no sacrifice. He gave everything we have, we're
just giving back to Him, and we're usually pretty stingy about
that. But He's provided it all, He's
given it all, we're just giving what He's given to us. But the
offering that we must come before holy God with, the offering we
must, above everything, this is the only offering God will
receive. We must come through faith in
His blood. We must come with Christ. That's the only offering
He's going to receive. He's well pleased with Him and
we must come into Him. And this giving Him all glory
and honor, is truly worship. This is true worship. He says
here in verse 9, O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Now I want you to notice here,
I want you to notice, he's been talking about here how the honor
and majesty is before him. Strength and beauty are in his
sanctuary, in his holy dwelling. He's saying give to the Lord
The glory, the strength, give to the Lord. The glory do His
name. Bring an offering to Him. Come into His court. And he says,
now worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The margin says,
in the beauty of His glorious sanctuary. The beauty of His
glorious sanctuary. The Septuagint translation says,
in the court of His holiness. We're coming into His holiest
of holies, into His presence. That's where we're coming. We're
coming into His courts below here, but we're coming before
the Lord into the holiest of holies where He's seated in the
beauty of holiness. He is the beauty of holiness. The beauty of holiness is Christ
our holiness. He is. He is. With Him we have the holiness
that God will receive us with. The holy God who cannot look
upon us as just giving it our... sincere best. It's got to be
perfect. And He's that holiness that makes
us perfect, meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
in light. So we come bowing in our hearts in faith with fear
and reverence, giving Him the glory. We fear before Him in
all the earth. That's what He said. Worship
the Lord in the beauty of holiness, fear before Him. So it's Him
seated in all His splendor in His holy sanctuary, and with
Him dwelling in His people, He's made His people holy inwardly,
and it's coming with a heart bowed before Him, giving Him
all the glory, wanting Him to have all the praise, fearing
and reverence and respecting Him. We don't rush in hastily. We don't do things out of order
in His house. We don't sing songs that don't
give Him the glory. We don't preach messages that
put the focus on man. We preach Him. We sing of Him. We pray to Him. We glorify Him. And so we prepare to come into
this place. We prepare our hearts to come
before Him. We don't sit around and talk about other things. We come
in and we try to prepare ourselves to worship God. And He has to
still give us the ability to really enter into worship with
Him. You just don't walk in and worship God. Nobody can. It's just like being born again. It's His Spirit that's going
to make us worship Him. But we do it knowing we're welcome
into His presence, but we do it coming before holy God, giving
the glory that's due to His name. Turn over to Hebrews 10. This
is what the whole thing is telling us right here, Hebrews 10. When
He's revealed in our hearts that He's perfected for ever them
that are sanctified, and God is born witness with your spirit,
He remembers your sin no more. and there's no more offering
for sin. He's remitted sin by Christ's
blood. Each time we are worshiping Him, each time we draw near in
prayer, when He draws you to Him, when He draws you to Him,
this is what He's saying to us in our text right here, Hebrews
10.19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, That's how
we have boldness, by the blood of Jesus, to enter into His holy
sanctuary where there He is in all His honor and majesty. We
enter in by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which
He has consecrated for us. He made the way for us. It's
His flesh. He laid down His life. He made
a new and living way for us. He's our high priest over the
house of God. We come in with a new high priest.
Let us draw near with a true heart, a heart He's given in
full assurance of faith. Full assurance of faith is just
having no other interest, no other acceptance, no other righteousness,
no other but Christ. Having our hearts sprinkled from
an evil conscience, That evil conscience of trying to come
with our idols. Our bodies washed with pure water
so that we want to serve Him and honor Him. And let us hold
fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful
that promised. Let us consider one another to
provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting
one another so much more as you see the day approaching. This
is what He's talking about, brethren. Come to Him, give Him all the
glory and all the honor and worship Him. I pray He'll bless Dad.