May it please God to bless our
souls this morning as we turn to the Word of God. Let us come
to the first book of the Chronicles chapter 16 and we'll read verse
25. The first book of the Chronicles
chapter 16 and reading verse 25. For great is the Lord and greatly
to be praised. He also is to be feared above
all gods. We seem to live in an age and
in a day when many people do not have a good and a right and
a proper view of Almighty God. And neither do they desire or
neither do they praise the Lord for who He is and for what He
has done. And so it is good that we are
privileged to have the Word of God which sets before us examples
and wonderful examples of what we should say and how we should
act in our life as we now live upon the earth. The psalmist
David, who of course wrote this psalm, had a great need to bless
God. You will remember that previously
they'd brought up the Ark and initially they hadn't brought
it up in a right way. They'd put it on a cart, a new
cart, and they may have thought it was right but it wasn't in
accordance with the Word of God. And therefore, when Uzzah put
forth his hand to steady the ark, the Lord struck him down
dead. And of course David wasn't very happy, in fact, with that
situation. But the ark had to go aside. And there it was for quite a
long time. And then David realised the error of his ways. And of
course the law proclaimed very clearly that it was the Levites
that should have carried the Ark. And so they then rectified
the position and brought the Ark back to Zion by carrying
it. and therefore it came back and
we began this chapter with those words so they brought the ark
of God and set it in the midst of the tent that David had pitched
for it and they offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings
before God Well, David desired then to bless the Lord for that
which he'd done. And therefore then, we come down
to the words that David then spoke, having organised the people,
organised the singers in what they should do. He then comes
and says, give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name, make
known his deeds among the people. This is an important consideration. We are to give thanks unto the
Lord. We have so much to thank the
Lord for and if we're honest we don't thank the Lord enough
for the many things we do have. Just pause and ponder for a moment
in the natural event of things how privileged we are today to
be able to gather together for worship the wonderful liberty
which is ours and millions in the world do not have this blessing
and do not have this privilege and then not only do we have
this favour we have the word of God to read in our own language
again a wonderful blessing we have a place to meet in a wonderful
favour We have health and strength, at least in sufficient measure
to grant us the ability to gather here today. And we have friends,
and we have godly people to converse with. My friends, great then
is the reason that we have to give thanks unto the Lord. And so the psalmist goes on to
say, call upon his name. We are to prime. as Paul tells
us, to pray without ceasing. Again, there is today really
a lack of real, true, prevailing prayer. There's often just, again,
through the motions, fulfilling some law, something that we feel
we should do, perhaps want to do, but there doesn't seem to
be really that great blessing, that outpouring of prevailing
prayer. and how we should covet it, and
how we should desire it, and how we should pray for it, and
come like the Siamese says here, to call upon his name. And not only to do that, then
he goes on to say, and make known his deeds among the people. My friends, God had done much
for Israel of old, and has he not, truthfully, honestly, has
he not done much for you and me? Well, I hope we can look
into our hearts, into our lives, and see what God has done for
us. He's done that for us which we
could not do for ourselves. And what a great and wonderful
blessing it is to know we have such a God who has done such
great things. And we are not to keep these
things within our hearts, in our minds. No, says the psalmist. And you see these words spoken
to Israel many years ago have a gracious application to all
the Church of God down through the ages and therefore this word
speaks to us, make known his deeds among the people. And indeed the verse before the
25th speaks to us, declare his glory among the heathen. His
marvellous works among all nations." Sometimes we're tempted to shut
our mouth and not say anything. And I believe often, you know,
people hide under that word that we are not to cast our pearls
before swine. Well, I believe the interpretation
of that is that when the Lord may bless us, very particularly
and personally, perhaps with wonderful revelations of the
Saviour. These are indeed pearls of great
price and we should not cast them openly before people who
would not understand them at all. but we are nonetheless to
declare God's work, we are to declare what he's done, we are
to declare his faithfulness, we are to declare his mercy.
And I suppose we are usually very backward, aren't we, when
we're in the world, when we're amongst people who do not fear
God. and we don't speak as we should
do. Really we're not as faithful
as we should be. And so we are thankful that we
have the Word of God to declare to us the way that we should
operate in our lives. And the Word of God is here for
our instruction, and we're thankful for it, I'm sure, I hope we are,
and if we are, are we willing to take heed to the instruction
that is set before us, and the desire to walk in that way. And he tells us, carries on,
sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous
works. Now that's a very full statement,
isn't it? Because the works of God from creation, from creation. Today we live in a world where
people dispute creation. And the reason? They don't want
to acknowledge there is a mighty God. They don't want to acknowledge
there is a God who is great. Great is the Lord. They don't
want to acknowledge it. Because if they do, they realise
they have to answer to that God, so they try and put things in
their mind, or try and rake up other reasons not to believe
the truth of God's Word. But my friends, the truth remains,
God did create all things, and not only has he created all things,
He's also brought everything to pass which has occurred in
the history of the world and he's brought everything to pass
with regard to that great salvation when he sent his only begotten
son into the world. Whoso believeth on him should
not perish but have eternal life. Oh what a wonderful blessing
surely that is, is it not? Is there not cause to talk of
all his wondrous works? And the Church of God need to
talk one to another of his wondrous works, because they are so strengthening. Remember what Malachi tells us,
then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and
a book of remembrance was written. Again, it didn't say, well, they
just spoke once a year or once a month. No, it speaks, they
spoke often, one to another. Make known his deeds among the
people. I'm sure I mentioned to you before
but it stuck with me a few years ago when I was out in St Lucia
at Christmas time and we met together on the Sunday and we
all had food together. When we finished the pastor said,
well he said we're almost at the end of another year and he
said it would be good therefore if we are able to tell each one
of what God has done for us during that year. Well it was a wonderful
occasion because we sat in a large circle and one by one we went
round and each one was able to stand up and say what God had
done for them. It may have been in a providential
way It may have been in a spiritual way, but nonetheless, the effect
was God honouring. And we should remember, you know,
we have much to be thankful for, to speak to our friends about
the Church of God especially, and also those that we meet with,
what God has done. Let not his mercy's life forgotten
in unthankfulness and without praises die. And so here, as
the Ark was brought back, and it was, of course, a wonderful
occasion, an occasion to be so thankful for, and therefore David
desired that the people would be thankful and would declare
what he had done, make known his deeds, and talk of all his
wondrous works. What was the reason? glory ye
in his holy name let the heart of them rejoice that seek the
lord these things are to bring honor and glory to our great
and holy god let us never forget our our lives are for that purpose
to bring glory to our god and not to bring glory to ourselves
we are to be less than least of all saints We are to remember
that it is not a works, God's grace and his gift of faith,
not a works, lest any man should boast. We're not allowed to boast
of what God has done or what we've done. We are allowed to
boast of what God's done. And so may we be found in that
seeking way. Glory in his holy name. for great is the lord glory in
his holy name my friends today do we think that great is the
lord he is for great is the lord do we have right views of him
in our hearts the greatness of god the one who rules the earth
when it holds our breath in his hand The Lord who organizes everything,
every detail in our lives. Glory ye in his holy name. Let
the heart of them rejoice. It's good to read that word,
let the heart. It's not just the mind, the head,
it's the heart. The effect of God's grace is
to penetrate into our soul, into our heart. And that's which does
us real good. And that which brings forth praise.
May we bless God and if we have the evidence of his work in our
heart and be able to come and rejoice. that seek the Lord. And then, you see, David goes
on, remembering the truth, for great is the Lord and greatly
to be praised, he says, seek the Lord and his strength, seek
his face continually. Again, it means to pray really
to our God continually. What a need there is for prevailing
prayer in a day and age in which we live. Again, just another
little anecdote. You may remember when I went
to Pakistan two or three years ago, and preached as a good number
of servants in those few days and what I learnt when I was
there was that a number of those people had prayed all night for the blessing of the Lord.
It wasn't just a casual few words, but actually prayed all night
that God would pour forth his blessing upon those meetings. And we can of course thank God
as we look back and realize, as I learned afterwards, that
Of course, I preached to between two and four hundred on each
occasion, and afterwards I learnt that through those sermons, and
I never mentioned baptism at all, but there were twenty-five
people came forth, forward, to be baptised and to follow the
Lord. So we see then the goodness of the Lord, and what they'd
done, they'd sought the Lord prayerfully, continually, And
we might think it was a time of wrestling prayer. We don't
read very much of wrestling prayer in the Word of God. And we don't
hear very much of wrestling prayer today. But we know in the case
of Jacob, when he was in a great strait, a dilemma, he prayed
to his God. He wrestled with his God. and we read those words, I will
not let thee go except thou bless me. Surely that came into the
category of the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man and
God did bless him. My friends, God does bless. God
does hear and answer prayer and so may we be thankful for it
and be given that grace to seek his face continually continually
day and night and wake up in the night to be blessed, to pray
unto our God, get up in the morning to pray to our God, go about
our work to pray to our God, about the home to pray to our
God, Oh, you see, may prayer truly be our vital breath. Prayer is the breath of our soul,
like breath is the life of our body. Prayer is the life of our
soul. No prayer, not much life. No prayer at all, there's death.
We need to pray. We need to pray in season and
out of season. And so to be blessed, you see,
with prayer, to bless them with answers to our prayers, then
we come and we acknowledge, for great is the Lord. Yes, we don't
pray, my friends, to a little God. We come to a great God,
a God who is able to do far more. and exceeding abundantly above
what we can ask or even think may we be given that faith to
stretch out believing we do have a prayer hearing and a prayer
answering God for great is the Lord and greatly to be praised
And so he says then, remember his marvellous works that he
has done, his wonders and the judgment of his mouth. But of
course, when David wrote this, the Lord hadn't come upon the
earth. They had the blessing of the
Ark. They had the blessing of the
Ceremonial Law. And of course, all those things,
without fail, pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore,
His wondrous works in giving to them all those blessings,
the tabernacle and everything in it contained, that He hath
done His wonders and the judgments of His mouth. But today, my friends,
this great God, for great is the Lord, he sent his only beloved
Son. And what a work that was, that
work of salvation. My friends, if you and I have
a hope in it, and I trust we do, have a hope in that finished
work. It was a complete work, There
was nothing missing, nothing lacking. The Lord Jesus Christ
paid the complete price to atone for every sin that we have ever
committed if we are amongst the true family of God. Oh, what
a great and glorious salvation. Is it not a marvellous work It's
a work which goes beyond our natural comprehension to think
that Almighty God should have condescended to come in this
sinful world and to suffer and to bleed and to die that we might
be blessed with life. You go back to the Old Testament
and you see portrayed before us, page after page, the way
of salvation. What was the way of salvation?
Through the shedding of blood. Through the shedding of blood
there is remission. No other forgiveness in any other
way. And how necessary it was then
for Israel of old to perceive that which was to be found in
that shedding of blood as they viewed themselves and viewed
their sin, how many times they had caused and reasoned to look
at their sin, to see how they'd failed, how they'd offended Almighty
God, how they'd turned their back. And such were some of you. We're no different, are we? No
better, are we? We've forsaken our God, have
we not? Days without number. Well then,
to recollect the greatness of our God, marvellous works he's
done in redeeming our soul, and the wonder of it to think that
almighty God condescended to save a wretched, hell-deserving
sinner like you and me. What a wonder it was. What a
glorious work it was. Do we bless God today for it?
Do we thank him for his wondrous work in redeeming our soul? Never forget, religion is personal. It comes down to individuals. It comes down to your soul and
my soul. How we stand before a holy God,
Yes, as we stand washed in the blood of the Lamb, or whether
we stand unconcerned and filthy and wretched and miserable and
poor and naked, and know not our state. Bless God for His
wondrous work, that He has caused us to hear His voice, and to turn to Him, to look to
Him, to pray to Him, to hope in His mercy, to rejoice in His
great work, marvellous works He hath done, His wonders, and
the judgments of His mouth. You see, God is a God of judgment. God does judge His people and
that judgment comes to us that we confess that we are the sinner. And sometimes it's as though
we stand before God as the only sinner. God's looking directly
at us in all our lost and ruined state. and we believe there's
no help in ourself but look out of ourselves to the finished
work of the Saviour. Now David you see addresses the
Church of God, O ye seed of Israel, His servant, ye children of Jacob,
His chosen ones. And what does the Lord say? Ye
have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you,
that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should
remain. You see, the Word of God follows
through. That which is of old is true
today. It has not altered. God is the
same yesterday and today and forever. Be mindful always of
his covenant. Yes, that covenant of grace.
There was that covenant of works. And the covenant is a sworn conditional
promise. That's the definition of a covenant.
A sworn conditional promise. And of course the Old Testament
covenant was do this and live. And if people have been able
to keep the law, they would have received life, but they were
not able to keep the law and therefore they failed. And the
new covenant sets before us the Lord Jesus Christ. And my friends,
He kept the law. And He made it honourable so
that you and I might receive the gift of eternal life. Be mindful of His covenant. It's good, isn't it? Here we
have this great God. For great is the Lord. My friends,
be mindful of His covenant. That which He's done. Remember,
it's a sworn conditional promise. What the Lord has said must stand,
must come to pass. The Lord, my friend, speaks the
truth. There is no doubt with the Word
of God. It's a covenant ordered in all
things and sure. That's what David was relying
upon. That's what the Church of God rely upon. You and I are
relying today upon that covenant, upon his finished work, ordered
in all things and sure. For great is the Lord, Isn't
it true? Are we not establishing the greatness
of our God as we think of these things? Does not God get greater
and greater in our heart's estimation? And we become smaller and smaller
and more insignificant as we see ourselves as utter failures
in this world. And so be mindful always of His
covenant And so he goes on saying unto
thee, when I give the land of Canaan a lot of your inheritance
when you were but few, even a few and strangers in it. And they
would have realised, Israel would have looked back and observed,
there was Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and there was Jacob with
his family, 70 souls, which came down into Egypt. and that was
really the people that then were made into a great multitude,
lived there for 400 years, came out of Egypt with a high hand,
God gloriously delivered them and brought them out, came across
the Red Sea, sinned against God, wandered in the wilderness 40
years, brought into Canaan, God's promise fulfilled. My friends,
God's promises are the same today. He will bring his church safe
home to glory, the heavenly Canaan. He brings them safely through
the wilderness of this world. And it is a wilderness. The Word
of God describes it as a waste-housing wilderness. To the world, it's
not. It's their home. They want to
live forever and ever will. But to the Church of God, This
world should be a waste town and wilderness. It's not our
home. What is a rest that remaineth
to the people of God? A place that the Lord has gone
to repair a place in glory. If I go to repair a place I will
come again and receive you unto myself that where I am there
ye may be also. And so David's able to bring
this position, this picture to the Israel of old to remind them. And remember that this occasion
was a good many years since the word of promise had been given
to Abraham that it was being fulfilled. It had been fulfilled
when there were few but even a few and strangers in it. And so he goes on. He suffered
no man to do them wrong, yet he reproved kings. For their
sakes, my friends, God is in control of everybody. We need
not fear man. We do sometimes fear man, don't
we? We need not fear man. He's under God's control. Fear
of man bringeth a snare. No one can go beyond that which
God permits. No, men may try to destroy us. What did the psalmist David say
in Psalm 37? Threaten not yourself because
of evildoers, neither be they envious against the workers of
an industry, for they shall soon be cut off. Yes, my friends,
our God knows what everyone's doing. He's in control of our
lives. Bless God. May we have faith
to believe the Word of God. And what is that? I'll tell you
what it is. And we know that all things work together for
good to those that love God. and to those who are called according
to His purpose. That's God's Word. Remember it's
to those who love God, those who are blessed with His love.
And again, it is His love, not because we loved God, but because
He loved us. That's why we love God. It's
His love first, and our love follows. Touch not mine anointed,
and do my prophets no harm. sing unto the Lord all the earth
show forth from day to day his salvation every day We have reason
to thank God and to show forth his salvation, and that points
to Christ. And my friends, what a blessing
it is if we are pointed to Christ every day, to his finished work,
and we're able to speak to others about Christ every day. That
may be costly. Real religion is costly. Never
has been easy. Never will be easy. We're bought
with a price. The price of blood. Christ's
death. sing unto the Lord all the earth
show forth from day to day his salvation declare his glory among
the heathen his marvelous works among all nations and so we come
down then to to these words for great is the Lord and greatly
to be praised well we might acknowledge great is the Lord that's good
and proper but also We have this statement, greatly to be praised. Greatly to be praised, sometimes
I think of that word. Praise waiteth for thee in Zion,
unto thee shall the vow be performed. I know not but there may have
been some or one who may have made a vow and if that's been
performed well does not praise wait in Zion in the church of
God to hear that vow which has been performed for his honor
and for his glory oh yes what a blessing it is and how important
it is that we do praise our God for all that he's done. Praise
brings honour and glory to our God, doesn't it? And by doing
so we acknowledge that he is worthy. of our praise. He is worthy of our thanksgiving
for all that he has done, for all his mercy, to be praised. You read the Psalms, there is
so much of praise in the Psalms. And if we consider the Psalms
as Mostly, the spiritual experience of the psalmist and the effect
of the work of God in the heart of the psalmist is to praise
Almighty God. So as we're able to observe God's
work in our hearts, His amazing work, His wondrous work, His
strange work. It is a strange work. The world,
my friends, could not conceive of it. They would not understand
it. It is a strange work to convince
a soul of its sin. and lead them to the blood of
Christ. It's a strange work, but it's
a blessed work, and it's a glorious work, and it's an essential work,
because without having that work of God in our souls, there is
no promise of eternal life, and we shall end up outside of glory,
we shall end up in hell itself. Oh how needful it is then that
we're blessed with the favour and blessing of God in our souls. And so be able to say, with David
as he continues in this psalm, for all the gods of the people
are idols, Aren't they? We live today. Idols, aren't
they? May not be wood or stone idols,
but it may be the art of their homes, or their cars, or their
televisions, or whatever else there is. They're idols. doesn't
bring any benefit, any prosperity. But the Lord made the heavens. That's our God. That's the one
who we should bow down to and acknowledge. Thou art the God. Glory and honour are in his presence. Strength and gladness are in
his place. Give unto the Lord, ye kindred
of the people, give unto the Lord the glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory
due unto his name. Bring an offering and come before
him. Worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness. Well, the psalmist encourages
us, doesn't he, to come unto the Lord and to give unto him
the glory due. Again, I'm sure we fail so much
in this. In giving God the glory, we may
pray to God for help. God gives help. Do we return
thanks? Do we give God the glory? Sometimes
we may even forget Maybe sometime later that we remember God's
heard our prayers, God's helped us. Should we not give God the
glory? Yes, oh how naive it is to be
reminded of the faithfulness of God in hearing and answering
prayers of unworthy sinners. You and I cannot claim any merit
to have our prayers answered. It's of His goodness, it's of
His favour, it's of His mercy that He hears and answers prayer. Is there then therefore not great
reason to glorify God for these blessings? Give unto the Lord
then the glory due unto his name. Bring an offering and come before
him. Worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness. For great is the Lord and great
is to be praised. He also is to be feared above
all gods. The Word of God tells us the
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of eternal
wisdom. Well do we know the fear of the
Lord is that which He gives. You and I cannot produce the
fear of the Lord because naturally we are against God. We are enmity
with God. But bless God, He has given us
His grace to fear Him, to fear Him. And there's two fears really. There's a fear of God's judgment
and there's what we term a filial fear, a fear to not want to offend
Almighty God because of that what He's done for us. Do you
fear to offend, you don't want to offend God? Well my friends
you know we are offending God if we don't hear his voice and
walk in accordance with his will which is of course to praise
his name and of course acknowledge what he's done. What a blessing then if he gives
us that fear and a favour also because we've had the fear of
God as a God of judgment and we've stood before him as our
judge and we've been condemned. Condemned. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Condemned as
a sinner. To Jesus I fly. Oh what a blessing that is my
friends. To know what it is to be drawn to him draw me we
will run after these said Solomon may we know what it is then to
be drawn to the Savior as we recognise our condition, our
sinfulness, and look to the Saviour and know therefore this blessing. He also is to be feared above
all gods. Everything else, again coming
back to the fear of man, you see, it's as nothing by comparison
with the greatness of Almighty God. Oh, that you and I might
have great views of God, real views of God. I believe the more
and more we have right views of God, so it will more and more
influence our lives to walk more and more in accordance with His
Word. He's given us His Word. It's not to be ignored. It's
not to be passed over. That fear of the Lord should
be to give us that concern to walk in His ways and to do those
things which are pleasing to our God. You know, we're often
concerned, aren't we, about pleasing man. We should be more and more
concerned about pleasing God, before whom you and I must indeed
one day stand in that judgment seat Oh are we really concerned to
please our God? Oh it's a blessing to have a
desire and have a will to please God. to be able to cast aside
everything else and have that wonderful view set before us
of a suffering saviour remembering what he's done to deliver our
soul from the wrath to come and therefore that honest heart,
the desire to please our God as we walk through this world
and to view him as our great and glorious saviour. And to
have this view that David had and to be able to say along with
David, for great is the Lord and great is to be praised. you
know we can we can read that in in three other places exactly
the same words which david wrote in psalm 48 and psalm 96 and
psalm 145 and it's good therefore to recognize that these things
are recorded for our encouragement and also for our instruction
may we bless god today for the word of god And remember these
words, for great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, he
also is to be feared above all gods. Amen.