Psalm 34, we'll be looking at
verses 1 through 8 this morning, and the title of the message
is, Magnify the Lord with Me. Magnify the Lord with Me. Now, this psalm begins up at
the very top, if you have this in your Bible, it says, A psalm
of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, who
drove him away, and he departed." This psalm was written by David
in a time where he had fled from King Saul and he had found himself
in the midst of the Philistines. If you'll remember, he was brought
before the king of the Philistines, and he feigned to be mad. He
feigned to be insane, and he even got to the point where he
had allowed dribble to hang down from his mouth, and he acted
crazy. And so the king of the Philistines
looked at David, who he expected to be a mighty man since he had
defeated Goliath, But now he sees nothing more than an insane
person before him, and the king says, away with this man. Didn't
kill him. Didn't kill him, but just drove
him out of his presence. And so now David had been delivered
from Saul, and now he had been delivered from this heathen king. And it's at this point that David
pens this psalm, I will bless the Lord. at all times. I will bless the Lord at all
times. Now, he begins with this, a determination. A determination. David says,
I will bless the Lord. He determines within himself
to bless the Lord as he does many times in the Psalms. We
looked at one A few weeks ago, it says, Bless the Lord, O my
soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. He is
determined within Himself to bless the Lord. He said, I will
bless the Lord. And look at this at the end of
this. He says, His praise shall continually
be in my lips. My soul shall make her boast
in the Lord. You see, I hope, I hope that
this was your determination when you woke up this morning. I pray that this is our determination,
that we have determined within ourselves to praise the Lord,
to praise the Lord. Have you determined to come and
praise the Lord? Have you determined hell or high
water? I will praise the Lord no matter what. Many times we
say, oh, I'm determined to praise the Lord. Oh, I stubbed my toe.
I guess I can't praise Him today. That wasn't determination, was
it? When we allow the least little thing to get in our way to determine
it, we've not determined to praise the Lord. David here, he's determined
to do it. Whether it kills him, I will
praise the Lord. Remember what Job said. Job says,
I will praise Him. I will praise Him even though
He slay me, even though He kill me, even though He kill me. Let us determine this morning
to praise Him with all sincerity and great determination. And
we have come to sing His praises as our God. As David said, I
will bless the Lord, my soul will make her boast in Him. Even
so, let us lift up our hearts even now to worship God. You
know, before we were dead in sins, right? We were dead in
trespasses and sins. But are we dead now? We that
have been quickened by the Spirit of God, are we dead so that we
cannot determine to do? No, we're alive unto God. We're alive. And living people
determine things. We determine, and let this be
God's people's determination this morning, I will praise the
Lord. I will praise the Lord. Praise
His name. And we who have determined to praise the Lord, my friends,
let us, like David in verse 2, desire that others come and praise
us with Him. Look at that. Look in verse 2.
He says, Oh my soul, make her boast in the Lord. The humble
shall be glad and hear. They that are humble shall hear
thereof and be glad. Verse 3, O magnify the Lord with
me. Magnify the Lord with me and
let us exalt His name together. Together, I stand and
preach the Gospel. I am telling you about the Lord
God, who is worthy of our praise, and you that are sitting there.
This is not a passive thing, this is an active thing. Worship
is active, and even though your body is not moving, it should
be something that we determine within our heart to do, is to
give God praise. To give Him praise. To exalt
His name. Magnify. You know that word magnify? It means to make large. Make
large. Boast. David said, I have determined
to boast of my God. Brag on Him. To brag on Him. Magnify the Lord. Boast in the
Lord with me this morning. and see boast of His excellencies,
of His greatness, of His greatness. You who have determined to praise
the Lord, our God. We are to long to magnify others,
what desire others to come and to magnify God with us. To boast
of His name. and His character, to declare
His greatness of His person and His attributes. The Scripture
says, oh, that men would praise Him. Is that not our desire? Do we desire to do it ourselves
and leave everybody else out of it? I'll tell you what, how many
things have we gotten that we long to boast in? You know, you
get a brand new car or something, you want to bring your friends
on over, look at my new car, I brought the men back in the
office just to see my little furniture I brought back there.
I was boasting to that, that was good, I liked that. How much
more should we boast in our great God and long for men to come
and to see what we see? To love who we love. We should desire that with all
of our hearts. Oh you, you, you come and magnify God with me. Come to worship God with me.
We should long for that. If we've determined to worship
God, if we know anything about God, we should long for others
to know Him and to worship Him and to see what we see. You know,
if somebody sees something I don't, I long to see it. I was talking
with Brother Ron Wood in the back, and we were discussing
the Lord. He saw something, and I said, that's great. You see,
I long to see what he sees sometimes. I long to see more of my God.
I don't know everything there is to know about God. Do you?
No. Come and magnify the Lord with
me. Let us exalt His name together. Together. Some men, they come to hear a
preacher, and they've determined to magnify not God, but themselves. They've determined to come and
magnify themselves. They've determined to come and
boast of men, to boast of man's will, to boast of man's greatness. I don't want to go with them.
I don't want to go with them. They've longed to boast and magnify
the works of God to be accepted of Him. Oh, I'm a pretty good
fella. God sure has got it. Surely He's going to accept me.
What did you just do? You magnified yourself. You've
exalted yourself to be equal with God. God didn't say, come
and magnify yourself. Come and magnify me. This is
the reason we've come here this morning. If you've come here
to hear about men's greatness, you've come in the wrong place.
I don't do that. I don't do that. Why? God does not do that. God's
Word never magnifies men. It only abases men and puts men
exactly where they need to be, in the dirt before God. If you've come for the good,
hear the goodness of men and how great you are and how good
you are and how happy God is to see you. And so God is just
so gracious to have you in His house this morning. No, you're
not going to hear that from me. You see, my friends, God is great.
And he is worthy of our praise. He's worthy of it and he demands
it. He demands it. I will bless the Lord. I will
magnify him and exalt his name. But I also desire that all of
you under the sound of my voice do the same thing. I want you
this morning to see God for who He is. Magnificent, majestic,
marvelous, good, merciful, just, holy, righteous. and will by no means clear the
guilty. That's who I want you to magnify
this morning. Now, if you get a hold to any
one of those things, let me know. If you get your arms around any
one of those things I just mentioned, I want you to come and magnify
the Lord with me, because I want to hear what you've got to say.
My friends, that is a wonderful thing. God is extremely good
and worthy of all praise. If we desire men to magnify the
Lord with us, it is because... I mean, sorry, if we do not desire
others to come to magnify God with us, it is because of two
things. We either think little of God
or we think much of us. If we don't desire men to come
to know God, magnify God with us, we don't know very much about
God, do we? How many times have we saw someone,
we say a man, and we say, well, you know, I want to invite him
to come and hear the Word of God with me. And we're determined
to do it. We say, I want that guy to come
here. And we think we're going to go talk to him and ask him
to come and worship with us. And then we get there and we
say, well, you know, that guy, he probably won't understand. You
know, he's not that smart, so, you know, we're not going to
include him. I'm not going to go ask. Or we think that, you know, well,
he'll reject me anyway, so I'm just not going to ask. I'm not
going to ask him to come magnify the Lord with me. He just won't
get it. But if we knew God and His person
and His mercy, if we really knew God and His grace, if we would
see His greatness, we would not boast in our intentions or the
ability of men. You see, what we've done is if
we not ask the person to come and magnify the Lord, we've based
the worship of God on the ability of that man. You know what? Really, I don't care if man has
the ability to come and worship or not, or if man has the desire
to come and worship or not, I'm still going to ask because God
is worthy of that man's worship. God is worthy of that man's worship. Therefore, I ask, come and magnify
the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together. Why? Because God's worthy. God's worthy. You know, I didn't understand
the Gospel once. I was ignorant. I was lost. But someone said
to me, come on and magnify God with me. And one day God opened
my eyes that I see what that person saw. I now understand
what they loved that I didn't love. I didn't love the worship of
God. It was like that song we just sang. I was the wandering
one. I was the one that left the fold.
I was the one that ran from God. I was uncontrollable. And yet God sought me. He brought me into the fold and
now I love Him. Therefore, I can magnify Him
now. I can magnify Him. We're not to base our worship
of God on the ability of man, but rather to see that God is
great and greatly to be praised. So therefore, let us see, friends,
God is great. And let us see the goodness of
God. And when we see this, we see He's worthy of our praise.
We will say to men, Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God.
and come and worship God with me. The humble shall see it. They hear it and they'll be glad.
The humble shall hear it and be glad. When I invite a man
to come worship, he's proud. He's not going to hear anything.
I don't need that. Regardless, you still must worship
God. You still must worship God. God
is worthy of it. Humble yourself and come with
me to worship. And those who have humbled themselves,
they gladly hear the Lord. Who then are the humble? Who
are these that David's speaking of that are glad when they hear
such things about God and how great He is? Who are these humble
people? Who are those that are glad to
praise the Lord? These are they that see God as He is and sees themselves
as they are. The only way a man will ever
be humbled is if he sees God for who He is. Friends, God is absolutely holy. God is absolutely just. And if He's not, He's not worth
praising. But He is. He is worthy of praise. He's holy and just and we are
sinners, rebels, haters of God by nature. Lovers of self. Shaking our fist in the face
of God saying who is God that I should obey him. That's who we are. That's our
nature. Men by nature are madmen. You know how David pretended
to be a madman. My friends, we weren't pretending.
We were madmen. We were insane. We were insane. I know somebody who's dying of
liver disease right now, alcoholic, drug addict, dying of liver disease
right now. Doctor came in and said this,
if you stop drinking, we can get you into a program that will
give you a new liver. They will do a liver transplant
and you will have A chance to live. If you don't, you'll die. And that man said, well, if I'm
going to die, I'm going to die. The epitome of insanity. And we,
yes, I know we think that's foolish. That's foolish. My friend, that's
us. God says, come unto Me that you
might have life. And we say, who is God that I
should obey Him? Madness! Insanity to run toward
your sin. as though it were paradise and
to run from God who is the only one that can save your soul.
That's madness. We're by nature mad, unrighteous
and unjust, unholy and deserving only of the wrath of God. That's
who we are. You'll never see that unless
you see God. We who magnify the Lord We see He is essentially
good, that He alone is God and there is no other God. There
is no other God. My friend, the God I said before
you this morning is a sovereign God. People say, I don't like
that. There's no other God. There's
no other God to go to. He's the only one. And He is
good in everything He does. And God has chosen His people
from before the foundation of the world of His own grace. He
sent His Son specifically to die for those people. And He
sent the Holy Spirit even now in this place that He may call
forth His people by His sovereign will. And those whom He calls
will humble themselves and magnify the Lord with us." You that magnify
the Lord with me. We understand that, don't we?
We know that. We know Him. We have seen Him
with the eye of faith. And yet men say, God is unjust. How could God do such a thing
to choose one and pass by another? Who are you that you would reply
against God? We're madmen to shake our fists
in the face of God. I believe it was Charles Wesley
that said this about George Whitefield. He said, George Whitefield's
God is my devil. And that's exactly how you view
God when I tell you of His sovereignty. And if God would be gracious
to you and save you, He'll do it because He wants to, not because
you, not because of anything you've done. And if God passes
you by and sends you to hell, He is just, He is holy, and He
is good to do so. And men say, God's a monster,
that God is a monster. Well, my friends, what are you
going to do when you meet that monster? But if a man could see God as
He is, and forsake his vain, empty,
educated, so-called educated thoughts of God, and see God
for who He is, I know this, he would repent in dust and ashes. What did Job say when he saw
God? He said, I've heard of Thee with
the hearing of my ears. But now my eye hath seen Thee."
And what was his response to seeing God? What was his response
when he saw the person of God? He said, I abhor myself and repent
in dust and ashes. And anyone who sees God, that's
exactly what you'll do. If you've never done that, you've
never saw God. You've never understood what
it is to magnify the Lord with me. Because to magnify God, you
must abase yourself. You must abase yourself. I tell you, some will hear today.
They'll hear with the hearing of their ears. They'll understand
with the reason of their mind. But they'll walk out of here
the same way they came in, lost and undone. without God or His
Son. But all who see God, you'll never
be the same. My friends, when God revealed
Himself to me, I never was the same again. I never was the same
again. I didn't know what changed, if
the world changed or I changed, but something changed. I wasn't
who I was before. I saw the Lord. With the eye
of faith, I saw Him. And therefore, I come this morning
with the determination to magnify Him. Oh, that you would come
and magnify the Lord with me. and let us exalt His name. He's
worthy of it. He's worthy. Now, David here
in our psalm, go back to our psalm, and he gives us reasons.
He gives us, first of all, a testimony, and then he gives us reasons
as to why, reasons of comfort as to why we should magnify the
Lord. Look at this in verse 4. He said, I sought the Lord and
He heard me. and delivered me from all my
fears." Look at verse 6. This poor man, speaking of himself,
cried. And the Lord heard him and saved
him out of all his troubles. Is this not the testimony of
all who have been humbled by the Lord? All who have been humbled
to cry unto Him for mercy. Have you not found mercy? David said, I did. I sought Him
and He heard me. I, this poor man, cried unto
the Lord and He heard me. He heard me and He saved me. To all who humble themselves
and come to the Lord by Jesus Christ and cry unto God, He will
hear them. And not only will He hear them,
He will save them. He will save them. Therefore,
I will bless the Lord. I will kneel before the Lord
and magnify His name. For when I cried in my sin and
in my unbelief, I cried unto God, and He heard me. He heard
me. Now, it's one thing to hear,
and it's another thing to answer. Isn't that right? How many times
my children in the background, they start talking, and man,
I hear them, but I really don't want to hear them. They're making
too much noise. But my friends, when my children
cry, I know the difference. I know the difference. And when
they cry, I take action. And that's even more so with
God. When He hears His children cry,
He comes. He comes and He takes action
and He saved us. He saved us when I sought Him as a poor sinner,
bankrupt of any goodness, empty of all self-righteousness. When
I cried unto Him, He heard me. Therefore, will I magnify the
Lord with all my heart continually. He's worthy of it. He saved me
of all my troubles. What troubles were I in? The
trouble of sin. I had the trouble of sin. Didn't
I? I was in a predicament. I didn't
know what to do. God's holy and I'm unjust. What can I do? I deserve hell. And if God sends me there, He's
right to do so. What can I do? And He sent a
message concerning His Son and says, Come unto me, you that
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I saw
Christ. I saw the sinner's substitute. I saw one that could stand in
my place so that God could be just and still accept me. He saved me from my sins by imputing
them to His Son. and to make His Son a willing
offering to take my sins and to bear them away. And so now, I've cried and He's
heard me, and He revealed to me Christ, and now my sins are
gone. Scripture says that God searches
for my sins and He can't find them. Now, if God can't find
something, that's gone, isn't it? That's gone. And my sins are gone. My trouble
of sin is gone, my friends. He's taken away the guilt and
the power of my sins. And one day He'll take me away
from the presence of my sins. Oh, what a glorious day. What
a glorious day. And number two, He saved me from
the power of Satan. Friends, when we're born in this
world, Satan's got a hold on us. You see, in Christ, He found
no hold. He said, nobody, which of you tempteth me of sin? That's
what Christ said. Nobody tempt Him of sin. He didn't
have any. What about me? What about you? Can you be tempted
with sin? Of course you can. My friends, you that are lost,
whether you acknowledge it or not, you are under the power
of your Father, the devil, and you'll do exactly what He tells
you. That's just true. But when I cried unto God in
my bondage, my Father heard me and took care
of Him. He released me from my chains
and He has no hold on me anymore. He cannot accuse me as He once
did. Why? My sins are gone. What can
He accuse me of? It's God that justified me. It's
Christ that died for me. Can He accuse me? No. Magnify
the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together because He
had delivered us from the power of our enemies. And my friends,
He's delivered us from death. Death once scared me. Does death
scare you? Do you fear death? I know at some point we always
do. You know, when I was in the military,
we'd ask that question and, you know, of course, we'd give the
manly answer, no, we're not afraid of death. Every one of us was. Every one of us was. But my friends, he's taken away
the sting of death, which is sin. The only reason we should
fear death is sin. If you have sin, you should fear
death. Oh, but if you've cried unto
the Lord and He's heard you, He's taken away the sin, what's
left? What's death going to do? But
usher us into the presence of God that we may magnify Him more,
as we should. This is what was done for me.
as well as all those that have looked unto God. Look at that
back in our text in verse 5. He gives us some comforts here.
He said, They that looked upon Him were lightened, and their
faces were not ashamed. They that looked on Him were
glad. That word, lightened, is glad,
happy. Have you looked unto the Lord
Jesus Christ? You remember in the Old Testament
they had that serpent. Brass. Remember the children
of Israel were disobedient and the Lord sent those fiery serpents
and they bit them and they were to die. They were condemned to
death. And God says, Moses, take a brass
serpent and put him on a pole and say to the children of Israel,
if you look, you shall live. And Jesus Christ, my friends,
is the fulfillment of that type. Jesus said, even as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up. And when He was lifted up, He
now says to all men, look unto Me and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth and
everyone that looks shall live. What is it to look? It is to
believe. It is to rest in Christ as your
only hope before God. And all that look shall live.
Magnify the Lord with me, you that have looked. Come, let's
exalt His name together. He has saved us. And we are glad. I'm glad. Are you glad? I am. He has made me glad. He's delivered
me. And notice this, He encamps about
us. Look at this. Those that have
looked. He says, The angel of the Lord, verse 7, encampeth
round about them that fear Him. Now, this is a great comfort. Believer in Christ. Those who
rest alone for mercy and grace in Christ. Let me ask you this
question. Has He ever left you? Has He ever left you? I'll tell you what, sometimes
we feel alone. Sometimes we feel alone. We can
be in a crowded room and feel alone. But has Christ really ever left
you alone? No. Never alone. No, never alone. Christ has never left us. He
says, I will never, no never, no never leave thee, nor forsake
thee. The angel of the Lord, the Lord
Jesus Christ, He encamps about us. He protects us. Is there anything that can get
by Him when He encamps around us? Is there anything to penetrate
His defenses? Not unless He allows it to go
through. And my friends, whatever He has
allowed for those who have looked to Him, it's for your good and
His glory. He is encamped around us. Therefore, my friends, let us
Magnify the Lord together look at this in verse 8 and we're
closing verse 8 Oh Taste and see that the Lord is good my
friends. I've given you ample reason to
magnify the Lord Haven't I? He's good God doesn't just do
good things God in himself is good always and I thought about this this week.
A lady was afraid for her children. She's a believer in Christ and
her children are not. And she says, I weep for my children
and long for them to know Christ. I asked this question, I said,
if God never saves your children, is God any less good? No. He's always good. Always. And everything He does
is right. Magnify the Lord. He's worthy
of our praise, no matter what we think about it. He's good. My friends, you'll never understand
that unless you've tasted it. Oh, taste and see that the Lord,
He is good. Jesus said this, unless a man
eat my flesh and drink my blood, he won't have eternal life. but
whosoever eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood shall have
eternal life." What does that mean, eat his flesh and drink
his blood? Well, you can go so far as the Catholics and see
that it's a literal thing. They think that you must physically
eat his body and drink his blood. But if you look down the end
of that chapter, I think in verse 63, Jesus tells us, these words
I'm speaking are spiritual. These words are spirit and truth. He's speaking of spiritual things.
What it is to eat His flesh and drink His blood is to believe
on Him. To rest that His flesh, His righteousness
is enough to satisfy God. And His blood is enough to cover
our sins. And those that taste that No matter what, see that the
Lord is good. And happy is the man that puts
his trust in Him. Have you put your trust in the
Lord? Happy is that man. Happy is that man. The Lord heard
his cry and delivered him out of every one of his troubles. What's left but to magnify the
Lord with me and exalt His name. That's what I long to do. You
know, a person went to, has died and lost in their sins. If they
went to heaven, they'd never be happy. You know that? Because heaven is filled with
the praises of God. That's what they do there all
the time. is magnify the Lord. And if you
don't enjoy this, you're not going to enjoy that. You're not
happy here. You're not going to be happy
there. Unless the Lord does something for you. I pray He does. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer.