Turn with me, if you would, to
Psalm 146. Psalm 146, as you just heard
our brother read, this is a wonderful and a glorious psalm, truly. This is a psalm of praise. It's a psalm of trust. It is
a psalm of happiness. That's what this is. Verse one
says, praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh my soul. Verse three says, put not your
trust in princes. nor in the Son of Man, in whom
there is no help." Put it in the Lord. Put it in the Lord. Verse five says, happy is he
that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the
Lord. I wanted to be here, I guess,
because every time we have a fellowship dinner, I'm affected by it. I
look forward to them. I love to eat. And I love to
eat with you all. It's just two good things. And
I was in the mood for a happy message before this dinner. And as I studied this, it made
me so happy to just think about this. And every time I went back
over this set of notes, I was looking at it this morning, I
thought, this is so happy. This is just so happy. I have
a very happy and comforting and encouraging and glorifying and
praising message for us today. The title of it is, Praise ye
the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. By God's
grace, that's what we're going to do today. We're going to praise
the Lord. And we're going to begin this
by establishing that our praise is to the Lord. Alone. It is to the Lord alone. Verse
one says, praise ye the Lord, not the Lord and man. The Lord alone. The Lord alone. That's where praise becomes utterly
ruined. It's when we try to praise the
Lord and man. When we just have to throw man
in there with it. when praise only belongs to the
Lord. Praise belongs one place. Praise
belongs to one person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He takes up the
fullness of all praise. There is nothing worthy of us
being included in His praise. Nothing worthy. The scripture says man at his
best state is altogether vanity. You try to clean up man and do
what you can with man and teach man and get him on the right
path and say, okay, there you go. Once you get man in his best
state, this is what you have. Something that is altogether
vanity. There is nothing in man, there
is nothing about man that has any value to it. That goes for all of us. There
is none that doeth good. Not in the eyes of God anyway.
There may be in the eyes of other men. You know, we may, I do,
I look at some people and say, well, that's a good man. She's
a good woman compared to other men and women. But in the eyes of God, the scripture
says in our flesh dwells no good thing. All of our righteousnesses, that
means all of our goodnesses, everything that we could do to
present to God, all of our righteousnesses are filthy rags, just filthy
rags. Even our hearts. You say, well,
there's got to be something good in there. Down deep, down in
the core, there's got to be. The scripture says, even our
hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. So, when it comes to praise,
all of it belongs to one person. It all goes to one person, the
Lord, our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Don't you just love hearing
his name? Precious name. Oh, how sweet. Verse one says, praise ye the
Lord. Praise the Lord, oh my soul,
not just my mind, not just my mouth. In sincerity, Lord, if everything
that I've done so far today has been lip service, then make it
sincerity from my soul right now. The depths of my soul. Verse
two says, while I live, Will I praise the Lord while I live
on this earth in this life? If we praise the Lord, it's by
the grace of God. It's because he put a word of
praise in us, in his goodness. He chose us. He laid hold of
us. He put faith in us to look to
Christ. He put a word of praise in our
heart, in our mouth. And by His grace, while we live
on this earth in this life, even while we live in the world to
come, this life to come, we praise Him now, we will praise Him for
all eternity. We're gonna praise him for all
eternity. That's what glory will be filled
with. You know, heaven, everybody's
looking for, waiting for heaven, glory. That's what glory will
be filled with. Praise. Praise. I love the song, One Day. Lord willing, we're gonna sing
it at the end of this. We're gonna sing it, right? It says, one day, I love this,
it says, one day when heaven was filled with His praises.
That's talking about eternity past. That's what glory was. It was
a place that was filled with the praises of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what glory is right now. That's what glory will be forever. It will be a place filled with
the praises of God's people for their Lord and their Savior,
Jesus Christ. It will forever be filled with
the praises of God's people for the Lord Jesus Christ, because
they will never stop crying. I'm so glad to know this. God's
people will never stop crying. Living, He loved me. Dying, He saved me. Buried, He
carried my sin far away. Every time I think about that,
praise comes into my soul. Can you imagine the fact that
all of your sin, that you just, it just kills you. Does your
sin kill you like it kills me? Oh, if we could just go back
and do it all over again. If we could, you know what we'd
do? The same thing. Because we're sinners. And it'd
kill us all over again. But thank God. He took all of our, when he laid
in that grave, he took all of our sins to a place where they
cannot be ever brought back. They cannot return to us. They
are gone. They are gone. It doesn't matter
what we say. It matters what God says. We
say, well, I still think about them. I still feel them. God
says they're gone. So you know what? They're gone.
Let every man be true in God. Let every man be a liar and God
be true. Living, He loved me. Dying, He
saved me. Buried, He carried my sins far
away. Rising, He justified me freely
forever. That means when God looks at
me because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
Because God was so satisfied with Jesus Christ, He raised
Him from the dead. And now in Christ, when God looks
at me, He says, I am satisfied. You are justified. There's no
wrong in you. There's no sin in you. No sin
committed. Justified. Freely. Cost Him everything. Cost me nothing. Forever. Forever. If Christ justified
us, We're justified forever. That'll make you praise the Lord. Living, He loved me. Dying, He
saved me. Buried, He carried my sin far
away. Rising, He justified freely forever. And in that day, we're
going to say, just as He promised, He came back and got us. Here we are right now saying,
He's coming back. He's going to come back and get
us. In that day, we're gonna say, as He promised, He came
back for us and He carried us home. We rose with Him. And He took us to wherever it
is He's going to take us. And for all of eternity, we're
going to say, this is one glorious day. That's what eternity will
be. One glorious day. There's no night there. It's
one day. One eternal forever wonderful
day. You ever had those kind of days
where you're like, I just wish this day could never end? It
won't. It won't. That's what heaven
will be, one great glorious day of praise. Praise for the Lord
Jesus Christ. We start that here, we continue
that there. Verse two says, while I live,
will I praise the Lord. I will sing praises unto my God
while I have any being. This being right now, That being
in that day, any being, whatever it is, at all times, he is worthy
to be praised. Verse three says, put not your
trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom there is no
help. Let's not do that temporarily
here on this earth, but especially let's not do that eternally. The word help, if you have the
center margin, it means salvation. There is no salvation. Don't put your trust in any man,
not even your own man or your own woman. There's no help. Salvation is of the Lord. Salvation
is in the Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing that any of
us can do to save ourselves or help ourselves. I'm so glad our
message is not, now what are you going to do? You want to be saved, don't you?
What are you going to do? That's not the message. The only
answer I could give is sin. That's what I'll do. I'll just
sin. To my shame. The Lord does not
help those who help themselves. No man or woman can help himself
or herself. The Lord helps those who cannot
help themselves. Verse three says, put not your
trust in princes nor in the son of man in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth. He returneth to his earth. In that very day, his thoughts
perish. That's the only thing that man
can do, is go back to the ground from which he was taken. From
dust he came, and then when his time comes, he's going right
back to the dust he was taken from, his earth. If there is
one thing that I truly desire to get across to this world,
you know, the Lord has given us this opportunity to preach
the gospel. And if there's one thing, honestly,
that I desire to get across to this world, it's this right here. Let's get our eyes off of man
and get them on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what I want to
get across. Let's stop looking to man in
every way, shape, and form. We ruin everything and we fall
into error when we turn the eyes to man in the beginning, in the
middle, in the end. Let's stop looking to man in
every way, shape, and form, and let's look only to the Lamb of
God. Look unto Christ, and be ye saved,
for He is God, and there is none else. Turn your eyes from man
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Look fully, completely, only
in His wonderful face. Because salvation, acceptance,
and help is in no other. No other. Happy is he that hath the God
of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. How true that is. How true that
is. Whenever a sinner gets a hold
of the truth, when God reveals the truth to a person, every
time that sinner gets happy. Every time. Once a person sees
Christ and is found by the Lord Jesus
Christ and sees liberty and sees freedom from the bondage of the
law and from the condemnation of sin. Once a sinner sees that,
that sinner gets happy, so happy. Happy is the sinner who has Jesus
Christ, the God of sinners for his help, whose hope is truly
in the Lord, his God. That's just so true. Fifteen
years ago, Hannah and I had the opportunity to go to Mexico.
And we stayed with the missionaries that we supported, Brother Walter
Groover and his wife, Betty, and their son, Cody, and his
wife, Wenna. And at breakfast one morning,
Brother Walter was telling stories about the amazing things that
the Lord did in establishing the truth down there. calling his sheep there throughout
the 1960s and the 1970s. As he was recalling these wonderful
things, we were just sitting there listening to him talk and
it was just so precious because as he was recalling these wonderful
things, he teared up. And he started crying, and he
asked us all, you know, forgive me. He said, I'm sorry I got
emotional. But he was just sitting there with tears streaming down
his face, and he said, oh, I wish I could see that again. The things that the Lord did,
he said, I wish I could see that again. But one of the stories
that he told us was, He had to make a trip one time to meet
with a woman and her family in a very far away village to talk
with them about the gospel. This woman had heard him preach
in one place and asked him if he would go preach that same
message to her family that lived in another place. Brother Walter
used to go into a village and he would set up a projector and
he would play a short film and it would get everybody's attention.
And then he would preach a message. And if somebody, you know, talked
to him and wanted him to come back and preach again, he would.
And if nobody did, he went to the next village. But this woman
heard him preach and wanted him to go preach to her family. And
he said, not only was it very far. But the roads were awful
back then. They were just absolutely awful.
They were usually barely wider than his Jeep. He drove a Jeep
and he said they were full of rocks and full of holes and you
just had to creep along. You couldn't drive fast at all. And he said if you met another
vehicle coming the other way, you had to get out and talk to
each other and figure out who had the shortest distance of
driving backwards to get over to a place where you could get
over far enough for the other one to pass. He said that's how
narrow it was. And he was traveling to meet
this woman's family, and as he was, he came up on two Native
men standing in the middle of the road, and they were both
holding muzzleloader rifles. And he said his heart sunk. He said, I knew missionaries
were not very welcome at that time. So he pulled up to those
two men and they came around to each side of his Jeep. He had his windows down, it was
hot, didn't have air conditioning. And they came up to each side
of his Jeep and the one on his side asked him, are you a missionary? And he said, yes, I am. And he said to Walter, the two
of us just finished burying my 16-year-old daughter, and I am so sad. And he said, I know that there
is a God, but I don't know who he is, and I don't know where
he is. Would you come into my house, a grass hut, would you
come into my house and tell me who God is? And Walter said, I'm so sorry,
but I can't. He said, I have promised a family
that I would meet with them today. And I'm already late and it's
far. But he said, I'll tell you this,
I will be coming back this way tomorrow. about this time, and
when I get to your hut, I'll pull over and I'll talk with
you." So Walter went on his way, and he said the next day when
he pulled up to that grass hut, it was so full of people he couldn't
hardly get in the front door. That man had gone into the village,
and he told everybody that would listen to him, There is a man
coming to my house tomorrow to tell us who God is. And if you
want to know who God is, you better get to my house." And
here they came. Walter said he preached the gospel
to that man and his house. And he kept preaching the gospel
to that man and his house. And God saved that man. And I
love this part of the story. Walter said the man's name was
Feliz. In English that means happy. And Walter said he was. Once
Christ found that man, and once he learned who God was and where
God was, does it not make you happy? Where is God? He is in the heavens, seated
on his throne, reigning, ruling, doing whatever he pleases to
do. And it's all good. And it's all right. It's all
true. It's all faithful. Walter said that man was so happy.
He said, that's the happiest man I ever met. Happy. Happy. Verse 5 says, happy is
he that hath the God of Jacob for his help. The man who knows
who God is, where God is. The man who knows he is my help. Whose hope is in the Lord, his
God. Now this is the reason God's
people are happy. This is the good news that Walter
preached to Felice. And this is the good news that's
preached to all of God's people. The good news that's on this
page is the good news that's on every page. Wherever it was
that Walter preached to Felice, it was the same good news. And
here it is, okay? Verse five says, happy is he
that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the
Lord his God. And it's because this is what
the Lord his God has done. Verse six. which made heaven
and earth, the sea, and all that therein is, which keepeth truth
forever, which executeth judgment for the oppressed, which giveth
food to the hungry, the Lord looseth the prisoners, the Lord
openeth the eyes of the blind, The Lord raiseth them that are
bowed down. The Lord loveth the righteous. The Lord preserveth the strangers. He relieveth the fatherless and
widow, but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. The Lord
shall reign forever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the Lord. Now let me tell you what that
just said. That said, the Lord made. The Lord keeps. The Lord executes
judgment. The Lord gives. The Lord loosens. The Lord opens. The Lord raises. The Lord loves. The Lord preserves. The Lord relieves. The Lord turns
upside down. He turned me upside down. Those
of you who remember me, the Lord reigns. Forever and
ever, praise ye the Lord. That's good news, isn't it? That's
good news. If a sinner ever truly hears
that, it will make that sinner happy, so happy. It is the Lord
who has done it all. That's what it said. It is the
Lord who has done it all. Now, let me just very briefly,
okay? Very briefly comment on each
of these things. I mean, very briefly. And then
I'll be done. Verse six says, which made heaven
and earth, the sea and all that therein is. I love that. The
Lord made everything. Who is the Lord? Who is the Lord? He's the one who created everything. Think of something. Well, surely
not that, that too. Everything. John 1.3 says, all things were
made by Him, Jesus Christ. And without Him was not anything
made that was made. Colossians 1.16 says, by Him,
Jesus Christ, were all things created that are in heaven, that
are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him
and for Him. That means He's the owner. That's
what it means. He's the creator of everything,
therefore He's the owner of everything. He's the owner of me. He's the
owner of you. He's the owner of it all. And
to that I say praise the Lord. Verse 6 says, Which made heaven
and earth, the sea, and all that therein is, which keepeth truth
forever. The Lord is the one who keeps
truth forever. He keeps the truth of His covenant
forever. He keeps His promise to His people
forever. He keeps His people forever.
He keeps His people forever. Aren't you so... Do you ever
get relieved to know that you cannot mess up your salvation?
That's... I can't tell you how happy that
makes me. I cannot mess it up. If I could, I would mess it up
every single day. Psalm 21 says, the Lord is thy
keeper. Not going to overpower him. He
is the one who keeps his people. John 17, our Lord said, father,
those that you gave to me, I kept them. And he said, I know you'll
keep them too. First Peter one says all that
got all of God's people are being kept by the power of God. Praise
the Lord. Verse seven. which executeth
judgment for the oppressed." Thank God our judgment was executed
in Him on Calvary's tree. Isaiah 42 says, He shall bring
judgment to the Gentiles, and for His people He did in His
own body on the tree. Outside of Christ, He'll bring
judgment that way too. We'll all stand before the judgment
seat of Christ, but in Christ. The punishment of our sin was
executed to Him. And the reward of His righteousness
was executed to us, His people. Verse 7 says, Which executeth
judgment for the oppressed, which giveth food to the hungry. Physical
food, yes. Yes. But more importantly, the
spiritual food of His righteousness, His glory, His perfection. Our Lord said, blessed are those
who hunger and thirst after righteousness, they shall be filled. Righteousness
is a person. He was fulfilled with the scorn
and the shame and the guilt of our sin. We were filled with
the glory, honor and holiness of His righteousness. And that's
when the judgment was executed. Christ in our sin, us in His
righteousness, and in that judgment by His stripes, we're healed. We are healed. The end of verse
7 says, the Lord looseth the prisoners. Us, the prisoners. The prisoners of sin, the prisoners
of death, the prisoners of hell, the prisoners of our own selves.
I love that song, The Comforter Has Come. One of the lines says,
through the vacant cells, the song of triumph rings. A song
is ringing out in cells where nobody is, vacant, loosed. Praise the Lord. Verse eight
says, the Lord opened at the eyes of the blind. The Lord does
that. Now just think about this. The
Lord opens the eyes of the blind through the preaching of the
gospel. He does that when he calls his people to himself,
right now in this world, okay? But in that day, real soon, real
soon, in that great and glorious day when he calls us home, we're
gonna have our eyes opened. Yes, we do have our eyes open
to see Christ now, but just wait. We're about to have our eyes
open. We think we see some things now? We think we hear things
now? We're about to have our ears
opened. When Paul was called up to the third heaven, he came
back down, he said, my ears were opened to hear things that it's
not even possible for me to tell you about. Your ears are about
to be opened. Christ is going to open them.
One of these days, real soon, we're going to be raised up,
literally raised up. We're going to leave this body
and this place of death and we're going to enter into the eternal
life of Jesus Christ our Lord. We're going to enter into the
eternal love of Jesus Christ our Lord. We're in it now, but
one day real soon we're going to know it. We're going to know
that greater love that no man had, the love that caused Christ
to lay down his life for his friends. And we're going to say
from experience it was so. Look at verse nine. The Lord
preserved the strangers. He preserved us, the strangers
and pilgrims that were scattered abroad, the outcast, the heathen. He joined us together with him.
He drew us near by His blood. He broke down that middle wall
of partition, so making peace. Verse nine says, He relieveth
the fatherless and the widow. Do you know how He has relieved
the fatherless and the widow? By giving them a father and a
husband. That's how He relieves the fatherless
and the widow. He gives them a father, Heavenly
Father. and Christ the great and glorious
husband. The end of verse nine says, but
the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. What that means
is every good and perfect gift from God is only found in the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is all in him. In Christ is
nothing but holiness. Outside of Christ is nothing
but wickedness. What makes a difference in this
world of people between the righteous and the wicked? What makes a
difference? In Christ, out of Christ, that's it. Outside of
Christ, there's no help. He's all of our help, all of
our hope, all of our salvation. Verse 10 says, the Lord shall
reign forever. Boy, I'm gonna tell you what,
that makes me happy. The Lord Jesus Christ will sit
on the throne of His holiness and His authority as King of
kings and Lord of lords forever. I love the end of the story when
the Queen of Sheba came to see Solomon. Solomon being a picture
of Christ. I love the end of that story.
After the Queen saw all of His greatness and saw all of His
glory and there was no more spirit left in her, she said, Because the Lord loved Israel
forever, he made you king. And that's what all of God's
people will cry concerning the Lord Jesus Christ forever, because
God our Father loved us. He made you to be our king, our
great and glorious king. Verse 10 says, the Lord shall
reign forever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the Lord.