A happy people. That's the title of the message.
A happy people. God's people are a happy people. The happiness of this world is
transitory. It doesn't last very long. It's
fleeting. You know, several years ago, I had an umbilical hernia,
and it got strangulated. And I ended up in the hospital,
bent over, laying on the floor. And the doctor came in, and I
couldn't even sit up for him to check me. And he told the
nurse to give me a shot. And she gave me a shot. I was
happy. I floated back to the X-ray room. I floated back there. I floated
back to the room. I floated home. And then it was
over with. It came back. I was happy for
a while, but it came back. But this happiness is enduring. And the most part of this happiness,
for the most part, this happiness is yet to come. We have a real
happiness here. It's genuine. And this word happy
also means content. I believe I can say I'm content. I'm content where the Lord has
put me. I'm content with what I have. I'm content. This is of God. All things are
of God. Does that make you content? I've
learned this, real contentment for a believer, now real contentment
comes when you're content with Christ. When He's enough. When the Lord Jesus Christ, when
He's enough, that's when you'll find contentment with everything
else. Where He's put you, with what you have, with what you're
going through. You'll find real contentment
in it. And we can see in this psalm why God's people are a
happy people, a joyful people. And here's the reason, first
and foremost, here's the reason why. He's their God. Happy is that people, last verse,
verse 15, happy is that people whose God is the Lord. Happy
is that people. I thought about this statement.
I've been thinking about it for a while. And I thought about
people who pray. There's a lot of people out there
who pray to a God that doesn't even exist. Doesn't even exist. Happy is the people whose God
is Jehovah. The self-existing one, the only
one there is, the Lord God, our God, our Savior, is God. Our God, David said, is God.
He's God. Everything's in this statement.
Everything. Our happiness, our contentment,
our joy is in this statement right here. Happy is that people
whose God is the Lord. Who's your God? Who's your God? Everyone has one. Every person
on this earth has a God. Sometimes it's just looking back
at them in the mirror. They are their own God. It may
be money. There's a lot of things people
look to as a God. It may be a picture hanging on
a wall or a cross hanging around a neck. But our God is the Lord. He's Jehovah. He's Lord of heaven
and earth. And everything's in this statement.
And if we just look at the first two verses, we see that the Lord
is everything to us. He's our teacher. He's our protector. There in verse 2, He's my goodness. He's my righteousness. He's my fortress, my high tower,
my deliverer, my shield, the one in whom I trust, the one
who subdues the people under me. He's my everything. He's my everything. Now in these verses we'll see
here and as we go through them, I'm just going to try to touch
on them, we'll see why God's people are a happy people. One
of the reasons why is this, when we are in trouble we have one
to go to that's real. Our God's not on a shelf. Our
God's not in imagination. Our God is God. Now listen here
in verse five through eight, David here gives a plea for the
Lord's intervention. Why was it that Elijah said to
all those prophets of Baal, call on your God, is He asleep? He
may be off in a far country somewhere, call a little louder. Their God didn't exist. But we have one that we can cast
all our cares on at any time. We don't have to make an appointment.
It's not a special time, it's any time. Any time, wake up in
the night time, any time at night. And I've done this several times
and I know you have, because you're just like me. Many times
I woke up in the night and I've been impressed about something
to pray about. It might be two o'clock in the morning. He's
not asleep. It said, He that keeps Israel
neither slumbers nor sleeps. He's available at all times. Our God is. And He prayed for
him to intervene. He calls for the Lord to bow
the heavens and come down. Isn't that something? that God,
you know, just before this, He says, what is man that you're
mindful of Him? Son of man, that you take account
of Him? He said, He's just, He's nothing but a shadow and He's
vanity. And then here is a man, here is a man calling upon God
to come down, to bow the heavens, to bend the heavens and come
down. Elijah was a man and he called on God for it not to rain
for three years. And guess what? It didn't rain
for three years. And then he called on God for
rain and it rained. A man did that. A man called
on God and God heard. God listened. God gave His ear
to the voice of a man. And David says, bow the heavens
and come down. Intervene, touch the mountains
and scatter my enemies is what he's asking Him to do. He knows
that all the Lord needs to do is touch His enemies represented
here as mountains. He said, touch the mountains.
Our enemies at times are like mountains. Our troubles, our
troubles are like mountains. We can't move them. But God can. God can remove all
our troubles with just a finger. Just a finger. We know that the Lord is omnipresent. We know that. But here is a special
request for the Lord to come down and touch His enemies and
scatter them because there's no way they can stand before
God. I read this over in Nehemiah.
I'll just turn over here because I already got it marked. Over
here in Nehemiah. Listen to these verses here.
The Lord is slow to anger. It's Nehemiah 1. I'm going to
start reading verse 3. The Lord is slow to anger and
great in power This is our Lord I'm reading about. And will not
at all acquit the wicked. The Lord hath his way in the
whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his
feet. The first time I took a plane flight, I was late 20s. We flew up above
the clouds, it was a cloudy day, and the first thought came to
my mind was this scripture here, the clouds are the dust of his
feet. This verse never impressed me
until I took that first plane flight and I saw all those clouds
and I thought they are just the dust of his feet. He rebuketh
the sea and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers. Bashan
languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth.
The mountains quake at him, and hills melt, and the earth is
burned at His presence. Yea, the world and all that dwell
therein, who can stand before His indignation? This is our
Lord. This God is our Lord. This God
is the Lord. Who can stand before His indignation?
Who can abide in the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured
out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him. This God is our Lord. This God
is our God. But listen here, although God
is omnipresent, heaven is His special abode. In Psalm 115.3, but our God is
in the heavens. Remember they asked David, they
said, Where's your God? He said, Our God's in the heavens.
He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased. That's where our God
is. Where's your God at? Where's your God? Our God's in
the heavens. Isaiah 66 verse 1, Thus saith
the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Psalm 2 verse 4, He that sitteth
in the heavens shall laugh, the LORD shall have them in derision.
What David is doing here when he says, BOW THE HEAVENS AND
COME DOWN, he's recognizing God's supremacy over all. He rules, that's what He told
Nebuchadnezzar. He made Nebuchadnezzar realize
this, that He rules in heaven and earth. He rules in heaven
and among the kingdom of men. He sets up one, He brings down
another, but God rules over all. That's why He says, bow the heavens
and come down. Bend the heavens and come down. He's asking God for a special
demonstration of His power on His behalf. I think of our Lord. This could easily be a prayer
of our Lord. There in the Garden of Gethsemane, he went and he
prayed three times. Over in Mark, it says in Mark
14 that the third time, I believe it was the third time he went,
he fell on the ground. He fell on the ground. HE BECAME
SO PHYSICALLY WEAK AND SO DISTRAUGHT, HE SAID, MY SOUL IS EXCEEDING
SORROWFUL EVEN UNDER DEATH, AND AS HE WAS WALKING TO PRAY HE
FELL ON THE GROUND. THIS COULD EASILY BE A PRAYER
OF OUR LORD. There will always be tears among
the weak. Where the gospel is preached,
I assure you, Satan will not be quiet very long. He'll work,
and he'll work subtly. There will always be wolves among
the sheep, and tears among the sheep. There always will be.
Always will be. And the church has her enemies,
and she has inward enemies, and she has outward enemies. The
whole world is set against you. The whole world is set against
the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole world. The whole religious world, the
whole unbelieving world, the whole educated world, it is set
against the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then it is
also a prayer for the Messiah to come down, to come down and
rid Him, rid the Church of all Her enemies. He says in verse
7, SEND THY HAND FROM ABOVE. In Isaiah, the Lord is called
THE ARM OF THE LORD. To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? Here it can be said that He is the HAND of the Lord.
Both of these reveal POWER. The arm of the Lord, the hand
of the Lord, is a revelation of God's POWER. And it says in
Romans 1 that Christ is the POWER of God unto salvation. So it
could easily be a prayer for the Messiah to come and rid the
church of her enemies. And this was fulfilled when the
Lord Jesus Christ became incarnate. Listen to Colossians 2.15, And
having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of
them openly, triumphing over them in it. You know the battle
is over. The battle's really over. Now
you and I have some skirmishes to go through. That's basically
what we have to go through. We have some skirmishes to go
through. We have some battles to go through for the sake of
the body of Christ. We have some spiritual battles
to go through, but the battle's been won. The Lord has gotten
the victory. He has defeated Satan, death,
hell, and the grave, hasn't he? We don't have to be afraid of
death, do we? Death, where's your sting? Grave, where's your
victory? The Lord took them away. He took
away the victory of the grave and the sting of death. He took
it. And by taking it, He took it
away. And then we have here in verses
9 through 15, WE HAVE A PRAYER FOR ISRAEL'S
VICTORY AND PROSPERITY, WHICH TO ME THIS IS A PRAYER FOR THE
PROSPERITY OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. REMEMBER HE SAID, PRAY
THY KINGDOM COME, THAT'S WHAT WE PRAY FOR, WE PRAY FOR THE
PROSPERITY OF THE KINGDOM OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THE PROSPERITY
OF THE CHURCH. And he says here in verse nine,
after asking him to deliver him from the hand of his enemies,
rid him and bring him out of great waters, he says there in
verse seven, and he describes the enemy in verse eight, and
he says in verse nine, when you do this, I'll sing a new song to you,
unto thee, I'll sing a new song unto thee. Lord, my heart will
be in tune, and I'll sing your praises. I'll give you the glory
for the victory. I'll give unto you the glory
that's due your name in a song, and I'll do it upon an instrument
of ten strings. I'll use the gifts you've given
me to praise you." You know, God's given us all a gift. He
gives every one of His children a gift, a talent, to be used
in the Kingdom of God. And David was given a gift of
writing the Psalms. Of course, he was used of God
to write about Christ. He was given the gift of music.
He wrote music. He's given the gift of playing
these instruments. And he says, I'm going to take these instruments
and I'm going to use them for your glory. I'm going to use
them for your glory. He didn't use those instruments
for any other reason than the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he says here, I pledge to sing a new song in honoring you
and your great salvation. And in verse 10 through 11, he
gives recognition of God's power over the kings and nations that
threatened Israel. He gives the glory to the one
it belongs to. David didn't take the glory to
himself. Even the Lord Jesus Christ didn't take the glory
to himself. He gave it to the Father. The Father glorified
the Son, the Son glorifies the Father. They glorified each other,
but they didn't brag on themselves. But they glorified each other.
Christ said, as I hear, I speak. And He says here, it is He, in
verse 10, it is He. that give us salvation unto kings. I wish the president, the president
that's going to be, and all other presidents to come, and every
world leader, I wish they would understand this scripture right
here. He gives victory to kings whether
they believe on him or not. If a war is won, it's of God. God's purpose is accomplished
in it. If it's lost, it's of God. His purpose is accomplished
in it. And I mean, the example here
is that he used Naaman. We just looked at that not long
ago. He used Naaman to win many battles for Syria. And Naaman
didn't know that. He used Nebuchadnezzar. He made
his kingdom great. He used Cyrus. He used Cyrus
to conquer a lot of other nations. He used Cyrus to let the Jews
go and build the wall again. It's He that giveth salvation
unto kings. He's the one who wins the battle
victories of God. You know, when we, you know,
of course I've seen us being, you know, our country's been
in wars and I tell you what, I look back at them and I don't
say this president won a war or that president won a war,
the Lord did. He used them. They're instruments. Let's not get caught up with
the means and forget the one who's actually doing it. It's
God. It's God. It's God. It is He that giveth salvation
unto kings, who delivereth David his servant from the hurtful
sword. And this, listen, David himself
knew that he was delivered many times from the sword. King Jesus
knew that also. Listen, Psalm 2220. Deliver my
soul from the sword, my darling, from the power of the dog. This
is also a prayer of our Lord. Our Lord as a man, and I try
to sit at times and think of Him as a man. I know He's the
God-man. Someone said He's God as if He
were not man, He's man as if He were not God, and yet He's
one undivided person. But he's a real man who depended
on God. He's a real man who looked to
God. He's a real man who believed God. He's a real man who called
upon God to help. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? That's a real man crying from
the cross. And he said, deliver my soul
from the sword. my darling from the power of
the dog and he did when he raised him from the dead and set him
at his own right hand you know there's a real man right now
in flesh and bone seated at God's right hand who's ruling heaven
and earth the second Adam the Lord from heaven that's who he
is and then in closing the verses 12-14 is a picture of the church
when Christ is delivered from all His enemies and the reign
of the church is under the Lord Jesus Christ on that new earth.
I believe this is when it is. He speaks here of spiritual blessings
and prosperity. Now let's go back here a minute.
He says in verse 11, DELIVER ME FROM THE HAND OF STRANGE
CHILDREN, WHOSE MOUTH SPEAKETH VANITY, AND THEIR RIGHT HAND
IS THE RIGHT HAND OF FALSEHOOD." Now if you take this as a prayer
of the Lord Jesus Christ, an intercessory prayer, RID ME OF
THESE, DELIVER ME, and He did, like I said, when He raised Him
from the grave. He said, RID ME OF THESE, and THIS, THIS is
what will happen. This is what's going to happen.
And this is really going to happen and yet to happen on that new
earth. You know, on that new earth,
we're all going to be young, eternal youth. We're going to
have eternal youth. So here's a picture of this strong,
flourishing, strong men, beautiful women, unblemished characters,
and unblemished bodies. He said this is what it's going
to be like. No more ravaged by sin and Satan. as it says in
Jude 1 24 now unto him that is able to keep you from falling
and to present you faultless faultless and blameless and without
blemish this is how it's going to be strong young men he said
like like young plants grown up strong and vigorous beautiful
strong women like God created Adam and Eve
when He first created them, without sin. Ephesians 1-4, According
as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. That's how we're going to be.
Then He speaks of the safety and abundance of the land. Nothing
that offends will enter into that place. Look here, and He
says that our barns, is what that is, Our barns may be full,
affording all manner of store, everything we need we have in
Christ. There'll be nothing lacking.
We have no idea what that new earth is going to be like, but
it's going to be nothing lacking. And our sheep may bring four
thousand and ten thousands in our streets. that our oxen may be strong to
labor, that there be no breaking in
or going out, no thieves. No thieves going to break in.
Isn't that what Scripture teaches us? No thieves. Well, no thieves
will break through or steal. Rust can't corrupt. There's no going out and there's
no complaining. NO COMPLAINING IN THE STREETS,
NO REASON TO COMPLAIN, NOBODY'S HUNGRY. You know, we just looked last
week at the Bible class last Sunday. In Samaria, they were
starving to death. They were eating their children.
He said, when the Lord, all this is delivered up, And the kingdom is finally delivered
up to God. And we have that new heaven and
new earth. This is what it's going to be
like. It's what it's going to be like. He's just trying to
give us a description here. There's no complaining in the
street, no saying, I'm hungry, I'm poor, I'm broke, I'm sick,
you know, come to my house, Lazarus is sick, he's dying. It won't
be that no more. There'll be no sorrow, no more
crying, no more tears, no more heartaches. Here's what's gonna be happy,
happy, content, joyful, is that people that is in such a case.
Is it such a case with you? Is it such a case with you? Does this make you happy? Just
reading this makes me happy. It does, it makes me happy. It
just gives me such a bright outlook. I know we have our personalities. I know we have our personalities.
And I don't want everybody's personality to be like my personality,
or yours like me, or me like you. But how can we be pessimistic
when we have such a bright future? I'm just reading it here to you.
Happy is that people. A final blessing here is declared
by David or by our Lord. Happy is that people whose God
is the Lord. Happy is that people who's in
such a case. We are in such a case. Look over in Chapter 146, verse
5, and I close. That word happy also means blessed.
But happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose
hope is in the Lord his God. That person's happy. Or you can
say it this way, that person's blessed, blessed. Now I know
in the life we live on this earth, the sin we have to deal with
inward and outward. I know that there are times when
we are cast down. David said, why art thou cast
down on my soul? Why? But overall, I think the general
attitude of God's people, even on this earth, is they're happy,
they're content. Even in sorrow, they say, it's
the Lord. It's the Lord. Now it may take
them a little while to grow up and say that, but they'll say it. It's
the Lord. Let Him do as He will. But this
real happiness here, to experience the fullness of it, is yet to
come. It's yet to come. All right.