Turn back to Psalm 113. Psalm
113. I've been looking at this psalm
for a little while. And I like to get a title when I'm
reading from a portion of scripture where I'm going to preach. I
like to get a title first. It just gives me direction. And
I looked at this psalm, and I looked at it, and I have on my desk some books. And on each end of those books,
I have two bookends. Their horse's heads, ears are
broken off. They've been around a while,
but their ears are broken off. But anyway, there are two bookends
and they hold, I've got a few books there that I've used, Dictionary
and Amplified Bible and a couple of others there. Those two bookends
hold those books in place for me. And I thought, When I read this
and I looked at those bookends and it just dawned on me, this
psalm, praise you the Lord. And then the last verse, the
last phrase there is praise you the Lord. So I titled it the
bookends of praise. These are the two bookends that
hold this psalm together. In which this psalm is sandwiched,
is sandwiched in between praise you the Lord and praise you the
Lord. And so I want us to look at it
in this light for me anyway. Now this is the third Psalm in
a row that we have been told to praise the Lord. Psalm 111,
praise you the Lord. Psalm 112, praise you the Lord. Psalm 113, praise you the Lord. They start out with praise the
Lord. There's one thing I'm sure of. We are never short of reasons
to praise the Lord. Never short of reasons to praise
our God. Just this day, just this day,
how blessed we've been. We can't even rack it up in order,
the blessings that God has given us just in a day, in a day. And then when you add to that,
to think about that the fact that God has redeemed your soul,
my soul, that we have a great future.
The one thing that has really struck me as I'm growing older
is that in Christ, I have a great future. You have a great future
and I'll see you again. And you'll see me again, whichever
one of us goes first. I may do your funeral, you may
be at mine, but I'll see you again. And we'll do this without
sin. We'll do this without interruption.
And we'll praise God as God is to be praised. I look forward
to that day. I do, I look forward to that
day. This old world is tough to live in. Now, what does praise
mean? He says, praise you the Lord.
I like to know what that means. You know, you need to know what
something means if you're told to do it, don't you? Well, I
looked this up in the dictionary I have on my desk. Praise means
to express admiration or approval. To praise God is to express our
admiration of God. We admire him. He speaks of the
Lord when he comes to be admired in all his saints. We admire
him. I almost hesitate to say approved
because who am I? God is so great. Who am I? Who am I? What's my approval
mean? Well, it does mean something though, doesn't it? That we do
have, we do approve. And the reason why we do, by
grace, because there's a time we didn't. There's a time we
did not approve the way God saves sinners. There was a time we
did not approve the way God providentially runs everything. There was a
time we didn't. Why does God do this? Why did He do that?
Why did He take this one? Why did He leave that one? But
now you and I approve. We bow to Him. Thy will be done. Thy will be done. But it's to
express admiration or approval. It's also a form of worship.
It's worship. That's how we worship God. We
praise Him. It's not only to express admiration,
but it's to speak of His attributes. It's to speak of His attributes,
which supposes what? It supposes knowledge. You cannot
speak of someone's attributes if you don't know them. You can't
speak of the love of God if you don't know God. You can't speak
of His grace and His mercy. You can't speak of His holiness.
You can't do that unless you know Him. So when you really
truly speak of someone's attributes, it supposes knowledge of that
person. And then whenever you do speak
of them, you speak of their attributes. Just take an athlete. Whenever
you take an athlete, if there's someone, you take someone that's
into a sport. I don't care if it's golf, football,
basketball. When they speak of their favorite
player, listen to them. Listen how they praise him. Man,
how he could score, how he can jump, how he can hit a golf ball,
how he can, I mean, it's just, you're just, that's praise. And
we speak, when we speak of God, we praise him in his holiness.
I'm glad God's holy. Our God is holy. You know that
the seraphims and the cherubims cry day and night, holy, holy,
holy Lord God almighty. They do that continuously. They
praise God in His character. We praise Him in His holiness. We praise Him in His justice. Don't we? God is God whether
He's saving or whether He's damning. He's getting the glory whether
He's saving or whether He's executing justice. We praise Him in His
grace and His mercy to us in Christ. We didn't deserve it.
We didn't deserve it. I didn't deserve one ounce of
God's mercy in any way, shape or form, but he gave it to me
anyway. We praise him and his eternality. We praise him and his power.
All power belongs to him. I tell you, the list goes on
and on. When you consider When you consider the eternality of
God, the immenseness of God, there's no end to praising Him. And we'll do this throughout
eternity. And then is to do so with passion. I don't know if
it can be said that we praise somebody when your heart's not
in it. That's lip service. That's lip service. The Lord
said, you honor me to those Pharisees. He said, you honor me with your
lips, but your heart is far from me. Far from me. You listen to someone talk about
their children. You see these people, you get
behind them in the car, my kid's an honor student. If you give
them a second, they're going to tell you about it. they're
going to praise that their child and you just you just watch how
their hearts into it their hearts into it and whenever we praise
God we praise him with passion we praise him with heart we praise
him sincerely from the heart it's sincere it's sincere praise
and it tells us here in verse one who are to praise him you
know all ought to All his works ought to praise him. Everybody
on this earth, every person, seven billion people right now
ought to be praising God. They ought to take a breath.
That's of God. I'm telling you, that's of God.
The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the country we get to live in
right now, Even though with all that's going on, still, it's
still better than most. Still better than most. Ye servants of the Lord, praise
Him. That's who it is. That's who
he's talking to. Oh, he said here, oh, you servants of the
Lord. You saints, that's what he's
talking about. You saints, you sanctified ones. You redeemed
ones. You willing bond slaves, believers. These are all wrapped up into
the word servant. You know, the Apostle Paul never
backed down from calling himself a servant of Jesus Christ. I'm a servant, that's what I'm
doing this evening. I'm a servant of the Lord. I'm serving him
by serving you, by standing here preaching to you. We have a master
whom we serve. And listen, when we realize this,
it gives real meaning to this life, doesn't it? It gives real
meaning to this life when you realize Jesus Christ is your
master and you are his servant, you and I are his servants. It
gives you a whole new outlook on your place in this life. When I was young, when I was
young, you know, I thought about getting a career, you know, and
we married young, having to have family and buying a house, you
know, da-da-da, all that stuff. But I'm telling you, after the
Lord saved me, that started to just kind of, that started to
die down. It didn't die down all at once,
but it started to die down. And I realized that I'm his servant. And the servant does not pick
his place of service. We don't pick our place of service.
He puts us where he will. Wherever you are right now, wherever
you are, the Lord has put you there to serve him, to serve
him. And when you and I realize this,
we will see our jobs differently, school differently, learning
differently, everything will be different. I'm his servant
serving him in the place he's put me. That's very real to me. That's very real to me. That's
what makes me happy here. That's what makes me happy here.
I believe I'm here by the will of God, serving the Lord right
here, for the time He will have me here. And I understand this,
and I understand this by experience. There will come a time when I
have to step down. And whatever that time is, that's
all right too. I've learned this. I mean, I
have had jobs and lost them, and the company's gone out of
business, and I've been upset, and I thought, how are we going
to make it? You know, those early years, the boys were just little
boys. I thought, how are we going to
make it? You know, and it just - but the Lord proved. He proved
- I tell you, He has proved Himself faithful and compassionate and
gracious time after time after time. And now I'm learning, I'm
learning, I'm learning this. Let it come and let it go. When it comes, take it, and when
it's time to let it go, let it go. That's what I told my dad,
you know, as they got into their, his dad, his last year there,
I said, dad, enjoy what you've been given, and when it comes
time to let it go, let it go. Now that's easier said than done,
isn't it? Because I'm not there. I mean, I haven't been right
where he was at. But I hope by the grace of God
that when that time comes, I can say farewell and let it go. Because I'm here doing his will,
and when it's over, it's over. When he has me step down, I'll
step down. And if he don't take me, I'll
just I'll just do the next thing. I'll just do the next thing.
Someone said that to me one time. He said, well, someone asked
him, they asked him what he's gonna do next. He was retiring,
he just said the next thing. I thought that's a good statement.
Just whatever it is the Lord's next thing is, that's what it
is. And this praise, now listen, this praise, it's not just for,
here, you know, on Thursday and Sundays. First of all, in verse
two, it's from this time forth, even forevermore, it's for time
and eternity. And listen, if I have never praised
him before, Lord, let me do it tonight. Let me start right now. Right now, let me start. If I've
never done it before, if I have never in my heart really praised
you, let me do it now and forevermore. Because if you really do, if
you really do praise Him, if He enables you to do that, you
will praise Him forevermore. He'll see to it. You'll praise
Him throughout eternity. That's such a thought to think
that This life's very short, okay? This life's very short.
We're gonna leave it in a little while. But the life we have coming,
there's no time on it. There's no watch. Just throw
your watches away. Throw your watches away. There's
no time. Literally no time. There's a
scripture in, I think it's in Revelation. It's in the scriptures. It said he shall declare, he'll
put one foot on the sand, one foot on the shore, one foot on
the sea, and declare, time shall be no more. That's what it says,
time shall be no more. It'll be timeless, timeless. And then when are we to praise
him? Well, first of all, we're gonna do it early. early from
the rising of the sun to the going down there in verse three,
till the going down of the same sun. Praise starts with, first
of all, it starts with an attitude. It's something you go with throughout
the day. Now I know because of sin we don't, I know that. But I tell you what, I want to. I want to. I want to live in
an attitude of praise. I tell you what, if God gives
you an attitude of praise, you'll find it hard to complain. Try
to praise and complain at the same time. They don't go together.
It doesn't work. It doesn't work. If God gives
you an attitude of praise, it'll put a snap in your step, and
it'll make a day worth facing. It will. And then listen, praise him from
the rising of the sun to the going down of the same. Every
time we come together, we come together to praise him. We don't come together here just
to socialize. It's not a social activity going
on here. It's a worship service. And we
need to remember that. I need to remember that because
I'm the one who sets the tone of it. But this is a worship
service. We fellowship together before,
a little bit before and a little bit afterwards. But this is a
worship service. And every time we come together,
we praise him. And then we praise him in every
situation we find ourselves in. That's not easy. That's not easy. Listen to 1 Thessalonians 5,
18. In everything, give thanks. Now giving thanks is a form of
praise. And everything give thanks, and
everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ
Jesus concerning you. Whatever it is, whatever's going
on, it's the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you right now.
And that being so, give thanks. Praise him for it. Praise him
for it. And then he gives us reasons
for this praise. We're told to praise him. Praise
you, the Lord. Praise all ye servants of the
Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of
the Lord from this time forth and forevermore, from the rising
of the sun until the going down of the same. The Lord's name
is to be praised. There's never to be a time we
just say no. It's to be continual. And here's
the reasons why. The Lord is high. above all nations. You know, it says that the nations
in the scripture says the nations are dropped in the bucket to
God. Even this country called America.
It's a drop in a bucket. The Lord is high. High. High and lifted up, isn't that
what Isaiah said there? And Isaiah said, I saw the Lord
high and lifted up, and his train, his glory filled the courts.
And he heard the seraphims and cheruphims crying out, holy,
holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. And that's when he said, woe
is me, I'm undone. He's high above all. It says
over in, I believe it's Solomon said this over in 2nd Chronicles
618, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him. You know,
God is spoken of in the scriptures as dwelling in heaven, the third
heaven. But you know that even that can't
even contain Him. God can't be contained in anything. God's too immense. In Him, Paul
said that in the book of Acts, he said, your poet wrote this,
that in him we live and move and have our being. Everything
that exists, and I can't, I don't even know, I don't know if this
is the right way to say it or not, exists in him. He doesn't
exist outside of it. It's not like, he's too immense. God is unsearchable. How unsearchable
it says are his ways. And the reason why is because
his person is unsearchable. He can't be measured. He's high,
high above all. He said, my thoughts are not
your thoughts and my ways are not your ways. As far as the
heaven is high above the earth, so are my thoughts and my ways
above yours. And when you realize that, you
don't complain when you don't understand. When you don't understand,
you just submit, because you know that God is high, high above
us. And then we praise Him, not only
because He's high above all, but also because there's none
like Him. Who is like unto Him? We praise Him for His uniqueness. I thought about this today as
I've been thinking about it for the last couple of days. We are
individuals. Each one of us are individuals.
Yet there are 6,000 years of DNA and genetics that have gone
into making you who you are. You know that? 6,000 years. How many generations
that is. people that have come together
and made you. Not just mom and dad, and it's
not just mom and dad and grandma and grandpa and the great grandparents.
This goes back 6,000 years to make you who you are. You're
an individual, but yet you're an individual made up of a bunch
of individuals. But now listen, not so with God. Not so with God. He has no previous
DNA or genetics that make him who he is. God is God alone. That's just mind boggling. God is God alone. He has no beginning
and he has no ending. No one made him up. You say,
I can't understand that. How many times have I heard my
pastor say, I don't need a God I can understand. Let's bring
him down to my level. You see, he said in the Psalms,
you thought I was altogether like you. You think I'm like
you. He's far higher than me and you. But God is God alone. So we worship Him because He's
high above all and there's none like Him. We worship Him in His
uniqueness. God. God. He said there's none beside me.
I am God and there is none else. And then we worship Him for what
He is to us. He said to Abraham over in Genesis
15, I'm your shield. I'm your shield. You and I I
know we do, but we should never walk around scared. Is that the
truth? We should never be afraid, ever. God said to Abraham, who went
out He took his wife, took his dad with him, but he took his
wife, and they just lit out, and they went to a place they
didn't know, and they was among a bunch of heathens. Just like
Paul was when Paul went out preaching, you know, all these different
places where they had all this idolatry and all this immorality
and just craziness, and Paul went right there among all of
them. That'd be like me going over to, well, I mean, it's probably
not even as bad as what Paul had, but just think if I went
over to Iraq right now. Just think if I just went over
to Iraq and just went out on the streets and started preaching. What do
you think would happen? I wouldn't get an invite, I can
tell you that. I mean, just, I mean, I, but
God said to Abraham, I'm your shield. I'm your buckler. I'm your high tower, your redeemer,
your God. Turn over to Psalm 18. In verse two, the Lord is my
rock and my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I
trust, my buckler and the horn of my salvation, and my high
tower. Now what else you need? That's what God is to us. That's what He is to us. We have
no reason to ever be afraid, ever. And then we praise Him
for what He's done for us. Look there in verse 7 through
9. It says here that He raises up the poor out of the dust. This is where He found us. He
didn't find us in nobility. He didn't find us in a good place. He found us in the dust. It says that he raiseth up the
poor, the spiritually poor. He's speaking here about the
spiritually poor. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But he raiseth up the
poor out of the dust, and he lifteth the needy out of dunghill. We all know what dung is. And
they had a dunghill back in that Israel there. They had a place
where they went out there and dumped their dime. And he says, that's where I found
you. That is where I found you. You see why the gospel is offensive?
It tells us the truth. It tells us who we are, what
we are, and it tells us what God has done for us. He says
here, he raises up the poor out of the dust. This poor sinner,
God raised me up out of the dust, out of the dust of my sin, out
of the dunghill of self-righteousness. There's no greater dunghill than
self-righteousness. This is extreme. What he's speaking
here of is extreme degradation and misery. He said, this is
where I found you. This is where I found you. Over in 1 Corinthians, turn over
to 1 Corinthians 1. Very familiar scripture. 1 Corinthians
1. Listen here. Verse 26, 27, 28. For you see
your calling, brethren, Now that not many wise men after
the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. You know
what's so strange? And this is so. We actually try
to be the very things God says he doesn't. Not many have been
chosen. We try to even make our children
that. We try to make our children the very thing that God says
not many of them are called or chosen. There was a man, I remember,
came to Henry once. I'm not going to get the story
completely right, but he was going to play professional ball. And Henry says, you know, you
don't do that. How many ballplayers you know
that believe the gospel? How many doctors and lawyers
do you know that believe the gospel? How many? Very, very few. You see your
calling brethren have it not many wise men after the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. Well, I
can raise my hand on that one. I'll fit right in there, the
foolish things. And God has chosen the weak things
of the world to confound the things which are mighty. And
base things of the world and things which are despised hath
God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to naught things
that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. Which
would you rather your child, which would you, if you had the
choice, of course, I already know you know the answer. You
have the cheat sheet. You have the Bible. But if you
would just say, if you ask the average person out there, which
would you rather your child be? That beggar laying over there?
And the dog's licking his sore? His name is Lazarus. Would you
rather him be that rich man living in that $12 million mansion?
Which one would you rather your son or daughter be? Most will pick that rich man.
Only a wise man, only a wise man or wise woman who'd been
taught of God would pick that Lazarus who is in heaven right
now. enjoying the riches of glory. And the rich man is still in
hell right now, lifting up his eyes in torment and thirst. He said, Father Abraham, send
Lazarus, that one that laid at my gate. Would you send him back
and dip his finger in water and touch the tip of my tongue and
cool it? But there was a time he wouldn't
have given Lazarus the time of day. And I'm sure he was irritated
and aggravated with Lazarus laying out there at that gate. But God
put him out there. And that man never realized what
a trial that was. Every day he'd walk by Lazarus.
He'd walk by a child of God. He despised Lazarus laying there
at his gate. making him feel guilty for leaving
him alone and never giving him anything. Oh my, my, my. He raises up the poor out of
the dust and lifted the needy out of the dunghill. This sounds
like Hannah's prayer. If you go and read Hannah's prayer,
these first three verses are just what she said. And here's
the reason why. Here's the reason why. That he
may set them among princes. Where do you think Lazarus is
sitting right now? You know where he's sitting with
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Rupert, Henry? These are all
sitting there. They're all there with each other.
All of them. All the ladies that have died
in the Lord and all those, all the servants, all his servants.
They're sitting among princes. You know what it means? They're
equal. They're equal. There ain't no
social status there, like there is no peer pressure, like there
is here. If you and I ever get a right
fear of God, we'll lose peer pressure. We'll lose peer pressure
if we ever get a right fear of God. If we ever get a right fear
of God, a right understanding of God, come to know who God
is, you'll lose fear pressure, or peer pressure. It doesn't
matter if a beggar walks in or if the president walks in. Sit
down and listen. Because God put him in either
place. I make rich and I make poor. I lift up and I bring down.
That's what he said. And then to close out here, verse
nine, listen. He maketh the barren woman to
keep house, or to live in a house, what it means. To live in a house. God does that. God does that. And to be a joyful mother of
children. God does that. The fruit of the
womb is from God. It's from God. And I think this also has reference
here to the Gentile church. There was no one more barren
than the Gentiles. And God turned to the Gentiles. And look at the children. Look
at the children that's been born of God since the gospel. He makes, he maketh the barren
woman to live in a house. He gives her a dwelling place.
God does that. And he gives her children. He
gives her children. And listen, he makes us fruitful
also. He makes us fruitful. He's the
one who gives the increase to our labor, doesn't he? Rather
than you and I start death, it wasn't for the blessings of God.
If it was not for his blessings, we would start the death. And
this world benefits from me and you being here. I mean, these men and women who've
made it wealthy and they've made a lot of money, they've had big
businesses, that's for me and you. That's for us. Now, how are we going to close
this psalm out? Just like we started it with
these two bookends. Praise ye the Lord. Capital L-O-R-D,
Jehovah. And you know, they said, Spurgeon
said this in verse one, praise ye the Lord, praise all ye servants
of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord. He says, I think
there's a little reference there, or not, maybe not little, I didn't
use the word little. I think there's a reference there
to the Trinity, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. There's
Jehovah the Father, Jehovah the Son, and Jehovah the Holy Spirit,
yet there's only one, only one God. There's only one. Many of them have said this.
They say, well, I can't understand that. How do you talk about three
distinct persons, but there's only one? But yet, it's only
one. Well, you're made up of body,
soul, and spirit. Can you understand that? There's three. That makes up one person here.
You're looking at one person, aren't you? But this one person's
made up of a body, soul, and spirit. Well, there's one God. But in that Godhead, there's
a Father, there's a Son, and the Holy Spirit. But there's
only one God. And we're going to praise Him, whether it's the
Father in election, the Son in redemption, or the Holy Spirit
in regeneration. We praise God. All right.