Psalms 65. I titled this message, Good Reason
for Praising God. We can't even rack it up in order. God's mercies. David said, I believe it was David, it's written
in the Psalms, that his thoughts to usward cannot be reckoned
up in order. God's thoughts of his children,
of you, individually, are continuous. They are continuous. There's
never a moment that He does not think upon you. David said, I
am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me. I am a poor and needy sinner,
yet the Lord, God of heaven and earth, And this is real. I mean, these are the things
that I really try to get a hold of. First, that God is. And that He thinks upon me. I
mean, there's not a time that He does not think upon me. And
the reality of that brings real comfort. It brings real comfort
in a world of chaos, what looks like chaos to us. In a world
of evil, we do live in an ungodly world. This world that hates
God, yet God, as we will see here, chose us out of it, brought
us out of it, and made us His. And here we are tonight, praising
God in song, and worshiping Him in spirit and in truth. That
is a miracle of God. That is the work of God. Now in this psalm, God is praised
in Zion, it says here. And He's praised for hearing
prayer. "...O thou that hearest prayer."
He's praised for purging us from our sins in verse 3. He is to be praised for choosing
us and bringing us into His presence, in verse 4. We are to praise Him for saving
us from our enemies, in verse 5. And we are to praise Him in
His might and majesty in nature. We see it every day. We see the
act of God every day in weather, in His creation, we see the hand
of God at work. And we are to praise Him for
that. And we are to praise Him for His providential care. In
verse 9 through 13. Now, in verse 1, it says, Praise
waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion. Now, over in my margin, it says,
the word waiteth means is silent. Silent. In my readings today,
I came up with this. Silence is due to God. Silent, submissive reverence
is due to God. And when I read that, I thought
of this. The heart should be engaged in
silent worship and awe before the mouth is engaged to sing
aloud His praise. There should be a real silence,
a silent worship and awe in our hearts as we prepare to come
here, to open His Word, to be allowed of God to open His Word. God has allowed us tonight to
open His Word. He's allowed us to come here
and sit and listen to His Word, which is the same as listening
to God speak, because God speaks through His Word, by His Spirit.
And we should, in silence, first, our hearts should be engaged
first before we open our mouths, because worship starts in the
heart. It starts within and comes out. And unto thee, he says, shall
a vow be performed. The vow to praise and worship
Him is do Him." From Zion, the church, us. You know, we looked at this not
too long ago. David said he'd pay his vow, and that vow was
to praise and worship Him. And it's a commitment. We are
committed. to the praise and worship of
God. We're not committed to selfishness and taking care of self, looking
after self. We are committed to following after Him and to
be given to praise and worship of Him, our tongue, our mind. Our thoughts, our bodies, are
to be engaged in worship and praise of our God wherever we
are. Now that doesn't mean you go
around town saying, well, praise the Lord, well, praise, because
there's a whole lot of people that do that that have no praise
of God whatsoever. They don't even know Him. But
it does mean that we do pray, you know how we praise God and
worship Him even in our conduct. We don't bring reproach on His
name. And so in silence, in silence,
we wait in silence upon God and then we burst out into praise
and worship of Him. Now David gives to us three aspects
in which God is to be praised and worshipped in Zion by His
people. The first one is this, is for
His electing love His electing love. Look in verse 4. Blessed
is the man whom thou choosest. God chose you to come into His
presence. God chose you and I in Jesus
Christ before the world began. You cannot, you absolutely cannot
read the Word of God and not know that God chose a people
out of this world. They're sinners. ungodly, but
God chosen. And it says here, blessed, happy. You know, I've never met anyone
that was upset because God saved them. I've never met anybody. Everyone
whom God has ever saved are happy that God saved them. And they
are happy that God chose them. I've never met anyone who believed
the gospel, who believed God, that was mad and upset over God
choosing them. I'm glad He chose me. I love
the doctrine of election. You know why I love the doctrine
of election? You know why you love the doctrine of election?
I'll tell you for one reason. One reason why. Because you love
the God of election. That's why. You love the God
of election. Happy is the man whom thou choosest
and causest to approach unto thee. You caused Him to approach. You wooed Him. You drew Him with
cords of love. But through the preaching of
the gospel, by His Spirit, He drew you. He caused you to approach
to Him. in the proper manner through
the sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ, that He may dwell in
thy courts. You know, in a little while,
and I was thinking about this today, in a little while, for
all of us, all of us who believe, in a little while, we're gonna
be with the Lord. We're going to be in His courts.
We literally are going to walk with Him. As Job said, I know
that my Redeemer liveth, and He'll stand upon the earth in
the last days. And he said, though the skim worms eat my body, they
destroy my body, yet in my flesh I'll see God. and I'm going to
see Him with my eyes and not another's. I'm going to look
at Him. I'm going to speak to Him. I'm
going to walk with Him. I'm going to talk with Him. I
was thinking about that before coming down here for a little
while, just the fact that the reality, the reality of seeing
Jesus Christ and the reality that God chose me, God chose
me, and He saved me in His Son. And I'm going to walk on that
new earth. I'm going to live in His presence. I'm going to
come into His presence. And He says, "...you cause to
approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts. We shall
be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy
temple." It's a happy place. Satisfied. You know, you can't
be satisfied and not be happy. I'm telling you, if you're satisfied,
you're happy. You're content. That's what that
is. Satisfied. Content. You don't
want to go anywhere else. It's like my granddaughter. She can't be 20 minutes in the
house. I'm bored. You're not going to be bored.
You're not going to be bored. Happy place. Good place. Satisfied
with the goodness of thy house. Now listen. Only those who are
saved by the grace of God, and only those born of God, would
be satisfied to be in that place. Heaven would be hell to an unregenerate
man, because he could not fulfill the lust of his flesh in that
place. It would be misery. But for you who are born of God,
you're satisfied. You're satisfied with Christ,
you're satisfied with the way God saved you, Oh, you're satisfied
with the goodness of thy house. This is the first reason we praise
Him. He chose us. Loved us, chose us, called us,
redeemed us. And here's another reason why.
He hears our prayer. Don't think that God does not
hear your prayer because it may not happen right now. God hears your prayer. He hears
the prayer of every one of His children. He hears the cry of
every one of them. And He says, O thou that hearest
prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come. That is, you know, God's
going to save a people. of every tribe, kindred, tongue,
and nation under heaven, and every one of those people are
going to come to the same God. And they're going to come to
Him the same way. Jesus Christ, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. From all over this earth, men
and women are going to come to Him. And He's going to hear their
cry for mercy. He's going to hear their cry
for forgiveness. And He's going to forgive, because He can forgive
through the blood and righteousness of His Son. God can forgive me. God can forgive me through Christ
and Him crucified, dying in my place. His blood answers for
my sins. And God's able to forgive me.
And He will hear our prayer. Prayer for mercy, prayer for
forgiveness. Acceptance. He hears our prayer. What encouragement it is to pray,
to know that God hears your prayer. Pray. That's why Paul said, pray
without ceasing. Pray without ceasing. And then here's another reason
we praise Him. He pardons iniquity and transgressions. He breaks the power of sin. Look
in verse 3. He says, Iniquities prevail against
me. Do you not feel that to be so? You know, until God saved me,
sin didn't bother me. I didn't have a guilty conscience.
I didn't have a guilty conscience. I didn't like getting caught.
And it wasn't because of the guilt of it, it was because of
the punishment of it. But now, after God saves, after He saved
me, after He saved you, we are very, very aware of our iniquities. They prevail. There are so many.
David says, there are more than the hairs of my head. He said,
in one place, they go over my head. They prevail against me. Our iniquities are too many and
too strong for us to handle. And they are very real. They
are very real. And we feel them, don't we? We
feel them. But now listen, they're not too
much for God. They're not too much for Him. By the blood and
righteousness of His Son, He can make the vilest clean. Look over in Hebrews 1.3, in
chapter one, Hebrews chapter one. This verse speaks of Christ
crucified. Hebrews chapter one. We just
read where David said he will purge us from our iniquities. In verse 3, speaking of the Lord
Jesus Christ, who being the brightness of His glory, and the express
image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His
power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down
on the right hand of the Majesty on high, but by Himself He purged
our sins. That's why he says in verse 3,
Iniquities prevail against me. But here's the good news. Here's
the good news. Here's why we praise Him. This
is worthy of the loudest praise. As for our transgressions, thou
shalt purge them away. They're gone. They're gone. Did you hear what Jesus said
to me? They're all taken away. Like
he said to that adulterous woman, does anybody condemn you? She
said, no, no one. He said, well, neither do I.
Neither do I. You know, it wouldn't matter
if everyone condemned me as long as God does it. As long as he
does it. As long as God's for me, everyone
else can be against me and I'm gonna end up all right. This is why we praise him. We
praise Him for pardon. We praise Him for mercy. We praise
Him for redemption. We praise Him for forgiveness.
Listen to this in Isaiah 38, 17. Behold, for peace I had great
bitterness. This is Hezekiah speaking, I
believe it was. But thou hast in love to my soul
delivered it from the pit of corruption. For thou hast cast
all my sins behind thy back. Let me read that again. Behold,
for peace I had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul
delivered it from the pit of corruption. For thou hast cast
all my sins behind thy back. They're gone. They're gone. And then we praise Him because
He satisfies the desires of those whom He draws to Himself. We
shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy
temple. You know, in God's church, we
come, as we have tonight, and we are fed the bread of life
and the water of life, and we find it very satisfying. We find
it very satisfying. There is nothing out there that's
satisfying. Nothing. I realize, as time goes
by, that everything outside the gospel, everything outside the
gospel is calculated to take you away from God. Everything. Everything. That's why coming
here and reading the Word of God and hearing the Lord speak
to us, it's so satisfying. And then here's another reason
that we praise Him. In verse 5, "...by terrible things
in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation. God is our Savior. He's the one
who saves us. But here, by terrible things
in righteousness, by terrible acts of judgment that we see
upon our enemies. Let me give you an example of
what I think is being said here. Israel is delivered out of Egypt. They saw all those plagues. They
saw that. And they go across the Red Sea.
And they get across. The next thing you know, here
comes Pharaoh's army coming after. And they watch that sea just
come together and drown them. By terrible things in righteousness
wilt thou answer us. Hezekiah, remember that we looked
at last week? He spread that letter before
the Lord and he prayed and God sent one angel one angel and
slew 185,000 men. And they saw that. They saw that. But the one thing that struck
my mind the most as I kept looking at this and looking at this,
I thought, for me to have forgiveness of sins, of my sins, for me to
stand in the presence of God Almighty spotless, He takes me
to Calvary, and there hangs His Son. In an act of righteousness,
God's righteousness, God's righteous judgment, it falls on His Son,
Jesus Christ, and sets me free. It sets me free. But He had to
suffer my hell for me to be delivered from the wrath of God. He had
to suffer it. by terrible things in righteousness
which wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation, who art the
confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are
afar off upon the sea." That word confidence here is refuge.
God is the refuge of all who trust Him, wherever they are. Remember, David is writing from,
he's over there in Israel, and that part of Jerusalem, that's
where he's at. And he's looking out into the,
he's speaking here in things to come. Those who are far off
on the farthest parts of the sea, or on the other side of
the earth, you are their company, you are their refuge. God is
the refuge of the Jew and the Gentile. He's the refuge of every
sinner whom He saves. He's our confidence. You and
I can walk through this life with full confidence because
God is our salvation. God has saved us. God is our
God. We don't have to walk with our
hands and our head hanging down. We can walk with our head up.
God is our confidence. He's our God. The Lord Jesus
Christ got the job done. He got the job done. Are you
confident of that? I'm confident of that. I'm confident
that Jesus Christ is God. He's my God. He's my Savior. He's my Lord. He's my King. And
He rules heaven and earth. I am confident of that. Whatever
goes on with the leaders of all these countries, including this
one, I don't see it... The way I see it in my life right
now, I look at everything as the Lord Jesus Christ ruling
and reigning all things. It may be to bring a nation down.
Or it may be to lift it up. But it's in His hands. It's in
His hands. And I am confident of that. I
take refuge in Christ. I take refuge in Him. At all
times and over all situations. Now secondly, The second reason
we have to praise God and worship Him is this, He's the God who
reveals Himself in nature, in creation. Oh, I tell you, how blessed you
are to be able to look at everything in nature and see God first. I mean, you know how many times,
how many millions of people has passed by the lily and never,
never noticed its beauty? Oh, they notice the beauty of
Solomon. They notice the beauty of the rich, the accoutrements
of the rich. They see that and they slobber,
just water to mouth like, oh, I wish I had that. but to be able to look at everything
that God has created and see God, to see His hand in it. When you look at creation, one
of the first things that we ought to see is His omnipotence. Look in verse 6. "...which by His strength setteth
fast the mountains, He set the mountains where they are. Mount
McKinley, the Rocky Mountains. You just name the mountains,
God set them there. They didn't just happen. They
didn't just happen. You know, the nitwit scientists,
you know, 50 trillion years ago we had this, this happened, that
happened. I'll tell you what happened.
God set it there. and there it stays until earth
and time shall be no more." I'm so happy I can see that. I'm
so glad I can walk out and I can see God's hand in setting that
mountain, God planting the tree, and God making this to grow and
that to grow, and God commanding this and God commanding that.
My soul. If you can't see that, I don't
know you could praise God. I don't think you could praise
Him. You'd miss a whole lot there in praising Him. That's for sure. He set as fast the mountain,
and it stays there. Now listen. When I read this,
I got a little curious. So I googled how fast the earth
is spinning. Now you take Mount McKinley or
these huge mountains. Now you spin something really
fast, you'd think they're gonna sling off, wouldn't you? I know some of you know something
about balance. These are the things I think
of. I'm gonna give you some things I think of during the day. Not
everything, but some things. But I think the balance the balance
of the earth, how God balanced the earth so that when it spins
on its axis, it's not wobbling all over the place. You know,
I worked in a machine shop. We had to balance impellers.
If you didn't balance an impeller, it would shake a motor completely
off its stand. But if you balanced it perfectly,
that thing would just hum. And they do vibration tests in
these electric companies when they have turbines and run their
big turbines. And it has to be perfectly balanced
so that it'll just run smooth. The Earth spins at 1,040 miles
per hour on its axis. Its orbit around the sun as it
orbits around the Sun is 66,641 miles per hour. Do you feel like
you're about to fall off? You'd think you could jump up
in the air and a wall would hit you. That it's a way of spinning. But you don't, do you? The wisdom of God the wisdom and power of God Almighty,
that He could take the earth, and I forget the circumference
of it, I didn't write that one down, but it's spinning at 1,040
miles an hour, and yet we can't even tell it. If we can't think of things like
that and praise Him and just stand in awe of such knowledge
and such wisdom, and yet some man will create a phone or something
and we're like, wow, he's a brilliant person on this earth compared
to God. Compared to God. Really. Listen here. He overrules the
greatest disturbance of nature and nations. Verse 7, "...which
stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and
the tumult of the people." You know, the sea, when the storms
raise, we saw this in the Gospel. We see it in the Gospels as we
read it, when He commands the wind and the waves to be still,
and it says there was peace immediately. There was peace. God commands
that. Man doesn't see that. Man doesn't
see that at all. You know that when those disciples
were on the ship, and they were out there in that storm, you
know there were other little ships with them? They said there
were other little ships that left with them? But I tell you
what, only those on the boat, only those on the boat heard
Him command the waves and the wind to be still. Now those other
ships were probably going, whew, I'm glad that let up. I'm glad
that storm's over. But those on the ship got the
blessing of hearing Him speak in power. Just like you get when you hear
the gospel. You have the privilege of hearing Him speak again in
power. He stills the noise of the seas
and the noise of their waves. He says to the proud waves, Hither
shalt thou come and no further. And listen, and the tumult of
the people." You know, right now we see a
little uprising going on here and there. Well, when He tells
us to settle down, that's when it'll settle down. That's when
it'll settle down. He maketh wars to cease, it says
in Psalm 46, 9. He maketh wars to cease until
the end of the earth. He breaketh the bow and cutteth
the spear asunder. He burns the chariot in the fire.
He does this. Now, God is a God of means. He
uses men. He uses what He created. Everything is God's servant. Everything. But people get caught
up in the means. and they don't see Him. Don't
get caught up in the means. Always recognize Him first. Man is afraid. Look in verse
8 here. Let me show you something here
in verse 8. After He calms the sea down, He controls nature.
He controls nature and nations. All of them. It's all under His
thumb. They also that dwell in the uttermost
parts are afraid at thy tokens. Ignorant man is afraid when he
sees the weather. You know, we have a storm, a
storm coming, and they are afraid, but they don't realize it's the
presence of God. They don't realize that. They
are also that dwell in the uttermost parts are afraid at thy tokens."
You know, storms are a token of God. And they're afraid of the storm,
but they're not afraid of Him. They're afraid of lightning,
but they're not afraid of Him. The lightning, it says, stands
before Him. In Job, the lightning comes before
Him and says, Here we are. He can't strike you until He
says, hit that one. Strike that one. That's what it says. These are
just tokens of His presence. Weather, I'm telling you, weather
is watching God in action. It's watching the hand of God.
It says, in Job, it says, by His breath, frost is given. Don't just get up and say, well,
it frosted last night. God frosted it last night. He
frosted it. He snows. He sends the snow. He said to Job, have you entered
into the treasure of the snow? Thou makest the outgoings of
the morning and the evening to rejoice, or to sing. He owns them. He owns the morning
and the evening. He owns them. And then last of all, the third reason to praise, I
have all these other reasons underneath those reasons, but
the third reason is we praise Him as the God of the harvest. Now we need to really, really
understand this. Verse 9, Thou visitest the earth. Oh man, you know, they're just
so worked up over global warming and all this stuff. This is His. This is His. Thou visitest the earth. What
it's saying here that God is the great husbandman. He's the
great caretaker of the earth. We are to take care of it because
it's our father's. You know, you take care of where
you live because it belongs to your father. This is his. And out of respect and out of
love, we take care of it. What he's given us to be over. He's the Great Huggamun. Thou
visitest the earth. And that word visit means to
oversee. He oversees the earth. Next time it rains, think of
it as a visit from God. He prepares and enriches the
soil to receive the corn. Thou greatly enrichest it with
the river of God, which is full of water." Those clouds, the clouds that
float over our head, is a river. You see a dark cloud
coming, there's a river floating over your head. It's the river
of God. And what a watering system! Let's
go back to thinking of God and His hand in nature. Who would
have came up with a watering system like that? Pull the vapors up out of the
ocean and up out of the water, pull it up into heaven, and then
take the wind and send it over where rain is needed. Who can do that but God? And He does it that He may enrich
the land, that the land may be fertile. He makes the wilderness and the
hills to rejoice with their abundance. Don't you like the way this reads?
Let's go back to verse 9. Listen to this. I love the way
this reads. It sounds so beautiful. God visits
the earth and He waters it, and He greatly enriches it with the
river of God, His water, which is full of water. There's nothing
more precious than water. There's nothing more precious
than clean water. He says here, "...thou preparest them corn
when thou hast provided for it." You know, this world are partakers
of many of our blessings. This world keeps producing for
you, for God's children. This world produces for God's
children. And the unbelieving world, they get to taste some
of the harvest. Verse 10, Thou waterest the ridges
thereof abundantly, Thou settlest the furrows thereof, Thou makest
it soft with showers. You see somebody plow a garden,
they plant, and what do they want? We need rain. We need rain. God sends a rain and it just
waters that garden and it starts to grow. Thou blessest the springing
thereof, Thou crownest the year, with thy goodness. Don't ever
complain about a year. I'm talking to myself. Let's
not ever look back and say, boy, 19-whatever or 20-something-whatever
was a terrible year. No, it wasn't. Not if you know
God. Not if you know God. Every year, God's purpose has
been accomplished in your life. And every year brings you one
year closer to being home with the Lord. Thou crownest the year
with thy goodness. You know, when you look and consider
the fact that the earth is still standing and that the church
is here and we're still being blessed, wow, man, that's the
goodness of God. That's the goodness of God. And he says here, in thy paths
drop fatness. And one of the translations,
well, several of the translations say his chariot wheels drop fatness. And you get the image of the
chariot going by, and it's just fatness dropping off of it, and
the land being so prosperous. And it's for God's children,
that's what it's for. And they drop upon the pastures
of the wilderness. The wilderness, where no one
is. You know, there's a lot of wilderness
still left on this earth, isn't there? Where no man is. And yet God takes care of that
wilderness. He sends rain upon that wilderness. And he watches over the, when
the hinds do calve, he watches over them. He watches over every
minute thing He's created. And He takes care of out there
in the wilderness. And the little hills rejoice
on every side. This has creation here rejoicing
and giving God the praise. But if you put it in a spiritual
sense, if you put this in a spiritual sense, You and I, who are out
there in the wilderness, and the fatness of the gospel, the
blessings that we have in Christ, has dropped upon us. It's dropped
upon us. In the pastures of verse 13,
we have here the great shepherd of the earth, The pastures are
clothed with flocks. Where does life come from, all
life? Where does it come from? God. If God did not give life even
to the animals, there wouldn't be any. They don't have a hospital
to go to. You know, think about it. The
little birds out there building their nests. Think of when the
deer has its fawn. It doesn't go to the local hospital
to have her. She's out there in the wilderness.
She's out there among the bears and wolves and all that. She's out there. And she has
her young one out there, her young one. And God watches over her. How
much more you? How much more you? for whom Jesus
Christ died for. How much more you, whom He chose,
and whom He loved, and whom He drew you to Himself, that you
may be in His courts? How much more you? He said, not
a sparrow falls to the ground without your Heavenly Father.
How much more you? The hairs of your head are numbered.
Do you know how many hairs you have on your head? He does. He does. The pastures are clothed with
flocks. The valleys, the valleys also
are covered over with corn. You know, you should go to Iowa.
I would go out there with Joe Terrell, you know, visit out
there and preach out there for him. The cornfields, I mean,
just, they go on the same forever. Forever. You see, God blesses
those on the mountains, He blesses those in the valley. The valleys also are covered
over with corn, they shout for joy. They also sing, and I tell
you this, they also sing, but they should not sing us, who
have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Nothing and no one should out-sing
us or praise God more than us who have been chosen, called,
redeemed, and loved." We have a lot to praise God for, don't
we? The church is never at a loss for praising God from whom all
blessings flow.