Turning your Bibles this morning
to the 92nd Psalm, Psalm 92. I would be shocked if anyone
here or in the state of Virginia probably would take issue with
the statement that's the title of this message. Might be a few. But on its surface, Most folks
wouldn't contend with this statement. It's a good thing to worship
the Lord. It's a good thing to worship the Lord. Most folks
would give token assent to that, but by their actions, most folks
prove that they really don't believe the truth of that statement. But that is what it says here
in the very first verse of Psalm 92. It says, It's a good thing. It's a good
thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto
thy name, O Most High. Worship is really comprised of
thanksgiving and praise. That's what worship is. Worship
is thanksgiving and praise to the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's
a good thing. If for no other reason, we ought
to know it's a good thing because it says it right there in God's
Word. That ought to be reason enough
for us to go, it's a good thing. But just how good is it? You know, with men, there are
degrees of good. We do have a scale by which we
regard some things. I mean, everything as to how
good it is. And to illustrate it with children, it's a very
simple thing to get a handle on this. I told you the last
time I was here that I give out these little candies, these little
things, little sweet tarts. They're called wheels, and the
kids think they're good. But I remember back a few months
ago, I wasn't getting much attention one night. Usually there's one
pulling on my pants leg or something and nobody was around. And I
noticed that one of the ladies in the church was giving out
entire packs. I had told her was was cutting
my cutting my good because this is good, but this is really good. And then all of a sudden I noticed
that everybody abandoned Pat and was running into the back
where the nursery area was. And in a few minutes, this was
either Christmas or New Year's, one or the other, Brother Chuck
Moore makes his living by selling treats and snacks and that kind
of thing to supermarkets and whatever, convenience stores.
And in a few minutes, here comes the parade of kids out from the
back. And somewhere, Chuck has gotten a hold of these suckers
that are about as big as pie pans. And I mean, here they come
out of there, just eyeballs as big as silver dollars. Now listen,
are those sweet tarts good? A whole pack is gooder. But you
know what good, good, goodest is? It's that sucker. And you
see what I'm saying? We regard everything, somewhere
on the scale, as bad or good. And the good, just sometimes
it's gooder than other times. Different things are. And if
you look up this word here in Psalm 92 in a concordance, and
I'm no Greek scholar, so I couldn't do anything on my own about that,
but I can use a concordance like a dictionary and look up what
a word says. And when I look this word good up, if this ought
to give you a blessing, if nothing else does this morning, just
how good is it to worship the Lord Jesus Christ? That word
good there, if you look it up, it says good in the broadest
possible sense. That's how good it is. And then
it starts giving you different words that describe just how
good it is. And all I'm going to do is give
you that list of words here. Listen to how good it is to worship
the Lord Jesus Christ. It says, first of all, that it's
a beautiful thing to worship Christ. It's a better thing to
worship Christ. In fact, it says it's the best
thing, the very best thing there is, is to worship Christ. Then
it says it's a bountiful thing to worship Christ. Then it says
it's a thing to make you cheerful, to worship Christ. You ever come
worship Christ and go home just, it's all better, isn't it? It's
a thing to put you at ease. If you come, you got trouble,
come worship Christ. It'll do you good. It'll put
you at ease. It says that it is a fair thing
in the sense of a fair maiden. It's a fair thing to look on,
a worship service is. It's a thing to make you highly
favored of God, a privilege to come worship Christ. How good
is it to worship Christ? It says it's a fine thing, fine
thing. It says it's a thing to make
you glad, make you glad to come worship Christ. It says it's
a goodly thing, and it says it's a goodlier thing. It says it's
the goodliest thing to worship Christ. And then it says it's
a thing of goodness to worship Christ. It says then that is
the thing that will make you gracious. If there's some grace
sort of missing, come worship Christ and make you gracious.
It's a joyful thing. It's just a sheer joy to worship
Christ. It's a thing to make one kindly,
and it's also a great kindness to God's people that he allows
us to worship him. Then it says, it's a thing to
be liked. You know, it's one thing to love
something, and it's another thing to like it. God's people get
both. It's a thing you'll like to come
worship Christ, and it's a thing of love. But it's also a lovely
thing. It's lovely. Lovely. Then it
says that it's a thing that will make you merry. It'll make you
merry to worship Christ. Then it says it's a pleasant
thing. You know, sometimes it's joyful and sometimes it's merry
and sometimes it's just pleasant. You see all the little different
variations in this? It's all there to worship Christ. It's a pleasing thing. It'll
please you. And it'll please Him. It also
is a pleasure. And it's a precious thing to
worship Christ. It's a thing to make one prosperous. I tell you, I know folks think
they make more money working on Sunday. But I'm telling you,
if you want to prosper, what What good does it do you if you
gain the whole world and lose your soul? Huh? If you want to
be prosperous, come worship Christ. It's a good thing to worship
Him. It's a precious thing. It's so precious. It's a prosperous
thing. And then, it's a thing to be
ready to do. It's so good that God's people
are ready to go do it. That's what that means. It's
such a good thing to worship Christ because it's a sweet thing.
It's a sweet thing. It's a thing of wealth. It's great wealth to you to be
able to worship Christ. And then it's for your welfare.
That's how good it is. It's good for you. And then lastly,
and remember this one especially. It is a thing to make one well. I don't care what's troubling
you, how sick you are, or what the problem is. If you want to
be well, come worship Christ. That's a pretty good thing, isn't
it? Is there anything in this world, is there anything you
can think of this morning that would do you more good than what
I just described? I don't know what it is. I really
don't. That's how good it is to come
worship. How good is our God? He put us here for the sole purpose
of worshiping His Son. And that's how good it is for
us to do. And what's the other side of
that? The scale is from good to bad?
Well, it's a bad thing to sin. And yet that's what we're born
as, as sinners. That's all we know by nature, is sin. It'll do you bad. It'll do you
bad. You young people need to understand
that. It'll do you bad. It'll do you bad to sin. All
of the All of the lying and stealing and cheating and killing and
hating God and cursing and being mean and ugly and deceitful and
vicious, all that's bad. And it's all because of what
we are. We're sinners by nature. It's
all the bad. It's the reason for the bad is
that we sin. But here's the good news. The
reason we worship Christ is because the Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one who can redeem us from the bad. He's the only one that
can take the bad and make it good. He can take our sin and
put it away. He paid the penalty for the sin
of his people at Calvary. That's what he was doing there.
His blood was shed as the punishment for our sin. And it's by his
lovingkindness that Christ died in our place. It was his lovingkindness,
and remember that word, it was his lovingkindness that he paid
the price for our sin. The other thing is, though, that
in his life, Christ, he never was bad. Can you children identify
with that? Never once was he bad. Never
once did his mom or dad go, got after him and, you know, that's
a bad thing you did. Christ never hurt that, because
he never was bad. He was always good. He was perfect. He was a perfect child. He always
did what he was supposed to, and as such, he's righteous.
And that's what we need to go into God's presence. And Christ
is not only through his loving kindness that he put away our
sin, but through his faithfulness to be good, he's given us a goodness. So we have all we need to go
into God's presence. He's taken care of our bad, and
he's given us his good. And God's people, believers,
because by faith we really believe what I just said. We really believe
that. We believe He put away our bad.
And it's not up to us to do it. And we really believe that He
was good enough for us. And nothing we do makes us any
gooder. You understand? Believers, God's people, really
believe that so much that you know what we do? We come together
just as often as we can to give Him thanks and to praise His
name for doing it. We give Him thanks for His loving
kindness. And we praise Him for His righteousness. And that's
what verse 2 says here. Verse 1 says, it's a good thing
to worship. And verse 2 says, the reason
we do it is to show forth our lovingkindness in the morning
and to show forth our faithfulness every night. See, it's so clear
there, isn't it? Why we worship and why it's a
good thing. It's a good thing to worship
Christ. So good that His people, you know what they want to do?
Day and night. Day and night. Let me tell you
something. It worries me. I was raised in
the denomination, as a Methodist, you know when we met to worship?
So-called worship? Sunday morning. And everybody
went home and that took care of it for the week. I never saw
a Bible in my house open. In fact, we didn't even take
them to church on Sunday. Didn't. The preacher might have
got up there. He read more than three or four verses. Everybody
got put out with him because he's taking too long. Nobody
had a Bible with them and nobody worshiped at home. Sunday morning,
took care of it all. You know why? I didn't think it's a good thing
to go through that. I didn't like it at all. My parents had
to force me to go. I didn't want to do it. By nature,
nobody does it. But let me tell you, it troubles
me that adults, grown-ups or whatever you think, that's what
worship is. That once a week is enough. And
I'm going to go a step further and say it bothers me some that
folks are content to meet on Sunday morning. And maybe just
Sunday night or Wednesday night occasionally. Because I'm not
making this up. What did I just say there? To
show forth our loving-kindness in the morning and by faithfulness
Does it say on some nights? Uh-oh. It says every night, doesn't
it? Every night. Let me just ask
you this. Are you ladies excited about
the fact your husband says, I think I'll start coming home once,
one night a week? You'd probably have a fit, wouldn't
you, if your wife said, I'll come home once, maybe I'll come
home two nights a week. I'll tell you what, if you're married
to somebody, every night. jobs and business takes us away.
That's not the point. It's whether you want to be there.
It's whether you desire, whether you see it as a good thing to
be there. You understand? And you say, what are you saying?
You're saying that you better come to every service or God
won't save you? Absolutely not. That's not what I'm saying. I'm
not saying that at all. What I am saying is that if God
has saved you, if God has saved you, you'll want to be in every
service. instead of looking for every
reason to not be in every service. That's the difference. That's
the whole difference. It's not... I tell you, God's
people don't worship God so they will be saved. They desire to
worship Him because they have been saved. He's made it a good
thing to us. And that's the difference. And
I tell you what, we ought to go home with some assurance.
If we love to worship, if we say it's a good thing, I like
this. Every time the door is open, I want to be there. We'll
go home and rejoice. I mean, I believe he's done something
for you. Let's rejoice in that. God's people, they enjoy it.
They find it pleasant. They find it beautiful. It's
a beautiful thing to have God's Word read. It's a fine and a
joyful thing to sing praises. It's a goodly or still thing
to come back and hear it again. God's people feel favored of
God to hear the gospel again and again and again. It cheers
the heart. It's sweet, and oh how precious
the privilege to worship again, even during the week sometimes. Every night. I didn't make that
up. You think it's an accident that
that every is there? God Almighty in His work providentially
is teaching us every night. And it's not just, you know,
it's not just public worship either. It's private.
It's private. We ought to worship Him every
night. Every night. We can worship. Don't misunderstand. When God's people come together
to worship, we need to be there. We need to make every effort
to be there. And I understand providentially we're hindered
at times, but we... I'll say this about that. Anytime,
anytime, if there's a worship service and the thought enters
my mind, gee, I'm tired. I've had a hard day. I don't
feel real good. I tell you, if God will enable
us, begging, Lord give me the strength, help me if I can. If
you can, if you can get there, you know what'll happen? Yeah, God'll make it so good
to you, you'll, you'll just go home. Oh my, how good is our
God. He let me worship Him this day. It'll be something just for you.
You'll think, what'd my pastor know? How'd he know about that?
He knew because God Almighty is so good, He plants in the
foundation of the world to fix your, fill your bucket that night.
So it's just something over time that God's faithful people will
tell you that just set a little switch. When that little, when
Satan sifts you like wheat, you're really tired. You had a hard
day. Just let that little switch go on and go. I better go. I
don't feel good. I'm going anyway. God will bless
it. He'll bless it every time. Ask
some old-timers. They'll tell you that's how it
is. That's how it is. But look here at, look at verse
3, what it says. Upon an instrument of ten strings,
and upon the psaltery, upon the harp with a solemn sound. It
encourages me. The last time I was here, I went
home and my pastor said, well, how are services over there?
And I said, man, I said, I enjoyed the song service over there.
I said, buddy, they sing. They sing. And I know why they
sing. It's praise to our God, and it's
a good thing. And I appreciate it that, you
know, that you... But now, it's saying something
here that I want you to hear and understand. Using a piano,
that's a stringed instrument there. It's got little hammers
hitting the strings. The instruments are a good thing
in the worship of God. I never thought I'd hear a saxophone
used as a worship instrument, but Dan Cober can make it so.
I don't much care for the accordion, but Johnna Culver can play one
in such a way. She can play Amazing Grace on
that thing, and it's worshipful. It's a good thing. You say, well,
that means all instruments in all ways. No, I didn't say that.
No. On our local TV, we got a religious
station now, and the thing they're doing now is they get about five
or six women up there with tambourines and And I mean, they're dancing. This wild dancing is becoming
sort of a thing now, too, with the music. And it's because of
the rhythm they're using, a wild rhythm, and they're carrying
on. And they're getting electric guitars really going. And nothing wrong with electric
guitar. It could be played. That's a string instrument that
could be used and wouldn't be a problem. Here's the key to
understanding this whole thing about music, I'm convinced, is
you see the last three words of verse 3. a solemn sound. John, I don't,
I've never heard a banjo played in a, I love hearing a banjo,
but I've never heard one played in a worship service, but I'm
convinced you could play one in such a way that it could be
worshipful. I'm convinced you could do it
in a solemn way. Because you love God, you reverence
Him, that's what it means to have reverence. And the best
way I know to illustrate this is, and I'll be careful with
this, I've used this illustration once before and one of the men
in the back of the church at 13th Street said about eight
children jumped totally out of the pew, so I'm warning you,
I'm going to yell a minute here, but the, if, if, Jannie, if I
said, if Rick said to you, of course I enjoyed the meal, I
love you, you know that, Or on the other hand, if you
did this, if you weren't... Oh, you know I love you and you know
I appreciate you cooking and all that stuff. You know, neither
one of those has any solemnity to it. But on the other hand,
after a meal, if he came up to you and put his hands on your
cheeks and looked in your eyes and said, I thought that was
the best meal. I appreciate you doing all this
for me. I love you so much. And you like that right well,
don't you? Listen, the Lord Jesus Christ
doesn't want to be screamed at. He's not, it's not worship. Laughing and carrying on being
wild, it is a, any instrument you want to play, if it's reverently
done with a solemn sound, it's worship. Understand? And there's
how we need to learn to differentiate. Because worship is a good thing,
even in the singing. Look now, let's look at verses. We're going to go to two more
verses, but let me say this. Most modern religion is based
on the premise that members of the group, they attend certain
requirements, attend services, they witness, they teach, they
have youth meetings, they give, they do works and all this sort
of thing, and they do it in order to get a reward. They intend
to go to heaven someday. Or it's that it will make you
healthy and wealthy. That's the new religion today
is, you know, God's punishing you because you do this and that
and the other, or God's prospering you because of this. You did
this and do that and the other. Listen. That whole premise is if you
do enough good, God will make you glad now and he'll make you
glad someday. Look at verse four and five here.
Totally the contrary. Verse four says, For thou, Lord,
has made me glad through my works." Is that what he said? No, not
my works, through thy works. He says, I'll triumph in the
works of my hands. No, thy hands. Oh Lord, how great
are my works. Is that what he said? No, thy
works. And my thoughts are very deep.
No, mine are shallow. His thoughts are deep. You see where the blessing of
worship is? It's in It's in praising Christ for His works. The good
things, the good work of Christ is in salvation. It's so wonderful
to God's children that they can't possibly thank Him enough or
praise Him enough. It takes lots of worship to begin
to express our gratitude and thanks and praise. Every night,
every day, in public and private worship, we want to worship Christ.
So you say, well, why doesn't everybody want to worship Christ?
Here's the answer to that in verse six. A brutish man knows
not. Neither does a fool understand
this. Fools don't understand that it's
a good thing to worship Christ. They really don't. Don't understand.
And by nature, not a one of us finds the worship of Christ a
good thing. Let's be honest. By nature, I tell you, if there's
not a time at which you didn't think this was a waste of time,
and you're kidding yourself. Every one of us by nature used
to think coming to church was a waste of time. We used to be
bored with it. That's what the word brutish
there, the way this reads is that the bored man, the bored
man doesn't know anything. And that's what people are. Every
person who finds the worship of God a comfort or a pleasure,
or joy, something to look forward to, if they find it a good thing,
then go home with some assurance and be blessed. But on the other
hand, listen, let me warn you, if this flat bores you to death,
then get concerned. Get concerned because there's
nothing boring about what's going on here. And if it bores us to
death, listen, I know, let me tell you, as one who stands up
here and talks to pastors, do you know what the most heart-rending
thing there is to a pastor. Anybody standing up for preaching,
you know what it is? It's somebody who's bored to sleep. I just
have to tell you, it just, it just, it just, I can tell you,
it just sucks the air out of your pastor's heart, out of his
lungs. If we just, and listen, I am
guilty. I've sat where you've sat. I'll tell you the number one
thing I do about it, is I'd get some rest the night before I
came. I really would. Most Wednesday nights, the pastor
understands, man's worked hard on his job, he may be tired. I tell you, on Sunday morning,
there's no reason for anybody to be sleeping. You know why? We just
need to go to bed. I tell you what, if we had a
meeting with the president tonight, no, maybe not him, but with,
sorry. If we had an important meeting
tomorrow, and our entire livelihood, our boss, or somebody really
important, I tell you what, we'd study for it, we'd be sharp,
we'd be prepared, we'd get enough rest. You seen that ad going
on now, Never Underestimate the Benefit of a Good Night's Sleep?
They introduce that guy on the podium up there, and he's just
clapping away. It's him! But he didn't get enough sleep,
so he doesn't know who's even being introduced. If we're sleeping
through the service, we don't even know who we're worshipping.
And I'm not getting on you all about that, I'm really not. But
it is a practical thing that we need to go to good night's
rest. We would for anything else important, wouldn't we? If we're
going to sleep through worshipping our God? I tell you, it's either
we need more rest or we don't know Him. That we don't know
who He is, we don't know who we're worshipping. And this is too serious, listen
now, this is too serious. for me to, you say, boy, you're
getting in my pocket now with this. This is pretty personal
here, Bob. Well, if it applies, maybe it ought to be personal.
I mean, I don't want to miss Christ. Do you? No, the consequences
are too severe. If we're too bored or too aloof
to join in the singing of phrases to Christ, well, maybe we've
missed him. And look at the consequences.
It says right here, I didn't put the sequence in this song
that God Almighty did by his Holy Spirit. And he just gets
through saying that that the bird man is a fool doesn't understand. And then what's it say about
it? Verse seven, when the wicked spring is grass and when all
the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed
forever. Well, that's a pretty serious
consequence. Am I supposed to sit up here and go, oh, don't
worry about it, if you just, you know, don't worry if the
worship isn't good, huh? Verse 9, it says, for lo, the
enemies of God, thine enemies, O Lord, for lo, thine enemies
shall perish. All the workers of iniquity are
going to be scattered, destroyed. It's too serious for us to just
gloss over this. When wheat is harvested, you
know how that works? They harvest the wheat out of
the field. And you know what's always in
the midst of the wheat? Are some tares. Now you know what they
do with the wheat? They make bread. You know what
they do with the tares? They set it on fire. They set
it on fire. And listen, even if the tares
grew in the same field as the wheat, and even if they sat in
the same pew, They're set on fire. Folks, it's too serious
now. This is too serious. And Christ
knows the difference between wheat and tares. Christ knows
the difference between believers and shall we call pretenders?
Pretenders? The reason Christ knows the difference
between wheat and tares and believers and pretenders is that the only
difference between the two is His grace. And because He gave
it to them, He knows who has it, and He knows who doesn't.
And we may sit here and fool one another with our piety and
with our, you know, so-called worship or whatever, but God
Almighty knows the heart. He knows where there's grace
in the heart, and He knows where it's not. And let's not, I mean,
I said this one time, Henry sent me one time to preach to a church
nobody had ever been to, and I made the statement in the midst
of that message that Similar to this, I said, it's too. As
a matter of salvation, it's too important. I said, if I don't
know Christ, I want to know right now. I want to know this morning.
I don't want to go another minute. I hope God Almighty will open
my eyes and my heart to see who I am and who Christ is. And I
tell you, they all were up in arms after the service. You mean
you're up there preaching and you don't know whether you know
him? I said, well, I think I do, but I don't want to presume.
I said, I don't want to sit there You know, like a bored, dumb
man, and wake up one day and have God Almighty shake me awake
and go, I never knew you. It's too important. It says right
here what he's done. You don't burn him up. Burn us
up. And right in the middle though,
right in the middle of those two verses of warning, look what
verse eight says. But thou, Lord, are most high
forevermore." Right in the middle. And I'll tell you what that is
saying. It's saying that God is so, so omnipotent, so sovereign,
so majestic, so wonderful, so in control, that even though
he preaches the gospel to some and they perish, because they
will not hear it, they're bored with it, they just are a fool
and have no God, So he's wrong here.