And once again, we're looking
in the Psalms here. Psalm 96. Oh, sing unto the Lord a new
song. Sing unto the Lord all the earth.
Sing unto the Lord, bless His name. Show forth His salvation
from day to day. Declare His glory among the heathen,
His wonders among all people. For the Lord is great and greatly
to be praised. He is to be feared above all
gods. For all the gods of the nations
are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. But honor and majesty
are before him. Strength and beauty are in his
sanctuary. Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds
of the people. Give unto the Lord glory and
strength. Give unto the Lord the glory
due unto his name. Bring an offering and come into
his courts. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness. Fear before him all the earth.
Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth. The world also
shall be established that it shall not be moved. He shall
judge the people righteously. Let the heavens rejoice and let
the earth be glad. Let the sea roar and the fullness
thereof. Let the field be joyful and all
that is therein. Then shall all the trees of the
wood rejoice before the Lord, before he cometh. For he cometh
to judge the earth, he shall judge the world with righteousness
and the people with his truth. Now we have mentioned before
concerning this matter of singing unto the Lord a new song. It
doesn't mean that every day you need to get up and write a new
song. It would be good if you did,
but that's not what it means. It means to sing the praises
of God with a new consideration. That is, His praises are new
every morning. His mercies are new every morning.
So His praises therein ought to be new every morning in our
heart, singing to the Lord a new song, not just going through
the motions. You know, we have these hymn
books, and I'm thankful that we do, that God has given to
men over time the ability to write these thoughts down in
such a manner that causes us joy when we sing them. But we
don't have to have the hymn books in order to sing a new song unto
the Lord. And when we sing out of these
hymn books, we ought not to just be doing it because there's some
words written on the page. I remember when I was growing
up, The idea most of the time, or at least this is the way it
came across to me, is that they wanted to get through the song
just as fast as they could. And they would sing, I never
knew you could sing all the verses to a hymn. You know, it was always
the first, second, and last. It didn't make a difference how
many verses the song had, and it didn't really matter what
the song said. Because what they was doing, basically, was just
trying to do it. They knew they needed to sing,
because everybody else did. And so, you know, that was just
what you did when you went to church. You sang some songs.
And so they'd do it, and buddy, they'd get through it, and that
was it. And I'm not saying that everybody,
nobody, you know, had thoughts of worship in the midst of that.
Of course they did. But in great measure, a lot of
it was just going through a motion. And that's exactly what the psalmist
is saying here. Oh, singing to the Lord a new
song. I mean, this is a glorious thing. Even if we've sung a song a thousand
times, it can be new to us as we contemplate what that song
is. Sing unto the Lord all the earth. That pretty well sums it up as
far as who owes worship unto the Lord. No, it's not just the
people of God, but it's the whole earth. Let the world rejoice
before the Lord. They have an obligation. We have
an obligation to praise God. Now we don't, hopefully we don't
praise God simply out of an obligation, but all men have an obligation
to worship the one true and living God. No man that's born into
this world can say he doesn't have the demands of God or that
he fall and worship before him. Now all men don't do that. And
by the grace of God, we wouldn't either, except by the grace of
God, to cause us to desire that. But God's people, of all people
in the earth, We take these things to heart, sing unto the Lord.
Bless his name. That is be rejoicing in his name. Bless his name. Thank the Lord. The word blessing in the scripture
is connected with happiness. It's connected with prosperity.
Now unfortunately, the concept of prosperity has been hijacked. in this present age, and people
think of prosperity, they think of material gain. And there's
even a lot of preachers that go out into the world, they call
themselves preachers, trying to get people to serve God in
order that they might be prosperous in this world. Now we don't believe
in evolution, we believe in kind bringing forth like kind. And
so spiritual obedience does not produce carnal prosperity. The whole idea that men can do
something to cause God to do something is a backwards thinking. There's not a man on the earth
that's ever walked one moment in obedience to God that hadn't
done so because God caused him to be obedient. Men don't obey
God and then God says, oh look at him, he's being obedient,
I'm gonna bless him. Now that's the way that the natural
mind works, is it not? We think that we can come before
God and we can do certain things and buddy, God's gonna bless
us because of it. Now God does bless his people
in obedience. I mean, the keeping of God's
commandments is a blessing in itself. I mean, you pause and
think about the blessing that there is upon men that the Lord
made these laws. Now, men despise them, and because
of the weakness of our heart, we can't keep them in spirit
and truth, that's for sure. But yet all of the commandments
of God are designed for the benefit of mankind. Everything that God
has done, he's poured out his mercy and kindness. And the,
something just as simple as Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Now we're not Sabbath keepers in the sense that the carnal
mind thinks of it. We don't set aside a day where
we just sit around and afraid to move or whatever the Lord
said. Man wasn't made for the Sabbath, but he said the Sabbath
was made for man. A man can't go seven days a week month after month without it
affecting him severely. So even just in a carnal consideration
of resting one day out of seven is a good thing. It's a blessing
unto men. Now when the Lord is pleased
to teach you that Christ is your Sabbath, He's that place of great
rest, then it's but a simple thing to consider that you would
take time out of your busy schedule to worship Him, to come together
with God's people as the Lord said, forsake not the assembling
of yourselves together. So that's just a normal thing
for the people of God. It's not a thing out of the ordinary.
But it's a good thing. I mean, the highlight of my time
in this earth is when I can get together with God's people in
a desire to worship Christ together. Because brethren, there's no
sweeter thing. I mean, it's like the oil that
ran down Aaron's beard. You know, how lovely, how beautiful
is it for brethren to dwell together in unity? What a glorious thing
when we lift up the name of Christ. What a wondrous thing. Sing unto
the Lord. Bless His name. Be happy in it. Prosper in that. Show forth His salvation from
day to day. Now that is what we've been sent
into the world to do. to preach the gospel is to show
forth the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not to try
to get folks to do something, but it's to tell folks what Christ
has done. See, that's what the preaching
of the gospel is. It doesn't have anything to do
with all these different methods and ways that men have come up
with to try to get people converted. But it is to declare what Christ
did, who He is, and what He did. I mean, if you want to know how
to preach the gospel, look at what Peter told the nation of
Israel on the day of Pentecost. What did he preach about? He
preached about Christ. He said, this is the man, this
is the one whom God sent into the world. And that's what we've
been sent to do, to show forth His salvation. Because the salvation
of the Lord is found in Jesus Christ. His name means Jehovah
is salvation. That's what the word Jesus literally
means. So we show forth the salvation
of the Lord when we declare the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfections
that He has set forth and the redemptive work that He came
to perform. Declare the glory, His glory
among the heathen in the preaching of the gospel. Now you can't
declare the glory of God to the heathen in the sense that you
can cause the heathen to hear what you're saying. But you can
most assuredly bear witness of what Christ has done unto the
world. That's why the Lord told His
disciples to go, therefore, teaching all nations. We go into the world
indiscriminately. We don't pick and choose. We
don't go out here knowing who the elect of God are. We don't
have any idea who they are. And you won't know that until
such time as we all stand in the presence of God. That's the
only time that you're ever going to know that. But we are sent
with a message to declare the gospel far and wide to the heathen. That is, and of course this word
heathen here in this context means the Gentiles. Because,
I mean, of course, the psalmist speaking here to the Jews, and
of course they considered themselves to be the children of God, and
all the rest of the world were the heathen. What he said, go
to the Gentiles. Now this was a thing that they
were not very... moved to do because they were
more content to sit on their laurels and sit around and brag
about being the children of Abraham. And the Lord came to them and
they said, we'd be the children of Abraham. He said, no, you're
not Abraham's children. He said, you're children of the
devil. For he which is a Jew is one
which is one inwardly, and he that circumcised not in the flesh
but in the heart. So it is that we declare the
gospel to all men, but knowing this, that only the Lord can
cause the heathen to hear. His wonders, tell His wonders
among all people indiscriminately, for the Lord is great and greatly
to be praised. He is to be feared above all
gods. Now we talked a little bit about
that last week. There's a lot of gods. out there. I mean, there's gods on every
corner. People make up gods to suit them. I mean, everybody's
got their own god. There's very few people that
don't have a god. I mean, they talk to him every
day. Everybody talks about praying.
I mean, I hear people a lot of times that I know have no concern
whatsoever about things of God, but yet they say, well, we'll
be praying for you. Well, what are they talking about?
Who are they praying to? I mean, what are they doing?
God's not just some generic God that's sitting around waiting
for folks to do something. There's one God. He's the Lord
of lords. And all the gods of men, the
gods of men's imaginations don't amount to anything. In fact,
he said, for all the gods of the nations are idols. That word
idol just simply means empty. I mean, David spoke about them.
He said, you know, they don't have any hands. They don't have
any feet. They don't have any mouths. He
said, but our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he had
pleased. Now you see, that's the true
God. He's the God of all gods. The nations, the gods of the
nation doesn't make any difference what the God is. Now you often
hear And, of course, the politicians, they pretty well have to toe
this line to go along, you know. It would be interesting. I don't
know how it would come out, but, well, I do, but he wouldn't ever
get elected. But if a man just stood up and
just told the truth, there's one God, and his name is Jesus
Christ the righteous. And he died for sinners. I mean,
And there's no other way unto the Father except through Him.
But you see, the more politically correct thing is to say people
of faith, of all different faiths. Well, carnal men have all kinds
of faiths. A lot of people have faith. I
had faith this morning at the card crank up when I got in it.
And my faith was good, I guess, because I believed that the car
cranked up. I mean, that's what a lot of
people think, is it not? That if you believe something
strong enough, it'll happen. But you know, a lot of times
with the same type of faith, I went out there, hit the key,
and the battery was dead, and it didn't crank. So that shows
you how much good that is. It's not about what men do. It's
not about what men say. It's not about what God they
claim to serve. There's one God. There's one
mediator between God and man, and it is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Lord is greatly to
be praised. He's to be feared above all gods. Our God is a consuming fire. He's greatly to be praised. All
the gods of men are but idols. They're empty, but God, the Lord. Now, when you see the word Lord
capitalized in the King James Version, the word that's translated
there in Hebrew is Jehovah, Yahweh. There's one God, and he made
the earth. And he demonstrated his redemption
in Jesus Christ. Jehovah is salvation. Honor and
majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his
sanctuary. Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds
of the people. Give unto the Lord glory and
strength. Now how can you give the Lord
strength? I mean, he's got all power, so
you can't give it to him in that respect. When it's speaking about
giving, it means recognizing. In other words, give praise unto
the Lord. Magnify His name. Give unto the
Lord the glory due unto His name. It's not just giving glory, but
it's due unto Him. You know, when you got a banknote
and it's due, You can't put it off, can you? Well, you can,
but I mean, if you wanna keep whatever it is you put up for
collateral, you better pay it, or they'll come get it. Well,
the Lord's, our praise is due unto His name, you see. Give
Him the praise that's due unto His name. Well, what kind of
praise is that? It's complete, it's perfect, it's entire. Now,
we are not capable of giving Him That perfect praise. But in Jesus Christ, we do praise
Him. Because He is that great God.
Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name. Bring an offering
and come into His courts. What offering would the Lord
have us to bring? I don't know but one. It's the offering of the blood
of Jesus Christ. Oh dear brethren, when a man
comes in before the presence of God with such an offering
as that, he'll never be turned away. Because that is the perfect
offering. It's the only offering. that
the Lord will receive. Now those who are in Christ,
the scripture says, bring therefore the offering of praise, the fruit
of our lips giving, what? Thanks unto the Lord. That's
the offering we bring, is thank you, Lord, for the salvation
we have in Jesus Christ. We praise Him. Give unto the
Lord, bring an offering and come to His courts. Oh, worship the
Lord and the beauty of holiness, fear before him all the earth."
Holiness, what is that? Now some people think it's how
you wear your hair. on what kind of clothes you wear,
or whether or not you go to the picture show or chew tobacco
or stuff like that. I mean, that's what people think
of when they think about holiness. But while there may be some benefit
in all of those things, I'm not telling you one way or the other.
But what I do know this, that the holiness with which we come
into the presence of God is again found in Jesus Christ who's made
unto us wisdom, sanctification, and redemption. He is that one
who is our holiness before the Lord. If you're going to be holy
before the Lord, if you're going to live in a holy way, then it's
going to have to be in Christ. There's no other way, and it
is a beautiful thing. The beauty of holiness, fear
before Him all the earth, because the Lord is holy. Now when we
think of what the word holy means, that's a word that that describes
the Lord apart from mankind. See, we can't really speak of
men as being holy, but the Lord is holy. What does that mean?
It means he's set apart. That's what the word holy means.
In other words, we're here and he's here. And there's no way
for us to get there because that's where He is. You see, He is eternal.
I believe that as you go through the Scripture that the concept
of holiness and the concept of immortality that the Lord has,
He alone hath immortality. That is the holiness. See, we
can't go there. We can't have holiness in ourselves,
of ourselves. We can't have life of ourselves. We'll never have life of ourselves. Our life stems from Him. He gives
us eternal life. And so we live because He lives. And that is that holiness that
He has. Fear before Him, all the earth. We do tremble at the mention
of His name. Man that doesn't fear God is
ignorant. You know, and he's a fool. And there is no remedy
for that, except that the Lord should change a man's heart.
Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth. The world shall
be established, that it shall not be moved. He shall judge
the people righteously. Thy God reigneth. See, that's
the message that we have. What a glorious message it is.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and the King of glory shall come
in. He reigns. He rules. He's a majestic
Savior. He's not trying to get folks
to do stuff. He has accomplished the redemption
of His people, and He is a triumphant Savior of sinners. Now, that's a glorious message
for a sinner. Now, for a religious man, it gets kind of, well, you
know, you got to be careful with that. Because you might get some
folks out here that think that the Lord's just done it all.
That'd be a terrible thing, wouldn't it, huh? I mean, but that's how
people think. That's a bad thing. Well, you
can't tell people that the Lord did everything while people won't
do nothing. Oh, that men might know and understand
that thy God reigneth. He has done all. And He'll bring
His people to Himself in His own time. He is a triumphant
Savior. Say among the heathen that the
Lord reigneth. The world also shall be established
that it shall not be moved. He shall judge the people righteously.
That is the Lord, the earth's gonna go according to the way
the Lord has designed for it to go. Now the Scripture says
that the elements are gonna melt with fire and heat. And so that,
if you think about that, it says that the world also shall be
established that it shall not be moved. Well, this planet,
these things that we see, the scripture says, they are going
to melt with the fire of the heat. They're gonna be destroyed.
But the world will be established, because you see, the world is
not the earth. The world is the creation of
God. He established it and it can't
be destroyed. He shall judge the people righteously. Let the heavens rejoice. Let
the earth be glad. Let the sea roar in the fullness
thereof. Let the field be joyful in all
that is therein. Then shall all the trees of the
wood rejoice. I remember one time I was reading
and the book of Isaiah. I think it's in Isaiah. But anyway,
it says, the trees of the field shall clap their hands. And I
was walking down the road one day, walking up to my mama's
house, exactly. And the wind was blowing, and
I looked up in the tree, and the leaves were just doing like
that. And the Lord brought that scripture to my mind, the trees
of the field shall clap their hands. Brethren, all of the creation
is going to praise the one who made it. I remember John Bunyan
writing in a little children's book, he said that each time
that the chicken goes to the trough to get some water. He
says he holds his head up and looks up to the Lord. Did you
ever watch the chicken drink? Of course, they got to do that
to get the water to run down. But he said they praise God every
time that a wolf or a dog howls at the moon. The creation praises
the one who made it. Now they don't have any understanding
of anything, but something goes through their mind when they
see that, because God put it there. the creation, let the
field be joyful, let all that's therein. Then shall all the trees
of the wood rejoice before the Lord, for He cometh." Now that
is the message, you see, that the Lord taught Israel from Nogain,
that He was coming. Now they look for His coming,
but you see by natural understanding when He came, They didn't know
who he was, because they thought they did. They thought they had
a handle on this. Well, we got this figured out.
Well, you know, I mean, when this happens, this happens, and
that happens. Now, we got all these different prophets of one
stripe and another running around, and they're telling us when the
Lord's coming back. And they got it figured out and
predicted, and this is gonna happen, and that's gonna happen,
and this and all that. Now, I don't know about any of
that stuff. and don't claim to know it. I do know this, that
when the Lord says that he is coming back to gather that which
is his own, he means it. Because when he said that he
was coming, as the prophets of old predicted that he would come,
he did come. He didn't come in the fashion
that they thought he would. But he did come to accomplish
exactly what he set out to do and he did accomplish it and
he obtained eternal redemption for his people. He comes. Who is this that cometh from
Edom with thy garments from Basra? See the prophet could look and
he could see this one. Why are you going in this red
apparel? He said it's because of the blood
of my enemies that are sprinkled upon my garments. I that speak
in righteousness, mighty to save, thy God reigneth. He's the king,
for he cometh to judge the earth. Now he came one time to judge
the earth, and he did, he judged it with righteousness. He established
righteousness as a plumb line. And that is the standard of righteousness.
If a man would be righteous before Almighty God, there is but one
standard of righteousness which is pleasing in the Lord's sight.
And he has judged the world by that standard. He's not judged
the world by the standard of sincerity. He's not judged the
world by the standard of what faith they had. But he's judged
the world on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
And he's coming back, the scripture says, in his own time. When that will be, I don't know.
It might be soon. It might be a long time in the
future. I don't know. And we don't need
to spend a lot of time trying to figure out when that'll be,
but by the grace of God, as He works in the hearts of His people,
we can, with one heart and one accord, say, even so come, Lord
Jesus. Because that is that which we
desire, rather than to continue. What if you could continue on
in this world? I mean, what if you just kept
on going? I mean, if I was as, got in as
bad a shape as far as my joints and this, that, and the other,
in this little old period of time that I'm in, think how I'd
be in 100 years. I mean, so people, that's not
what the Lord didn't come to, to give us eternal life so we
could live in an old decrepit existence. but he comes back
to judge the world in righteousness, and the scripture says that he
is going to separate the sheep from the goats. Now in that day,
we'll know who the elect are and who the reprobate are, because
he's going to separate them. He already knows who they are.
The Lord knows them that are his. They belong to him, and
he's coming to judge the world in righteousness, and those who
are in Christ are already judged to be righteous. See, you know
all this business about, oh, you've got to one day give an
account. Well, brother, if you believe, and I believe that the
men who are outside of Christ, they are going to give an account.
But brethren, our account has already been settled. There's
no accounting to be done. Our account is settled in Christ.
And we stand in Him. It's all this business about
your life's going to go up here on a projector screen and they're
going to see where you did this and you did that. Christ already
took care of that for His people. But indeed, He shall judge the
world with righteousness and the people with His truth. Who
is the truth? The way, the truth, and the life.
Jesus Christ. That is who the One is that's
going to judge men. The Lord looketh on the heart.
Now that causes me to fear and tremble as I think of it. But the Lord is going to look
at men and there's not going to be a place of excuse when
men stand before Him. None at all. Oh, to be found
in Christ is our desire.