Looking here in Psalm, the book
of Psalms. Last week we looked at Psalm
91, and we'll look at Psalm 92. It is a good thing to give thanks
unto the Lord and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High, to
show forth thy lovingkindness in the morning and thy faithfulness
every night. upon an instrument of 10 strings,
and upon the psaltery, upon the harp with a solemn sound. For thou, Lord, hast made me
glad through thy work. I will triumph in the works of
thy hands. O Lord, how great are thy works,
and thy thoughts are very deep. A brutish man knoweth not, neither
doth a fool understand this. When the wicked spring is the
grass and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is
that they shall be destroyed forever. But thou, Lord, art
most high forevermore. For lo, thine enemies, O Lord,
for lo, thine enemies shall perish. All the workers of iniquity shall
be scattered. But my horn shalt thou exalt
like the horn of a unicorn. I shall be anointed with fresh
oil. Mine eye also shall see my desire
on mine enemies, and mine ears shall hear my desire of the wicked
that rise up against me. The righteous shall flourish
like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in
Lebanon. Those that be planted in the
house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They
shall still bring forth fruit in old age. They shall be fat
and flourishing. to show that the Lord is upright.
He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him. Amen. Now, the title of this
psalm is a Psalm or Song for the Sabbath Day. Now, the Lord instituted the Sabbath
to the nation of Israel and he had very high regard unto
that day. But the reason that that day
is regarded in the purpose of God in giving it was not that
he has He looks on a calendar and each week he looks at a particular
day and he says, this is my special day. But the reason that the
Sabbath was given twofold, one to be a memorial of the fact
that the Lord rested on the Sabbath day from all his labors. Now,
as a little kid, hearing that, I used to picture that, you know,
the Lord, he did all this work and he was tired and he decided
he'd sat down in the rocking chair and so he rested from all
that he did. But of course, that's not at
all what it means. What it means is that the Lord
was satisfied with what He did, and He brought it to a close,
even as the Lord Jesus Christ, when He hung on the cross, He
said, it is finished. He rested from all His works.
He stopped. That's it. Nothing else needed
to be done. And so the Sabbath, the joy and
the glory of the Sabbath is not in the day of the week that it
falls on the calendar, but it is that Christ is our Sabbath. Christ is our rest. He's that
one in whom we desire not to go any further. That's as far
as we need to go. And so when we consider the Sabbath
day, we need to keep our mind completely
away from calendars and periods of time because that's not the
Sabbath of the children of God. There is a Sabbath keeping to
the children of God. And that Sabbath keeping is Christ. He's that one who is our Sabbath. He's our rest. And so we don't
have regard to a day. Now having said that, the Lord
in His wisdom in creating the earth and making man upon the
earth, He made man in such a way that he needs to cease from his
own physical labor at some point in time. It's not going to do
you any good to work seven days a week. because your body will
eventually break down with you. The Lord gave men a rest from
their own labors. He has also given us a day which We come together. This is a rest
to us, is it not? I mean, it's a rejuvenation.
It's that wherein our soul is fed and our spirit is enlivened
because we come together and we're ministered to by the brethren. Note that the ministry of the
church is not a man. The ministry of the church is
that work which the saints of God, one to the other, perform
for the other. Now I've often said that one
of the reasons that we come together, that the Lord's given us a time
when we might come together, and so that we might look around
and be encouraged by the fact that we can look over there and
we can say, well, he hadn't quit. You know, I mean, the Lord's
still faithful. He's still keeping him going.
Because you know, from time to time, we get through, as we go
through the week, and our weakness overtakes us. And our doubts
and fears come upon us. But when we come together as
brethren in the Lord, we're strengthened by that which every joint supplied.
And it is a ministry of the saints, one to the other. So that's as
much important. There's as much importance in
that as there could ever be in somebody getting up and talking. Now we know that the Lord is
pleased to lead us. He gives gifts in the church
that are beneficial to the body. But the ministry of the Word
is no more important than the ministry of the saints one to
the other. All of these things come together to make the whole.
And so that none is to be regarded above the other. And it is a
blessing. What a joy it is when brethren
dwell together in unity. Now, this psalm, which we believe
to be written by David, doesn't particularly tell us that it
is, He says it is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. It is a good thing. It's a refreshing
thing. It's that which is a blessed
thing unto men. It's beneficial to men for our
own sake. But it is good because it is
proper to give thanks unto the Lord because He's provided for
us all things. What do we have that we have
not received? Now, you know, men often think
of their own accomplishments. And we look at the accomplishments
of others and we pat them on the back and we say, yo, what
a good job you did and all that stuff. And there's a place for
all of that. The overall and consideration
that the children of God need to have is that all things come
from the Lord. I mean, why were we born where
we are or anything else? I mean, we have really, when
you really look at things, you have so little control over anything
that goes on. You know, even the things that
we're sure that we control. I mean, you know, I picked out
a pair of socks this morning to put on. I did that. But you know, I didn't have a
thing in the world to do with the making of the fabric. And all of those things, I don't
know if it was all synthetic or if it was something, maybe
it was made out of cotton or something like that. I didn't
have anything to do with causing those seeds to grow up and that
fibers to be put together. I mean, how did man ever figure
out how to do that? Now somebody along the line thinks
that they came up with how to do that. Just like people come
up with You know, they say, well, they came up with a cure for
this disease. And these various doctors, like
Dr. Salk, I think it was, was the
inventor of the polio vaccine. And people say, oh, what a great
man Dr. Salk was. But how did Dr. Salk know to
do these things? Where did the thoughts come to
him in his mind in how that he would put these things together?
How did he know anything about that? All of that comes from
the Lord. It's a good thing to give thanks
unto the Lord and to sing praises unto His name. You know, music
is a wonderful gift that God has given unto men. And He gives
greater gifts in being able to produce music than He does to
others. But I believe that the ultimate
purpose of the giving of music is to bring praise unto His name. And so, it is a glorious thing
to be able to sing unto the Lord in the voice that He's given
us. And some people have better voices than others. But all,
but the praise of a man is not measured in how well he can hold
to a tune or how much in time he is or whatever, but it is
the praise of God with which he is pleased. He is pleased
to dwell, the scripture says, in the praises of his people.
And so it is that the Lord's pleased with the praise of his
people. Because true praise is always
going to be that which has Christ as its center. And so, any music
that men make which is not centered in Christ is really useless.
I mean, you know, people that make music might not like to
hear that, but nonetheless, Apart from using music to praise the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ, it's really just kind of useless,
just like all of the endeavors of men really are useless, except
they be turned to give praise unto the Lord. Oh, give thanks
unto the Lord, for he is good. Sing praises to thy name, most
high. to show forth thy lovingkindness
in the morning and thy faithfulness every night. Now the Lord is
kind to all of his creation. Kindness is part of his nature. He is kind in all things, but
that word there, lovingkindness, is only reserved for the people
of God. The loving kindness of the Lord
is given unto his people. Those upon whom he has said his
love. Those for whom Christ died, poured out his blood that they
might have eternal life and his faithfulness. The Lord's faithful
to his creation. The sun comes up in the morning
or the earth rotates around where the sun is every morning, however
you want to think about it. We won't get into a controversy
about that, but nonetheless, the Lord is the one who faithfully
put those things there so that they faithfully go about. Now,
why is it that all of the planets, if this is true, that they all
go around and you can predict where it's going to be? They've
got calendars that you made right on out, thousands, you know,
I mean, these things never change. Why not? Because God is faithful. You know, that's the only reason
that it is, but the faithfulness of God is primarily demonstrated
in the giving of Jesus Christ in the behalf of his people as
he came forth to die for us. And this is why that he gave
us this supper that we might not forget, because we do forget. And you know, this is just bread
that's made by the hands of men, women, Women and men are really
the same thing in that respect. And made from common ingredients,
nothing special about it. And the wine, the same way, it's
just, you know, we don't have any idea who grew the grapes
or where it came from or whatever, but here it is. But the Lord
gave us these things that we might be reminded He said, remember
my death. Paul said, we ought to remember
his death till he comes. And each time that I think of
this partaking, I'm reminded of how Paul described it. He
said, in the same night in which he was betrayed, the Lord gave
these things. He said to his disciples, this
is my blood which is shed for you, this is my body which is
broken for you. May the Lord give us grace this
day to take these elements as they are given. Who is to partake
of this? Well, it's certainly not those
that look at themselves and consider themselves to be worthy, as I
have often heard men say. You know, we examine ourselves,
see if we're worthy. Well, if you examine yourself
and you find yourself to be worthy in that respect, then you have
missed the whole thing, because we'll never be worthy to partake
of it. But the man who is worthy to
take of this, is the man who, after examining himself, he says,
Lord, save me, for I perish. Amen. Without thee I'm nothing. As Jonah, as Brother Al brought
forth earlier, as Jonah, or as Tim brought forth, Brother, it
was in his comments. Salvations of the Lord. That's
what we do when we come here today, is to confess that this,
not these things, but what this represents is our only hope,
our only expectation. Without Him, we perish. His body
and His blood given for us. That is our hope and our expectation. Because we take this knowing
This is a temporary thing. We're not gonna do this through
the ages to come. Because when that which is perfect
is come, that which is in part shall be done away. And this
is an in part thing. It's like a picture that we look
at. But whenever we see him face to face, then all of those things
will be passed away. But may the Lord give us a mind
to take these things in a right consideration. The scripture
says that the Lord took the bread, he blessed it, and he gave it
to his disciples. Let's ask the Lord to bless the
bread. Father, we ask you that you would bless this bread. Lord, let us remember your body
broken for our sake. Lord, even as our body was broken
for us, may our hearts be broken as we consider why it was that
it was necessary for you to give yourself. But then, Lord, as
we eat this bread, may joy fill our hearts to remember that you
have performed a perfect work, that it is finished. And upon
that we rest. Thank you, Lord. We ask it in
Christ's name. Amen. He said, this is my body which is
broken for you. After they had supped, after
they had eaten the bread, the Lord took the cup and he said, this is the New
Testament in my blood. And he commanded them all to
drink of it. Brother Joe, would you ask the
Lord to bless the wine? Lord, we want to thank you so
very much, Father, for you've given pure blood for us. We just don't really understand
all of that. It's just hard for us to understand
that much love. We are just so undone. so imperfect, Lord. We can't
understand why you would love us when we're unlovely. We don't treat you with respect. We don't do the things that we
ought to do. And yet you loved us and you
gave yourself for us on that cross. We don't even take time
to really think about all that. It was so wonderful that you
did it. You chose us, Lord, and we didn't
choose you. We didn't give anything for it,
but you did. You gave everything. All I can say is, Lord, I thank you
so much. That seems so feeble to say that
because I don't even understand what that
means, really. But I thank you, Father, that
you cared enough for somebody like me that was so unworthy and still
unworthy. I deserve to be there with the
devil and his angels. cup. Yes. As we remember what
you did. Lord, we know you're coming back
to take us out of this mess. We as people have made a mess
of this life. If we can't see that in what
Noah went through, only eight people were saved. And we're in a worse mess now
than we was then, it seems to me. Because all I can do is read
your word and see what was going on back then. But you told us,
as it was in the days of Noah, Lord, and it's really a mess
here. We're looking forward to You
coming back. We want You to come back and
take us home. Take us to be there with You,
with the Father, with the Son, and with the Holy Spirit. We're
tired of being around the devil and his people. We're tired of
it, Father. But we thank You that You spared
us. Bless this cup in Jesus' name
we pray, who gave his life. Amen. And the Lord said, this is the
New Testament in my blood. Drink ye all of it. With our lips let us make one
confession, with our hearts hold to one truth alone. For He has erased our transgressions,
claimed us and called us His own, His very own. We're the people of God, called
by His name, called from the darkness, delivered from shame. One holy race, saints every one,
because of the blood of Christ. Jesus the Son. Hear us, O spirits of darkness,
so you will know where we stand. We are His servants, purchased
with scars, bought by the blood of the Lamb, the blood of the
Lamb. We're the people of God, called
by His name, called from the darkness, delivered from shame. One holy race, saints everyone,
because of the blood of Christ, Jesus the Son. Because of the blood of Christ,
Jesus the Son. Oh Lord, we thank you for bringing
us here to this place today. We thank you for each one of
these dear saints who have met here in this place today. We
ask you Lord that your blessings might rest upon the head and
households of each one. and that in all things the name
of Christ would be exalted, that he alone be lifted up. We ask you now, Lord, that you
bless the meal that we're about to receive and that you would
give us thankful hearts to receive it as we would all of our blessings. For we ask it in Christ's name,
amen.