All right, brethren, Psalm 184. Now, I try to give you a proposition at the beginning of my message. I try to make a statement that sums up the whole message. And that's what the Lord does here. He does that for us right here. He begins in verse one and he says, praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. That's the point of this whole psalm. Praise ye the Lord. I usually state it at the end of my message. Well, that's what the Lord does right here. He ends just like he begins, praise ye the Lord.

God's purpose in saving His people, His purpose in saving His people is to give His Son all preeminence, is to exalt His name in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus. And He brings His people to give Him all the praise and all the glory for every part of our salvation. We don't take any praise for any part of our salvation, because we didn't do anything. You know what Jonah said, salvation is of the Lord.

That means beginning to end, he does it all. A sinner is a helpless, guilty, unholy person. so weak that he's unable to contribute anything to his salvation. Our Lord said, I did not come to call the righteous. I came to call sinners to repentance. Most people do not need Christ because they're not sinful enough. Oh, they're sinners, but in their own mind, they're not sinful enough. They don't see themselves as so sinful that they can contribute nothing to their salvation.

That's where we have to be brought before we're gonna see salvation is of the Lord. And for you that he has called and he's taught this and he's taught you Christ is the author and finisher of our faith. He's brought you to give him all the praise, to give him all the glory. That's why he saves his people, to bring glory to his name in the person of his son. Now, God made the first creation as an illustration of the new creation. His people are his new creation.

Listen to this from 2 Corinthians 5, 17. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. And the word creature means creation. You and I have never created anything. We didn't create this new creation that he created. He did it. For any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. You know what the next word is? And all things are of God. He did it all.

You find that in 2 Corinthians 5, 17 and 18. Again, in Galatians 6 and verse 15, Paul said, in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision. Circumcision was the first, was the thing that brought him under the law. And what he's saying is, is in Christ, it doesn't matter if you had the law and were under the law, or if you did not have the law. What matters then?

Being made a new creation. Christ doing it all, making you a new creation. Now this psalm deals with God's creation. And at first he's gonna deal with the heavens and the host of the heavens. Then he's gonna deal with the earth and everything that's in the earth. Then he's gonna come to his people and say some things to his people. But in every division, he comes to a point where he tells them why he's saying praise him. And each of these points applies to you and me who've been brought to believe Christ.

This is why we praise him. I said he made the first creation to give us an illustration of how he makes his people a new creation. And what he did in creating the first creation is what he does to make us his new creation. And so that's gonna be our focus today. That's what we're gonna look at. These things that he said are why we praise him. All right, here's the first thing.

God's people praise the Lord and give him all the glory because he created us by his command, by his word of power, by him speaking, he created us. Look here in verse one, the second part, let's just begin, and this is what he says to his heavenly host. He says, praise ye the Lord from the heavens.

Praise him in the heights. Praise ye him, all his angels. Praise ye him, all his hosts. Scripture says that the believer's been brought to an innumerable company of angels, the spirits of just men made perfect. This is the heavenly host above. He says, verse three, praise ye him, sun and moon. Praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heaven of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.

He says, let them praise the name of the Lord for, now here's the reason, here it is, because he commanded and they were created. He commanded and they were created. Praise him because God commanded and they were created. God spoke. He spoke and he created his angels. He's called the Father of Spirits. He spoke and created his angels. He commanded and he created the sun, the moon, and the stars. He's called the Father of Lights. He commanded and they were. He commanded and the heavens of heavens and the waters above the heavens were created. All by his word, all by him speaking.

Now for our young ones here that have to go to school, you go to school and you learn the answers so you can pass the test. But understand that a theory is man-made. A theory is man-made. It's an educated guess. Their guess is that a big bang made everything.

Evolution says we started out in the sea and we crawled out We began to grow into something else, and something else, and a man was a caveman, then he grew up into what we are now. If you get Genesis 1-1, you got the beginning of some good theology. In the beginning, God. Everything begins with God. Everything. Your spiritual life's gonna begin with God. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Isaiah 40 verse 26 says, lift up your eyes on high and behold who hath created these things that bringeth out their hosts by number.

He calleth them all by names. You can go to the end of the book of Job and long before People had named the constellations. God gives the names of some constellations. He calls them all by names, by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power, not one faileth. They've been there since he created them, doing what he created them to do. He said before the day was, I am.

Now we're not talking about, this is not the God this world's preaching. God, this world's preaching can't do anything unless a little fickle sinner lets him do it, unless he lets him have his way. God might not want to save you. You ever think about that? Everybody has the idea that, oh, I just need to let God save me. God might not want to save you. He don't save everybody. He don't have to save you. We're at his mercy. He's not at our mercy.

That's the true God. That's the true God. Now here's the point for God's saints. Here's the point for you and me. Here's the point. We praise God our Father in his son Christ Jesus for the same reason, because he commanded and he gave us life. He spoke and created us.

Listen, Ephesians 3.9 says, God created all things by Jesus Christ. The father chose a people and gave them to his son, and he trusted his son to do everything. God was in his son. The three persons in the Trinity are in Christ, but he trusted his son to do everything as the Christ. Go be to John 1, John 1.

And so the Lord Jesus created everything. He didn't begin to be when he was born into this world. He's God. He is the Word. We're talking about the Word commanded and created. He is the Word. Look here, John 1, 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him. You get that? All things were made by him. And without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. Even people that don't believe on the Lord, your physical life is of him. Everything you have is of him. Man can receive nothing except it be given him from above.

But verse 14, John 1, 14 says, and the word was made flesh. and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. So the Lord Jesus, it says here, is the one who commanded. I'm not saying that apart from the Father and the Spirit, but it's saying he commanded, and he created all things. Nothing that was created was created without him.

Now, when God, the way salvation began for his people, Ephesians 1 is very clear. We thank God, our Father, because He blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places according as He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. That's grace. No cause in us. He chose us by grace in His Son. And the Lord Jesus created this whole world. And He created Adam and Eve. We fell in Adam, and when Adam sinned in that garden, we fell. Now think about this. If God had already chosen his son to be the Christ before he created anything, doesn't that tell you that God knew Adam was gonna fall? Yeah.

That didn't surprise God. That was part of his purpose to glorify his son. God's sovereign God. He spoke this world into existence. He created man out of the dust. He breathed into him the breath of life and commanded life. And Adam sinned and fell. And Adam represented all mankind because we all came from him. Everybody that would be born of Adam was in Adam. And God set it up to where Adam is the first federal head He is the legal head and the seminal head. What he did, we did before the law, and then we're born of him. Legal and seminal head.

And then he did it to picture Christ, who is the last Adam. And all the people that the Father trusted to him, what Christ did under the law, that's why he came down and took flesh, is because we send an Adam. And so he came down, the Son of God came down, and he took flesh like unto his brethren, Hebrews 2 says.

He knew who he was coming for. And our Lord, he was made of a woman, made under the law. It behooved him in all things to be made like his brethren. And he was made under the law, and he lived his whole life under that law in perfection. The whole point of him being born of a virgin is he wasn't born from Adam's corrupt seed, so he was not unholy like me and you.

We're sin in the womb before we're ever born. He was holy in the womb because his people had to be holy in the womb. And he came forth. We come from our mother's womb speaking lies. Scripture says we go astray as soon as we've been born, speaking live. David said, I was conceived in sin in my mother's womb.

Christ came out holy and he lived this life for his people. And then he went to that cross and bore all the sin of his people and God poured out on him the curse that we deserved for breaking the law. And he bore that curse and he satisfied divine justice.

The law said, the soul that sinneth must die. And we had to die. We had to die under the justice of God. That's what the second death is. That's what hell is, is a death that never dies. It's the worm that never dies. It's God's justice poured out on a people that do not have a righteousness and a holiness.

And Christ bore that for his people on the cross. He bore the wrath of God, the justice of God, and satisfied that divine justice. He did not fail. He satisfied divine justice. When he died, all his people died under the justice of God in him, so that the law of God says, satisfied. We don't execute people twice. If they go suffer the death penalty, it only happens one time. And God is holy. That's the number one characteristic of God. He's holy. Whatever he does is gonna be done in perfect holiness. It's gonna be right because that's what he came, that's what Christ came to manifest, God's righteousness. And so he sent his son to die in place of his people to satisfy his law so that God is just to be merciful to you and me. And now, because Christ satisfied it, he called you by this gospel, and he spoke, he commanded.

He didn't use anything that was of Adam. What we got from Adam, this sinful, cursed nature we have, and this corrupt flesh of ours, he didn't use that. He said, I will give them a new spirit. And he entered in in spirit, and created a new heart, and gave you faith to trust the Lord Jesus. and he created that new life by what we're doing right here. He commanded through the preaching of the gospel, and Christ the Word, who is the incorruptible seed, he entered in in spirit and created a new man within his people. Let's see it, 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter 1. We praise him because he commanded, and that's how he created us. 1 Peter 1.

Verse 23. Back up here now, let me just give you a little more, but back up here in verse 18, he says, you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. And then he says in verse 21, who by him do believe in God. Verse 21, you believe God because of him too, Because here's what he did. Now look down here at verse 23.

Being born again, not of corruptible seed. That's how he was born the first time. Corruptible seed, so we're corrupt by nature. But we're born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. See, Christ the word lives forever. That's why when you're born of him, you're gonna live forever. If there's no sin, there's no death. Righteousness is life. But look here, he said, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever, for all flesh is his grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of the grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. That's so of every sinner.

But the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Christ brought you under the gospel. If you're sitting here today under this gospel, you're not here by accident. You might have thought you just brought yourself here on a whim. You're here because God brought you here.

And if you're his, and he speaks today, you're gonna believe every word you're hearing. But not until the end. If he don't speak, if he don't command life and cause you to hear, you're not gonna hear him. You're gonna reject it, you're gonna get mad, because it's not putting anything in your hands.

It's giving all the glory to him. This is the true God now. Look, James 118, of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. As whose will we're saved by, of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. All right, that's what the scripture means.

I want you to see Ephesians 2.10. This is what the scripture means when it says we are his workmanship. He did all, he did everything. He made us righteous and then he came and spoke life and gave us life.

And so Ephesians 4 says, I'm sorry, Ephesians, Ephesians 2 10 it says Verse 8 says shoot let me get where I want to say this Verse 5 even we were dead in sins he quickened us together with Christ by grace are you saved now look down here at verse? Verse eight, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that's not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Our whole psalm is saying all the praise goes to God, and if we made ourselves believe, if we made ourselves be born again, if we made ourselves righteous or holy, we would praise ourselves. And so God does it all so that no man will boast, for we are his workmanship, created, created, in Christ Jesus.

Now look here at Ephesians 4, look at verse 24. I said there's a new man created in you and it's in God's image after Christ's righteousness and holiness. Look here, Ephesians 4.24, put on the new man which after God is created, created in righteousness and true holiness. He spoke it into existence.

See, a sinner doesn't evolve into a holy new creation. This thing of you making yourself holy, making yourself be born again, and then you making yourself holier and holier and holier by your works, by something you did, that's the religion's version of evolution. That's religion's version of evolution. No, Christ commands and there's a new creature created in his holiness and his righteousness.

And so he says to you and me, now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, fear not, I have redeemed you, I've called you by your name, you're mine. And Isaiah 43, 21, he says, this people have I formed for myself and they shall show forth my praise, they're gonna give me the praise, because I commanded and created them. All right, back to our psalm, here's the next thing. We praise him because he established us on Christ the rock, and that'll never change. Psalm 148 verse six says, this is why he's telling them to praise him, he hath also established them forever and ever, he hath made a decree which shall not pass. When the Lord made creation, he fixed the boundary of his creation, what it shall do by his decree. That's what the Lord did. Which shall not pass means God's decree shall not be violated, it won't be changed, it won't be infringed upon.

God said, I shut up the sea with doors when it break forth as if it had issued out of the womb. His creation of the sea was just like a new birth. But he said, I put doors. When I made the clouds the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling band for it, and break up for it my decreed place, I set bars and doors. I said, hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed. God said the waves aren't going any further.

He established it. He put a fixed decree on it. He did that over everything in creation. Everything in God's creation, in heaven and earth, shall do what God decreed for it to do when he created it, and it will never change. It's gonna do what God decreed for it to do. But man says, I don't care what man says, that's what God says. It don't matter what man says. Christ upholds all things by the word of his power, and it's gonna continue to be upheld. Now here's the application for his people.

The same as God established the heavens and the earth by speaking and he made his decree and established the heaven and the earth and he made his decree so that everything is set. Well brethren, when God trusted his son, his son came forth and fulfilled God's eternal decree. He fulfilled what God determined before to be done. He fulfilled God's eternal counsel by what he came to do.

And because he laid down his life and redeemed us from that curse, it's done. It'll never be undone. It's fixed. He's accomplished it forever. And so all the decree of God in salvation of who Christ died for, of how God would get all their glory, of how Christ would get the preeminence and all the praise, everything God decreed in salvation, and all the promises He makes to His people. They're all yes and amen in the blood of Christ, because He finished the work. Go with me to 2 Corinthians 1. 2 Corinthians 1. The decree of God, I tell you, you could look at it like this.

The decree of God is his law. It's his statute. And just like the first law he gave, it couldn't be changed. That law had to be fulfilled. And so that's what Christ did. He honored it. He fulfilled it perfectly. And then he brings you now under the everlasting covenant of grace. And it is settled, it is God's decree, and it's settled in the blood of Christ.

Look here, 2 Corinthians 1 and verse 19. He said, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay. That's the false gospel men preach, yea and nay. If you do this, he'll do that, There's all these possibilities in it. No, he said, it was all yes. For all the promises of God in Christ are yea, and in him, amen, unto the glory of God by us. It's all yes and amen in him. It's all yes and amen in him. Christ came forth. and he fulfilled the decree of God.

Let's go to Jeremiah 33, I'll read a few of these to you. When he calls his child, he's gonna teach you that you're under a new covenant. Now, you're not under that old law, you're under a new covenant of grace. And look what he says here now, Jeremiah 33, 20, this is because of what Christ accomplished. Here is why, this is why the devil in all falsehood wants people to believe that somehow the seasons are gonna get out of kilter, and everything's gonna change, and the sea's gonna break its bounds, and all of this, is because if they can convince you that so, they can convince you God's not true concerning His salvation. But God uses His creation to show you His word and salvation is absolutely fixed. Look here, Galatians 33 verse 20.

This is verse 19 says, it's the word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah saying, thus saith the Lord, if you can break my covenant of the day and my covenant of the night, that there should not be day and night in their season, then may also my covenant be broken with David, my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne and with the Levites, the priests, my ministers. God promised David, Christ is coming.

He's going to be your son, and he's going to reign on my throne forever. And I'm going to raise up heat by his blood. He's going to make his people priests unto God, Levites, real true spiritual Levites. That's what you are by his grace. And he said, if you can break my covenant with the day, if you can change the seasons, then you can break my covenant to save my people. You can't do it.

See, the creation is fixed like God fixed it to show an illustration that his salvation's fixed. All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ. I'll show you another place, Jeremiah 31. Go back just a page or two. Jeremiah 31, 33. Let's start in... Verse 31. Behold, Jeremiah 31, 31.

Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they break, although I was a husband to them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I'll make with the house of Israel.

After those days, saith the Lord, I'll put my law in their inward parts, I'll write it in their hearts and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord. for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar, the Lord of hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel shall cease from being a nation before me forever. Thus saith the Lord, if you can measure heaven and the foundations of the earth can be searched out beneath, I'll cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they've done, saith the Lord. You see that?

God's Israel is his spiritual people. Revelation tells us so plainly. He's made us kings and priests under God by his blood out of every kindred, tribe, and tongue, and people on this earth. Chosen by God's grace. The nation pictured that. But Christ has come and he's accomplished this for his spiritual Israel, made up of elect Jew and Gentile, and God's just like he fixed the day and the night and the seasons. He said, that's how solidly fixed my covenant is with my people.

You can't break it. The promises of God are yes and amen in him. That's why we praise God. That's why we praise him, because it's yes and amen, it's fixed. Let me get to my last point. I got a problem here lately with my tablet. I don't know what's going on with it. But I'll add this before I go.

This fixed covenant, remember David's last word? He said, he's made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things. Christ did it all. And it's sure, it's in Christ the solid rock, And he said, this is all my salvation. That's why we praise him. That's why we praise him. All right, we're gonna remember the Lord at his table. And when we do, we're gonna take this wine. And he said, this is the New Testament in my blood. That's what it pictures, the New Testament in my blood. Let me give you, I got one more point for you. I didn't mean to make you think I was fixing to quit.

We praise God because his name is excellent and his glory is above all. He says here, I'll just skip reading it, but he speaks to the earth now, you can read that, he created everything in the earth, but down here at verse 13, he says, let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is excellent, and his glory is above the earth and heaven.

His name is excellent, his name is who he is, holy God, all merciful, all perfect, all just, all righteous, His name is excellent in power, excellent in wisdom. It means he's God, that's who he is. And we believe his name. You believe on God, you believe his name, you believe him.

And his glory is above all. He's ruling everything that comes to pass. Christ was made so much better than the angels, because he's obtained a more excellent name than they. He's above all. God raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand, and he gave him power above all, principality and power and might and dominion above every name that's named, not only in this world, but in the world to come, and he made him head over all things to the church. We're his body. We're the fullness of him, and he fills all and all his people, and so he's ruling everything in this world for his people.

His name would have to be tainted. His name would have to be a derogatory thing if he fails to save one person that he determined to save. Because Christ has satisfied justice for them. They cannot have justice poured out on them again. He must call them. And so sovereign God is working everything together to bring his child under the gospel, and then he commands them and creates life and brings them to see what he's done for us.

And so this is why you and me that he's called, knowing this, this is why when war breaks out, we're not freaking out and worried that, you know, the sky's falling. Whenever, whatever happens in this life, even if you're brought to a point where somebody's going to take your life, The Lord said, I'll give you grace in that day. And they can't take your life. Nobody can take our life. The worst any man can do to us is open up the door for us to enter into glory with our Redeemer forever and ever.

And we know the Lord is working all things together for good to them that love God. to them that are the called, and he's doing it according to his purpose, every bit of it. That's his name, that's his glory. I'm rushing past things, but let me go now to this very last thing. Look down there at verse 14. This is to you, I mean, all this is to his people. But here's where all of this is sure.

Verse 14, he also exalted the horn of his people. That word horn means power. Christ, the power of God unto salvation. He's exalted the horn of his people. He's exalted the power of his people. He's exalted Christ. The praise of all his saints, that's Christ. Even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him, Here's what he's teaching you.

You know you're justified. You know you've been sanctified. You know you've been reconciled. You know you've been redeemed. You know all this is so because Christ is the power who accomplished it, and God is so pleased he raised him to his right hand. That's the proof to you and the assurance that it's accomplished. Christ is risen. And being the power of God, you know he's working everything that's coming to pass. And so he's all our praise, too. We're praising him.

And when it comes to this saying of he doing it for a people near unto him, you know how near you are to God? All his people that he's redeemed, that he's called to giving faith in Christ, you know how near you are to him? You're as near as the son of God at God's right hand. Seated at God's right hand.

Because scripture says we're in him. We're right there in him at his right hand. And so all of this right here is why we praise him. Here's what I showed you. He created us anew. He commanded us to be alive. He commanded spiritual life. We praise him because he established us on Christ the solid rock. We praise him because he fulfilled all God's decrees for us and his covenant toward us is yes and amen. It's certain and sure. We praise him because Christ's name and his glory guarantees that he shall keep us to the end. He'll never let somebody steal us from him. His name makes it so, because he's holy and true and faithful. And we have this assurance because Christ, the power of God, is risen. And we're as near as he is right there to God. And we have the promise that he said, I'm coming again to receive you to myself.

He coming again Colossians 3 1 says set your affection on Christ if you if you died with him set your affection on him not on things of this earth because you are dead and Your life is hid with Christ in God and when he shall return you'll you'll be like him You'll see him and you'll be just like him. That's why we're not marching in the streets That's why we're not trying to force things to happen We don't have to Our Savior is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And listen, if you hadn't believed on Him, you're going to praise Him. He said in Philippians 2, every knee's gonna bow and every tongue's gonna confess that He's Lord of Lords. To the praise and glory of God, you're gonna confess it. I pray He give you grace today to do it by His grace, to have the love of God fill your heart and you just Fall down and and ask him for mercy. He likes to show mercy, but you're gonna be saved on his terms not your turn You're gonna come giving him the glory because he's the only one worthy to be praised. All right, we're gonna observe the Lord's table Adam and I get you and brother Ravi to pass out the element