Our subject is praising the Lord. He begins there in verse one and he says, praise ye the Lord. Now to praise the Lord is to give him all the glory. The Lord said through Isaiah that the people he saves, that he calls, he creates us for his glory, to give him all the glory. And that's really the only way we praise the Lord is when we give him the glory for every aspect of salvation.

It's not praising the Lord to give him glory for part of salvation and ourselves glory for part of salvation. That's not praising him at all. But this is his command to his people. It's his command to his preacher. When we preach, every message should be giving him all the glory. And it's his command to his people At all times, we're to praise the Lord for every aspect of salvation.

And he talks about rejoicing in the Lord, and this truly is our joy, is in the Lord, for who he is, what he's done for us. We're gonna see that we sing the new song. It's the new song of grace that he's taught us. We're gonna see that we're joyful because he made us, and he's our king. And then the third thing is especially special, and I wanna save it for the very last. But let's begin here.

In regeneration, the Lord taught us a new song, a song we did not know. It's the song of grace. It's the song of the gospel. And so he commands, verse one, praise ye the Lord, sing unto the Lord a new song. And really, if you take the and out, It's his praise in the congregation of the saints. That's what this new song is. It's his praise. Notice here, this is God's command to the congregation of saints.

What is a saint? You hear people say, I'm no saint. Well, you can't have any communion with God and believe God and worship God unless you are a saint. That's what all these people are, are saints, people he's called. A saint is a sinner that's been made holy and separated to God, for God, by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We had no hand in it whatsoever. This is where we differ with all of false religion. This is the part where they put man's hand to it.

No, no, no. You know Ephesians 1.3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is where we began being holy. Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings. Where? In heaven. Where? In Christ. How?

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. And here's what happened when he did that. Here's what the result was. That we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. When He chose His people and blessed us with all spiritual blessings, we were holy in Christ and we were without any sin or guilt in Christ. We were holy and righteous in Christ because He chose us in Christ. That's when we first had our being in the mind and purpose of God was when He chose us in Christ. That's where being a saint begins. And then we're a saint because the Lord Jesus came down, the Son of God came down, and he sanctified his people by serving God with a perfectly holy heart.

He said, thy law is in my heart. He had a holy heart, perfect heart. And he said, I came to do thy will, O God, and by him doing the will of God for his people, it says by his will we are sanctified. through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time. Hebrews 13 says, Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without the gate.

A saint is a sinner who's, he's been made holy in regeneration by the Holy Spirit. And this is when Christ teaches us the new song. Go with me to Hebrews 2 just a minute. Now, this is quoting one of the Psalms, but I want you to just see how it's applied to the Lord Jesus here. And this is when we're taught this new Psalm, right here.

He says here in Hebrews 2.11, he says, both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one. for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren." That tells you we're holy in him because he's not ashamed to call us his brethren. A holy God, our holy Savior, is not ashamed to call us brethren because we're one with him. Now here's how he taught us this gospel, taught us this new song, saying, I will declare thy name.

He's saying this. Christ is promising the Father. I will declare thy name unto my brethren. In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. In the new birth, Christ teaches us this new song by singing praise to God in our heart through the preaching of the gospel. That's how we learn this new song, him speaking. Singing praises to God in our heart now.

Let's go see what it is revelation chapter 5 revelation 5 This new song Gives God all the glory God the Father and it gives Christ the Lamb all the glory revelation 5 1 and And I saw in the right hand of Him that sat on the throne, God the Father, I saw a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals. This sealed book is God's decree. This is God's purpose, His eternal purpose to glorify His name by giving His Son all preeminence as He saves His people. This is his eternal purpose. He said, verse two, I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof?

And no man in heaven nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereof. Now this is showing you, me, that none of us have any room to glory. There was no man anywhere that could even look at the book, much less open it. Now, and I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon. And one of the elders saith unto me, weep not.

Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, that is the king and God of his people. The line of the tribe of Judah, he said, a law giver, a ruler won't depart from you, Judah, till Shiloh come. Christ is Shiloh, him to whom it belongs, the government. So that word, line of tribe of Judah, means the king. And the root of David means he produced David. That's David's Lord. So he's the king and God of his people.

He said, he hath prevailed to open the book. and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne, and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. The lamb that had been slain is the all-knowing, ever-present God. His spirit's everywhere at once. That's who our Savior is. all-knowing, ever-present God.

And he came and he took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne. Now you think about this. No man was worthy to open the book. And the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, the Lamb, walked right up to holy God and took the book out of his hand. And he opened the book. You remember in Psalm 2, it says, Whenever Christ arose victorious, God said, I have set my king on my holy hill of Zion.

The next word is Christ speaking. And he said, I will declare the decree. That's the book. Him declaring the decree, declaring what God purposed from eternity. And he said, I will declare the decree, and the Lord has said to me, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.

The whole volume of the book, The whole volume of this book that was sealed is concerning Christ, God's glory in his son, Christ Jesus. Verse eight, Revelation 5, eight. And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and 20 elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints. Get there every one of God's saints, praised him only. You see that? They all did. This is so of everybody he saved.

Verse nine, and they sung a new song. Here's the song. Saying, thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof because thou was slain and has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation. and has made us unto our God, kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, innumerable. Saying with a loud voice, they all are singing the same song. Worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power.

That means we attribute all power to him. Riches, everything is his. And wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. He gets all the glory and praise. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. And the four beasts said amen, and the four and 20 elders fell down and worshiped him that liveth forever.

Our Lord Jesus laid down his life for the elect. He's the lamb that was slain. And he redeemed all his people to God. And by his blood he made us kings and priests to God. And God now receives us and has communion with us because of what Christ did. And he is the one who fulfilled the whole purpose of God. That book was the purpose of God, the decree of God.

He fulfilled it. and he's fulfilling it, he's going to call everybody he redeemed out there in every kindred, tribe, and tongue, and nation in this world, but he's calling every one of them, and he will not lose one, and nobody's gonna pluck them out of his hand. And so this is the gospel that we preach, and that we, the song that we sing, praise ye the Lord.

Now do you see there, nobody, gave themselves any glory. Nobody said, nobody's sitting there singing, you know, I was partly made holy by him, but I'm partly made holy by me. And I was partly made righteous by him, but now I had to do my part. Nobody's saying anything like that. You will not say that in the presence of God. Nobody will. That's something men boast of amongst men. But nobody's going to do that in the presence of God.

And His people, right now, His people give Him all the praise and glory, because as we saw, it's all of God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and we didn't have a part in it. He did it all, so we give Him all the glory. Now, go back with me to our Psalm, Psalm 149. We praise Him, not only because He has totally saved us and done it all, but also because he made us and he's our king, ruling everything for us. Look here now, verse two.

Let Israel rejoice in him that made him and let the children of Zion be joyful in their king. Now, all the host who Christ redeemed out of every country, tribe, tongue, and nation, is Israel. That's who Israel is. That's who the children of Zion are. All that multitude we just saw that are out of every nation, that's who Israel is. And it says, each one do the same exact thing. We rejoice in Christ because he made us. Look here, let Israel rejoice in him that made him. Now, I want you to get this.

This struck me as I was studying this You know, we know the scripture, 1 Corinthians 1, that he saves through this gospel that no flesh glories in his presence, but he that glory, glories only in the Lord. And the fact of it is, is that so only through the preaching of the word and only because Christ makes that to be so. We don't praise him with our flesh. No part of our flesh is gonna praise him.

It's sin like it always was. What praises him is entirely a new creation that he made. Everything about it. And here's what's so amazing. We have a new man created by Christ in regeneration, a new birth. It really is a new birth. It's a new man that's made within his people. And one day we're gonna have a new glorified body that he's made so that in glory, There will be nothing that can't, everything we were born with the first time will be gone forever. And only what He created will be with Him in glory. Our body, soul, and spirit will be newly created by Him.

All right, think of this. This is what got me just, it got too deep for me, really. It's always too deep for me, but I waded off in some deep water. But I'm gonna try to say this as plainly as I can. Think about this now. God is spirit, invisible. Before the day was, I am. That's what he said. That phrase just boggles my mind. Before the day was, I am. All right, he's spirit, he's invisible.

And when he chose us in his son before creation, he made us, but we were We didn't have a body. He made us. When God says it is, it is. He made us. We didn't have a body. We didn't have a spirit yet. Then he made Adam. He created a world and he made Adam. And he gave him life. And Adam sinned and we sinned in him. And so when we came forth, we were nothing but sin. A body of sin is what we were.

The invisible son of God then came down and took a body like his brethren, without sin, so that now he's the perfect God-man. And he goes to the cross, bears all our sin, bears the curse we deserve, and in all of that, what he's showing us is he's showing us who he is. By what he did, he manifests that he's righteous and holy, that he does everything right, that he's merciful and gracious, that he saves in perfect love, that's a holy love. In the process of saving us, he showed us who he is.

Then he comes to us and we're just flesh, sinful, dead flesh. and the spirit of our Lord enters in and creates a new spiritual man. And when he gets finished, this body is going back. Now, our body of sin, we saw Sunday, our body of sin, Romans six, it was destroyed before God, before his justice, when Christ died, that body of sin was destroyed. So God was just to create this new spiritual man in us. And then one day this body's going back to the dust and he's gonna create a new glorified body just like his glorified body.

So, in the end, the invisible God now will be seen, the fullness of the Godhead in a body just like the one he made us, Christ, and we will be with him perfectly glorified and everything there will be the creation of our Lord Jesus. Body, soul, and spirit will be His creation. Now who do you think's gonna get the glory in that day? We're gonna glory in Him. That just makes, when I saw that and I began to think about that, how it goes from invisible to visible and sinful to visible and spiritual and perfect, and all of that, and then in the process showed us who He was. and made us know him.

That's wisdom that just, I can't even. That alone tells me, no man made this book up. I mean, man couldn't have come up with that. And it's just astounding to me. Go to Romans 11. Here it is. Here's what it brings you right here. This is right where it brought me This is the I didn't even have to look this scripture up It just when I was looking at all that this is the scripture that came to my mind right here Romans 11 33 Oh The depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out, for who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counselor, or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompense unto him again.

But here's why we praise only him, for of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory forever, amen. That's exactly what I was trying to say. It all originated of Him. And in the process of time, all of that we just talked about was through Him. And now it's all to Him, to His glory. Everything's of Him. So that's why we praise Him. He made us. He made us. And then, He's our King, brethren. Now this is so, this will be helpful for some people right now. We've got a lot of trouble going on in the world. But Christ is our King.

Listen, verse two, let the children of Zion be joyful in their king. God always makes good on his promise, and here's what he promised. In Isaiah 32, one, he said, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. Christ is that king, and you that he's made kings by his blood are the princes. God always makes good on his word. Christ Jesus has established His kingdom in His blood. His laws were all fulfilled by Him for His people. And He put away all sin by His blood for His people. And His covenant to us is everlasting, and it's all of grace, and it's written in His blood. It can't be more ordered and more sure than that. It's all of Him.

Go to Isaiah 9 and verse 6. It's sad that we get these scriptures like this around Christmas time and we lose their meaning, but this right here, this is what our text is saying. This is why we praise him. Isaiah 9-6, unto us a child is born. He's a man, and unto us a son is given. He's the son of God. And the government shall be upon his shoulder. The government's on his shoulder. Is that the government of this world? Yep. Is that the government of the universe? Yep. Is that the government of his kingdom? Yep. The government's on his shoulder.

And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end. Upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Now, for millennium, even longer than that, earthly kingdom, earthly kings have been promising the people peace.

But man can't make peace. Man's way of making peace is war. Man calls it peace when you destroy enough people that nobody fights with you. That's not peace. That's not how the Lord creates peace. We've heard all our lifetime men, new rulers come along and they're gonna bring about peace. Christ said there will never be peace as long as this world exists because sinners are in this world. And as long as sinners are in this world, there will never be peace. There will be wars and rumors of war.

Christ our King is the peacemaker. He's made peace with God for his people and given us a new heart for us to be at peace with God. And Christ is himself our peace. And Christ is our King. And everything that is happening in this world is for our sake, everything. and it's in Christ only that we have peace.

He said, these things have I spoken unto you. Everything he's declared to us, he's spoken to us for this reason, that in me you might have peace. In this world, you shall have tribulation. That's just gonna be so as long as sinners are in the world. But be of good cheer, he said, I've overcome the world.

Now I want you to follow this reasoning. Do you look to your mayor to run your state? No, you look to the governor. He's above the mayor. All right, follow the same reasoning. Are God's people looking to the highest office in the land to rule for us? No, we're looking to the highest office that exists. We're looking to Christ the King.

He's the one ruling everything. He rules the hearts of king. He turns the king's heart like a river, whether so ever he will. That's who's ruling everything. Now, if we stop trusting in man and trust the king, you know what we'll stop doing? Complaining about earthly rulers. When you trust the king, you know, what does Romans 13 says?

He put everybody in authority that's in authority. He put them right where they are. and he's ruling them, and he's put them there for our good. To resist them is to resist him, he said. To complain about them is to complain about him. He's ruling them, everyone of them. He's our king. Here's what he says to us.

The king of Assyria, you know, the Lord used him to chasten a whole nation, his people in Israel. And the king Assyria went to boasting about everything he had done, and the Lord said, You're just an axe in my hand. He said, shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? Or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shakes it? He said, as if the rod should make itself shake against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself as if it were no wood.

Therefore shall the Lord, the Lord of hosts, send among his fat ones leanness. the Lord brought down the king of Assyria. He said, without me, they shall bow down under the prisoners. He said, without me, they'll fall under slain men. That's how weak they'll be. So here's what he says to his people.

He says, one man of you shall chase a thousand for the Lord your God, he it is that fighteth for you as he has promised you. Take good heed therefore unto yourselves that you love the Lord your God. In other words, don't be putting confidence in men. Look to him.

He's our king. Christ is our king. The one who's ruling everything for us is the king who laid down his life for us and died for us to give us life. Do you think he's gonna let anything happen to us in this world? Nothing. Listen, give unto the Lord glory and strength. Not man. Give to the Lord glory and strength. Give unto the Lord the glory due to his name. We're talking about praising him. We're talking about giving him all the praise. We can't give him all the praise and complain and be fearful about men at the same time. That's giving men glory.

That's what exactly, listen to Isaiah 8.3. Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself. See him as he is. High, set apart, the government's on his shoulder, he's ruling everybody and everything. He created us, he gives us life, he sustains us, he's ruling it all. Sanctify him, see him as he is. Let him be your fear and your dread. If you wanna be fearful, Bow down to him, but don't be frivolous of a man. But he said, but when you see him as he is, and you're fearful of him, and you bow to him and give him the praise, he will be your sanctuary. Nobody will be able to touch you. Nobody will be able to touch. Nobody is gonna separate us from Christ. Nobody. That's Romans 8. Who shall separate us from the love of God in Christ? Nothing and nobody.

He rules everything. So why should we, Be fearful of men. Why should we be fearful of kings and rulers and whatever is happening in the world? The Lord is working it. You ever see these kids back here when they're home with their toys and you've seen children and they're just playing and they got all the little figures and they're moving them where they want to and playing with them and doing what they want to with them? God's doing that with old nations. Men don't like to hear that. Oh, you make us out to be puppets. A puppet's got life. At least it's got a hand in it, moving it. We don't even have that. We're like the puppet laying on the floor without even having a hand in it.

But God steers us and moves his, he's ruling everything in this world. That's why we praise only him. And we do it by knowing whatever comes to pass. I know all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called. Not because we love God, not because where they're called, he loved us and called us because it was all according to his purpose. That's why everything's working together, that book that he opened and that he fulfills.

All right, lastly, here's the most amazing reason we praise him. When I thought of that, when I was writing my notes down, I wrote down, Here's the most amazing reason we praise only the Lord. And as soon as I wrote that, I thought, is this more amazing than what we just heard? All those things we just heard. Well, it is to us.

Verse four, it says, verse three says, Psalm 149, three says, praise him in the dance, let them sing praises to him with a timbrel and harp. Here's the reason, verse four. because the Lord taketh pleasure in his people. He will beautify the meek with salvation. That right there is reason to praise the Lord. He takes pleasure in his people. That's amazing.

Sinners like we are. He doesn't take pleasure in every man. Scripture says he's angry with the wicked every day. But because he loved us, just because He would, because He was gracious to us, and because He chose us in His Son, and His Son made us absolutely as righteous as God is, as holy as God is. He made us one with God. That's perfection. In Him is no darkness, only light. That's what we are in Christ. And for that reason, God takes pleasure in us. He takes pleasure in us. And listen, it's because he beautified us. We didn't beautify ourselves.

It says there, he will beautify the meek. It's not humility. It's not meekness at all if a person is claiming he did something to beautify himself. You know, I mean, in just everyday goings on, if somebody's bragging they made themselves pretty, that ain't pretty. You know that, and I know that. And it's sure not meekness. If a professing believer says, I made myself beautiful, I did this, I did that to make myself beautiful, that's not meekness at all, that's proud, that's pride.

That's not glorying in the Lord either. But he makes us meek, he gives you a broken and contrite heart, he gives you a new heart. That's how he begins beautifying you, is he makes you meek, he brings you down. And everything about us that beautifies us before God, to God, is all of Christ.

Look what it says there. What did he beautify us with? He will beautify the meek with salvation. I'll tell you what you need to do when you get home. Take a pen and go into your Bible, and when you see that word salvation, capitalize that S right there. Because the salvation is Christ. He is salvation.

That's how he beautified his people. Everything that makes us beautiful to God is his son. That's how he beautified us. And I'll give you a scripture on it. Who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and holiness and redemption. That's our beauty, everything Christ is. So the Lord takes pleasure in his people. Now here's what that means.

Before the Lord saved us, before we knew it, before God, he always purposed to save us and he, you know, but just, I'm just saying as sinners, everything we did was wicked. I don't care how good men patted you on the back, they could have given you the Nobel Peace Prize. It was all sin. The plowing of the wicked. is abomination, is sin. The thought of foolishness is sin. Everything we did was sin. Now, because Christ has totally destroyed our body of sin by His death on the cross, and because we are in Christ at God's right hand, everything His child does, God takes pleasure in it.

Believe that? I believe that. And anything that is of us that's sinful, that God's not gonna charge it to us, because Christ put it away, but God will lovingly turn us back to him to say, that's not your beauty. Christ is your beauty, and he's all your salvation, and he's gonna keep us knowing he alone is our salvation.

Here's what the wise man said, Ecclesiastes 9, 7, this is only God's people, and this is because Our sacrifices come up to God, those vows of odors we saw that are the prayers of the saints. Our prayer comes to God perfect because of Christ. Nothing, our prayer itself would put us in hell if it wasn't for Christ. Preaching, there's enough sin in what I'm preaching tonight. It's everything comes to God through Christ perfect.

And so this is what the scripture says to you that believe, go thy way, Eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart, for God now accepteth thy works. That's, that's just, that just makes people want to rejoice in him. That makes people want to praise him. That's all that does is make me, now, man, here's that, and it makes him want to, I'm just going to go sin.

He's not rejoicing in the Lord. He hadn't heard the message. But if that makes your heart just overflow to where you want to praise him, you want to honor him, you want to serve him, you just, what can I do, Lord? You don't have to do anything. I've done it all. I know. What can I do? Just give me some, let me keep the door. Let me do something, Lord.

That's what pleases him, because you love him, because he's done everything for you. So if you bring one of his people a drink of cold water, he said, I'm so pleased with that. Everything his people do pleases him now because of Christ. So verse five, let the saints be joyful in glory.

Let them sing aloud upon their beds. Everything here, you go back and look. It's like we sing, praise him in the congregation. We do it, he said, in the dance, in our songs, on the timbrel and the harp. He said, and now he says, now do it upon your bed. and it's all, anywhere you are, praise Him.

And the glory is, we're joying in the glory the Lord has put on us, His righteousness. That's the glory that we're glorying in, the beauty. We're joying in the grace that Christ, wherein we stand. We're joying in the glory of the holiness and grace of Christ that He's put in us in our new man. We're glorying in the glory that we expectantly hope for to be with him one day. That's the glory he's talking about. He says, let the saints be joyful in glory. All the glory he's given to you and shown you of him, let the saints be joyful in glory.

Let them sing aloud upon their bed. Our bed was once a bed where we wept. And sometimes we still do weep in our bed. But he turns it to joy by turning you to see everything I've been telling to you. We're accepted. We're saved. We have redemption. We have eternal life. And he's just teaching us more of that. And he's going to bring us there with him. That's sure and certain, brethren. So I pray he bring you to praise him. All right. We are going to sing our last hymn. I'm not going to forego the last song.