Psalm 103. And since we've come to the end of the psalm we will take a moment or two just to read the whole psalm together again as we come to the end. So we're in Psalm 103, and this is the word of the Lord. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases, who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfyeth thy mouth with good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.

He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.

For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. for the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more.

But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children. To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them, the Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all.

Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts, ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure. Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Amen. And may the Lord bless this reading from his word.

Our brother David, King of ancient Israel and sweet Psalmist of the Church of Jesus Christ, has given us an exquisite hymn of praise in this Psalm 103. And he calls all men and women and boys and girls to bless the Lord. And he weaves together an abundance of reasons to do so. In our verses today, the last few verses, the last three verses today, he even calls upon the angels of God to join the church to assist our worship with their own praise. their spiritual truth and gospel doctrine everywhere we look in this inspired composition. And as we've read together and looking again at the whole psalm in our reading, David speaks of mercy for sinners, of grace and redemption, of forgiveness and healing, of righteousness and of coming glory. And I think that we can say without fear of contradiction, there is something here for us all.

If you are an anxious believer, you will find great comfort in quietly reading and meditating on these verses. Indeed, those who have sorrow in their lives might find this to be a particularly appropriate passage to return to. You might want to store that in your head, in your memory bank somewhere. But this is a beautiful little passage for those who are downcast. Alternatively, if you are anxious for your soul's eternal state and well-being, you will also find much here to ponder and to point you to the Saviour Jesus Christ.

Much to encourage you to place your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. In truth, Christ is all through this psalm. notwithstanding that these verses were written somewhere in the region of a thousand years before Christ's incarnation. And it just goes to show us how the Holy Spirit fed the souls and the minds of God's elect in ancient times, in ancient Israel, upon such fair as this. And though it still is only shadowy pictures of the full revelation yet to come with the coming of Christ, the coming of the Messiah, yet those blessed believers of long ago learned about God's mercy and redemption and forgiveness and righteousness long before Christ the Messiah came into the world.

And herein is a challenge for you and for me. If such were the calls of the Old Testament saints to bless the Lord for His mercy and His grace as they had it revealed to them, What added obligation now lies upon New Testament believers? Upon you and me, upon you and me who have seen the way of salvation fully revealed. We no longer live in the shadow of Christ.

Christ, the son of righteousness, has risen in our midst with so much greater fullness that we can go forth and grow up as calves of the stall. That's the reference to Christ, the son of righteousness, rising with healing in his wings. What it means, Malachi was speaking about the fact that we have such a fullness, a plentitude of understanding now of the Lord Jesus Christ. That prophet, just at the end of the Old Testament era, as he wrote that final book to bring the prophets of the Old Testament to their conclusion, looked forward to the fact that soon, just a few hundred years, John the Baptist would be coming and the Lord Jesus Christ would arrive upon the scene. The son of righteousness would rise with healing in his wings and there would be a fullness of understanding given to the church and the Lord's people. And Malachi rejoiced in that fact. what added obligation now rests on you and me to live in a state of constant gratitude for Jehovah's great mercies in Jesus Christ. If this is how David and the Old Testament congregation viewed the Lord, to bless the Lord, O my soul, for all his benefits, how much more should we who have seen the fullness of Christ in his incarnation.

It is thanksgiving, not law, not legal duty, that is the great motivator of divine praise and Christian service. And thus, David, to his own age, to his own people, to the great congregation there in the temple, those that worship the Lord, the elect of God in the land of Israel, David speaks much of God's mercy in this psalm.

He speaks much of God's mercy to encourage gratitude for it. He writes from his own convictions, from his own experience. He blesses the Lord because the Lord has blessed him. And upon the ground of his own experience, David believes that all the Lord's people should be greatly exercised in thanking God for his grace and his goodness. So from start to finish, David is both blessing the Lord, setting an example for the church, and giving us reasons to bless the Lord. His song of praise rises to a peak in these final verses. where the psalmist, who begins by calling his own soul and his inner man to bless the Lord, now entreats God's mighty angels and Christ's redeemed church to join his praise and share his worship of our mighty King, Lord and Saviour. David, as it were, is appealing to heaven and earth to sing the praise of Jehovah God, the Lord and Saviour.

To praise him for his sovereign majesty, his divine glory, and all his works of grace. David says, bless the Lord ye his angels. So we're going to these last few verses, 20 to 22. They are the subject of our thoughts today. David says, bless the Lord ye his angels. The first group he addresses are God's angels.

Now, let me just speak a moment or two about angels. Humans and angels are very different creatures, though they were both created by God. Now I'm going to say something that I hope is not a surprise to any of you, but let me just say it anyway. We do not become angels when we go to heaven. When a person dies, if that person is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, they will go into the presence of the Lord. But we do not become angels when we go to heaven. Angels are one class of creation and humankind is another class altogether.

Now we meet angels quite a lot in scripture. but we actually know very little about them. And usually, as in our verses today, the Holy Spirit or the Lord just gives us a simple statement that reveals a little detail about the nature and role of these noble creatures. And what we do know of them is what we can discover by adding together all these details to try to get a picture of what angels might be like. And yet, I think most of us have the feeling that we really don't know very much at all.

So here David tells us, angels are mighty. They excel in power. That's what David tells us, they excel in power. Actually, the words taken literally say that these angels are heroes or giants of strength. They can do great feats of strength and power, such as the angel who slew in one night 185,000 Assyrians of Sennacherib's army. In 2 Kings chapter 19, we read of that. Angels are spirit messengers of God who do his bidding and carry out his will in this world. And there are lots and lots of them. Daniel says that there are thousand thousands, which I think is the Bible's way of saying millions. There are millions of angels. Hebrews in the New Testament calls them an innumerable company.

And the Lord Jesus told Pilate that he could call upon 12 armed legions of angels in a moment. who could come and overthrow the Roman garrison that was in Jerusalem, however many troops and soldiers Pilate had there in the city. Now, I'm not going to make a definite number here, but I did look it up. A legion was about 5,000 men. And if the Lord could call 12 legions of angels, he would have about 60,000 troops at his disposal. far more than Pilate could stand against. And that must have been the picture that Pilate had in his mind when the Lord was speaking to him there in the judgment room.

But back to angels. They seem to have different ranks of dignity and power in the way that they are spoken of in different places in scripture. They are also spirits. but not without bodies. And when they appear, they often do so in human form. They're able to fly. They can speak, and they can sing. They can appear, and they can disappear. As creatures, they can be tempted, and some have fallen into temptation.

These angels that we are reading of in Psalm 103, these are blessed creatures who were preserved in holiness when others were cast down and bound in chains for their rebellion. Paul speaks of these angels as elect angels. That is, they were chosen in Christ to be and to remain holy.

That's in 1 Timothy 5, verse 21. And this is one reason, although David doesn't specify it, this is one reason why even angels have cause to be thankful to God, because God has preserved them holy when these others were tempted and fell and are bound in darkness and chains for all eternity. And it's these mighty creatures that David calls to bless the Lord. And why should they not?

They are God's angels. They are His. They were set apart in Christ as ministering spirits to do God's will. They implement God's commands. They serve at His pleasure. Christ tells us in Luke chapter 20 that angels never die. We discover in the Gospels that they came to earth frequently during Christ's ministry to serve and to assist him.

They announced his birth to multiple people. They ministered to the Lord during and following his 40 days of temptation in the wilderness. They strengthened him in Gethsemane. They rolled away the stone from his tomb and they carried him up to heaven in his ascension.

Angels also have a specific role in ministering to and protecting Christ's little ones. And Hebrews chapter 1 verse 14 calls them ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation. So the angels minister to or look after and serve the Lord's people, the church in this world.

These angels delivered Old Testament prophets out of lions' dens. Do you know which prophet I'm talking about? God sent his angel, says Daniel, and hath shut the lion's mouths. New Testament apostles were delivered out of prison. The angel of the Lord, we read in Acts, by night opened the prison doors and brought them forth. And we know that angels rejoice when we repent of our sin, because there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. That's Luke chapter 15, verse 10. And Luke chapter 16 tells us that believers' spirits are carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom when they die. and at the end of the world, they will be fierce enforcers of Christ's judgment to sever the wicked from amongst the just.

Matthew 13, verse 49. But the angels are not divine, and they're not to be worshipped. They are not omniscient, which means that they know everything. God is omniscient, but angels are not. In fact, we learn that they admire and wonder at the gospel of Jesus Christ and at the unfolding work of Christ and at Christ dying and redeeming and saving his people from their sins. Peter tells us that the angels desire to look into Christ's work of atonement. and they marvel at the justification of sinners.

These excellent creatures constantly stand before God, always beholding his face, always delighting to hear his voice and fulfil his word. And actually they are always employed in worship too. Blessing and praising the Lord, So David's call here, David's invitation at the end of Psalm 103 to them to praise God doesn't imply any reluctance on their part. Rather, his purpose in calling them to bless the Lord is to stir up the church's worship here on earth by informing us how these noble creatures are themselves always employed. If these great and powerful creatures are always employed in blessing the Lord, how much more ought we to be?

And to this end, David continues by calling on the church to follow the angel's example. He says, bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts, ye ministers of his that do his pleasure. Now it is possible that David is continuing to address the angels with these words, but I'm going to take it slightly differently.

And I'm going to suggest rather that the believing church on earth and also the church already in heaven is in David's mind when he speaks these words. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts. These are sometimes, these hosts, the church on earth and the church in heaven, are sometimes distinguished in the writings of theologians as the church militant, that is the church on earth, and the church triumphant, which is the church in heaven. The church on earth that is still engaged in spiritual warfare in this world, and the church already entered into its glorious rest, all those who have died and gone before. And these two hosts are called by David to bless the Lord for his great glory and his great salvation.

Let us never imagine that life in heaven will be boring if all we do is stand around and sing hymns all day. That is not the way to consider what David is suggesting here. there will be fulfilling and satisfying work to do. Just in the same way as the angels serve God now, doing all his pleasure, so in the new heaven and new earth, like the angels, we shall bless the Lord as we enjoy the many blessings that he has laid up for us in glory.

Now part of the church, God's elect people, are already there. They are a great host. David says in Psalm 22 verse 25, my praise shall be to thee in the great congregation. Well, I like to think that that is the praise of the church in heaven. And if you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your saviour, you will one day be carried by the angels from the church militant into the church triumphant. and the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." It's this heavenly host that the hymn writer Augustus Toplady was speaking of when he wrote, more happy but not more secure, the glorified spirits in heaven. And again, David's invitation to them to praise God implies no reluctance on their part We shall delight to bless the Lord for all eternity. It is for the good of the church once again here on earth that these references are being made, that these calls are being made, that we might be encouraged and provoked to bless the Lord with them.

And next, David speaks to Christ's ministers. He speaks to gospel preachers. Within the church militant, that is the church on earth, there are those who have been called to preach the gospel as God's ministers, and they are singled out here particularly. Their prominence amongst the elect on earth is that they lead informed worship by setting before the people of God the accomplishments of their Lord in the covenant of grace and peace.

Once again, there is no greater incentive to bless the Lord than personal spiritual knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is of course what David has spent all his time doing in this psalm, speaking of God's love and pity and mercy and redemption and forgiveness and justification and his providential care together with all his many benefits to his people. And ministers, ministers of the gospel do God's pleasure when they preach that gospel, when they preach the full gospel, the gospel of free and sovereign grace, the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is the great message of complete salvation. the complete accomplishment of the church's salvation by Jesus Christ. And those who preach the true gospel faithfully, those who preach it fully, inform our spiritual understanding and motivate our worship of the triune God in all his works, in all his ways. So that in calling Christ's ministers to bless the Lord, David is calling on them to be clear and emphatic with the sovereign grace gospel. For that alone will engender proper worship of God in the church. And then the psalmist broadens yet wider his call to bless the Lord. All God's works are to bless his name. Now God's works extend to all creation and true it is that all that displays his handiwork testifies to his power and glory.

But I want to be a little bit distinguishing here. Perhaps David has in view something else. those individual believers who are peculiarly God's workmanship. That's what they're called in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 10. David says, and we are his workmanship.

We are his vessels of mercy, created in Christ Jesus to serve and to honour and to worship our God, who has set himself upon the throne of our hearts and brought us into his kingdom. This is the kingdom of which David was speaking last week, the kingdom that had been set up, the throne that had been set up in glory for the Lord Jesus Christ. upon the successful accomplishment of all his works and his ascendance into glory. God has given Christ this preeminence. Christ who has saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. 2 Timothy 1, verse 9. Are you one of the Lord's people? Are you his workmanship? Can you testify? Can you say? Can you explain? that you are one of the Lord's people, one of His workmanship? Has He made you what you are today? Then you have much to bless Him for. You have much to bless Him for. Grace today and glory hereafter.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless His holy name. And finally, David returns to where he began. He calls again upon his own soul to bless the Lord. The angels and the church in heaven and upon earth, ministers of the gospel and every redeemed soul, and me. Bless the Lord, O my soul. This faithful witness, David, taught the church in the Old Testament to behold its God and Saviour, to prize its gospel blessings and to trace its spiritual privileges to their divine source.

How much more Clearly, have we been favoured to see our gospel rights and freedoms personified in Jesus Christ, God's Son, who came into the world to save sinners and did most assuredly and effectually save them by His work upon the cross. By so much more ought we, to whom this great salvation has been shown, Love and bless the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength. Amen.