Turn to Psalm 134. Behold, bless ye the Lord, all
ye servants of the Lord, which stand by night in the house of
the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary
and bless the Lord, The Lord that made heaven and earth, bless
thee out of Zion. I'll tell you a little bit about
the setting of this psalm. At the end of the day, when the
last sacrifice had been offered, the smoke from the last sacrifice
had gone up. Darkness was coming on the earth.
The people would all go home and they would lock 21 Levites
and 3 priests inside the temple every evening. These people were
left there in the darkness to watch the temple. The sons of
Korah had the duty of going around and singing in the nighttime.
There was constant singing in the house of God. It's a picture
of the worship of God constantly going on. Constantly going on. True worship. There were those
who studied the scripture. There were those who lit the
lamps. There were those who had different things they did at
night. And here, as they were locking it up, The people would
say, Behold, and bless ye the Lord. That's what they'd say
to the people being locked up in the temple. I like that, Behold. It's calling attention to your
duty, your task. Because I've worked night shift
before. I worked night shift years ago
in a steel mill. And if you've ever worked night
shift, people have a tendency to just go off and disappear,
you know. We used to play checkers. Some of the guys would go out
and find a place to sleep. It's no wonder that steel mill
is out of business now. Night shift was really a waste
of time. But they were told, these people
who were left there in the darkness, to bless the Lord, all ye servants
of the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, which by night stand
in the house of the Lord. Your job was to stand in God's
house. Your job was to bless the Lord.
Your job was not to go off become lethargic. Bless the Lord, bless
Him. That's the chief end of man,
is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. That's what they're
being told here. Oh, you servants of the Lord.
You're a servant of the Lord. It's a great honor to be a servant
of the Lord. Do you realize that? It is. What
manner of love, John said, that we should be called the sons
of There's nothing beats that. We're also servants of God. It's
an inestimable blessing to actually be a servant of God. And these
people were left there in the night when the rest of things
were settling down, darkness was falling on the earth. These
men had the watch over God's worship and God's true word,
God's house. And you say, how does that relate
to today? Well, you know, the Reformation has passed. Five
hundred years ago, Martin Luther took a nation out of potpourri,
stepped away from all the religious traditions, and started declaring
the truth that justification was by faith. And such things
swept the continents that there were great revivals. Huss, Zwingli,
Knox in Scotland, these different men in different places. Even
in America you had men like Jonathan Edwards, men like You know, Whitfield,
when he was preaching the gospel, the same gospel we preach right
now, when he was preaching that in America, it's estimated that
over 50% of the American population heard that man preach out there. They came from everywhere. Benjamin
Franklin was going to hear him one day, and someone asked him,
do you believe what that Whitfield preaches? And he says, no, I
don't, but he does. That's why he was going to hear
it. So we're in a time, we're in a time of darkness in the
earth now. A time when men have grown lethargic. The generation that we're a part
of has been swept away by free will Arminianism. It might as
well be Roman Catholicism. It's error and it's prevalent
everywhere. And God's people have been told
to behold, bless ye the Lord. Bless ye the Lord. All you servants
of the Lord, lift up your hands in the sanctuary. What's that
mean? Get busy. You have things to do. That's,
you know, everybody wants to think that means put your hands
over your head. It doesn't mean that. It means to do what the
Lord's given you to do with your hands. You lift up your hands. You be standing in the temple
of God. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord. Three verses and the blessing
of God comes up here twice. Why's that? Because that's your
primary goal in life. You know, we meet this morning
and when we come together, we come expecting to be edified,
I sure hope you did. We come expecting to take something
home with us, but that isn't the primary reason we worship
God. We meet together to bless God,
to honor Him, to adore Him, to reverence His name, to speak
of His greatness and declare it among men. That's why we meet
primarily, to bless the Lord, to bless Him, to bless Him. And
I like what it says here, the last thing as these people were
leaving, the priest would answer back and say, the Lord that made
heaven and earth, this one who was absolutely sovereign, nothing's
beyond his ability, this one who spoke and it was all created,
that one, bless you, bless thee, out of Zion, out of Zion. Do
you know that the blessing of God is always on Zion? It's the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Of all the pictures in the Old Testament, you can't
miss the fact that every other nation in the world was in darkness
except Israel, and over in the mountains of Zion, the worship
of God was going on, and that's where the blessing was. That woman at the well was talking
to our Lord about what her fathers did and how they worshipped on
this mountain. Our Lord said to her, you worship, you know
not what, salvations of the Jews. He's pointing back over there
to that temple. That's where the blessing of God was. That's
where the blessing of God is now. It's among Zion, the people
of God. Look back one psalm right up
above you here. It's talking about how blessed
the unity is among brethren. Verse 2 in Psalm 133 says, It's
like the precious ointment upon the head, ran down upon the beard,
even upon Aaron's beard, and went down to the skirts of his
garment. As the dew of Mount Hermon. There was a mountain
not far from Israel, not far from Jerusalem. Mount Hermon
that stood 10,000 feet, I believe, in the air, that mountain produced
so much water that it says that the dew descended from that mountain,
it descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded
the blessing. You see that? The dew coming
over from those mountains comes down on the mountains of Zion
because that's where God Almighty has commanded the blessing. We
read a scripture, the Lord hath commanded. that I can say. Do you remember reading that?
There's a commanded blessing. There are blessings that every
man and woman on this earth enjoys every day. Blessings that they
enjoy. But God's people, Zion, has a
commanded blessing, a special blessing. You know what it is?
Look at the end of that verse. That's the commanded blessing
of God. The commanded blessing of God's
people. A Lord that made heaven and earth bless you out of Zion.
And you bless the Lord. You bless Him. And I want to
deal for a few minutes on blessing the Lord. Look at Psalm 103.
There's not a better psalm in the world. Just to talk about
why we should bless the Lord. Look at this. Bless the Lord,
O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless His holy name. Everything
that's in me. I love that. All that's within
me. You know, sometimes we're tempted
just to move our mouths, move our lips. But to bless Him with
all that's within me, it's an intentional, deliberate worship
of the heart, of the mind, of everything we possess. We're
to bless Him with all that's within us. It's an intelligent
worship. And it's a worship that's a personal worship. It's not
relying on everybody else around you to do it. It's bless the
Lord, oh my soul. Oh my soul, and all that is within
me, and bless him, Lord, look at here, oh my soul, and forget
not all his benefits. That's a great way to bless the
Lord is to think about what he's done for you. You know, we're,
I've said this before, but our minds are pack rats. We can remember
things that happened to us when we were young, silly things,
and they stay with us forever. Bill Davies said that I was chubby
back when I was in high school, junior high school. You remember
that, you know. You keep dreaming of going back
to a class reunion just to see that guy, just to see what happened
to him, you know. Kind of hope he became a derelict.
You know it's funny, you don't give up on these things. That's
the way you are by nature. But you can't remember what the
man who preached here last week said to you. because you forget
the benefits of God, the blessings of God. Remember His many benefits. Our pastor said that in his prayer. Who? Forgiver of all thine iniquities. That's the first blessing spoken
of is the forgiveness of sins. You know, if you don't have this
blessing, nothing else in the world matters. Nothing else in
this world matters without the forgiveness of sins. You can
achieve great things here on this earth And if you have not
got this blessing, my friends, you've just had nothing. You've
got nothing. I love that word, forgiven. It's present tense. You know,
it's not just he's forgiven all my sins. He's forgiven my sins. Right now, the same one who forgave
me in eternity past, put me in Christ, This same One who sent
the Son to put away my sins. This same One who loved me before
e'er I knew Him. This same One that let me live
so many years without understanding what He'd done for me. One day
I heard the Gospel and He made me aware of the fact that He
had forgiven my sins. But now, even greater is to know
that even right now as I stand here, this One forgiveth all
my sins and He will forgive all our sins. He's a forgiveness. The forgiveness of sins is in
the present tense here. You see, all of my sins were
future when Christ died for me. Everything you've ever done or
ever will do was a future thing when the Lord Jesus Christ went
to Calvary. It's the forgiving of sins, the constant forgiving
of sins. Spurgeon made the statement that
God's forgiveness stretches to the length of Christ's atonement
and Christ's atonement stretches to the length of every one of
the believer's sins past, present, future. It's an effectual sacrifice. It's an honest-to-goodness atonement. It's not an attempt on the part
of God to put away your sins. It was an actual accomplished
thing, and is to this time. And it's not just a few of our
sins. It's all of them. You see that word? All thine
iniquity. All thine iniquity. We confess
He's faithful and just to forgive us of all our sins. John said
over in 1 John, the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son cleanses,
there it is again, present tense, cleanses us from all sins. It's
a constant blessing that we need to bless God Almighty. He cleanses
all our sins, our iniquities. He healeth all thy diseases. All your diseases, not just some
of them. You know, I know folks want to make this physical, a
physical disease that's being spoken of here, but that can't
be true. It cannot be true. If the Lord were to heal you
today of that sniffle you've got, you're still going to die.
You're still going to die. It's talking about spiritual
diseases. Lust, anger, greed, hatred, envy. These are the things He heals
us of. You see, by taking away the cause, you remove the effect. By cleansing us of all sins,
you've taken away the effect of them. That's what's being
spoken of. Spiritual diseases. You know, you think about that
man Zacchaeus. I was growing up, they used to
teach us that song, Zacchaeus was a wee little man. A wee little
man was he. Climbed up in that sycamore tree
and the Lord Jesus Christ came walking down that road one And
in His sovereign mercy and grace, He looked up in that tree and
said, Zacchaeus, you come down. Salvation has come to your house
today. And that publican, that sinner, that tax collector, who
had cheated men all his days, when his feet hit the ground,
he said, half my goods I give to the poor, and if I've done
anything wrong to anybody, I'll restore it fourfold. You know
what that was? That was a healing. That was a healing like no healer
you ever saw on TV who was professing to be a healer ever accomplished.
Healing all your diseases. And look at this. He redeemed
us by life from destruction. That word destruction is actually
plural there. It means all forms of destruction.
This One that we are to bless has redeemed us from all forms
of destruction. And, of course, the most obvious
one is eternal destruction, where the second death can have nothing
to do with the believer. We have been redeemed from all
destruction, and we've also been redeemed from all forms of destruction
in this life. We are absolutely, according
to the Scripture, absolutely immortal to the day we die. I
like what John Ryland said. He said, plagues and death around
me fly. Till he bids, I cannot die, not
a single shaft can hit. till the God of love sees fit."
Now, that's a fact. The man that wrote this was David.
He wasn't a big man. You know, when it come time to
pick a king in Israel, a prophet went to anoint a king. His dad
brought in all of his brothers, big old strapping boys, and when
none of them were found to be right, he said, you got any other
sons? They said, well, there's a little
one out there in the ten and the sheep. Go get him. They brought
that boy in, that ruddy little boy. That man had taken on a
bear, bare-handed. Now how do you win that? He'd
taken on a lion, defending those sheep. How do you win that? He
redeemed my life from all his pain. That man had been the target
of Saul's spear, sitting there playing his harp, trying to calm
him down, and Saul throws a spear at him and can't get He took
a blade from a giant and cut his head off. How do you walk
away from all those things? There's only one answer. He redeemeth
thy life from destructions, all destructions. Absolutely sovereign,
this God of ours, keeping His hand on His people, and we're
to bless Him for this. You think of all the near misses
you've had in your life. I know many a time I've gone
by a car and thought for sure at the very least our mirrors
were going to knock each other off. It's near. We call them near destructions.
I'm here to tell you He redeemed my life from destruction. That's
what He says. Bless God for that and He crowned
thee with loving kindness and tender mercy. It's not just enough
that He forgives us and heals us and protects us, but this
one crowns us. He would not stay His hand until
He actually crowned us with His own loving kindness and tender
mercy. Who did that? He did that. It's not a crown
of merit. I hear people talk about one
day they're going to stand in glory and they're going to get
crowns on their head for all the things they've done. No,
no, no. I don't want that kind of crown. The crown He puts on
your head will be a crown of loving kindness and tender mercy. And when He puts it there, my
friends, nothing's going to knock that crown off. And we're to
bless Him for this. Bless Him for this. And bless
Him for the satisfaction that we have in this world. Who satisfies
thy mouth with good things? There are people all over the
world today that are full, that have everything they could want
in this life, but they're not satisfied. But the God we worship,
this One we serve, satisfies thy mouth with good things. Good things so that thy youth
is renewed like the eagle. What kind of good things? These
kind of good things. What kind of good things satisfies
your mouth? I love it again, this present
tense. It keeps going on in the life of a believer. was satisfied
with his word, it was my strength as an eagle. I'm satisfied with
his son, this one that God Almighty said, this is my beloved son,
hear him. I'm satisfied with him and I'm
satisfied with the atonement that he has worked on behalf
of his people. If I have anything in this world that gives me comfort,
gives me joy, is to think that the Father has laid my sins on
the Son and has been satisfied and raised Him to His right hand
to set on what Hebrews calls the majesty. That's all. He just
calls it the majesty. It's just beyond any other word.
It's the majesty at His right hand. How'd that happen? God did it. Why'd that happen?
God was satisfied with what the Son did. And He satisfies our
souls, our hearts with these things. So that our youth is
renewed like the eagle. There's not a better health food
that can be eaten than the Word of God and the Son of God and
the accomplishments of the Word of Christ Himself. Nothing, nothing
compares to it. So we bless Him. And as we've
been reading here, you see, we've been blessing Him for what He's
done for us. Now He starts blessing God for
what He is. Starts blessing Him for His attributes.
Look at this. He executes righteousness and
judgment on all that are oppressed. Our God is just. I bless Him
for His justice. I bless Him for His justice.
I know that when things seem to be going wrong in this world,
there's coming a day when every right is going to be wrong. Every
wrong is going to be righted. Henry used to say it. Payday
may not be this week, but there's payday coming. I'm pleased with the attribute
of God's justice. It was a thing that one time
caused me great fear. I think of the nights that I
spent as a young man thinking about what I deserved. The fear of knowing what you
are and thinking about a holy God. But when you see that that
holy God has laid your sins on His Son, then His justice is
something you can glory in. You can glory in it. I bless
God for His justice. This one who is so just that
when my sins were found upon his son, he would not spare his
son. And now I know that as a result of what he's done, he will spare
his people." He executed judgment, justice. Look at verse 7. He made known his ways unto Moses
and his acts unto the children of Israel. I bless God. Bless God for what? I bless God
that he is a revealer of who He is. He's a God of revelation. We're blessed for that. A God
who reveals Himself. One who makes His ways known
to Moses. Now most folks go through this
world seeing the acts of God. You can open the newspaper up
this morning and you'll see the acts of God. But God revealed
His way to Moses. And I'm here to tell you, that
is the God I bless. A God who reveals His way. See, Moses himself, as brilliant
as he was, was not left to his own mind to figure God out. He was raised in the house of
Pharaoh. He had the best education anybody
could have. That one. And one day he saw
that bush and that bush said, you tell the people I am that
I am. And there came a day in the life of Moses when all the
things and miracles he'd seen, he asked God to show him his
glory. And the Lord said, I'm going to show you my glory. He
said, I'm going to put you in the cleft of the rock and I'm
going to walk by you. You're going to see my hinder parts
and I'm going to declare my glory unto you. Look at that in Exodus
33, 19. Exodus 33, verse 18. He said, I beseech
thee, show me your glory. And he said, I'll make all my
goodness pass before thee, and I'll proclaim the name of the
Lord before thee, and I'll be gracious to whom I will be gracious,
and I'll show mercy on whom I'll show mercy. That's what Paul
quotes in Romans 9. The sovereign God who shows mercy
on whom he will show mercy. Therefore, it's not of him that
willeth nor him that runneth, but God that showeth mercy. That's
a revelation that men won't get by nature. You see this, you
look here in the next chapter, verses 5 through 9, you actually
see the nature of God revealed. The Lord descended in the cloud
and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord.
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord. The Lord
God, merciful and gracious and long-suffering, Abundant in goodness
and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, even forgiving iniquity
and transgressions and sin that will by no means clear the guilty.
He's a just God. Visiting the iniquities of the
fathers upon the children, upon the children's children, to the
third and fourth generation. And Moses made haste and bowed
his head towards the earth and worshipped. And he said, If now
I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee,
go among us, for it's a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity
and our sins. and take us for thine inheritance.
This man got to see the nature of God. It was revealed to him. God made his way into him. I
am a merciful God. I am merciful. I'm going to make
my goodness pass before you. But let me tell you something
about my mercy. I'm absolutely sovereign and restored. He's a God who reveals that truth
to his people. Now, I'm telling you, I grew
up in religion and I never knew that. I grew up in religion. I was taught my entire life that
it was up to me. But there came a day when the
gospel was preached and I actually heard the fact that I was in
the hands of a sovereign God who could do with me what He
would and He could do with any man what He would at any time,
any place. And none could stay His hand
or even inquire as to what He was doing. Like He told Job when
Job got to questioning, where were you when I laid the foundation
of the earth? He is a sovereign God. And I
bless Him for revealing that to me, because that's the only
way you're ever going to know. If you ever know anything about
the ways of God, God Almighty is going to be the one to teach
you. So if you know today, bless it. You see, bless it. Oh, verse 8, the Lord's merciful
and gracious, slow to anger and plentiful in mercy. He'll not
always chide, neither will He keep His anger forever. I thank
God His attributes of mercy and grace. He's not like men around
us. You don't see this in men. Mercy
and grace, true mercy and grace. He's not like a man. He doesn't
hold His anger forever. You know, the men you deal with
in this world say they'll forgive you, but they won't forget. Our
God's not that way. Our God's not that way. absolutely
doesn't keep his anger, but he condescends to be reconciled
to his erring children, as we heard Frank talking about Peter
a while ago. That was absolute condescension.
Condescension. When Christ said, I know what
you're going to do. I know you're going to deny your newness three
times before the cock crows. I know you're going to cuss when
you do it. I've prayed for you. Your faith will not fail you.
And when you're converted, you're going to strengthen the brotherhood.
I love that. He'll not always try. He'll not
always keep his anger forever. I'll tell you, he won't do it.
Why's that? What's the reason for that? Well, he hath not dealt with us according
to our sins. After our sins, nor rewarded
us according to our iniquities. Bless God. I bless God, not only
for what He's done and what He is, But I bless Him for what
He hasn't done for me, to deal with me according to my sin.
I thank Him. You know, you think all the time,
you fail the people around you. And there's always that feeling,
you know, that feeling that I've let them down. And how much more
so is that true of you and God Almighty? And yet he does not
deal with us according to our sins. There's only one reason.
There's only one reason. He has dealt with us in a subject. He's dealt with us. And I know
you folks know the gospel here. It's preached every week. He
hath made him to be sin for us, and who knows sin that we might
be made the righteousness of God. And that's just the greatest
verse. I see it right on the front of your bulletin. The idea
that God Almighty has laid all the sins of all his people on
his son, And that that one who came, not only was our sin bearer,
but that one who came, walked through this world absolutely
perfect, born, not as I'm born, but born as a seed of woman without
Adam's sin, and walked through this world absolutely perfect,
keeping God's law, Satan could find nothing in him. And that
perfect one went to the cross and took all the sins, all the
hell, all the damnation that was worthy of all his people.
And in those few hours on that cross withstood pain beyond any
comprehension when He poured out His soul for our sakes that we might be made the righteousness
of God under Him. That that righteous life He lived
might be imbued upon us. What a reason to bless God. He
hath not dealt with us according to our sins. or rewarded us according
to our iniquities. And what reason could you have
for such doings? Four, as the heaven is high above
the earth, so great is its mercy towards them that fear him."
You want a reason? It's pure mercy. High mercy. Mercy, high as the heaven is
above the earth. How high is that? Well, we've
managed to get to the moon, and we've sent some things out and
gone out to some of the planets. But if you could get in a spaceship
and just take off, travel at the speed of sound, and travel
for hundreds, thousands of years, you'd never get out of our galaxy.
First, second heaven, the third heaven. How high is that? How high is that mercy? That's
immeasurable mercy. That's why he did this. Infinite
mercy. Sovereign, boundless, immeasurable,
infinite mercy. That's what Moses had revealed
to him. I'll be merciful to whom I am
merciful. When you're talking about God's
mercy, you're talking about something that's eternal. When I leave this world, I want
something that started in eternity, because the only thing that's
going into eternity is something that started there. God's love
on His people. I want to have that when I go
into eternity. His mercy towards us. Everlasting
mercy. And as far as the East is from
the West, so far have He removed our transgressions from us. I
had a man tell me he's glad it wasn't North to South because
that's different. East to West. That's a completely
different thing. There's no going East and ever
getting to go West. Talk about He hath perfected
forever. And you know, if we'd have done
this, if there'd have been some way that we could have dealt
with our sins, took them off and buried them over in Adams
County somewhere, you could have found them with a good dog, but
you're not going to find these. There's not a trace of the sins
of those people anywhere to be found. Why's that? I love that. He did this. Now that's a hope. That's a blessed hope. He did
this. I bless God He did this. As far
as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions
from us. Oh my. Infinite mercy. Infinite mercy. And here, I bless
God, but He's not a God of stone. 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 but dust. He remembers
this. He knows. I worked with a guy
who's a Buddhist. He recently left. He used to
have all these pictures of Buddha, all these stone gods. And he
would take photostatic copies of them and he would hang them
on the walls at work. And all over in his back office,
he just had a shrine in there. Must have had eight or nine pictures
there and he'd sit at his desk and I guess do his mantra or
whatever it is. I caught him going one day. One of the guys has a Michelin
bobblehead at his desk. So I photostatted this Michelin
man with a little bobblehead and did it so that I could get
the texture real grainy and I cut it real good and put it right
in the middle of all his boots. He was there a couple weeks.
He laughed when he saw it. It may have broke his meditation,
but he might as well be praying to that Michelin man. Might as
well. Our God is not a God of stone. When he speaks of his character
here relating to you and I, he just brings up a father's pity.
Ask a father to pity his children. A father is no one to talk about.
In some sense of the word, we pity our children. It's pitying. It's present tense. He pities
me right now. Spurgeon said it's better to
be the object of God's pity than to be the object of men's acclaim,
to the envy of men. He feels for us. We read that
in Hebrews. He's touched by the feeling of
our infirmities. He feels for his children. At
this very moment, he feels for us. He remembers with us. There
are times we forget it. There are times we don't realize
how weak we are. But He's always, always pitying
His children. Always. I won't take you there,
but 1 Corinthians 10.13 says, He will not, He'll never overload
us. He will not suffer you to be
tempted above that which you ate. Do you know that? He takes
into account even what you can take when you're going through
temptation. He's so tender and so kind towards
His people. So I bless God for that here.
And David takes a minute here out and just, he speaks, he's
been looking at the Father and he takes a minute here, just
a brief minute to look at man. As for man, as for man, his days
are as grass, as the flower of the field so he flourishes. For
the wind passeth over it and it's gone, and the place thereof
shall know it no more. Just a brief look at man. You
grow up, you're like the grass, spring up out of the ground,
Time goes by, you start developing some abilities, some appearance. I hear people say, all the babies
in the world are beautiful. Nuh-uh. I've seen some children. But as time goes by, most people
develop some beauties about them, the flower appearance. But we're
not put up in some little pot somewhere, kept in a house. We're
not kept in some hothouse. We're as the flower of the field.
We're out there if a beast are trampling around. All kinds of
activity. And he says this to show us our
frailty. You see, I don't need a mower to come and take me out.
All it takes is a wind to pass over me. A wind to pass over
you. The wind passeth over and it's
gone. Not even the place to The fragrance
is gone. Whatever smell that flower produces
is gone. I had a friend I used to work
with said, if you ever think you're somebody, just stick your
finger in a bucket and pull a bucket of water and pull your finger
out real quick and see how fast that hole fills. The place thereof
shall know it no more. The home you live in right now,
you can't tell me who owned that property a hundred years ago.
Why is this said here? This is being said so that you
and I always remember this fact. We need an excellence that goes
beyond this world. We need an excellence that goes
beyond what we have here. And that's what he says in the
next verse. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting
unto everlasting. That's what I'm talking about.
See how quick he goes from man and goes back to God. There's
nothing. You can't bless anything And that verse about man lets
you go right back to God Almighty. Mercy from everlasting, way back
under. Everlasting, way under. Oh my
goodness. Everlasting mercy. Thou hast
been our dwelling place in all generations, the psalmist said. If you're an object of God's
mercy today, I want you to know it ain't no new thing. Bless God. Bless God. And it's extended mercy. It's
not just to you and me. It's on all them that fear Him
and His righteousness and the children's children. Every generation
is going to have a group of people praising God and blessing God
and hearing His truth. It's to every generation. Children's
children. To such as keep His covenant.
To them that remember His commandments to do them. There's always going
to be a covenant people on this earth. And they're not just going
to be hearers They're going to be doers of the Word. You see
that there? He's not talking about keeping the Law. He's talking
about doing the work of God. Believing on Him whom the Father
hath sent. Not only hearing that said from
the pulpit, but being a doer of the Word. Doing it. Believing
God. Trusting God. Looking to His
Son. He's going to do that to such as keep His covenant and
to them that remember His commandments forever. His commandments to
do them. So I wanted to show you that
and I'll just touch base here with a few more verses and I'll
let you go. He brings up another of God's attributes. The Lord
hath prepared his throne in the heaven and his kingdom will look
over all. There's no reason for alarm or anxiety. Bless God,
he hath prepared his throne in the heaven. You know, author
Pate, when he wrote his book on the sovereignty of God, in
the chapter on the administration of God's sovereignty, this is
the verse he chose. Because it plainly tells us this.
God Almighty's throne has not been prepared by men. All these
politicians and things that you see going on on the earth. You
know, a man will spend a hundred million dollars to get a job
that pays a hundred thousand dollars. And he sets up his little
government and as time goes by, people come, people go. All these
things that men do. All by the grace of God and by
the permission of God. But God Almighty has prepared
His throne He is sovereign. No one helped Him in the establishment
of His throne. And He ruleth. His kingdom ruleth
over all. You see that? It's over all. He's absolutely sovereign in
administration. What goes on in everyday life,
in everyday world, is all under His power and His authority.
And I bless God for that. That gives me peace to know a
sovereign God rules. in the creation and in salvation. You know, I've been hearing all
the people talking about weather changes and stuff. The sovereign
God rules the weather. You know that? You know, it's
man. Man thinks we have a free will,
we can save ourselves. We take care of ourselves. It's
all about us. It's even got that way now about
weather. When the weather's changing, it's because man is in control.
You ever know? That's right. That's wrong. God's
kingdom ruleth over all. You can read the Psalms. He'll
take a river and make it a dry bed. And He'll take a dry field
and make it blossom as a rose, Isaiah said. God does that. God
does that. So, I just wanted to point that
out to sovereign God that He blesses here. And He says in
verse 20, Bless the Lord, you His angels, that excel in strength. that do his commandments, heartening
to the voice of his word. Bless him, this act of ruling
God. You do this, ye angels, heartening
to the voice of his word." That means the angels are actually
listening to the way God speaks when he speaks. They're listening
to his inflections. "...heartening to the voice of
his word. And bless the Lord, all ye his hosts. Ye minister
of his that do his pleasure." Bless God, all you angels and
cherubim and you that have actually have life, and then bless God
all you inanimate hosts, all the stars in the sky that move
by His decree. He calls on them to bless God,
whether they're conscious or unconscious, and bless the Lord,
all His hosts, you 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. He calls on the entire creation
around him to bless God. And I'll tell you why David's
doing that, because this is too big a job for us. If we had any idea how great
and gracious and marvelous he is, if we had any comprehension
of how glorious and how active he is in our lives right now,
in what he's accomplishing, the manifold wisdom of God, if we
knew that, we would be singing with a heavenly You see, that's
what he's saying. We have some brethren that have
gone on to be with the Lord, and I'm sure they could tell
us about that. Look at Revelation 5. Verse 9, And they sung a new
song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, to open the
seals thereof, for thou wast slain. and hast redeemed us to
God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people
and nation, and 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, saying with a loud voice, Worthy
is the Lamb that was slain. to receive power, and riches,
and wisdom, and strength, honor, and glory, and blessing. And
every creature which is in the 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 setteth upon the throne, and unto the
Lamb for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen,
and the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him
that liveth for ever and ever." We saw what they saw. We bless
it. Behold, blessed ye the Lord,
all ye servants of the Lord, which stand by night in the sanctuary. Lift up your hands, bless the
Lord, and the Lord will bless you out of Zion. I believe that. I'll let you go.