Regarding that last hymn you
just sang, On Christ a Solid Rock I Stand,
many years ago, a preacher in the open air in England was preaching
to some people who'd gathered around him. It was the time of
the shamrocks. a race, a very popular race in
England. And evidently someone had become
a little inebriated and wanted to know the results of the race.
And so the preacher's trying to preach and this inebriated
man is saying, tell us about the Samrocks, tell us about the
Samrocks. And the preacher ignored him
and kept preaching. Well, the inebriated man was
not to be silenced, so he said a little louder, tell us about
the shamrocks. And he did it the third time,
and the preacher finally realized that he would have to tell about
the shamrocks or else not finish his message. And so the preacher
said, my hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand. All other rocks are sham rocks. And that's true. All other rocks
are sham rocks. I invite your attention to the
book of the Psalms, Number 103, the 103rd Psalm. Today's message will actually
be the first of three on the subject of Bless Jehovah. I'm going to read this psalm
in just a moment. Let me tell you something about
the title, Bless Jehovah. The word blessed is rather interesting. The Hebrew word is Barak, spelled
B-A-R-A-K. Now, it is interesting because
of this, and I should let you know that the Old Testament was
written in Hebrew, and the New Testament was written in Greek.
Now, Greek is one of the most precise languages on the earth. Hebrew can be rather ambiguous. For example, this word translated
bless by rock. It can also mean curse. So you have to look at the context
to ascertain what is the meaning of this word. Is it bless or
curse? Well, it is bless here, undoubtedly
bless. Bless whom? Bless Jehovah. Now, if you'll look in Your Psalm,
Psalm 103, bless the Lord, O my soul. Now look at that word Lord. It is in all uppercase letters. Anytime in the Old Testament
you see the word Lord or God in all uppercase letters, it
represents or translates what we call the Hebrew Tetragrammaton. Let me explain that big word
for you. For centuries, the ancient Jews were so afraid of taking
God's name in vain that they would not pronounce it and they
would not write it down. So afraid were they of taking
it in vain. So when they came to this word,
they would put down only four characters from their alphabet,
which probably were J-H-V-H, although some say Y-H-W-H, but
the J-H-V-H we get from that Jehovah. That probably is the
correct pronunciation. It's been lost in antiquity.
Some say it should be Yahweh, but whichever. Anytime you see
that word Lord in all uppercase letters, it is God's name par
excellence. It is his name to his covenant
people. It is Jehovah, the self-existent
one. He who is, I am, who I am. So I'm going to read this psalm
this morning, and we're gonna look at that word, Lord, and
consider it as Jehovah. We're going to, this morning,
consider the subject of Bless Jehovah, the first of three messages,
beginning in verse number one. Bless Jehovah, O my soul, and
all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless Jehovah,
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 loving kindness
and tender mercies, who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, so
that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. Jehovah executeth
righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. He made
known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel. Jehovah 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 Jehovah 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 Jehovah is from
everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him and his righteousness
unto children's children, to such as keep his covenants and
to those that remember his commandments to do them. Jehovah hath prepared
his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all. Bless Jehovah, ye his angels
that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening
unto the voice of his word. Bless Jehovah, all ye his hosts,
ye ministers of his that do his pleasure. Bless Jehovah, all
his works and all places of his dominion. Bless Jehovah, O my
soul. Well, there's a whole lot of
blessing going on in that psalm, is there not? He blesses us and we bless him. God blesses all his creatures
and all his creatures should bless him. Some do, such as the
psalmist and others he identified in this psalm, particularly in
the last three verses. But there are some people who are so ungrateful
that having received all these blessings from God, they still
will not bless Him. He blesses them, but they will
not bless Him. Let there be no such person here
today. Let us say with the psalmist,
bless Jehovah. Oh my soul and all that is within
me, bless his holy name. Now, there is a difference in
the manners in which Jehovah blesses people and in people
bless him. He blesses us by benefiting us. And we bless him by extolling
him. praising Him, worshiping Him,
obeying Him. There are many things that we
do in order to bless Him, but let's just say we extol and praise
Him. He blesses us by benefiting us,
we bless Him by praising Him. Now, we do not bless God by benefiting
Him. We do nothing that benefits Him.
For beyond all contradiction, the lesser is blessed by the
better, Hebrews 7, verse 7. We cannot bless him in the sense
of adding anything to him, making him better than he was, or giving
any other kind of benefit to him. Furthermore, he does not
bless us by extolling us, praising us, worshiping us, revering us,
We are unworthy. So just observe the differences. He blesses us by benefiting us
and we bless him by praising his name. Let us consider furthermore
the two manners of God blessing creatures and creatures blessing
God. God in his benevolence blesses
all creatures. And I use the term benevolence.
God in his benevolence blesses all creatures with earthly and
physical provisions. He makes his sun rise on the
evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. We live in farm country, ranching
country. Some huge farms around us, wheat
here and there. Now, it may be that there is
a man who, he's got a wheat field, and he's a righteous, godly,
holy man, lives like he should. Next door to him, over in the
next ranch, next wheat field, wicked man, wicked man. Now when God sends rain, does
he put it only on the field of the good man and kind of just
shut off the showers to the other man? No, he doesn't do that.
God in his benevolence puts rain on the field of the just man
and on the field of the unjust man. His sunshine is on the field
of the just man and on the field of the unjust man. He prepares
rain for the earth. He makes grass to grow on the
mountains. He gives to the beast its food
and to the young ravens. Jesus said, why do you worry
about what you're gonna wear, eat? Why? God feeds the ravens, raised the lilies, clothes the
grass, and does even more to mortals. Therefore, God in his benevolence
is good to all creatures. But God in his grace blesses
his people with heavenly and spiritual provisions. Let me
make this distinction as well. I would have you to avoid the
term common grace. I know it's a term you hear quite
often. You heard me speak of it as benevolence,
and I'll tell you why I would avoid the term common grace. Anytime you read the scriptures,
in the scriptures of God's grace, it is always in the context of
his chosen people, his people, and the benefits of salvation.
You never read of God's grace in the context of the wicked.
Grace is not common. It is the most uncommon thing
there is. It is sovereign grace. It is uncommon goodness and unmerited
favor. So let's use that term benevolence. God is benevolent to all, but
he's not gracious to all. And his grace is not common.
But God in his grace provides spiritual blessings to his people. They confess that every good
gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from
the Father of lights. He has blessed us with every
spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. And regarding creatures blessing
God by extolling him, If you'll read Psalm 145, verses one and
two, you'll find the psalmist saying, I will extol you, I will
bless you. I will bless you, I will praise
your name. He uses parallelism to extol
God as the blessing. Do you want to bless God this
morning? Well, you did so in the psalms you sang. Oh, I'm
sure he was pleased when he heard you singing On Christ the solid
rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. Opened for me, opened for me. That blessed fountain was opened
for me. God's pleased. He listens to
what you're singing. God is pleased, it blesses God
when his people bless his name and praise him for his goodness
unto them. Now, this is a message of three
parts. First part today, we're gonna
be looking at blessers of Jehovah identified. Next Lord's Day,
God willing, Jehovah's blessings summarized, and then the third
message two weeks from now, Jehovah the blesser characterized. So
let's look first of all at blessers of Jehovah identified. They are
identified as four different sorts. His saints in verse one. His angels in verse 20. His ministers
in verse 21 and his works in verse 22, but we're going to reverse the order.
We're going to consider first of all that Jehovah's works bless
him. Psalm 103, verse 22. We find his works blessing him. Bless Jehovah, all his works
and all places of his dominion. And there it is. All his works
in every place. Now, since Jehovah is absolutely
sovereign over all things, all places are places of his dominion. There is no place where God is
not sovereign. No place, no place. When you see a man driving down
a gravel road or a dirt road and you see all the particles
of dust flying into the heavens and swirling this way and that
and finally falling to the earth, remember this. Every piece of
dust fell back to the earth in the
exact path that God ordained for it before the foundation
of the world. God is sovereign over everything. There is no place in all this
earth where he is not sovereign. You may not have sovereignty
over Leviathan as you read in the book of Job this morning,
but God does, God does. He says, you cannot play with
him as with a bird. I can, I can. And he does what
I tell him to do. I'll let him do what he will,
but I'm sovereign over him. God is absolutely sovereign over
all things and all places. Now Jehovah's works blessing
him are of two sorts, creation, salvation. Jehovah's works of
creation bless him. If you'd look in Psalm 148, we
will not do it now, but if you look in Psalm 148, you'll find
that these creations include the sun, the moon, the highest
heavens, the clouds, sea creatures, oceans and other bodies of water,
lightning, hailstones, snow, stormy winds, mountains and hills,
all sorts of trees, wild beasts, domesticated animals, creeping
creatures and birds. I think that's a very good summary
of just about everything that was created with regard to the
creation around us. and they all bless him. All these
are God's creation for Jehovah commanded and they were created.
And in Psalm 145, verse eight, they fulfill his word and that's
the way they bless him. They fulfill his word. Even the
inanimate elements of nature fulfill God's word and in so
doing, they bless him. For example, Israel is fleeing
Egypt, pursued by Pharaoh. He has chased them to the Red
Sea. They now are trapped, no place
to go, no place to go. So God says to the Red Sea, divide
in two. so my people can walk across
on dry ground. So the Red Sea parted? Why? Jehovah said so. The Red Sea
blessed Jehovah by parting. Israel walked through on dry
ground and when they were done, Pharaoh was saved to follow them
and so here he comes into the dry ground in the bottom of the
Red Sea. And Jehovah says to the Red Sea,
Put your waters back in place and drown that man in his army.
So the Red Sea, okay, and blessed God by doing so. Well, there's a prophet. He was
told to go to Nineveh and he decided go someplace else. God said, go to Nineveh and he
said, okay. He thought God had turned his
back, so he got on a boat and went the other direction. And
if you read the book of Jonah, just observe the times you come
across that phrase, God prepared. God prepared a storm. And Jonah says, throw me overboard.
I'm the cause of all the trouble. So they threw him overboard.
And so there was a great fish there close by, and so Jehovah
said, swallow Jonah. Okay, and so the great fish swallowed
Jonah and blessed God by doing what God said. And after a while,
the Lord said, get close to the dry land and spit him out. Okay. And so the great fish blessed
God by getting close to the dry land and spitting Jonah out.
Now that's the Red Sea. That's a creature in the sea.
God says to the earth, quake. Yes, sir. And the earth blesses
him by quaking. God says to the storm, seize. And the storm blesses God by
seizing. Every element in nature blesses
God by fulfilling his word. Then Jehovah's work of salvation
blesses him. Ephesians chapter one is probably
the best summary in all the scriptures regarding Jehovah's work of salvation. You'll find that his work of
salvation includes election to salvation, predestination to
sonship, acceptance in Christ, redemption from bondage, forgiveness
of sins, belief of the gospel, faith in Jesus Christ, the eternal
inheritance in heaven. Every one of those are blessings from God to his
people in their salvation and every one of them blesses him,
and every recipient of these blessings bless him. What did
Paul say in introducing the blessings? Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That's what
we do, that's what we do. He has given to us all these
blessings and so what do we do? We bless him back. We praise
him, we extol his name, we worship and revere him for all he's done
for us. Jehovah is blessed by every mortal
except the ungrateful ingrate who refuses to Bless God. Here's the man who says, I'm
a self-made man. Everything I have, I earned it
of myself. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps. I'm a self-made man. I don't
owe God anything. I did it. I did it for myself. Here's the man who says, My salvation
is the result of my free will and my virtuous works and the
faith that I produced in myself. That my friend is an ungrateful
man who cannot bless God, he's too busy blessing himself. I
will distinguish myself from such people. In the words of
the 34th Psalm, I will bless Jehovah at all times. His praise shall continually
be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast
in Jehovah. The humble shall hear thereof
and be glad. Oh, magnify Jehovah with me and
let us exalt his name together. Magnify his name with me. Jehovah's
works bless him, we should. Second, Jehovah's ministers bless
him. Verse 21, bless Jehovah, all
you his hosts, you ministers of his who do his pleasure. Who are his ministers? Well,
there's one standing in front of you right now, and there is
a multitude of them sitting in pews in front of him right now.
All of these are ministers. His hosts, the word host has
to do with a military term, a military group. God has various hosts. His ministers are a host, and
so are his people. They're engaged in a warfare
against Satan. And he says, bless me, all my
hosts, and we do. How do we bless him? by preaching
Christ's gospel, obeying Christ's commandments, singing Christ's
praises, praying in Christ's name, believing and practicing
Christ's doctrine, observing Christ's ordinances, exalting
Christ above all else, I would hope that Jehovah would say,
I watched those people in that meeting house of Sovereign Grace
Church in Great Falls, Montana, And I observed that from the
time they walked into the building and fellowshiped with each other
until the time they walked out, they blessed me. Everything they
did blessed me. I'm happy. I'm happy. They have
blessed me. I would hope that would be true
when we walk out today that Jehovah says, I was blessed to be here. I heard people extolling my name
and praising my son and worshiping me. Yes, I'm blessed. Number three, Jehovah's angels
bless him. Verse 20. Blessed Jehovah, you
his angels who excel in strength to do his word, heeding the voice
of his word. Now, observe that these angels,
they do his word. Who are these angels? They are
his ministering spirit sent forth to minister for those who will
inherit salvation, Hebrews 1.14. They are Jehovah's elect angels. They are Christ's holy angels.
They are distinguished from the devil and his angels and the
angels that sin. These are the holy angels. By
the way, believe it or not, there are some in the building this
morning. We're told to observe and watch the way we worship
because the angels are watching us. And they're blessing Jehovah. They're always blessing. Three
times in particular I would mention to you at the dawn of creation. Now angels are creatures. They were created. They are not
eternal. We do not know when they were
created, but evidently it was very early, perhaps on the first
day or the second day. Because we do know this according
to the book of Job 38 verse seven, when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy. That was at the creation. God brought something into existence
and the angel said, yes, did you see that? Yes, blessed Jehovah,
look what he's done. They sang together when he brought
this earth into creation and populated it and put the trees
and the seas and the creatures and all that are here. They sang
together, glory to God. They did so at the birth of Jesus
Christ. They appeared to the shepherds
on the hillside. And what did they do? They shouted
glory to God in the highest and on peace, goodwill toward men. On earth, peace and goodwill
toward men. They shouted and sang when God
created. They shouted and sang when Christ
was incarnate. And around his throne, around
his throne, are angels, angelic beings. who have nothing better
to do than to say, holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty. That's what they do. Holy, holy,
holy, Lord God Almighty. They bless him by doing so. God's
elect angels never do anything to dishonor him, but We now come
to his saints. There's a good reason for going
in the reverse order. Creation, ministers, angels. Let's talk about you and me now.
We'll conclude this message by talking about you and me. Jehovah's
saints bless him. Bless Jehovah all my soul and
all that is within me, bless his holy name. Now this is Hebrew
poetry. Hebrew poetry. It's kind of different from English
poetry. Did you notice we sang this morning,
how tedious and tasteless the hours when Jesus no longer I
see. Sweet prospects, sweet birds
and sweet flowers have all lost their sweetness to me. Now did
you notice, if you read the notation below the hymn, it was written
in long meter double. Meaning that every line had eight
syllables. How tedious and tasteless the
hours. And the last syllable of the
lines rhymed. That's, by the way, Mr. Newton
was a master at it. All the way through that hymn
he rhymes and uses the meter. But Hebrew poetry, was not about
meter and rhyme. Quite often it was about parallelism,
which means saying the same thing two different ways. Now watch
here in this verse. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Parallel to that, and all that
is within me, bless his holy name. Now watch. That's the common thread in both
parts of the verse. Bless Jehovah and bless his holy
name. It's the same thing. The holy
name is Jehovah. Bless, Jehovah, all my soul and
all that is within me. What is my soul? It is all that
is within me. What is all within me? It's my
soul. Hebrew poetry uses this parallelism. Now let's consider it. Let's
consider it. My soul is all that is within
me, both my physical and my spiritual parts. I am a living soul. God made man breathe into his
nostrils a breath of life. Man became a living soul. The
text does not say man was given a soul. He became a soul. The
soul is both his physical and his spiritual parts. All that is within me, what is
in me. This is a regenerated person.
I have a new heart. There's a new heart in me. My
new heart will bless Jehovah, oh my soul. In my native state,
I had a heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked, Jeremiah 17, nine. I was born with that heart. Deceitful? Yeah, it even deceived
me. It did more evil to me than to
anyone else. The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. But in regeneration, you know
what God does? He takes that old heart out and
he puts a new one in. God performs heart surgery. God just does a complete change
of heart. He says, I will give you a new heart and
I will put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of
stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will
put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes
and you will keep my commandments and do them. Why? I'm gonna do some heart surgery.
He takes that old deceitful heart out. It's dead, it's cold, it's
stony. He puts in a new heart that is
soft and warm. and pulsing with love toward
God. A heart that is not deceitful
and wicked. A heart that says, I will bless
Jehovah. My heart will bless Jehovah.
I got a new nature that'll bless him. Now when I was born, I was
born with an old Adamic nature. fallen, I was dead in trespasses
and sins. My old nature, I was born estranged from God,
departed my mother's womb speaking lies. I could hardly wait to
learn to talk because I had so many lies to tell. And the longer
I lived, the better I perfected them. That was my nature. But in regeneration,
God's people become partakers of the divine nature, 2 Peter
1, verse 4. Think about that, partakers of
the divine nature. Now, I still have that old nature
in me. Yeah, he's my enemy, the old man. but there's a new nature in me.
And because of that, in consequence of it, whoever has been born
of God does not sin, for God's seed remains in him, and he cannot
sin. I have an old nature that can
do nothing but sin, can do nothing righteous. I have a new nature
that cannot sin and must do righteousness. And with this new nature, I'm
praising God. I'm blessing him. My old nature
will not do so, but the new one will. Then I got a new mind. Consider,
new heart, new nature, new mind. A man in his original state knew
God and had his mind set on pleasing God, his creator. but in consequence
of man's sin and fall, by which they did not like to retain God
in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to
do those things which are not fitting Romans 12a, a debased
mind. Think about it, an old, cold,
stony heart, an Adamic nature, that must sin and cannot do anything
righteous, and even my mind is defiled. The scriptures speak
of my mind as being defiled, corrupt, vainly puffed up, and
full of futility. But in regeneration, I was given
the mind of Christ by which I am made to understand spiritual
things, 1 Corinthians 2, verses 9 through 16. Now consider, a new heart, a new nature, a new mind, and all of them are given over
to praising Him and blessing Him. But I'll close with one
more. Not only my new heart, not only
my new nature, not only my new mind, all that is within me,
but my healed body parts. If you'll go to the book of Isaiah,
you do not need to, you can do so later, Isaiah 35, verses five
and six. You'll read about what God does
in regeneration with regard to the body parts of man. Now let
me tell you what he has done. My ears. I blessed Jehovah with
my soul's ears. I bless him for my soul's ears. And here's the reason why. They
were spiritually deaf, spiritually deaf. I was raised in a Christian home. My father was converted very
shortly after I was born, about a year or so after I was born.
Began preaching the gospel almost immediately. I heard the gospel preached multiple
times every week in his pulpit. And he preached to me when we
would be riding down the road. I heard the gospel for 27 years
and did not hear it. Did not hear it. It is not as though it went in
one ear and out the other. It did not go in the first ear.
It was deaf. I could hear His voice, but I could not hear God's voice. I could hear my father talking
about the gospel, but I could not hear the gospel until one
day Jesus came, opened my ears, and I heard I heard, I was 27
years old. I had heard the gospel for 27
years and had not heard it until he opened my ears. Oh, the most
beautiful sound I ever heard was not the voice of my father,
but the voice of Jesus speaking through the words my father was
speaking unto me. I heard the voice of Jesus say,
I heard Jesus speaking to me, but only because he opened my
ears. I heard the gospel, not just
heard about it. I heard the gospel. I heard Christ,
not just about him. I heard Christ. All right, I'm
gonna bless him for that. I bless Jehovah with and for
my soul's eyes. They were spiritually blind. Spiritually blind. As I said, my father for 27 years
spoke the gospel to me. But only until I was 27 years
of age and the Lord opened my eyes could I say, now I see what
you're saying. I can see it. The Lord opened
my eyes, and the first thing that I was blessed to see was
the glory of Jesus Christ, God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ. My legs, my legs, spiritually
lame as they could be, my father would say, Moose, come to Christ,
come to Christ. I couldn't. I couldn't, could
not walk, no strength in my legs. Oh, I could run after the devil
all day long with my physical legs, but I had no spiritual
legs, no spiritual power to come to Christ. Until one day, Jesus
came down and healed my legs. Told me to stand. told me to come to him and I
ran. I ran. I now praise him because
he healed my leg so that I could come to him and now I walk with
him in fellowship. I bless him for that. Then one
more, my soul's tongue. The writer Isaiah also speaks
of that, my tongue. Well, it was spiritually mute. Oh, it could curse and blaspheme,
but it could say nothing that pleased God, nothing that pleased
Him. Until Jesus came down and loosened my tongue when He
saved me, loosened my tongue And for the first time, I said,
Lord, save me. I perished. Lord, save me. I
blessed him for doing so. I confessed him with the tongue.
And now this same tongue that at one time did the praises of Satan the
devil, now sounds forth this glorious gospel of God's free
and sovereign grace in Jesus Christ. And all I can tell you
is this, bless Jehovah, oh my soul, and all that is within
me, bless his holy name. My new heart, my new nature,
my new mind, my ears, my eyes, my mouth, my feet, and everything
else that is within me. Now, whom are you blessing this
morning? Some will bless themselves, some
will bless the religion, some will bless their church, some
will bless this or that or the other, but hope that you can
sing, bless Jehovah, oh my soul. and all that is within me. Bless His holy name.