David wrote in Psalm 146, I suppose
David is the author, Psalm 146, verse 1, he said, Praise the
Lord. Praise ye the Lord. Praise the
Lord. Praise the Lord. Oh my soul,
praise the Lord. I'm so sorry. and so blue and so weary of religious
people using this great and meaningful praise in such a flippant way. I'm so weary of it. I don't want
it to drive me the other way and never to use it. But I'm
sorry to observe that this great and meaningful praise praise
the Lord. Hallelujah means praise to Jehovah. Hallelujah. Praise to Jehovah. And it's come to be a flippant
religious byword. I tell you, men ought to exercise
great care, great, great care, in their use of the name of God. We may be guilty of taking God's
name in vain. I believe, really, sincerely,
I say this to you from my heart, it's better you not say it at
all, praise the Lord, better you not say it at all, than to say it if it does not
come from the soul and from the heart in genuine, sincere praise
to God Almighty. I believe that. I really do. If you've got something for which
to say hallelujah, say it, but if you don't, keep if you've got a sincere sincere
desire to sincerely and genuinely give God some praise and you
want to say praise the Lord well hallelujah hallelujah praise
to Jehovah you say it but otherwise don't do it and these clowns
on television they go hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah
they're blaspheming the name of God Now watch this, this is important,
in verse 1. The author says, Praise ye the
Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. Praising the Lord
is not lip work, it's heart work. Our Lord Jesus said, These people
draw nigh unto me with their lips, but their hearts are far
from me. So this genuine and true gratitude
to God and praising of the Lord is not really a lip work, it's
a heart work. Now let me show you that by way
of example. The Lord can be praised, we discussed
this the other night, the Lord can be praised in heart without
a word spoken. Far better, far better the silent,
deep heart gratitude and the blabbering mouth that does not
have a genuine heart to back it. A lot of times the fellow
making the most noise is not praising the Lord. It's the genuine believer, the
true believer who loves Christ in his heart, who stands there
with a tear streaming down his cheek, who doesn't have anything
to say. For example, 1 Samuel, turn over
there with me for a moment, I think this is a good example, a good
example. All of you know the story of
Hannah, but I want you to listen to the reading of 1 Samuel, chapter
1. It says, verse 12 of 1 Samuel
1, "...came to pass, as she continued praying before the Lord She continued
praying before the Lord that Eli watched her mouth. Now, Hannah, she spake in her
heart. She spake to God in her heart. Only her lips moved, but
her voice was not heard. Therefore, Eli thought she had
been drinking. And Eli said to her, Woman, how
long will you be drunken? Put away the wine from you. And
she answered and said, No, my Lord, no, I'm a woman of a broken
heart, of a sorrowful spirit. I've drunk neither wine nor strong
drink, but I poured out my soul before the Lord. That's where
it is. That's what I'm talking about. Think God heard her? Gave her a son named Samuel,
didn't he? So this thing of praising the
Lord, and in our generation, and you know this is so, I'm
not just talking about something of which you're not aware, it's
an outward thing. It's a veneer. It's a veneer. It's like a friend of mine said
he was walking on an island one time and he saw up ahead some
coconuts. And he thought, oh, I'd love
to have some coconuts. They were brown, you know. They
weren't green like you get them off the tree down in Mexico and
St. Kitts. We'll take them off the
tree, and the natives will take a teddy and chop the end off. You drink that milk in there,
but the coconut part is green. But when it gets ripe and it's
brown, it's ready to eat. So he walked along. He saw these
coconuts, and he thought, I'll just have one. He picked it up.
And they're hard to break, but he pounded on the rock and it
just broke open. And the inside was rotten. Boy,
it looked good on the outside. The inside was rotten. And he
tossed it away in disappointment, went on and picked up another
one, smashed it on a rock, same thing, rotten on the inside.
And all of those coconuts lying around there were nothing. They
looked good on the outside, but inside they were rotten. And
our Lord described the religious hypocrites that way. He said,
you look good to me. But on the inside, you're full
of dead men, folks, full of corruption. Now, here's what we want to do.
We want this praise thing to start in here and then come out.
Work on the inside. That's where it is. It's the
soul, it's the heart. That's where genuine praise begins. All right, verse 2. He says,
while I live, while I live, While I live, will I praise the Lord?
I tell you this, I have good reason to praise Him while I
live. But I tell you, if I live, I live by His pleasure. If I
live, I live by His pleasure and by His will. He gave me life
and He sustained my life. Now turn to the book of Job.
Don't call me a fatalist. I'm not a fatalist. I believe
everything is is well-ordained of the Heavenly Father. Everything
has a time and season, and everything in His divine will and purpose
is on schedule. He's God. He reigns over all
things. He says, the hairs of your head are numbered. A sparrow
doesn't fall to the ground without your Heavenly Father. But my
friends, I'm just as confident that when I breathe, I don't
know when a baby becomes a baby. when life they keep arguing about
this thing about conception or so many weeks and so forth I
just don't know I don't have the answer but I do know that
God said before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee before
thou camest forth from thy mother's womb I knew thee and when I breathed
my first breath I breathed it by the will of God by the good
pleasure of God and each breath I breathe now whether in pain
or whether in joy. Each breath I breathe every day
is by the will of God, by the good pleasure of God. And when
I breathe my last breath, when my breath is gone, that very
last breath will be the last one God gave me. That little
article we were reading in there, how many times did a fellow breathe
five trillion times? Well, if I breathe How many times
I breathe, or my heart beats, I believe it's by the will and
good pleasure of God. That I'm immortal until God sees
fit for me to close my eyes and die. That's what it says here,
listen, in Job 14, verse 5, seeing man's days are determined. His
days are, that's his days, are determined. The number of his
months are with God. with thee, thou hast departed
his bounds, he cannot pass." No sir, I don't believe in luck,
I don't believe in chance, I don't believe in fate, I believe God. And I didn't say I believe in
God, I said I believe God. I don't believe in luck or in
fate or in chance, I believe God. And while I live, I live
by his good pleasure. And while I breathe, I breathe
by his good pleasure, and while I walk, I walk by his good pleasure,
and while I live, I'll praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. He says, I'll sing praise unto
my God while I have any being. While I have any being. Let me
tell you something. We face five indisputable, undeniable facts. You and I have got to do something
with these five facts. By His grace, I believe I've
done something about these five facts, and many of you have.
But we face five undeniable facts in this business of living. While
I live, I do live, and while I live, and while I have any
being, and I have a being, I'm a person, a being. And this person here, this being,
and those beings out there, individual personality, a person, you have
a being. Jim, you're Jim, and Charlie,
you're Charlie, and Paul, and Hap, and Mary Frances, and Bea,
and you ladies, we're each one beings, persons. That's right. We live, don't we? And we face
five facts. Number one is the fact of God
Almighty. Now what are you going to do
about it? It's an undeniable undeniable fact. You face the
fact of the living God. Young people, old people, we
face the fact of God, the living God. He is and He ever shall
be. He is the one with whom we have to do. We face the fact
of God. The God, and He's the God that's
revealed in the book. He's the God of creation. He's
the God of providence. He's the God of salvation. He's
the God of redemption. He's the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the God who's revealed in
this book. We need to find out something about Him. Our preachers
need to quit entertaining us and start instructing us. Our
preachers need to quit raising money and start teaching sinners.
That's exactly right. Teaching men the Word of God.
Our preachers need to quit talking about preaching the gospel and
start preaching it. and telling men who God is, because we face
the fact of God. Secondly, we face the fact of
sin. Sin in me, sin about me, sin
around me, sin over me, sin under me, sin in everything I see.
I am a man of unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips. The fact of sin, it's an undeniable, it's an undeniable
fact. And the Ethiopian can't change
his skin, the leper can't change his spots, and we can't change
our evil. We're born in it, bred in it, live in it, and die in
it. Is that right? We're sinners. We don't spend a waking moment
without sinning. Because we are sin. The natural
mind is enmity against God. In the flesh dwelleth no good
thing. In fact, from the sole of our feet, as far down as you
can go, as high up as you can go to the topmost speck of spray
that you just sprayed on that thing tonight, there's no goodness
in you. Go clear to the top, even the
spray is no good. That's right. He said there's
no good in you. He said you're full of dead men's
bones. Extortion and excess. We face
the fact of sin. It's all about us, in us, around
us. What are we going to do about
it? What are we going to do about this fact of God, this fact of
sin? Another fact I face is this,
the fact of death. I'm a dying man. These years
are going by so fast. It's just baffling. I just don't
know where they've gone. Somebody asked me, now, how long
have you been on television? I've been going up there for
eleven and a half years. Seems like yesterday. How long
have I been pastor of this church? In my thirty-fifth year. Seems
like, Woody, seems like yesterday that I rolled in here, rolled
in here twenty, 20 years old, 21 years old, celebrating my
21st birthday right there, ordained me to the gospel ministry when
I was 21 years old. And now I'm celebrating my 60th
pretty soon. And some of you remember that
day. Seems like yesterday, doesn't it? Yesterday. Well, I tell you,
tomorrow we'll be gone. Tomorrow we'll be gone. I'll
be gone. You'll be gone. The fact of death. It's appointed
unto men to die. It's a reality. Don't laugh about
it. Don't shrug it off. Don't say,
well, you ought not think about those things. You better start
thinking about it. Time to think about it. I told some of you ladies, if
y'all going on a trip, you'll start packing two weeks before
you leave. And you ain't going to stay but two days. How long
you been packing for this trip? You going to stay forever. See what I'm talking about? I
just don't want to think about death. Well, it's not particularly
death I want to think about. It's the fact that I'm going
to meet God. That's what I want to think about. It's a part of
me that wants to die after that. That's what I'm concerned about.
It ain't the death, it's after that, the judgment. That's what
bothers me. There's life after death. That's
a fact, an undeniable, indisputable fact. And if a tree falls down,
it may not live again, but if a man falls, he's going to live
again. And here's the fifth fact, and this is the fact for which
I'm so grateful and rejoice. The fifth fact is this, there's
a fact of God, there's a fact of sin, there's a fact of death,
there's a fact of something after death, life after death. Here's the fifth one, the indisputable,
undeniable fact. No question about it. That's
what this book is all about. That Almighty God, the Heavenly
Father, the Eternal Lord of Heaven and Earth, has turned everything
and everyone over to Jesus Christ. That's what this thing is all
about. He has literally, absolutely, totally turned this whole thing
over to Christ. He said, John 3, 35, the Father
loves his Son, giving all things into his hands. John 5.22, the
Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment to the
Son. Acts 17.31, he said, God has appointed a day in which
you will judge the world by that man, Jesus Christ. Philippians
2 verse 9 says, He has exalted him above every name. given him
a name above every name, that in all things he might have preeminence,
and that every creature, every man, every demon, every angel,
every devil, in heaven, earth, and hell shall bow his knee and
confess with his tongue that Jesus Christ is Supreme Lord. That's what God said. That's
what he said. It's not what will you do with
Jesus, it's what he's going to do with you. That's what it is. He's not turned him over to you,
he's turned you over to him. I want his good favor. I want his favor. I want him to be my advocate. We have an advocate. He is the
one advocate, and he can have what he wants because it's his.
He said, Thou hast given me authority over all flesh, that I should
give eternal life to as many as thou hast given me. I want
to be one of them. So I'm going to sing praise to
the Lord while I have any being, any being. Verse 3, look at this. Don't put your trust in princes.
Don't put your trust in kings, high men, men of high standings,
nor in the son of Adam, the son of man, the son of men, that's
what he's saying. In him there's no help. What's
that word help mean over there? Salvation. David did not want
the people to put their trust in him. I don't know why we're
so given to this. To following men, to putting
confidence in men, to putting our trust in men and women. David
didn't want the people to put their trust in him. He said,
put not your trust in princes and kings. nor in nobles, nor
in one another, nor in yourself. Why? There's no help there. There's
no help, there's no salvation there. In men there's no help. Don't put your confidence or
your trust in the highest ranking authority. In them there is no
help. Man has fallen under every dispensation. Let me give you that briefly.
Adam in the Garden of Eden, created in the image of God upright,
with the surroundings perfect. How did he fare? Richard, he
failed. Here was Noah. Now you think
about this. Boy, somebody said, I tell you,
if I saw anything like that, it'd sure straighten me out for
life. Doesn't do it. It does not do it. Not a human
being. Noah, you think about this now, God wiped out the whole
earth. Just like Ashland, Kentucky here, 30,000 people in this county,
80 or 100,000. What if tomorrow God wiped them every one out,
but you? Boy, you say, I'd walk before
him. Would you? No, I didn't. Came down off that
ark, stepped out, started things up again, planned to avenge it,
and got dog drunk. and caused one of his sons to
commit whatever it was. What about Israel? Those people
had been in slavery 400 years. 400 years. And God literally,
miraculously delivered them without firing a shot, without shedding
a drop of blood on their part. They didn't shed a drop of blood. God killed the enemy and led
them out miraculously. They weren't out there any time
at all. They wanted to fire Moses and go back to Egypt. That's
exactly right. What about David, after all his
great revelations? What about Judas, even in the
presence of Christ himself? What about the Apostle Peter?
Here is a man who stood and said, inspired of the Holy Ghost. art
the Son of God, art the Christ. And our Lord said, My Father
revealed that to you. Here was a man who said, I'll
go with you to the death. Here was a man who stood in the
garden when they came to arrest Christ, pulled his sword, and
went after that high priest. And he wasn't going after his
ear either. He went for his neck. Before he moved his head, he
cut his ear off. But he sat right down there a little while later
beside a fire. And some people said, you're one of them. He
said, I don't even know who he is. And to add a little spice
to it, he cursed a little. Peter the Apostle. Oh, I tell
you, the sons of men are just like the man they came from,
their father. Let me tell you, I read this
two or three times. The reason I believe it's true,
I read it not only in Spurgeon, but I read it from two or three
other writers. David said, put not your trust
in princes, in people that are promoted, that are elevated,
that are higher. Pope Pius V made this statement,
Pope Pius V, when I was a monk, I had some hope of salvation. When I became a cardinal, I began
to fear. When they made me the pope, I
despaired of eternity. I tell you to put any confidence
in any man is like one beggar looking to another beggar for
a meal. Nothing coming, because he got nothing to give you. For
a man to put confidence in another man is for one cripple to ask
another cripple to help him across the street. There's no help coming. For a
man to put confidence in another man is for one blind man to ask
another blind man to lead him down the steps. There's no help
coming. And that's what he's saying here.
Put not your trust, put not any of your trust, even in princes,
even in kings, or nobles, or religious leaders, nor in the
son of man. The son of man is like his daddy.
He's a fallen creature. In them there is no help. And here's why. Why not trust
in men? Why not follow men? Well, watch verse 4. His breath
goeth forth. His breath goeth forth. When
his breath goes forth from his body, he goes to the ground.
His life is in his breath. And when he breathed his last
breath, I don't care how high he stood, the whomp of a little
air will bring him all the way down. That's all. I don't matter how strong he
was, when he can't get air, he's down. I don't care how rich he is,
how strong he is, how young he is, how high he is, how powerful
he is. I'll tell you how weak we are.
Everything stops for want of a breath of air. You can put your conscience in
something like that. You can put your hope or eternity
in something that all he needs is a breath of air, but he can't
even get it. There's plenty of air. There's
air everywhere. He can't get it. So down he goes. He's breathed. Alright, secondly,
he returns. Where does he return? To his
earth. You ever notice that? I never
did until I studied this yesterday. He returns to his earth. The
dust is his. And that's all he owns. A pile
of dust. He returns to his earth. His dust. The grave is his home. All that a king, that a millionaire,
that a movie star, that a baseball star, that a football star, that
the greatest educated man has on this earth is a little dust. That's all in the world he has.
He has a grave. He has a hole in the ground,
and he won't have that long. Not long. Even his grave may
become another man's grave, according to how many centuries it goes
about. I wonder how many Indians were buried here at that Rose
Hill. Can't even find their graves.
I'll tell you, man's course is from depravity to disease to
death to damnation. And watch this next thing. Here's
the three things. Somebody said here's the threefold
climax to all that a man has or is. Number one, verse four,
his breath goes forward. Cuts off. His breath. Secondly, he returns to his dust. Dust to dust thou shalt return.
And in that very day, in that very moment, his thoughts, his
plans, his ambitions, his blueprints, they perish. They go with him. And if you're building on what
he's building, you're gone. Because when he brings his last
breath and gone, his plans are gone. Well, we're going to do
this and we're going to do that. We're not going to do anything.
We quit breathing. Whatever he proposed to do is over. Whatever
he expected is over. Whatever he boasted is done.
It's all gone. When his breath's gone, he returns
to his dust and his thoughts perish. Oh, vanity of vanities. All is vanity. What a bleak picture. What a hopeless outlook. And
that's the reason. No praise to the flesh. No confidence
in the flesh. No trust in the flesh. But verse
5. Oh, we're not through. Happy. Happy. Happy as he. I'm glad he said he. I'm glad
he didn't say happy as the Jew. I'm glad he didn't say, happy
is the old, or happy is the young, or happy is the preacher, or
happy is the moral man, or happy is the Pharisee. He said, happy
is he. He, that could be you or me,
couldn't it? Or she. Happy is he. Happy is he that hath, what does
he have? Well, he has a lot of this world's
good, no. He has a lot of popularity and
influence, he has this, that, no. He has the God of Jacob.
That's who he has, the God of Jacob. The God of Jacob is the
God of the covenant. The God of Jacob is the God of
divine revelations. The God of Jacob is the God of
election. The God of Jacob is the God who was pleased to wrestle
with a man. The God of Jacob is the one that
kept him all the days of his life. And this man, happy man,
is he that hath, by grace, by faith, he hath the God of Jacob
for his help. My help coming from the Lord. We come boldly before the throne
of grace that we may find mercy to help. Now watch this next
line. And his hope is in the Lord his
God. I like that sentence. I like
all those H's. He hath his help and hope in
the Lord. Happy is he that hath his hope
and help in the Lord. Well, I'll give you this and
quit. Who is this Lord? Verse 6, look at it. Praise him. He made the heaven and the earth.
He made the sea and all that therein is, and he keepeth truth
forever. Who is this Lord? He's the one
that executed judgment for the oppressed, He gives food to the
hungry, and He sets the captive free. That's who He is. He has
a mighty hand. None can stay His hand. None
can stay His hand. If He undertakes for me, there's
none that can stop Him. Who is He? Verse 8, He's the
one that opens the eyes of the blind, makes the sinner to see. He's the one that raises up them
that are bowed down. He's the one that loves the righteous. Spurgeon says he's talking there
about Christ, because he's the righteous one and loves us in
him. The Lord loveth the righteous
one. And you know who he is? Verse 9, he's the one who preserves
the strangers. That's us. Strangers to the covenant
of Israel, strangers to the covenant of the Old Testament. He relieveth
the fatherless and the widows. He provides for his people. The
way of the wicked he turns upside down. And you can trust him because
it says here, the Lord shall reign forever, even my God. O Zion, unto all generations. So praise ye the Lord. He's worthy. That ought not to
be a hard thing to do, should it? Some of you have been so
kind and good to me and to my family, to this congregation. It's not hard for me to thank
you and to be grateful for you. Well, God has infinitely more,
infinitely more gracious and wonderful on our behalf. Then
why is it so difficult for us to praise Him? Huh? Is it really we're not sure about
where it comes from? Well, we need to be sure about
that, don't we? And therefore pray, thank you, Lord. Thank
you. Thank you. I'm grateful. I rejoice. I'm glad. Instead of complaining
about how few years I have left, let me thank God for the ones
I've had. Instead of finding fault with a rocky road, let's
give thanks for the smooth ones we've walked. Instead of finding
fault with these little bumps and crevices and things, we have
to step over. Let's give thanks. He hath brought
us safe thus far. It's like, you know, Eddie, you
told me one day, God never blesses me again. He's blessed me so
much in the last 50 years, I got no complaints. Got no complaints. Got no complaints. Ought not
have any. Let's be a praising people. Joyful people are rejoicing people
the Lord despises murmuring. I know that and he he Delights
and those that rejoice. I know he does We can praise
him lift up your head and praise the Lord Our father So many things we need we're
needed people Like the centurion of old, we cry, Lord, I believe,
help my unbelief. And we need the gift of love.
We need you to shed abroad thy love in our hearts for the Holy
Ghost. We need to be a gentle people, a loving people, a kind
people, a forgiving people, a merciful people, even as we have received
mercy. But Lord God, make us a praying,
praising people. of people with sincere soul and
heart gratitude. We're not asking for the gift
of words, but we are asking for the gift of praise. That inward
soul and heart praise. With my soul, I will praise the
Lord, and I will walk before thee. in gratitude, giving thanks,
and avoiding covetousness, which is idolatry. Lord, bless us in
this measure and in this way. Use this message for whatever
it pleases thee. For Christ's sake I pray, amen.