Bless the Lord Oh My Soul — Mack Tomilson

Thoughts that came to me, I spoke out loud. Praise God it's Sunday. Guess what I get to do? Be with the saints. I get to gather. And then my next words were, bless the Lord, O my soul. Have you praised God today?

Praising God From the Soul

Out loud? We're going to look at that in the 103rd Psalm. How we ought to praise God more. More. None of us praise Him enough. I should get a loud amen on that, but I didn't. We know it's true. Isn't it true?

There was a guy in the Bentley, Louisiana conferences who was always there, Barney Brunt. And Tom, you and Jeff, Michael, Linda, we know what he was marked for. The stove would be simmering in his heart.

And a message would be going in. Suddenly, the dead would be raised with his loud, well glory. I can't imitate him, but he was marked by praise. And he still is. He's there in East Texas. What a dear man he is.

And you know, I don't praise God consistently enough or even as well enough as well as Barney Brunt. We don't have to be like others. But we ought to praise God more. Bless the Lord, O my soul, is the text.

Psalm 103, the first five verses. 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 forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.

Father, we ask You truly to speak as we just sang. Speak, blessed Spirit of God, to our hearts, to our spirits, to our souls, to our conscience, that we would hear Your voice. Send an irresistible, effectual Word to our hearts that would spring to life.

Only You can do that. Father, I look to You and I depend on You to do that. And we look to You to speak for Your glory. In Christ's name we pray, Amen. Are you a bless the Lord, O my soul believer? Does praise and worship regularly rise up within you and ever burst out?

Or does it rise up within you and you kind of quench it? Why or why not? I want you today to go away applying this message individually to you. But I want us as a church to apply it to us because this is the voice of God calling us to bless the Lord with all that we are and all that's within us.

David's Self-Exhortation in Psalm 103

David is one of those. Psalm 103 and really Psalm 104, they are a majestic duo. Almost unmatched in terms of God-centered praise and recognition of God's ways and God's works. And the psalmist is bursting into proclamation.

Two connected glorious psalms about who God is and many of the things that God does for us at a personal level all the way to a cosmic level of the creation. In this Psalm 103, David is speaking not to others, not even to God.

He's speaking to himself. The psalmist often speaks to himself. And when we read the Psalms, we should speak to ourselves. He's speaking to himself. What's he doing? He's remembering. He's looking back and thinking.

He's remembering. He's rehearsing. He's cataloging. He's journaling. And celebrating the acts of God's mercy and God's goodness. Do we do that? I hope you get out of your comfort zone today. I'm going to do my best to make that happen.

Because I need to get out of it. I realize I'm kind of wired where I'm not vocal enough. Now some of us, nobody in mind, I'm being honest, we know just human personality. Some of us are way too vocal.

And some of us aren't vocal enough. But for those who are way too vocal, that needs to become governed by the Holy Spirit. And for those of us who aren't, that needs to be raised by the Holy Spirit within us.

Celebrating vocally the acts of God's mercy and His goodness. Do we do that? Or do we take God's goodness for granted? You know, it's easy to take heat and water for granted until it's a problem. Right?

It really is. David did not take God's mercies for granted. Here he is exploding in remembrance and in celebration of the ways and the acts of God. Psalm 103 mentions at least 17 things that David is blessing God about.

We're not going to go over those. We're going to be in the first five verses. And Psalm 103 holds a special place in history. The Scottish church over the centuries, back when they would have these week-long communion seasons.

Now think about that, brethren. We're going to go to Mount Pleasant in April and we're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper for a week. That's what they did. Wow! They'd have sermons morning and evening and prayer times.

And then they would have tables where the saints would consummate in the communion season. And Psalm 103 was especially sung by the Scottish church in those days at communion, especially because of verses 3 and 4.

"...who forgives all your iniquities, who redeems your life from destruction.". They sang about redemption from the psalter, especially in this psalm. And the psalter hymn books, the 1912 edition, has the 103rd.

O come, my soul, blessed thou the Lord thy Maker is the title of it. In our great hymns of the faith hymnal, hymn number 35 is based on Psalm 103. Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven. To His feet thy tribute bring, ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven.

Evermore His praises sing. That's number 35. Meditate on it when you go home today. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Today, you know, usually I think of calling some of you by name because I love you to encourage you.

I won't do that today. I'm calling all of you right now by name. Do you have a bless the Lord in your soul? If you do, think what it is. And in your heart, bless Him right now. If you don't, why not? We are spoiled Americans.

We have so much to praise and bless God about. And the blessings spoil us and make us forget the God who has blessed us. Here, David is not thinking about his sorrows and trials, his enemies, his depression, his difficulties.

His eyes is not inward. It's not downward. It's upward. Thinking about the greatness of God and what He's done for him and what He's done for the church and what He's done in creation. Upward upon the Lord is God.

David is having this experiential, this experience of emotions, this sense of God's mercies, and it's flowing out of him and he can't contain it. When you feel it, can you contain it? Do you contain it?

Or do you quench it and stop it? So, in Psalm 103, in these first five verses, it's astounding what's here. And I mentioned Psalm 104. There's over 30 things David mentions there about what God has done in creation.

But then he ends up with doxology. He ends up at Psalm 104 with the glory of the Lord endures forever. I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. Bless thou the Lord. So let's notice in these verses today what we ought to bless the Lord for from our souls.

Because it's all personal. It's redemptive. It's past grace. It's present mercies. And it's promised future mercies toward us. First, in verse 1, we see the exhortation to Himself. We see the practice.

He says, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Now what is this? It's a fresh, heartfelt expression of praise. It's fresh, not stale. It's not old. It's not a dead ritual of some liturgy.

It's fresh anew. It's now in the moment. New morning mercies bring new morning praise. It should. Every blessing we see that comes, we ought to verbally praise God out loud for it. Arising from our souls like David with freshness that's heartfelt.

Not academic and cerebral, but rising from our soul like David, from our emotions, through the mind, into our thoughts, to our tongue, and out of the heart the mouth should speak. I said fresh, heartfelt expression.

We often have the fresh praise of God arise, and we do feel it in our souls. And what an encouragement that is when you feel encouraged, and you recognize God's blessing, and you feel thankful, you feel strengthened, you feel it in your soul.

But dear ones, let's be honest. For some of us, it rarely and often does not get expressed. It stays within. We suppress it. We don't express it. We sing about it. One of our hymns says, Let the Amen sound from His people again.

But in reality, in practice, we don't express it near enough. Isn't that right? It's right. How should we praise God? First, by being a living example. By our giving, and our living, and our loving, and our serving, our actions, our singing, our praying, but also by our verbal expression, truly and equally.

The dead praise not the Lord. It's the living whose mouths should be filled with true, heartfelt praise regularly. Notice the word all. All that is within me. Our brains. Our minds. Our spirit, our heart, and our soul is to praise God.

Our thoughts, our motives, our ears are to praise God by what we discern that we should listen to. Our eyes, our hands, our feet, our body inside and out. The whole you and all you are bless the Lord.

With all you have, bless the Lord with all your soul. Don't hold back. Why would you hold back from praising such a Savior who came to live for you, to die for you, to rescue you out of a miry pit? He then puts a song of praise in your heart to God, so sing it and praise His name.

David is rousing himself to do this. We have to rouse ourselves up. He wants to do it. He wants to express it with all his heart and soul. So he says here, all that is within me, bless His holy name. But alas, we're too quiet.

We're too timid. We're too ashamed. We're too prideful. Someone might say, well, you know, my life's an example. Yeah, so is a Mormon. They don't live a clean outward life. That means nothing. Your life ought to be a good example.

But let the redeemed of the Lord what? Say so. Now you know I don't mean be artificial, superficial, with cliche praise. You know, cliche means an overused phrase that's lost its reality. No thoughtfulness behind it.

Just saying it. No, I don't mean superficial praise. I mean heartfelt, soul thankfulness. Do you express praise often to your Lord? When do you praise God? Why do you or why don't you do it? I talked to the Currens this morning.

I'll give an update on him later. Cindy Curren called me back. And I said, well, give me an update on your husband. Her first words, praise the Lord, Brother Mack. She started praising God. God never intended to have mute children.

The children in the temple were praising God. Out of the mouth of babes, God perfects praise. And we're His children. But brethren, let's be honest. Most of us are too quiet in praising God. We're not free.

If you're bound up where you can't praise God when you feel it, you are bound up. We get vocal about, I mean yesterday I was at that good wedding and they kiss. And there's a celebration. Cheering and applauding and the couple's presented a louder cheering.

You know, we're vocal about weddings. We're vocal about over a new baby. We're vocal over a thousand things. There's loud vocal at our Friday night fellowships. You guys get so loud sometimes I can't take the noise.

In my study sometimes when the women's study is at my house, it gets loud in there. I can't concentrate. I don't know what they're doing, but they're having a good time. So why? Why silence about God so consistently?

Where are the high praises of God in the worship of God that are real, that are free, that are spontaneous, that are felt, and that are expressed? Why silence in our testimony in the house of God? Why silence in response to the sermon?

Why silence in the prayer meeting? Christ wants us to face this this morning. Our witness is vocal. Our praying is vocal. And so should our praise be fresh, heartfelt, and expressed. Bless Thou the Lord, O my soul.

Beloved, open your heart. Open your soul. Open your emotions. I want to get on a soapbox right now. Reformed worship that is presented as silent and starchy and liturgical and quiet is not true worship.

It's wrong. Martin Lloyd-Jones says there was a quenching of the Holy Spirit across the whole Reformed world for decades because they had regulated the worship to men controlling it with icy liturgy and creeds and proper conduct.

One time a man in a conference in the 1980s came to me after Bob Jennings let out a loud hallelujah after singing. He asked me, tell your friend we don't do that here. The man knew me. Well, I didn't handle it well.

You know what I did? I chickened out on the spot. What I should have said is, brother, you are wrong. You go do your own dirty work. Dead worship. Void of emotions and void of the Spirit of God arousing our spirit to a boiling level, a simmering level, where we're engaged and we're worshiping Him and we are free to express it.

That is true spiritual worship. And Jonathan Edwards argued for that. Yale College asked Edwards to come and preach the commencement sermon at the college one year when revival had been coming and the academic leaders at Yale wanted to quench the revival.

They didn't like the emotions being shown. They wanted Edwards to come and kind of put a stop to it with his sermon. He didn't put a stop to it. He flamed it. He preached that commencement sermon the distinguishing marks of a work of the Spirit of God.

And he said, the show of emotions is authentic. It's real. It's not false. Now, if it's strange fire, if it's wildfire, if it's out of control, yeah, the devil will blow that up. But true worship has got to have our emotions engaged and our heart and our words expressing things.

Isn't that right, Nick? That's a man who's marked by it. He's always praising God. So, beloved, you hear what I'm saying? Well, then in verse 2, David says to himself, forget not all his benefits. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits.

Remembering God's Benefits

Is it easy for us to forget them? My biggest regret as a Christian is that I didn't keep a journal since 1978 when I was converted. Big regret. You young believers, start a journal and don't ever stop doing it.

Half a page a day. Jeff Thomas from Wales, he journals a page every day. He's done it for 50 years. And he can look back and he can remember what he was learning when he was 30 and 40. Where he preached.

What he preached. His experience when he was down. We must not forget the benefits God has given to us. Forget not. David is telling himself to remember God's benefits. Christians often have spiritual amnesia.

Amnesia is a defect in the brain where the memory is disturbed or lost of previous events and memories. We do develop spiritual amnesia. We forget. It doesn't mean you remember every mercy, blessing, and benefit and everything God's ever done for you in detail.

We can't do that. It means this. Don't ever forget that anything that's ever come to you spiritually, domestically, relationally, financially, every blessing that's ever come to you, don't ever forget that it's God who did it and not you.

Don't ever forget. Rehearse them. Some of you in the last five years weren't even in a good church and you were lonely and you needed fellowship. Look what God has done for you by bringing you to this body.

Forget not all His benefits. Forgetting God's mercies and benefits toward us is sin. And when we forget what He's done, we cease to praise Him properly. If we don't develop remembrance and living in light, look how good God's been to me.

I'm not going to forget. I'm going to see it all in light of His grace and His faithful provision, His benefits, His mercy. We will then praise Him more properly as we recognize the benefits. It was said of Hezekiah that his heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness that was shown him.

He didn't respond to the kindness shown him, so his heart was proud. In the same way, God warned Israel. Just hear this as I read to you from Deuteronomy 8. Beware. God says beware of this. Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes, as I command you today, lest when you have eaten and are full and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them, when your herds and flocks multiply, your silver and gold multiplies, and when your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, beware lest you forget because of all He's done for you.

Even His blessings of provision can make us forget Him at times. We take things for granted and we must learn not to. What benefits? Well, six are mentioned here. Verse 3 -5. Look at them with me. And let's just apply this to our hearts.

The Benefit of Forgiveness

Verse 3. Benefit number one. Who forgives all your inequities. Are your sins forgiven? Don't ever forget it. When the enemy comes and condemns you over the past, he drags ugly things up and haunts you and you feel guilt, don't forget my sins are forgiven.

The forgiveness of all sin. All our sins are paid for. What a benefit. All our sin's gone. As verse 12 says, as far as the east is from the west, so has He removed our transgressions from us. They are gone, beloved.

They're gone. What a benefit. You ought to be blessing God for today. Every day we ought to wake up and say, glory to God, my sins are forgiven. It's a new day of grace. But we don't live that way enough.

This is mentioned first because it's of first importance. Because if that's not true first about us, that our sins are forgiven, none of these other benefits would even have come to us. A Savior who has come to set sin-bound sinners free from the condemnation and power of sin.

A sin-killing Christ died to set us free and bore all our sins and all our iniquities in His body on the tree. And as Paul said, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in and only in Jesus Christ our Lord.

What a benefit, William. What a glorious thing that is. As John says in Revelation 1, to Him who has loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. Forget not. Sin's gone. Sin's forgiven. When doubts arise, when you feel abandoned of God and forsaken, it's a lie.

The Gospel must be your first memory and mindset then. He has forgiven all my sins. Freely, they're gone. Forget not. Ransom, heal, restored, forgiven. Who His love will not remember. Who forgives all your transgressions.

God's Healing and Sovereign Mercy

Benefit number two. What's the next one? Verse 3. Who heals all your diseases. You ever recovered from a sickness? You ever been healed of a disease? Who gets the credit for that? Certainly, this is talking about spiritual healing here, but I don't believe that's what the text is talking about.

I think David is talking about physical healing. I believe that completely. Who heals all your diseases. Now, it's not the idea, the wrong idea, that God always heals every time. That healing is in the atonement to such an extent that if we have enough faith, God always wants to heal and He will always heal.

We know that's garbage. We know that's heresy. That's not true. That's not in the Bible at all. And all the Scriptures and all of Christian history shows us that that's not true. So what does it mean?

It means that it is God always who's the one who heals us. It is God who always does the work. How did you become cancer free if you ever had it? How do you go from having a bad heart attack like Paul Washer did last year to your heart improving?

Well, you know, medical science. I'm telling you. They're just so good. What they've accomplished is just medical science. You know, I had the best heart surgeon in Dallas. And kudos to him. My diet and exercise, you know, I'm really on top of it.

My health is improving. Christians don't give the credit to the things that God often uses. They give the credit to God. If you've ever gotten well, the Lord in His mercy did it. It doesn't matter what He used.

Sometimes it's supernatural, miraculous healing. And we ought to pray for it more. I don't believe we pray for it enough. But it is always God that does the work. Christ gets the credit. He had mercy on me.

He healed me. He raised me up. He set a boundary where that condition did not worsen. You're healed. You didn't die from COVID. Why? Bless the Lord, O my soul. God spared us. Who heals all your diseases.

Don't ever forget every time who gets the glory and credit when He raises you up. Benefit number three, verse four. Who redeems your life from destruction. Now I think David has a picture. You know how often he was running.

One time he said, death, I'm one step away from it. His enemies were in hot pursuit. Soldiers, warriors, Saul chasing him. Hiding in caves. Hiding in the forest. David was often always near death at times.

And he realized, Lord, it is You that rescues, redeems us from being destroyed. And he does this with us too. Your life as a Christian is immortal until God is finished with you here. I'm talking about the believer that's walking in the ways of God.

Keith Green, a man at his funeral, said something like, well, he shouldn't have died. It was too early. And somehow the enemy was in this. I wish I could have stood up. I was there. I wish I could have stood up and said you're wrong.

No Christian dies prematurely. But we are kept. We are preserved. Our life is in His hands. Our times are in His hands. You are preserved from destruction oftentimes that you don't even know it. That's a benefit.

Who redeems your life. Who preserves and keeps your life from at times probable and certain destructions that could come. He does that for us until our appointed day. No one keeps themselves alive. No one does.

It's God, what a merciful benefit that our life is in His hands personally, sovereignly, perfectly in His loving hands. Bless the Lord, O my soul, that He redeems our life continually from destruction.

Lovingkindness and Tender Mercies

Benefit number four. Verse four. Who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercy. This word crowns, this verb crowns means to place upon one dignity and favor. Now we don't place dignity on ourselves.

We don't think that way and we shouldn't. But it's astounding that Christ places upon every child of God He crowns them. He places upon them with dignity and favor loving kindnesses. Acts of loving kindness.

Acts of tender mercies. He crowns you regularly. And often you don't even recognize it. You don't even know it. I mean, weekly this happens in our lives. He crowns you with blessings and mercies and loving kindness.

How often do you think about that? I don't. Enough. He bestows upon you regularly acts of loving kindness because of His tender mercies. Don't ever forget it. Forget not His benefits. Daily He loads us with many mercies.

Christ Alone Satisfies the Soul

Benefit number five. Verse five. Who satisfies your mouth with good things. He satisfies you. He does. The world, the flesh, and the devil has never satisfied, has it? Possessions don't satisfy. Money or food or status or position or importance doesn't satisfy.

Christ alone satisfies the soul. That's why Samuel Rutherford, when he was in a prison dungeon, he said Christ has made it a palace. He said the king's best wine is in the cellar. Christ satisfies. Christ alone satisfies.

O Christ in Thee my soul has found and found in Thee alone the peace, the joy I sought so long, the bliss till now not known. Now none but Christ can satisfy none other name for me. There's love in life and lasting joy.

Lord Jesus found in Thee. He satisfies your soul. And when a searching soul, a hungry soul, an empty soul, a soul without purpose and meaning finds Christ, they find the source of all meaning and purpose and fulfillment.

Their soul is satisfied in Him. Finally, benefit number six. The end of verse five. He renews us. He renews us. So that your youth is renewed like the eagles. He renews us. The outward man is perishing, but Tom the inward man is being renewed day by day.

Renewal in the Strength of the Lord

Day by day. You're in this book. You're with Him in prayer. You gather with one another. You're strengthened. You're helped. The Lord ministers to you. Lights come on. Encouragement arises. Joy comes in the morning.

And you are suddenly renewed more than you were when you woke up. Can I get an amen? Isn't that true? It's right. He renews us. He renews your mind. He renews your strength when it's waning. He renews your heart when it's cast down.

He renews your encouragement when you're discouraged. He renews your faith when you're falling into doubt and unbelief. Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. And mount up with wings like eagles.

Run and not be weary. Walk and not faint. That is grace. That is true. And that is wonderful. Isn't it, Stephen? It is. This is so glorious. His keeping mercies, His unfailing grace, His daily benefits renew us in the battle for the battle.

Because the battle ain't going away. So just get strong in the Lord and in the power of His mind and be renewed because He promises it. All the way my Savior leads me. Cheers each winding path. It's been a winding path, hasn't it?

Cheers each winding path I tread. Gives me grace for every trial. Feeds me with the living bread. Though my weary steps may falter and my soul a thirst may be, gushing from the rock before me, lo, a spring of joy I see.

Never forget, dear ones, He has forgiven all your sins. He's your healer. He preserved you from destruction. He crowns you daily with mercies and kindness. He satisfies your soul. He renews you. Never forget.

Always be remembering. And that will put a bless the Lord in your soul. Daily. You live in remembrance of His benefits, you will find joy and praise swell up. Then you've got to express it. Get it out.

Bless the Lord, O my soul. Now as I close, here's our meditation for application, which can be medication. Let me close in this way. We need to ask ourselves and see if there is any real, heartfelt, consistent expression of praise to God that marks our life.

Does praise to God mark your life and lips? Is there any consistent praise in our hearts to Christ with real reality? We need to improve. We need to speak up. We need to praise. We need to rouse ourselves to always remember and never forget that from the heart, we can say, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me.