The One, True, Living God - [Psalm 115]

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Preaching is a very draining experience, and it's more draining than teaching.
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Teaching is cerebral, and teaching is cognitive, and there is a drain to teach. But then when you go beyond that to proclamation, and declaration, and persuasion, and confrontation, and consolation, and invitation, and motivation, and all of the other
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I -O -N words that embrace preaching, it really drains the entirety of what a person is.
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So, I offer that as some hope to you that we will get out today, and that I have one more psalm to look at, and we will be much more confined in our time.
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Although I must tell you I have enjoyed this so much, and you are so maturing in the things of the
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Lord to be able to sit under, I know, this kind of presentation of the truth.
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It speaks volumes about you. So, I have one more psalm, and I'm anxious to look at it, and it is
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Psalm 115. And so, if you would take your Bibles and turn with me to Psalm 115, and it is a psalm of 18 verses, but many of these verses cluster together.
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It's hard to comment on one without commenting on the entire cluster. I would like to begin by reading the first eight verses of Psalm 115, which reads, not to us,
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O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, because of your loving kindness, because of your truth.
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Why should the nation say, where now is their God? But our
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God is in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of man's hands.
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They have mouths, but they cannot speak. They have eyes, but they cannot see. They have ears, but they cannot hear.
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They have noses, but they cannot smell. They have hands, but they cannot feel. They have feet, but they cannot walk.
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They cannot make a sound with their throat. Those who make them will become like them, everyone who trusts in them.
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You and I must understand that we will become like what we worship. We will be conformed into the image of who or what we worship.
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And if we worship God, and if we give glory to God, then we will be conformed into the image of our
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God. And there will be pruned and removed from us that which is ungodlike or ungodly.
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And as we set our heart upon God, we are sanctified, and we grow in the grace and knowledge of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. But for those who set their affections upon the things of the world, for those who become infatuated with those temporal and passing things, for those who are preoccupied and even dominated by those things that are in the world, they become conformed into the very same image, and they become more worldly, and they become like the objects that they worship.
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And their heart becomes round, and a round world begins to fit into their heart.
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And they take on the priorities and then take on the pursuits of the things of this world because they so highly esteem the things of the world.
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And those who worship corrupt gods become corrupt themselves all the more. And those who worship empty idols become all the more vain and empty on the inside.
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And so, this psalm is a call for each one of us to be very careful what we set before our heart and what we set before our eyes.
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And we all have an object of supreme affection. We all have that which draws our heart to it.
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Some people worship themselves. Some people are tied up in themselves. Some people are infatuated with themselves, what they look like, and where they're going in life, and what all they accumulate in the things of this world.
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And they find their security, and they find their significance in the things of this world, and they become like the worldlings in this world.
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But God is a God of holiness. And those who set the Lord before themselves, and lift
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Him up, and set Him on high, and magnify His name, and glory in His name, and take greatest pleasure in God, and seek to love the
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Lord their God with all of their heart, and all of their soul, and all of their mind, and all of their strength will find their minds being renewed into the very mind of Christ, and they will see their heart growing deeper and deeper into the things of God.
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And they will be weaned off the things of the world. And the things that they once took great pleasure in now have very little importance to them.
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And they have set their mind on things above and not on things of the earth. They have now come to seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and these other things that the
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Lord adds to their life no longer holds the charm for them. They now lay up for themselves treasure in heaven and not treasure on the earth.
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They begin to live for that which is invisible and not that which is visible. They live for that which is eternal and not for that which is temporal.
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They live for that which is of God and not for that which is of the world.
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And so this psalm is a call for each and every one of us to direct our heart to God, knowing, as verse 8 says, that those who make them will become like them.
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So be very careful what is the object of your affection and what is the subject and the focus of your heart because you are being shaped and you are being conformed into the very image of that which is most important to you.
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Look upon the walls of your house. Young people, look upon the walls of your bedroom.
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What do you see hanging there? What is of most importance to you? Look into your checkbook.
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See how in your daytimer, in your calendar, how your money, how your time is being used and dispensed, and there you will find the answer of what is most important to you.
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May we do as this psalm calls us to do. May we seek to give glory to God.
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May we turn our hearts to God and may God conform us into His very image.
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How powerful worship is, how conforming of our lives worship is, for it conforms us into the very image of the one we worship.
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As we look at this psalm now in the time that remains, I want us to note this under several headings as we work our way through it.
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And in this psalm, there is first a declaration of God's glory.
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In verse 1, this psalm begins with a careful clarification, a delineation of what our purpose is in life and in all that we are to do.
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It is to turn the focus away from ourselves and to turn our heart to God.
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It is to take ourselves out of the spotlight of our own life. And it is for the focus of our heart to be directed upon God Himself.
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This is what Paul was saying when he said, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
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For you to live for yourself and for you to die is loss. It is only if you live for Christ will it be for you to die is gain.
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For you to live for this world, for you to die will be loss.
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For you to live for Christ will be for you to die and it be gain.
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So in verse 1, he is directing the focus away from himself and directing his heart toward God.
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Not to us, O Lord, not to us. There is not to be praise given to ourselves.
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There is not to be focus directed to ourselves. It is instead to be turned outward.
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It is to be turned to God. He says, but to thy name give glory.
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As you look away from yourself and as you are no longer preoccupied with yourself and as you become preoccupied with God, actually that is when you are the happiest.
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That is when you are the most glad. That is when you are the most satisfied. That is when you are the most fulfilled.
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But look at someone in the world who is pursuing the things of the world and pursuing self -pleasure and self -fulfillment and self -gratification.
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They never find it. Happiness for them is like trying to pick up a watermelon seed.
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You just can't lay hold of it. It's elusive. It slips away from you. Understand this, happiness is never a destination that you should pursue.
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God is the destination you should pursue. The most miserable people on the world are people who are trying to be happy.
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The happiest people in the world are people who are pursuing the knowledge of God.
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And as you grow in the knowledge of God, you grow in gladness and you grow in heart fulfillment and heart satisfaction.
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It is only in that way could you sit in a Roman prison and say, rejoice in the
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Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. It is only then that you could be in a prison in Philippi and in the middle of the night with the back being lacerated, saying praises to the
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Lord and saying every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before.
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And so in this opening verse, there is a weaning off of self. There is a turning away from self -preoccupation and setting one's heart and setting one's focus upon God.
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And do you know that 2 ,000 years ago in the first century, there was a Greek astronomer whose name was
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Ptolemy. And Ptolemy concluded by his observation that the earth was the center of the universe, that everything was revolving around the earth.
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The sun was orbiting around the earth. The moon was orbiting around the earth. All the planets were revolving around the earth.
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And it was a reflection of a Greek mindset that man is the center of his world. And everything is revolving around man.
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And everything is revolving around self. And 1 ,500 years later, there was a
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Polish astronomer named Copernicus. And he made a startling discovery.
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He discovered a totally different worldview. He came to the discovery that the earth was not the center of the universe.
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The sun was the center of our galaxy and that everything is revolving not around us.
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Everything is revolving around the sun. And the earth is what is moving, not the earth, or not the sun.
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That is the same discovery that the psalmist is making here. Everything is not to revolve around me.
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Everything is not here for me. I am here for God.
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I am here for the glory of God. I am here for the pursuit of the worship and the knowledge of God.
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So he makes this strong statement. He makes this declaration. And he says, not unto us,
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O Lord, not to us. The repetition is like driving a nail into a board, driving it deeper and deeper, emphasizing it in his own heart.
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But to thy name give glory. Now, there are reasons why to give glory to God.
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Worship does not happen in a vacuum. Praise has its reasons. There are reasons why
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God should be the very center of our world. God should be at the very center point and we should be revolving around God.
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Worship is never mindless. Worship has its reasons. It is always our theology that is producing doxology.
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And the higher our view of God, the higher will be our praise of God.
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And the lower our view of God, the lower will be our worship of God. And so the psalmist sets the greatness of God so high that it elicits from his heart this declaration, not unto us,
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O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory.
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And what was catapulting that kind of worship and stirring his heart for there to be this expression of praise is what follows in verse 1, because.
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There's a cause and effect that's going on here. And here is the cause that is driving the effect.
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Two character qualities of God. Because of thy lovingkindness and because of your truth.
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Now, there are many other attributes of God that could be displayed here. And we have talked about some of those already.
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But here are two more attributes of God to add to the greatness of our
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God and do not easily overlook these. The first is lovingkindness.
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Do you see this? This is what will wean you off yourself. This is what will turn your heart away from preoccupied with self and will turn your heart upward to God with singular vision and singular focus.
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Because of thy lovingkindness. Don't let that pass.
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This is not a mellow view of God's love. Lovingkindness, the
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Hebrew word hased. It speaks of the loyal love of God toward his own.
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This is not a syrupy, sentimental, Valentine kind of love for God.
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This isn't all of us getting in a circle and singing kumbaya to God. His lovingkindness.
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This is God's unconditional, unchanging, sovereign, eternal, electing, covenant -keeping, promise -keeping, love that will never be quenched towards you and me that began in eternity past when he first chose to love us and when he set his heart upon us with distinguishing affection and love.
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And it is a love that remains unchanging throughout all of the epochs of time, and it is a love that shall never be extinguished throughout all of the ages to come.
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Now, we need to understand this. There is a general love of common grace that God has toward all people.
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Matthew 5, verse 45, Jesus said that God causes, the
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Father causes his Son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
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There is a non -saving, non -redeeming, non -electing, general, benevolent, common grace love that God has for those who even rebel against him, and he continues to send the rain, he continues to send the sun, and he allows them to enjoy expressions of his common grace goodness.
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He allows them to enjoy the benefits of music, they enjoy the benefits of learning, they enjoy the benefits of medicine, they enjoy the benefits of sports, they enjoy the benefits of the aesthetics, of the beauty of creation, and of the nature that God has created.
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And there is a general love that God expresses to even these unbelievers of common grace.
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But there is a lovingkindness that is reserved only for the people of God that God has toward his own children.
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Listen, when I used to go down to the nursery and my children were in the church nursery, I loved every one of those kids in that nursery, but I promise you this, there were two twin boys that I loved more than the other kids that were in that nursery.
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And it was right for me to love them more, and it was right for me to sacrifice for them more, and it was right for me to give more of myself to them.
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And I took them home with me, and I clothed them, and I fed them, and I gave to them the very best that I humanly could.
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There is a distinguishing love of God, a greater love, a greater love, a discriminating love that God has for his own children, and it is right, and it is proper, and it is good, and it is the expression of God's heart.
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And Romans 9 makes no sense, Jacob I loved and Esau I hated, unless we understand that there are those upon whom
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God has set his saving, forgiving, redeeming, electing love upon them.
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Not unto us, not unto us, not once you understand this, that God has set his lovingkindness, has set love upon us, therefore,
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I can only ascribe to the Lord glory and grace. Look across the page,
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Psalm 117 and verse 1 and 2. Psalm 117, verse 1 and 2, praise the
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Lord, all nations, laud him, all peoples. Now, note verse 2, for his lovingkindness is great toward who?
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Us. Who's the us? Well, it is in contradistinction to verse 1.
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It is to be distinguished from all nations. It is to be distinguished from all peoples.
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God has a general love for all nations and all peoples, but for us, who are the people of God, us who have repented of our sins, us who have put our trust and our faith into his redeeming arms, we are uniquely the object of the lovingkindness of God, for his lovingkindness toward us is great.
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Come back to Psalm 103 just for a moment, Psalm 103, and I want you to note a few verses in Psalm 103.
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Look at verse 11 and have your eye be ready to see his lovingkindness.
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For as high as the heavens are above the earth. Now, is that pretty high? As this was written by the psalmist, it's an infinite distance from earth up to the heights of heaven above.
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For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his lovingkindness toward whom?
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The whole world, all the nations, all the peoples? No, there's a modifier.
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There is a qualifier. There is a descriptive phrase that follows, toward those who fear him.
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This is an expression of saving faith in the Old Testament. To fear the
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Lord is to trust the Lord with all one's heart. It is these who experience what verse 12 say.
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For as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
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God is to us, as verse 13 says, as the father has compassion on his children.
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So the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. It is his lovingkindness, in verse 11, that brings his forgiveness, in verse 12, that puts us in a father -son or a father -daughter relationship, in verse 13.
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It is God's compassion only towards those who fear him. Now, look at verse 17.
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This is so important. But the lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.
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It is not his lovingkindness towards all people. There is a distinction in God's love.
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There is a greater love that God has for those who fear him than those who do not fear him, who provoke his wrath and provoke his anger.
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Now, look at how long, what is the beginning of this love and what is the end of this love and what distinguishes this love in verse 17.
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But the lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.
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Let's take the end of that statement, his lovingkindness to everlasting into the future.
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Will this be demonstrated to worldlings who rise up in rebellion against him and who are damned forever as the object of his eternal wrath?
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Is his lovingkindness being poured out upon souls in hell? Of course not.
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What kind of a bizarre doctrine would that be? No, there is a distinction in eternity future that sets apart the believer from the unbeliever.
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It sets apart heaven from hell. And there is this everlasting, eternal, unchanging, undying, covenant -keeping, promise -keeping love that God has for his own that will go on forever and ever.
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There will come an end to the love that God has for the unbeliever. There will be an end to the rain, an end to the sun, an end to the pleasures of the enjoyments of the trappings of this world.
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And they will be in the eternal flame forever and ever in the gnashing of teeth and the weeping.
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No, there will be an end to this love. Well, then take it back to eternity past and it is the very same.
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There was a distinction made in eternity past as well between his people and those who are not his people.
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And he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, in love, in love, he predestined us unto the adoption of sons that we should be to the praise of the glory of his grace.
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Now, this loving kindness of God that has been showered upon us goes way beyond the shining of the sun, the changing of the seasons, the beauty of creation around us.
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It is a redeeming, forgiving love. It is an unconditional converting, regenerating, saving, forgiving love that God has only for us who have put our trust in him and have been brought by his grace to believe upon his son, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. The more you understand this loving kindness, how undeserved it was, how unconditional it is, how he sought us out, how he left the 99 and went out into the night to find us the one lost sheep that was lost, how he put us on his shoulder and how he said, rejoice with me for my son who was lost has now found my sheep that was lost.
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Rejoice with me. The more we understand this electing, redeeming, regenerating love, loving kindness of God, the more we say, why me, why?
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I can understand the reprobate in hell. I cannot understand the elect in heaven.
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Why, why me? And that is why the psalmist says, not unto us, what do
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I deserve to do this? Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name be glory.
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And the higher we set the loving kindness of God, the more that you see it is distinguishing, the more that you see it is from everlasting to everlasting, the more that you see it is uniquely redeeming and drawing of us to himself.
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The more you are weaned off of yourself and the more you want to declare the greatness and the glory of God, and I'll tell you, the more really you are turned off by the trivial little hip hop things that pass for Christian worship today.
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No, I know way too much to be satisfied with that. I have seen and tasted of the loving kindness of God, this kind of love.
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It requires adult expression of love to this God for what he has done for me.
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There's a second attribute that I want you to note here in this, in Psalm 115 and verse 1, and maybe we'll see how this works out.
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At the end of verse 1, because of thy loving kindness and because of thy truth, closely connected to God's loving kindness is
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God's truth. These attributes are clustered together repeatedly throughout the
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Psalms. I'll give you one quick cross -reference, Psalm 117 that I just read, verse 2, for his loving kindness is great toward us and the truth of the
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Lord is everlasting. Again and again and again throughout the
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Psalter, there is the clustering of these two attributes of God, the loving kindness of God and the truth of God.
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They come together. And the truth of God here referring to the faithfulness of God as revealed in his truth toward us, his people.
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Now, what is truth? John MacArthur's new book, The Truth War, has just recently come out, and Dr.
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MacArthur defines truth in that book as, quote, truth is that which is consistent with the mind, the will, the character, the glory, and the being of God.
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Truth is the self -expression of God. And then
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Dr. MacArthur begins to put it in the vernacular and he puts it this way, truth is reality.
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Truth is what it is. Truth is the way it is.
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Truth is the way things are because God has declared it to be so and made it so.
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Therefore, God alone is the author, the source, the determiner, the governor, the arbitrator, the ultimate standard, and the final judge of all truth.
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There is no truth apart from God. Truth is God. And truth is that which conforms to what
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God says things are because as God says they are, that is what they are. Psalm 31, verse 5 says,
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God of truth. He is the God of truth. And anything that is contrary to what
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God says is a lie. God is truth and what
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God says is true is what is true because it is what it is, that is the reality of what it is.
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You can say something is north, but if God says it's south, I promise you it is south.
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You may say 1 plus 1 equals 3, but if God says 1 plus 1 equals 2, it is 2.
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And God is always self -consistent within himself and God will never say that 1 plus 1 equals 10.
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God will only say that which is reality. And so how we should worship
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God, because of his truth. And the higher we set the knowledge of the truth, and the more that we learn about God and learn about us, the more we say, not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory.
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John Calvin in the Reformation of the 16th century wrote what was the magnum opus of that great movement.
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It was called the Institute to the Christian Religion. He wrote the
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Institute to the Christian Religion, which defined the movement of the Reformation. He wrote it when he was 26 years old.
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And the Institute to the Christian Religion went through five revisions, and by the time he died, it was a statement of Christian truth.
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It was originally addressed to the King of France, because the King of France was slaughtering and persecuting and martyring the
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Huguenots, who were the French evangelicals who were being put to death for their faith.
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There were two laws in France. Number one, you had to be a Catholic. Number two, you cannot leave
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France. It's the truth. I have on my bed stand next to my bed at home a book of a record of a 16 -year -old girl who was a
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Huguenot who came to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, who became separated from her parents in France during the
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Reformation, and what was required of her to stay alive. As she tried to escape
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France and flee to Geneva to be with the other Huguenots who were going there to sit under the preaching of John Calvin, and how the
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King Louis of France had sent his own royal dragons, his own guards, to seal off the border from France to Geneva and to capture and kill any
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Frenchmen who sought to leave France to go hear the Reformation preaching of John Calvin.
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And how these young children, even these teenagers, were having to sleep in barns and sleep in forests and travel only at night and travel through mountainsides and through forests in order to stay alive, in order to somehow reach
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France to worship there according to their own conscience. John Calvin wrote his
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Institutes out of that experience. And as John Calvin wrote his
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Institutes, it was to explain what true biblical Christianity is to the
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King of France. And, O King, if you only knew of the fidelity and the purity and the integrity of true religion and Christianity, you would not be putting to death all of your subjects who believe upon the name of Jesus Christ.
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It was a noble attempt by John Calvin to convince the
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Catholic King to no longer slaughter the evangelicals and put them to death.
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The Institutes of the Christian religion became the magnum opus of the Reformation. Greater than even
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Luther's, the bondage of the will. And the Institutes begin this way.
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In order to have an accurate assessment of true Christianity, you need two knowledges of the truth.
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You must have, number one, the knowledge of God. And without the saving knowledge of God and the true knowledge of God, you cannot understand what true
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Christianity is. And there is a second knowledge that you need,
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O King. You need a knowledge of yourself.
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You need to see yourself as God sees you. You need to see yourself not as you see yourself.
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You need to see yourself not as your subjects would see you. You must see yourself as God sees you.
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And you must see that God is a holy God. And you must see that you are a great sinner.
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And once you have these twin pillars in place, the entirety of the
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Christian religion unfolds from there. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of self.
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No one can be saved until you have those two knowledges. No one can be saved until you know you're lost.
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No one can come to Christ until you know you are separated from Christ.
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No one seeks mercy until they know they are under wrath. No one comes to God until they know that God is holy and high and lifted up and must come by way of a
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Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. I think that is something of the thunder of what the psalmist is saying in verse 1.
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Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Thy name give glory because of Thy lovingkindness, because of Thy truth.
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The more I grow to know the truth, the more I will give glory to God.
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The more I grow in the knowledge of God and of self, the more
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I will say, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto
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Thy name give glory. The higher your theology, the higher your doxology.
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The higher your view of God, the lesser will be your view of yourself in and of yourself.
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Now, understand this. If you set God in the heights of heaven and give
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God his rightful place in your heart and mind as the true God of heaven who reigns, and as you understand the depths of your own depravity, you are actually magnifying the grace of God that had to bridge that chasm.
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And the more you lower God and the more you elevate man, the more you minimize his grace.
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In fact, you can begin to yawn at grace. But if you understand that the
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Lord is sovereign, he's severe, he's solitary, he's sanctifying, and the more that you understand that man is spiritually dead and defiled and depraved and devilish, then you write a hymn that says, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
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I once was lost, but now I'm found. I was found, was blind, but now
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I see. You will become like the object that you worship.
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And if you love a God like this, a God of loving kindness, a God of truth, a
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God who has made known himself to you, and a God who has made known to you your spiritual condition, and a
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God who has made known to you a redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, the more you will give glory to God and not to yourself.
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Let me just add this and then I'm finished. Time does really not permit a full exposition of this psalm, but while we're in the neighborhood of these verses, let's take them in.
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Second, not only a declaration of God's glory, but I want you to note second, a defense of God's greatness, because God's greatness had come under attack.
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God's greatness had come under assault, and the nations were beginning to taunt the people of God.
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They were such a small remnant. They were such a cloistered people, and the nations were becoming stronger.
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And the people of God, it seemed, were becoming smaller and weaker.
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And the unbelievers, in verse 2, were beginning to build up a false confidence.
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And they were saying out there among the nations, the unbelieving pagan, the unbelieving heathen nations, they were saying, where now is their
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God? They say God is sovereign. They say
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God is good. They say God is loving. But look at them. They are the few.
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They are the remnant. So where is their God? And the psalmist answers in verse 3, our
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God is where He has always been. Our God is where He was in eternity past.
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Our God is where He has been in every season and every epoch of human history. Our God is where He shall be forever.
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Our God is in the heavens. And as He is in the heavens, our
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God is not weakening. Our God is not wavering. Our God is exercising extraordinary patience.
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Our God is being long -suffering. Our God is giving extended opportunity. Our God is showing mercy by withholding immediate wrath.
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Our God is in the heavens. But please note, He does whatever
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He pleases. Heavens is in the plural, meaning the heights of heaven, the highest apex of the universe.
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Our God is not merely in heaven. He is in the heavens, meaning He is in the highest point of the heavens.
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And from this high vantage point, there is no one over Him, no one next to Him, no one on His level.
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And being upon His throne in the heavens, He is undiminished in His supreme authority.
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And He does as He pleases, when He pleases, where He pleases, with whom
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He pleases. And it is this truth that provides such great strength to the truths of verse 1,
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His lovingkindness and His truth. His lovingkindness is a sovereign love.
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His truth is an unchanging truth. But note the denunciation of graven idols, verse 4.
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What a contrast to the unbelieving world. Their idols are silver and gold, meaning they are made out of precious metals, the work of man's hands.
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They are man -made gods. They are man -imagined idols.
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And look at the stupidity of going to this church. Look at the stupidity of going to this worship service.
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Note the irony of this. Verse 5, they, referring to these idols, they have mouths, but they cannot speak.
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They pray to these gods, but there is no response. They offer their voices of praise, but there is no affirmation that comes back.
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They have eyes, but they cannot see. We tell them of our needs, we tell them of our life and the circumstances, but they can't see what is going on.
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They have ears, but they cannot hear. The more we lift up our petitions and call upon them, they are utterly deaf and they cannot respond.
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They have noses, but they cannot smell. They are dead, they are lifeless, they are blind, they are dumb.
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They have hands, but they cannot feel. They cannot extend their long hands to intervene into the circumstances of our lives.
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They have no hands to bring us provision. They have no hands to come to our aid. They have feet, but they cannot walk.
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They cannot come to us. They cannot come to our help. They cannot come to our aid.
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They cannot even clear their throat. They cannot make a sound with their throat.
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They cannot save. They cannot sustain. They cannot satisfy.
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They cannot sanctify. They cannot do anything except totter and topple over.
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And then the irony, verse 8, those who make them will become like them.
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And what that is saying is they make dead idols and they are themselves becoming deader and deader and deader themselves.
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They create lifeless objects to worship and they themselves have no life.
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They have existence, but they have no spiritual life. And these who come to craft such hands, they are spiritually blind.
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They cannot see the truth. They are spiritually deaf. They cannot hear the truth.
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They are spiritually insensitive. They cannot respond to the truth.
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They are spiritually paralyzed. They cannot even come to God by faith.
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They are dead. What can a dead man do? Absolutely nothing but according to the loving kindness of God.
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When you and I were dead in trespasses and in sins, when we too were uncircumcised of heart, when we too were defiled in walking according to the course of this world, when we too were sons of wrath, children of wrath, it was a living, loving
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God who initiated grace to us. And when
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I was lost, He found me. And when I was blind, He gave me eyes to see.
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When I was spiritually deaf and could not hear the gospel, He gave me ears to hear.
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This is His loving kindness towards us, and oh, how we should worship and praise
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Him. Such a denunciation of these false idols leads to verse 9, a dependency upon God's grace.
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We must turn to the one true living God, should we not? We cannot turn as the world does to their dead gods.
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They have other names today all around us, but their gods are no gods. There is but one
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God. He is the God of Israel. He is the God of the church. He is the God of the Bible. We must trust in Him.
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Verse 9, oh, Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Oh, house of Aaron, trust in the
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Lord. He is their help and their shield. You who fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield.
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That's where trust, batak in the Hebrew, it means to attach oneself to.
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It means to rely upon completely. It means to be confident in.
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The idea is with firmness and solidarity, to call upon God and to rely upon Him, and to attach myself to Him with aggressive faith.
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It is repeated three times in verses 9 through 11 to underscore how we must trust in the
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Lord. Listen, trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
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In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct your steps. You have a you have the living
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God. You have a God who hears. You have a God who comes to you with his feet. You have a
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God who reaches out with his hands. You have a God who feels for you in your hour of need.
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You have a God who is responsive to you, a God who has compassion towards you.
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Notice verse 12. The Lord has been mindful of us. Dead idols are not mindful of their subjects.
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They are ignorant. They are stupid. They are vain. They are empty. They are non -entities.
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They are non -gods. But verse 12, the Lord has been mindful of us.
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He is mindful of your needs. He is mindful that you have put your trust in Him.
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He will not forget you. He will not forsake you. He will not fail you. Notice what this says in verse 12.
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He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron.
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He will bless those who fear the Lord, the great together with the small.
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He will not bless the entire world with His redeeming love. That's universalism.
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He will only bless those who fear Him. He will only bless those who have put their faith and their trust in Him.
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Verse 14, may the Lord give you, increase you and your children. May you be blessed of the
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Lord, maker of heaven and earth. It is not the
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God who must be made that we are to worship. It is the
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God who has made us. It is the God who has made heaven and earth. This is the God that we are to worship, and He alone will bless us.
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So it ends with this doxology. In verse 16, it begins with this declaration of giving glory to God.
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It ends now in the same vein. These are bookends around this psalm. It begins with giving glory to God.
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It ends with giving glory to God. It speaks, it's inclusio. It's a figure of speech that says the entirety of the whole in between should give glory to God.
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It's like saying from the east to the west, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast, and the implication is everything in between.
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From A to Z and all the letters in between. The alpha and the omega and all in between.
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This begins with praise. It ends with praise. And all the days in between are to be full of our praise for the one true living
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God. So he says in verse 16, the heavens are the heavens of the
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Lord. Belongs to God. It's God's house. It's God's presence. But the earth he has given to the sons of men, that is to say it is to be our dwelling place.
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Verse 17, the dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into silence.
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And those who go down into silence are those who go down yet deeper into hell, who worship these dumb, dead, graven idols.
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There is no salvation in these dumb idols. There is no grace. There is no forgiveness.
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There is no life. There is no mercy. And having called upon those names, they go down into silence, never to be heard from again upon the earth or from God's people.
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But as for us, us referring to those who fear the Lord, us who are the objects of his lovingkindness, us who have come to know his truth, we will bless the
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Lord from this time forth and forever.
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Praise the Lord. Could there be any other response in our heart this day that this extraordinary, highly lifted up God has looked down and had mercy upon us, who has forgiven us our trespasses, as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great has been his lovingkindness toward us who fear him?
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May there be in my heart right now, may there be in your heart right now, the hallelujah chorus that is redounding up to his throne of grace.
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And may you say to him, not unto me, not unto me, but unto your name,
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I give all glory. Let us pray. Father, we know that we shall become like that or like whom we worship.
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It's why Solomon says, watch over your heart, for from it flows the issues of life.
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And God, this day, we desire to watch over our hearts. The last verse of 1
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John says, little children, keep yourself from idols. May there be no rival loves in our heart.
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May there be only supreme desire and supreme affection for you.
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May we love you with all of our heart, all of our soul, mind, and strength.
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And may we set you high and look away from ourselves. And may we be lost in the wonder of your glory and grace.