All right, Psalm 117, very short psalm. As a matter of fact, it's only two verses. That's how short it is, and God's people said amen. How much can he possibly get out of two verses? Well, we're gonna extend this message for the next three weeks. I'm just kidding, just kidding. Psalm 117, you can never exhaust God's word in any ways. There's so many things you can get out of it, so many ways to apply it. But for sake of time here tonight, just a couple of verses. Psalm 117, I entitled this message, Oh Praise the Lord. Oh Praise the Lord. I tell you what, we think about the things that we have tonight to praise the Lord for. As I was just thinking of going through the verses and just thinking about my life and beginning to think about the things that I can just As they would say, count your blessings and name them one by one. I could say praise the Lord behind every single one of those, but there's so many things that I could praise the Lord about, so many blessings that I have, I'm not so sure I could count them all. Even in just today, as we know the text, and I say it all the time, the Bible says that he loads us daily with benefits, and all the things that God does for us every day. that sometimes we're just oblivious to. We don't really think a whole lot about it. We're just kind of going about our life and living our life not really knowing and understanding all the things that's going on around us that God is protecting us from or saving us from. Whether it's things happening out there on the road or whether it's even things happening even inside our own bodies. whether it's folks that are around us that we're not even aware, that may be watching us while maybe we're out, folks that may even have a desire to cause us harm, but yet, because of the intervention of God, unknownest to us, we were kept safe. We just have no idea all the things that God is doing all around us every day that is keeping us safe. The psalmist says here in the text, he begins there in Psalm 117, verse 20, he says, Oh, praise the Lord. All praise to the Lord. It seems like this, and of course he says, he begins with all praise to the Lord, and then he ends there in verse two with praise ye the Lord. So he begins with the praise to the Lord, he ends with the praise to the Lord, and so the psalmist here in just this short couple of verses, the idea is to just give praise to the Lord. When we think about, as I said, all the things that God has done that we can even begin to even number in our minds, the things that we know of, the things that we have seen, the things that we have heard and witnessed and all of those things, we lift hands and we praise the Lord for those things, but as I said, what about all the things that we had no idea, no clue about, all the things that was going on around us? that as I mentioned earlier that God kept us safe from or protected us from, that God was moving in our midst and we had no idea and those things that God did for us, we praise the Lord for that tonight as well. I'm thankful that I have so much to praise God for. Every single one of us here tonight, we have so much to lift hands up and praise the Lord for I know we battle, I know we struggle, and we all have things that we go through in our life, and talking about this morning, even times of confusion and even chaos and moments, but I tell you what, even in the midst of it all, we still have so much to lift up our hands and praise God for. We think about, just as I said, all the things that God has done. The psalmist says, oh, praise the Lord, all ye nations. What I like about this is that we see that there in this verse, when the Bible says, oh, praise the Lord, and when he says, oh, praise, he says, oh, praise the Lord to all ye nations. That is, you know, that means that every nation has a reason to praise God. Every single nation has a reason to praise God. because God has been good to us all and does not the Bible say, and we said a lot and quoted a lot about how the Bible says that the rain comes down and the sun shines on the just and the unjust alike. Listen, there are so many things, so many reasons why we at Gospelite can just praise the Lord as individual families, as individuals here tonight can praise the Lord for, but the Bible says here in this text, oh, praise you the Lord, all ye nations. And we think about even all the nations in the world that are against God, want nothing to do with God, and all the people groups in this world that hate God and don't want nothing to do with the Lord Jesus, don't want nothing to do with the Bible, but yet the Bible says, oh, praise you, Lord, all ye nations, because even those nations that are against God, God has still blessed them. God is still good to them. God every day still shows mercy to them. because here in just a moment, in just a second, God could wipe them out from this earth. God could destroy them even where they are right this very second, but because his mercy is renewed every morning and because his desire is for them to come to the knowledge of the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ every day, he gives them. an opportunity. Every day he gives them a chance to be saved. Every day he gives them an opportunity. Listen, we have no idea where these folks are. When we think about all the nations of the world, there's some nations that love God, some nations that want to praise the Lord, and then there are some that want nothing to do with God, don't want to praise the Lord Jesus, want nothing to do with his, want nothing to do with his word, but yet God is still good to them, God is still blessing them, God is still God is still allowing them to have another opportunity, another chance to hear the gospel, another opportunity for missionaries to go out that way, to teach them the gospel. No more opportunities, perhaps, we think about our sermon audio here tonight, and we think about all the countries, 120 countries that our sermon audio goes to, but then not only that, we have no idea who sees what on Facebook, we have no idea who sees what, whether it's on YouTube, or whether it's on Twitter, or whether it's on Instagram, we have no idea who sees what. But the messages go out, and the gospel goes out, and the missionaries go out, and all these, the ministries of our church, they go out into the world. And we have no idea who's hearing. We have no idea who is being blessed by it. We have no idea whose life is being changed. No idea who here tonight, who tonight in the world is praising the Lord because of a ministry that you may be involved in at Gospel at Baptist Church. no matter what it is. The Bible says this, the Bible says this here. The Bible says, oh, praise you, the Lord, all ye nations. God has been good to them all. God has blessed them all. God is merciful to them all. God is gracious to them all. The Bible says, oh, praise you, the Lord, all ye nations. Praise him, all ye people. we can see that the center part of our focus here tonight is on praising him. You know, sometimes we have so much to, we can be guilty, we kind of hit on a little bit on Wednesday night, whenever we was closing out the message, on closing out the message on Wednesday night, the last part of it was talking about about complaining and having a complaining spirit before God. And we can very easily sometimes get to this place in our life where we are complaining about this and complaining about that and down on this and down on that and critical about this and critical about that, but what about all the blessings? that are there. What about all the things that are in between? Listen, sometimes we can get so hung up on our complaints that we miss the blessings that are there. The Bible says praise you the Lord. The Bible don't say complain you to the Lord. Now we do want to lift up our request that be known to God, amen. God does care about, God does care about our burdens in our hearts, yes he does, of course he does. But I believe God also desires to hear our praise. desires to hear our praise. You ever been around folks that just seem like all they do is just complain all the time? When you're around people that complain all the time, what do you wanna do? I mean, if you're around somebody that just constantly complain, what do you kinda do? Sometimes you kinda, you just wanna do this right here, right? You know why? Because sometimes it just has this way of negatively affecting your life. And listen, you wanna be around folks that are uplifting and that are encouraging. The Bible says here, praise ye the Lord. We understand that God cares about the things that we go through. God cares about our struggles and God desires to hear from us. And listen, sometimes we do lift up our voice in the midst of chaos and confusion and trials and troubles and all these things. And God does desire for us to call out to him. Yes, he does. But the Bible also tells us to praise the Lord. All the nations. Praise him, all ye people. The Bible says there in verse two, for his merciful kindness, the very first truth as we see, is the exaltation of God, there in verse one. The Bible says, oh, praise you, Lord, the exaltation of God. We think about the things that we exalt in the world and what is it that we may be exalting above God today? We think about it. What is it that could be in my life that, oh, what are some things in my life that I exalt and that I praise? Do I exalt that and praise that above God? We see here the exaltation of God. Oh, praise be to the Lord. I mean, how many times, let's think about this, how many times today maybe have we said, praise the Lord? Praise the Lord. There should be a praise that comes out of our hearts and our mouths. whatever it could be. Man, praise God, the service today was good. Praise the Lord, we was in the house of God. Praise the Lord, we have freedom today. Praise the Lord, we can do this. And praise the Lord, we're able to do that. Just praising God. How many times have it come out of our lips here today just to praise the Lord? We see the exaltation of God, but then we see the very second truth as we talked about all you nations, we see the encompassing people. We see all the people. The exaltation of God is something that should be global. It is something that should be around the world. It should encompass all people. The Bible says, oh, praise the Lord, all ye nations. Praise him, all ye people. And though some people don't praise the Lord, but God's desire is that they give praise to him. The Bible says, oh, praise you the Lord, all ye nations, praise him, all ye people, the exaltation of God. We lift up God, we praise God for the things that he does and the kind of God that he is, and the encompassing, how it should encompass the people of the world, that we all have a reason to praise God, every one of us. When we think about, we could sit here tonight, and though, for sake of time, we don't have it, If I was to start right here with Brother Josh, and we made our way through, down through every single pew here tonight, and we came all the way back around, and just ended with me, all the things that we can think of would be here till midnight, or even after, perhaps, thinking of all the things that we can praise God for. The Bible says, all you people, because God has given every single one of us a reason to praise. So we see the exaltation of God, we see the encompassing of the people, but then we also see in verse number two, the Bible says, for his merciful kindness is great towards us. We see the excellence of his mercy. The excellence of his mercy, the excellence, the Bible says, of his merciful kindness. When we say this and quote it all the time, the Bible says that his mercy is renewed every morning, and so we'll see the excellence of his mercy. I mean, there is no mercy like that of God. There is no mercy that is gifted to us every day that can be above that which God has gifted us with. Every single day, the Bible says that he grants us mercy. Every single morning when we wake up, God's mercy is renewed on our life. Despite the things we've done, despite the things we've said, despite how we've been, God's mercy is renewed every morning. How great is, how excellent is that mercy? By far more than what any of us would deserve here tonight. And so we can see even more reasons why that we give God praise, even more reasons why we exalt the Lord, even more reasons why not just Christian nations, but how the whole world itself, how the praise of God should encompass the whole world because everybody has a reason to praise God, even the ones that don't believe in God have a reason to praise God. So we see the excellence of his mercy. Not only is the excellence of God's mercy upon us as his people every morning because we fail him, but it is also his excellence of mercy is upon the nations that do not care for him. The nations that do not want him. The atheist that does not want to honor God. The excellence of God's mercy is upon them. The Bible says, for his merciful kindness is great towards us. So then, fourthly, we see not just number one, we see the exaltation of God, we see the encompassing of the people, number two, we see the excellence of his mercy there in verse three, but then we also see his enduring truth there in verse two. The Bible says, which is the fourth truth, the Bible says, for his merciful kindness is great towards us, and the truth of the Lord endureth forever. Man, praise the Lord for that. And even though we live in a world today that seems like we're in a confused society where nobody seems to know what truth is and it seems like a new truth is resurfacing or coming up on the scene all the time. Listen, there is only one truth. Now, I've heard somebody say, well, I don't believe in absolute truth, not knowing that that is an absolute statement. If you say there's absolutely no absolute truth, that's an oxymoron statement. You're saying there is absolute truth. Here in this verse, we see that the Bible shows us that there is truth. There in verse two, and the truth of the Lord endureth forever. And one of the reasons why I give praise to the Lord, and I think another reason why, there in verse two, we see the last four words of that verse two says, praise ye the Lord, after that very statement, is because of the very idea that I would probably maybe say here tonight is I'm thankful that no matter how much the world does everything it can to try to corrupt the truth of God's word, to try to corrupt the truth of who God is, the Bible says that his truth, will endureth forever. No matter how much the devil, no matter how much the world, no matter how much evil, wicked people, no matter who does everything they can to taint the word of God, to profane the name of God, to make up ridiculous stories and ridiculous religions and ridiculous things about God and the Bible and all these different types of things, no matter what, confuse society no matter how far down the road, All of these things go, the Bible says there in verse two, that the truth of the Lord endureth forever. Well, why does the truth of the Lord endureth forever? Because is not the Lord Jesus truth? Did he not say, I am the way and I am the truth? And truth endureth forever because Christ the truth endureth forever. Because Christ, who is the one who is the author and giver of life, the one who is the author and giver of salvation, the author and giver of truth, whose name is truth, because he endures forever. Truth will endure forever. And even though we live in a world today and even if the Lord sees fit to wait and we all die and the Lord waits and the rapture doesn't happen for years from now, or a long time from now after we're all dead and gone, the same truth will be just as true 100 years from now than it is today. the very same truth. And a preacher will be able to get up, and I have no idea who they would be, but a preacher would be able to get up and stand in the pulpit and open up the word of God and look at this verse right here in Psalm 117, verse two, and say, the truth of the Lord endureth forever, because I, God, change not, and I am the same yesterday, today, and forever. And whoever that preacher could be 100 years from now, who would open up this word and read this verse and preach from that very truth, and say the very, in 100 years from now, that preacher would stand up and say, this very truth that I am preaching to you today is the same very truth that the people that lived 100 years ago, speaking of us, believed and put their faith in. because his word endures forever. His truth endures forever. And it don't matter what generation it is. It don't matter how confused society gets. None of that makes any difference because his truth will always stand. forever. I praise the Lord for that tonight. Let's pray. Father, we thank you, Lord, for this night. Lord, I am so grateful, Lord, for the exaltation of God. I'm so thankful for the encompassing people, Lord, that have the ability Lord, and the privilege to exalt the Lord. We're thankful for the excellence of the mercy of our God and your kindness. Lord, we're thankful tonight and we praise your name for the enduring truth. Lord, that you have shed upon our lives, that we can put all of our faith and trust in. No matter what generation it is, and no matter what time it is, and no matter what is taking place in our world and society, God, we know that we can come to your word and it be the truth that we need to hear. regardless of the things that happen out in the world, regardless of how the devil fights against God's word, regardless of all these things, Lord, we know that we can come to your word and find the truth. Lord, we thank you for that tonight. And for that here this evening, we say, oh, praise the Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.