Please turn your Bibles to the book of Psalms. Our text for today is Psalm 33, verse 12. Just do the first half of the verse. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Our Father, we thank you for the liberties that we enjoy. We are richly blessed people. Opportunity to work, make a living, provide, worship freely. We can declare the gospel. We can do the work God has called us to do. We love the history of our country. principles on which it was founded. We recognize that only by the grace of God do we stand, because we are sinful people, as all are, but we find ourselves going in a direction. We know we must grieve a righteous God. We pray that today you would be pleased to draw near, that your Holy Spirit would work through the Word of God, that each one of us know how we should then live. that would give glory to God, that would aid in upholding and improving on where we are as a country. Now we pray, Lord, that you would bless us as we continue the studying of thy word. In Christ's name, amen. What you see as we go to Psalm 33 in verse 12, the declaration of scriptures is, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Four key words there, we'll spend time on them. Blessed, nation, God, and Lord. Let's start with the word blessed. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. It's a commonly used word. People say, I've been blessed. Bless my soul. God bless this home. I've lived a blessed life. You know what the word blessed means? Scripturally, it means real happiness. God-centered, in sync with God, pure, clean, in contact with the Lord, doing it right, true happiness. What's the means of achieving this kind of happiness? Some people say, I'll be happy if I have a good job, have a good home, good health, good family, good friends. Some might throw in a few others, good weather, good fishing, But those sorts of things are pointed to by some as the means to achieve happiness. God's way, by the way, is very different. We know this is important to Him. We see the word blessed at the very front end of important portions of Scripture. For example, we turn to the book of Psalms. There are 150 Psalms, and these Psalms capture every emotion and experience that a human being can have. In the very first psalm, the very first word of the first psalm, which is a compendium psalm. It is the one that lists the various themes and truths which are going to follow in the next 149. The very first word is blessed. God starts first with defining what real blessedness is. And He does not say, and there's nothing wrong by the way, having a good job or good friends, good family, good health, good weather. but he defines true blessedness, God-centered happiness in terms, first of all, three negatives and then of one positive. Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. Three negatives there and it's in a downgrade, walking, standing, then sitting. It's loving the world. Bless the man who doesn't do that. Those are negatives. Stay away from those things. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law doth he meditate day and night. God's declaration of true, God-blessed, in sync with the Lord, happiness. The person who loves the word of God. Dwells on the word of God day and night. We go to the New Testament, if you would turn with me to the book of Matthew. That's where we find in Matthew chapter 5 the most complete, in fact three chapters long, sermon of Jesus Christ. And the first word in his sermon is blessed. The idea of true happiness is a topic that God puts in the forefront. First thing in the book of Psalms, first thing in the Lord Jesus' sermon. And again, his definition of happiness would contradict the world's. If the world would say, I am happy if I have a good job, if I have a good wife, good family, good home, get along with other people, good weather. Rather we read, blessed are the first thing listed is the poor in spirit. We understand that that poor spirit expresses a bankruptcy, an awareness of having nothing of the wealth before God that one needs to have. Poor, dirt poor as a person can be poor, there's a blessed person. It means an awareness of our depravity and sinfulness and incapability to purchase the favor of God. Blessed are those who recognize their poverty Those who are poor in spirit. Next one, blessed are they that mourn. This is really a list that would not be in keeping with the world's. Those who are poor and those that mourn. Yes, mourn over their grievous state and cry out to God for mercy. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst. And we go back to the end of this series of Beatitudes. Blessed, verse 10, are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. See, the first word of our text is blessed. We want a blessed nation. Understand when God says blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, He's not defining blessedness in terms of chickens in every pot and cars in every garage. His definition of blessed is very different than the world's. I would also like to emphasize in this first point that blessedness is to be a consequence, not a goal. That's how we see it continually shown in the Bible. You don't pursue the happiness. That is not your goal. Just, I want to be happy. I hear that from parents and I understand it. They say, I just want my kids to be happy. And there's truth in that, but I'm just saying, ultimately, you don't pursue happiness. Happiness is an effect. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. You seek the Lord with all your heart, and the blessedness comes. But you don't take the blessedness and put it over here and have it be the goal. That would be elevating it to being a God. The saying that I've shared with you on other occasions is that when a person first falls in love with somebody, his focus is on the person. And the effect is this feeling of love. Let's say that relationship does not continue. The person may say, I want to get that feeling back. And so you pursue the feeling. I'm just saying that according to scriptures, blessedness, true happiness is found by not seeking it. but by seeking the Lord. We have support of that truth. For example, in Philippians, if you would like to turn there, in chapter 3, we have the very familiar words of Paul, who had some of the highest credentials of any Christian of that age, but he said he considered them to be but dung for the surpassing worth of what he does pursue. And he doesn't describe himself as pursuing happiness, a disposition, a certain happy feeling, but rather we read Philippians 3.7. He says, what things were gained to me, those I counted lost, here it is, for Christ. You go on to verse 10, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering. Go a little farther to verse 13. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do. One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before. I press toward the mark for the high calling of Christ Jesus my Lord. That's my pursuit. Happiness comes, fine. Happiness avoids, fine. That's the way it is, but I seek one thing. That's not a disposition of mind, it's a person, Jesus Christ. Psalm 27 in verse 4, we have another example of a one thing person. Are you a one thing person? David says in Psalm 27 in verse 4, after he has listed the various things that will not bother him, will not shake him, Doesn't matter if a host encamps against him. His heart won't fear. Doesn't matter to him if war rises against him. In this he'll be confident. Why? Because one thing have I desired and it wasn't the absence of war. It wasn't the absence of enemies. It wasn't the absence of being persecuted or anything like that. The one thing I've desired and that what I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord. All the days of my life. to behold the beauty of the Lord, to inquire in His temple. So we're going to round up our thoughts on this first point. We want our nation to be blessed, amen? But it must be blessed as God defines blessing. And that blessing is not necessarily materially prosperous. It may not even be good health for everybody. It may not be a whole bunch of things that people say, here's how I define happiness. Blessed is that nation whose God is the Lord. So we look in the first word of our text, we see that real happiness, the favor of the Lord, is reachable by a nation. But this happiness must be as He defines it, as He lays out how to get it, which involves not seeking it, but seeking Him. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Second, let's talk on some thoughts what the Bible says about nations. God is involved in nations. It would be good never to forget that. There is a tendency in our country to secularize politics. You can have your religion as a place for that, but it shouldn't mix with this. We talk about the nation, we talk about policies, we have debates and so on. That's one thing. You can have your God behind the walls of your church, but we don't bring God into politics. The Lord would beg to differ. The Lord tells us very clearly that He is the governor among the nations. That's Psalm 22 and verse 28. The word governor means ruler. God is the governor among the nations. Job says in chapter 12 and verse 23, it is God who increases the nations and destroys them. Psalm 75 verses 6 and 7, God, quote, put it down one, and setteth up another nation. For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south, but God is the judge." God is intimately involved with nations. Listen to what the prophet Daniel says to King Nebuchadnezzar. This is Daniel 2, 37 and 38. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, one of the greatest kings, one of the greatest empires in the history of the world. Daniel says to him, Thou, O King, art a King of kings, for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field, the fowls of the heaven, hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. You're going to be the deepest, atheistic, pagan king you want to be. But I tell you, it's God who puts you where you are and God can take you out. God is the governor among the nations. That was the message that Paul had for the people of Athens. Acts chapter 17 and verse 26. Paul speaks to a people who have a statue there to the unknown God. Paul says, I've come to declare to you who he is. And he says in Acts 17, 26, God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation. How long a country will endure? what its boundaries will be. God is engaged in that. You think that's all just a matter of guns and bullets and politics and economics. God says, I'm involved with nations. Indeed, we read in Romans 13, 1, there is no power, means no governing authority. There is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. The same when we say blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. We understand God's definition of blessedness. We understand that a nation is something with which God is intimately involved. Turn with me please to Matthew chapter 25. The world doesn't believe it now, they will someday. Jesus speaks about the time of the end of the world where there's going to be a judgment of nations. Matthew 25, verse 31. I won't spend the time to go into the eschatology today, but just note that the Son of Man is going to judge nations. Matthew 25, 31. When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, the second return of Jesus, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory, and before Him shall be gathered all nations. And he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divided his sheep from the goats. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, come ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. So it follows. God was in charge of the founding of the United States. It is God who sustains our nation now, and He could put us up or set us down whenever He desires. It's truly then God with whom the United States has to do. So we return to our text. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. It's time for us to look at that word, God. Can you define a God? We understand that the Ten Commandments were given to Moses, God's chosen people, in the context of hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt, where there were scores of gods. You had a river god, you had a sun god, you had a fish god, you had a cow god, you had a frog god, lice god, all kinds of gods. Multitude of gods. And so when the Lord said, I am the Lord which has brought thee out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. By the way, you notice the Ten Commandments, the founding, the principle, the preface to it is, I am your liberator. I'm the one who's delivered you from slavery. I'm the one with all power. I'm the one to whom you answer. And the first thing I say to you, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Now, first in their mind might be God's carved out of wood, God's carved out of stone or precious metals, God's that look like fish or lions or whatever else. But this verse is just as relevant to you and me as it was to the Jews back at Moses' time. Because a God is anything or anybody whose honor we live for, whose desires we comply with, whose values we keep, the one whose will to whom we bend. A God with a small g is anything at any time I honor, love, consult, fear, trust, or obey more than the God who made me." God's very concerned about that. The time of Ezekiel, all these people saying, why isn't God doing something else? We're captives in Babylon. Then God takes Ezekiel and shows him what man's hearts are like, man bowing down to idols. God says, look at all those gods they have in their hearts. Should I be consulted at all of them? We're told here you want America to be blessed as God defines blessedness, true contact with a living God, pure, real happiness. as a nation which God has his hand on, and then the one that we honor, love, consult, fear, trust, and obey, is to be the God who made heaven and earth. I can make a God in my mind when I do what I think is right, rather than consult the wisdom of God. I knew a fellow who bought a farm. He said, it seemed like a good thing to me. Did you talk to God? He was a Christian. No, I never thought, never thought to ask God his opinion. We can elevate our mind above the will of God. There's a way that seemeth right to a man, but at the end thereof is the way of death. I can make a God of my mind. I can make a God of my feelings when I react to people who hurt me rather than respond to God who allowed it for my good. People do a lot of things based on emotions, anger, fear. I make a god of my body when I obey its lusts and passions rather than submit to God's standard of purity. I make a god of my culture when I hold its standards rather than God's. I make a god of people when I fear them more than God. I make a God of money when I cling to it more than to God's best. I make a God of my work when I set my affections on it. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. But you see all these gods I listed are not real, right? They're charades. They're puppets. They're delusions. They're snares behind which the scriptures say devils lurch. Isaiah chapter 2 and verse 8. We have a description of idols. Their land is full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. They sacrifice, I'm going now to Deuteronomy 32, 17, unto devils, not to God. To gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. So it is in our culture today. Would you turn with me to a remarkable text in Revelation chapter 9. You read through and you see the environmental travesties and the tremendous wrenching pressure that will be on the world in the last days, wars and rumors of war, suffering of many types. We get to Revelation chapter 9 and verse 20. This is after there's some kind of beast, some kind of a form of life that tortures people, the sting like that of a scorpion. I think it's around six months. We get to Revelation 9 and verse 20. And the rest of men which were not killed by these plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils and idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and of wood, which neither can see nor hear nor walk. We have to have uprooted from us our idols so that our God is the Lord. Because blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. We see though that idolatry is very deeply ingrained in us. It's hard to get it all uprooted. But we need to spend more time on this last word. Let's talk now about the Lord. We want our nation to be blessed. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Who is our nation's God? Is our nation's God the Lord? Why must it be the Lord in distinction from false gods and idols? We have the answer in Isaiah chapter 45 verses 5 and 6. And very simply it is because He is the only real God. Everything else is imaginary, fictional delusion. And so He says in Isaiah 45, 5, I am the Lord. and there is none else. There is no God beside me. You've got some imaginary six-foot pink rabbit in your mind. There is no other God but the Lord. I girded thee, though thou hast not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west. If there is none beside me, I am the Lord, and there is none else. And he is the Lord because he made all things, and therefore he has all authority. Perhaps you've memorized Psalm 100. Verse 3 says, Know ye that the Lord, he is God. It is he that hath made us. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Know ye that the Lord, he is God. based on His having created us, which leads us to look more carefully at that word LORD. In our Bible, the word LORD, capitalized, all caps, L-O-R-D, that's to distinguish between other Hebrew words translated LORD. This one, with all caps, is a reference to Jehovah, that LORD, Jehovah. Jehovah means the self-existent one. Let's review the story of Moses at the burning bush. Moses has quite the job to carry out, to have a people who have been under slavery for hundreds of years now be delivered from the most powerful nation on earth. And he's supposed to go and tell the Pharaoh, let them go because the Lord says so. Well, who is the Lord? And the Lord says, watch this. They didn't say that. But that's the idea. He has a burning bush. And what's fascinating about that burning bush, the combustible material doesn't shrink. It just keeps burning and burning and burning, and the bush stays the way it is without any use of fuel. That's the point here. He wouldn't need a bush. He could have a flame. Here's a ball of fire right here. Just watch it burn and watch it for the next month, year, decade, century, millennia. He could do it forever. How long do I got to do this before you get the idea? I'm the self-existent one. By that it's meant God needs nothing to keep Him going. He doesn't need air. He doesn't need gravity. He doesn't need a heart that's pumping. He doesn't need food. He's always existed. He's never had a start. This is the remarkable phenomenon of Jehovah, that He needs nothing from nobody. He's self-contained, always has been. He's eternal past, eternal present, eternal future. It's the most remarkable thing. And so he is a self-existent one. And so he says, see this fire? So it is with me. I can do anything. I just say the word, anything can occur because I have all power. There's nothing beyond my capability. Who then can be saved? The disciples asked Jesus. Jesus says, with man is impossible. With God, all things are possible. Shown in the burning bush and is shown in creation. The self-existent one is the cause for all other things to exist. This is the trouble, I believe, that evolutionists have. Where did it all begin? What was outside the spatial temporal world that could cause other things to exist? He had to be a self-existing one who causes other things to exist. And that's the Lord. And so it's explained in the beginning of the Bible. In the beginning God created heaven and the earth. Genesis 1.1. So it's explained in the beginning of the Gospel of John. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him. and without him was not anything made that was made. And I'd like to ask you to turn with me to Romans chapter 1. See one of the responsibilities of the pulpit is to clarify and define biblically words. Blessed means something. Nation means something. God means something. And Lord means something. Not some flippant whatever you think it means. I think it means. It is the self-existent One who has existed. One God and three persons forever before and will forever again. Won't ever fizzle out. There's no entropy involved here. There's no any decrease over time. It may take a long time. No, He will always be what He always has been and always is. and He is the one Lord and He has made us all. Romans chapter 1, we'll start reading in verse 19. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it unto them. Now that's a statement on all humanity. There may be human beings who think they're drifting toward or come to being atheists or agnostics or something. You can force yourself to do that. You can suppress it. But here we are told it's like there are all these projectors inside the soul showing up on the wall everywhere. God as creator. You can kind of close your eyes to it, but it says here you're without excuse Because the invisible things of Him, verse 20, from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. Even His, what are the next two words? Eternal power. That's Jehovah. Eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagination and their foolish heart was darkened. And they made themselves under themselves false gods. Now let's carry this a step farther. Let's review a very important truth. If we all owe our existence to God who just spoken, then we came to be. then we all owe our continual existence to that same God. God presents himself not only as the origin, the creator, but the sustainer. I started thinking through what verses, and I've come up with five I'd like to share with you, which confirm this truth. The only reason we're held together, remember how many atoms there are in a typical mature body adult? Seven octillion, and that's a lot. That's more than there are heavenly bodies in the universe. How are they all held together into a human body? You know, it's all moving. You got electrons going around, protons and neutrons. God is holding it all together. He is sustaining all life. How do all these heavenly bodies continue in their predictable paths all around wherever they're moving in the universe? It is God who sustains them in their orbit. He hangs the earth on nothing. Okay, Acts 17, 28. Here's Paul speaking to lost people. He's speaking to philosophers in Greece. But he says to them, in Him that is in the Lord, we live and move and have our being. We are held together by Him. In Him we live. He removes Himself from us. We're dead. We're gone. We read the same thing in Hebrews 1 in verse 3. We're told that He's the brightness of His glory there, express image of His person. And also we read in that verse, He upholds all things by the word of His power. He upholds all things. He keeps it together. Not just us, but the trees and the aardvarks and the soil and the rocks and the sun. He keeps it together. He upholds all things by the word of His power. Colossians 1.17 might be the best known of these verses. Christ is before all things and by Him all things. What's the next word? Consist means congeal or held together. By Him all things are bound. He is the binder. So look at the negative side. I've quoted for you other times Job 34, 14 and 15. 34, 14, if he set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath, what? All flesh shall perish together, and man shall return again into dust. Imagine if there was a statue here, a cart made out of dust, but it sort of congeals somehow, and you touch it and it falls into nothing. That's us. If he were to withdraw his spirit and his breath, all flesh would perish together and man would return again into dust. We read in Psalm 104, 29. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled. Thou takest away their breath, they die and return to their dust. So this is the one whom we honor. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. who don't see the world, don't see the universe as a series of pointless accidents. Who knows where material came from? Who knows where it's going? But there is no God behind it. There is no creator. Nobody to whom we submit. See, that's the whole point. If He made us, He sustains us, and it is to Him that we answer. And that's the last point in this sequence of thoughts. If He is the cause of our existence, if He is our sustainer, He is also our final judge. The nature of you and me is that though our bodies are temporal, our souls are not. Our souls are going to continue on forever. Your soul is going to continue on forever somewhere, friend. And if it's not continuing forever in the presence of God, it'll be continuing forever in the cast away from God, the devil's hell. There are only two places. It is the nature of humanity that we are eternal. Our souls are eternal. God has put the eternities in our heart. We know we are eternal. We might want to think it's not so, but it is so. And so when our time here on earth ends, appointed to men to die, what's the rest of that verse? But after this, the judgment. Where do we go now? We're dead. Body's in the grave. Where's our soul go? Well, it's either going to go in the presence of the Lord, or it's going to go away from the presence of the Lord. Blessed is that nation whose God is the Lord because He's the one who determines where we go. Which leads us to time to close up the message here. Blessed is the nation. The nation is made up of individuals. We as individuals need to do the right thing leading toward the nation doing the right thing. We're part of the nation. And we understand the Lord cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness and the people with his truth. been referencing Paul's message to the Athenians. He closes it this way. He says, I present unto you the Lord who made you. It says, the time of this ignorance God winked at. You're ignoring Him. You're not knowing who He is. But now commandeth He all men everywhere to repent because He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained. wherever he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. Blessed is that nation that has been reconciled to God through that man. Who is that man? The Lord Jesus Christ. So we have a dilemma. We've all sinned. Who here has not sinned? We've all sinned. Therefore, we are different than God. The wages of sin is death, the Bible says. Death is a separation. We've been separated from God due to our sin. Say, well, I'll just do good works and balance it out and come back to God. God said it doesn't work that way. For by grace you are saved through faith in that not of yourselves, not of works. It's a gift of God, lest any man should boast. How do you get to heaven? Is it by your effort or is it a free gift? Or is it a combination of the two? People would like to think it's through their own effort, maybe a combination of the two, but God says no. If it's of grace, it's no more works. Otherwise, grace is not grace. Or if it's works, then it's no more grace. Otherwise, works no longer works. Which will you turn to, to be reconciled to your God? We cannot work our ways back to innocence. We've all sinned. Our souls are blackened with sin. We cannot scrub it clean. There's nothing man can do to go back to being innocent once he's been guilty. So somebody's got to be punished for the wrong that we've done. Who's going to take on your punishment? The Bible tells us all of our iniquities were laid upon Him. With His stripes we are healed. The Bible tells us that He became sin for us. He who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Jesus Christ, we present to you, born of a virgin, therefore born without sin, did not sin, did not have to die for his own sins, could, and He freely did, take our sins upon Him. And then it pleased the Father to judge our sins in Him. And that's the gift your sins paid for. all paid for. But you have to receive the gift, the judgment of Christ. You've got to look on Him. He that believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. He who confesses with his mouth Jesus as Lord, believes in his heart God has raised him from the dead, shall be saved. So how do you want to go into eternity? How do you want to face the judgment? Look into your own works or into what Christ has already done. Blessed is that nation whose God is the Lord. Let us pray. Our Father, we believe that the nations are in Thy hands. You set up one, you tear down another, you set the boundaries. So it is true of Taiwan, so it is true of Australia and everywhere around the world, United States included. There are a lot of unanswered questions that we have, but this we know, the Lord, He is God. And He assures us that the blessed nation is the one whose God is the Lord. This is the work beyond us to convince our nation that God is Jehovah, the self-existing one. and that he just spoke the word and we all came into existence and he sustains us and he is our judge and our goal. This must be a work that God does. But you can do it starting with us as individuals. We can as a people believe on Christ for our own salvation, to have all our sin washed away, to be ready for the judgment day, to spend eternity in the presence of a holy God without fear. And so we pray first of all, Lord, that each soul here will not have peace until they find it in Christ. That they confess with their mouth that Jesus is this Lord that the verse speaks of. He is God and there is none other. It is He that hath made us and not we ourselves. That confession can be made by a simple prayer. God opens up a heart to see indeed Christ is the hope. Believe on Him. So we pray, Lord, is there somebody here today, this man, that woman, this child who wants to be born again today, who wants to send her sin washed away today, who would call upon the name of the Lord today for the salvation of their soul? We pray that Thy Holy Spirit would work among us for that end. We pray also that we would be a people who would confess Christ as Lord, and that people around about us would hear and believe, and one by one, group by group, larger and larger numbers come to acknowledge that the Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God. May Thy mercies be upon our nation. This we pray in Christ's name. Amen.