Psalm 33. Don't know how much you know about Theodore Roosevelt. A few years ago, I was on a missions trip and we happened to be in a thrift store because we had a break in what we were doing and got a biography, which was the first of three volumes of the life of Theodore Roosevelt. I hadn't really done much study on him. I had to teach him when I was in school and the like, but I realized that there was enough for three volumes. It wasn't just that, you know, the person didn't have anything to write about and wandered on. There was a lot that went on in the life of Theodore Roosevelt. He was a young man that was kind of involved in almost everything. When he was born, he was sickly, not very healthy. So what he did, he was very bookish and did the study of animals and insects and the like, but in order to build up his strength because he wanted to do something in life, he took up rowing and boxing and gymnastics as a young man in the late 1800s. For a time, he, after the loss of his first wife and after he had gone to Harvard Law School for at least a year, he went out west and for two years was a cowboy. I mean, he did the herding of animals, he was a sheriff, he even got caught in the middle of a snowstorm and nearly died being out in the middle of snowstorm for a couple of days. When he came back he was made the Commissioner of Police in New York City. He was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy when the main was sunk and so he decided he was going to be a part of taking back Cuba from the Spanish and so he was a part of charging up San Juan Hill with the Rough Riders and the like. When he was president, he got to be a president accidentally. He'd been governor of New York, and someone put him up for being vice president because they didn't want him to run for a second term in New York. Send him someplace else. They wanted someone else to run in New York. And in his time there, you had McKinley that was shot, and he became president. And he was involved in pretty much everything. On the world scene, he was known for speak softly but carry a big stick. Part of his presidency, he sent a fleet around the world to prove that it could be done, that you could do this. It was known as the Great White Fleet. He was responsible for the building of the Panama Canal. He was the one who was the driving force to have this happen. He brought peace between Russia and Japan after the Russo-Japan War. In the States, he fought against trusts and large businesses and broke some of those down. But he was also known for his conservation. Having been out West, he had a great interest in all the things out there and he was probably our first conservationist president because he did a lot to preserve certain areas of land for people to go and see. As if that wasn't enough, he was a man who spoke and moved at a frenetic pace. It was hard to keep up with him. His teeth shattered when he spoke because he chomped when he spoke. He even wrote widely in a number of different books. He wrote on everything. He did some different things. So he wrote biographies on wide topics, such as the Naval War of 1812. He wrote his autobiography, wrote a biography of Oliver Cromwell. He wrote different editorials and commentaries. He wrote his memoirs of his experiences with the rough riders. He wrote a book on the summer birds of the Adirondacks. And he also wrote guidebooks for historic towns in New York. Some have estimated by looking at what they have as far as literature from the archives of what he had, that he wrote over 150,000 letters. If you're a person who likes a sedate life, you don't wanna follow and didn't wanna be around Teddy Roosevelt because he was involved in everything. And if he wasn't involved in it, he would have an opinion and he would probably become involved in it. But there was a lot of things in his life that when you look at this, he did them well, and sometimes he did them very badly. And what we have in this passage of Scripture tonight is someone who's involved in everything, but he does it well all the time. There aren't any failures that you can point to. And this psalm in Psalm 33 is a psalm that if we were to give it a simple theme, is just simply this, is that the Lord is involved in everything. And there's nothing that's outside the parameter of His doings and what He has involved in and what He has a say in. He is involved in everything. And as you look through this psalm, there's a couple of things before we read through it, I just want you to note. It is a psalm that has 22 verses. Normally that indicates the fact that this is a psalm designed to be memorized, because when you had 22 verses, that usually indicated in the psalms that you had each verse starting with another letter of the alphabet. It was designed to be memorized. However, this one's kind of weird. It's got 22 verses, but it's not an acrostic. It doesn't have that going on. So there was this element possibly that there was a hint this is something you ought to have memorized because it was 22 verses but it was not the normal acrostic that it was like this. And also as you look at this Psalm and you start off on it, Psalm 33, normally in the Psalms, in the beginning book of Psalms, sometimes we forget this, that Psalms is divided up into five books. It parallels the Pentateuch, which had five books. From Psalm 1 to 41 is book one of the Psalms. If you were to go through the Psalms and look at the titles, This psalm and another psalm, outside of one and two, are the only ones without a title. This one doesn't have a title. It doesn't give us if it's written by David, it doesn't give us any circumstances, it doesn't even give us what it's for. Is it supposed to be sung by a choir or does it have some musical notation? It has nothing up front to give us any information before we go into it, as many of the other psalms do. But as you look at this, and even as you focus in on the center of this, what you're going to find in the center of the psalm is all this information about what the Lord is doing. He's gonna be right in the center. On the outsides, and I want you to catch this because this is how we're gonna work through this psalm, on the outside is the instruction for us, the beginning and the end, is instruction for us on what to do with this knowledge that the Lord is involved in everything. So as we initially read through this, I want us to just to have that in mind. The Lord's in the center of everything. He's involved in everything. The information about him is right in the center. What we're supposed to be doing is on the beginning and the end of this Psalm as we read through it. So that will help you in understanding this Psalm a little better. Psalm 33, let's read through it. It starts this way. Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. Praise the Lord with harp. Sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of 10 strings. Sing unto him a new song. Play skillfully with a loud noise. Here's the statements about the Lord. For the word of the Lord is right, and all his works are done in truth. He loveth righteousness and judgment. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathered the waters of the sea together as in heap. He layeth up the depth and storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spake, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. The Lord bringeth the counsel of the heathen, or the nations, to naught. He maketh the devices of the people of none effect. The counsel of the Lord standeth forever the thoughts of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. The Lord looketh from heaven, he beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of his habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashioneth their hearts alike, he considereth all their works. There is no king saved by the multitude of an host. A mighty man is not delivered by much strength, and horse is a vain thing for safety, neither shall he deliver any by his great strength. Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, and upon them that hope in his mercy. to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waited for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. For our hearts shall rejoice in him because we have trusted in his holy name. Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us according as we hope in thee. As you look at this psalm, you begin to understand that the Lord is involved in everything, and you simply say this, that He is, first of all, in verses four through nine, that He is the starter of everything. Okay, He's the starter of everything. You read this account starting in verse number four, the word of the Lord is right, His works are all done in truth. He loveth righteousness and judgment. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. And you get started off here right away with the idea that God's Word or God's voice has got the capability to do things, got the capability of accomplishing things. And that all the things that He says are right, which means they are never going to swerve from the standard of, well, God Himself. He's without sin, He's without those things. But it's also faithful that what He says as far as His promises, which is what we looked at this morning and in great detail, that what He says is always going to happen. There is no guarantee that He gives out that we'll ever fail, a warranty that has a end date. With God, when He says that something, this is truly the case. He is one, the Lord is right, and his works are done in truth or faithfulness. He loveth righteousness and judgment. I mean, if he's a God who does things that are right and faithful, he's looking for individuals that are doing the same. That brings him great delight. It means these individuals are reflecting what his character are as the image of God. That's what humanity is. We're created in his image to reflect what he's like in this world. God looks at these things. And so as you look at the earth and everything that's here and just studying it, it's full of the goodness of the Lord. And it's at this point you have a statement that his word is right and faithful, but he is the one who created the heavens by his word. It gives it rather poetically what the Lord did at creation, verse six, by the word of the Lord where the heavens made all the hosts by the breath of his mouth. I mean, you don't have to go far in your Bible if you start reading it to recognize this is what happened. When you have that statement in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and then you have him stating just simply this, let there be light, and there was light. And then on the day, the fourth day, he just simply said, and you had sun, moon, and stars. And then you look at everything in the earth, it's everything that anybody could possibly need as you go through that creation story. You've got the trees and the vegetation, you have the animals, you have the people, you have the water and the air, all of these things that you have that we enjoy daily. It's just a reflection that God in an instant was able to pour forth His goodness, and that he is a good God in every way. And you think about this, that nothing came into existence outside of his command. Didn't happen. It's only when he commanded that things were created and he started these things. And you think about what he created, it's so vast, we still can't figure out what the boundary lines are. I'm enjoying at times reading some of these articles that come from the astronomy section. That's different than the astrology section, okay? Astronomy section. of news articles on the internet and them just talking about these new telescopes they have, the James Webb Telescope and some of these other ones that they have. And they're just, they keep going, we keep finding more and more galaxies. They aren't even pinpointing planets in these things or stars. They're just going, oh, there's another galaxy filled with stars. Oh, there's another one just beyond that. And they're doing this. They are beginning to realize that this universe is quite vast. But all of God made this in a simple word. It wasn't a massive construction project where the materials were gathered or anything like that. He just simply said it and it started. And we also see that the Lord is in charge of what happens in these things. It's not that he just merely created these things and that suddenly was out of his control. That was kind of the thought process of some that God was a God who started things, but he had certain rules that just kind of ran itself and he never interfered with it or never really had control of it afterwards. But as you read this passage, he was the one who started everything. He is the one who controls everything. Verse seven, he gathered the waters of the sea together as in heap, he layeth up the depth and the storehouses. What he's just simply talking about this is that you had it that the fourth day where you had, or the third day where you had the land appear out of the waters and suddenly you have these boundaries where land is at and this and going on. And then you suddenly even think about this when it's describing the events of what some would say, God let everything get out of the control, the flood. But you find in Psalm 103 and 104, the discussion of the fact that God had the rains come upon the earth and they then went to their own boundaries. That God is in control of the world that we live in, is seen by him being able to control something that mankind hasn't learned how to control yet. The waters of the sea, we know it's there. But we're at the mercy of those seas when we send boats out and they get involved in storms, but yet here you have a God who's able to go, these are the boundaries, and you can go no further. God is, or excuse me, the Lord is the starter of everything. He's the creator, and as such, He's involved in every aspect. From every insect that is hard to see to the largest of the planets and the galaxies, he has a part in this. He started them, he created them with care. He's a one, and when you think about it, as it's already been stated, that the goodness of the Lord is seen everywhere. You can see it in the smallest of things and in the largest of things, the care of God. So you see in the psalm, he's the starter of everything. But you also see this, that the Lord is sovereign over every nation. We begin to focus in not on everything that's in the creation itself, but now here you have the focusing in on people. As you look at verse number 10, this statement that the Lord bringeth a counsel of the heathen, we sometimes get a bad understanding of that. It's just the Hebrew word for nation or nations. that he's brought the counsel of the heathen to naught, he maketh a device of people of none effect. See, mankind thinks that they have a plan. Problem is, is that oftentimes their plan goes directly against what God has determined. You see this in the story of Genesis as you go through that story and you get to Genesis chapter 11 where mankind is told to go across the whole earth and replenish the face of it. Go across the whole thing and be a part of everywhere on this earth. And they decide, no, we're gonna stop here in this plain of Shinar and build this structure that'll get us right up into the gates of heaven. And we'll build this and we'll stay right here And you say, well, what did God have to do? God really didn't have to do anything to get people to move. He just confused them and they got mad and went everywhere because they were upset because they couldn't communicate with everything else. The plans of mankind that they thought, this will work. God, just by a simple changing of languages, gets them to go wherever they need to go. And he is one who is able to foil the plans of nations, their plots, their devices, as you see so greatly proclaimed in Psalm chapter two, where you have God able to do this. That the counsel of the Lord standeth forever. The thoughts of his hearts are to all generations. There's no thwarting God's plan. You may have generation upon generation that arises among the nations, but what God is able to do is that He's got His plan and He's got it carried out. Read the book of Daniel. You have all these kingdoms that are going to come after Daniel, both the Babylonian and the Persian and the Greek and the Roman and the revived Roman Empire, but God is still going to have His say in the end. His Son's going to rule. The Ancient of Days is going to send forth one like the Son of Man to rule over the kingdoms of the earth. When it says this, that God is, excuse me, the counsel of the Lord standeth forever, He does what He wants in the nations and He will do it from generation to generation. The generation that we live in will do exactly what God needs it to do. The next generation will do the same thing. And it doesn't matter how defiant they are, it doesn't matter how strongly they think that they're going to do this, the counsel of the Lord, or we might say this, the word of the Lord standeth forever. This is a theme that another famous passage of Isaiah, we've talked about one already, but there's another passage in Isaiah that talks about the fact of the word of the Lord going on forever. Isaiah chapter 40, This passage that starts off with this, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, but it talks about the fact that the glory of the Lord will one day be revealed. You go, when was that? Well, when Christ came. But you have this statement made in the middle of this. What shall I cry? Well, here's what you should cry. All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand for a couple of weeks. Maybe for a span of one generation. No, that the word of the Lord stands forever. What he declares doesn't change. The nations change and who's in power does. Then he goes on in Isaiah chapter 40 and gives us a picture of what God's like in contrast to what mankind creates. The nations come up with the worship. You have the statement in verse 10, it says, or verse 9, it says, behold your God. Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, his arm shall rule for him. His reward was with him, his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs in his arm and carry them in his bosom and shall gently lead those that are young. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out, or measured out, the heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of earth in measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hill in a balance? I mean, who can measure the universe just with what we would call the span of the hand? From thumb to pinky. That measurement there. No one's done that, but God does that. He's able to comprehend all the dust of the earth. Have you ever tried to count a glass of sand? Maybe a communion cup size of sand and try and count that? Well, God knows all of the dust of the earth. And you find this statement that he's able to weigh the mountains in a scale. We try and climb those mountains and we can't do it in some cases. He weighs it in a scale. I mean, this God is the one who doesn't need counsel. Verse 13 in Isaiah 40, who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor, hath taught him. Or with whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and showed to him the way of understanding. Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust in the balance. Behold, he taketh up the aisles as a very little thing. I mean, right there in Isaiah 40, he's just simply saying, the nations are nothing. It's like some dust in the hand and that's it for the Lord. So when you go back and you just think about Psalm 33, and it has this statement, the Lord is sovereign over every nation. The nations are, well, really nothing. He can move them. As Jeremiah says, he can plant them. pull them up, give them strength, destroy them, and do this in an instant. But you also see this, is that God is not just a potentate that is ignorant of everything going on. A sovereign who's got no sight. But look at verse 13, it says this, the Lord looketh from heaven and he beholdeth all the sons of men. In the place of his habitation, he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He sees everything. His watching is unfailing. This is God's perspective of the world. He's able to see all humanity. And thus, as he's able to do this, verse 15 communicates the fact that he's able to see what they're doing, but he's also able to see and do things in advance. I mean, this has got the idea that he's got some foresight. And what he's able to do, verse 15, he fashioneth their hearts alike, he considereth all their works. What he can do is see things ahead before they happen. Not only see what is going on right now, but he can see ahead and shape what the activities of mankind are going to be. So here you have the Lord who is the sovereign. He is the starter of everything, He's the sovereign over everything, and He is also, and you see this in verses 16 through 19, the Lord is the Savior for everyone that trusts in Him or hopes in Him. Verses 16-19 just make this very clear. There's no king saved by the multitude of an host. A mighty man is not delivered by much strength, and horse is a vain thing for safety. Neither shall he deliver any by his strength. You have this one, behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy. See, you have nations on one hand that, you could put it this way, the greatness of man fails to save. You've had many mighty armies and many mighty empires that have impressed us as humanity. Even today, we look at the mights of country, perhaps the United States, but you look at other countries like China and go, wow, they've got an army that's so impressive and they've got capabilities and industry to be able to do things that others and building and architecture and all of these things. But you've had Previous cultures where people thought the same thing of other nations. There's no way any country like that or empire like that could be defeated, but yet they do. They pass off the scene. They've trusted, as you have stated here, in horses, in chariots, in the strength of their army, thinking that that is enough to keep them safe. But you have to realize that it doesn't matter if you have weapons of warfare. If you're not watching and you're not all-knowing, you have, well, no real protection. The world trusts in these things. The world trusts in these things to give them the safety and the salvation to deliver them in time of trouble. So the greatness of man can't save him, fails to save him, but the greatness of the Lord saves. I mean, I'll just put it that way. He saves because he's a great God. In verse number 19, you have this, that God is able to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. What's the greatest enemy that every individual has? It's death. It's one that we all will have to face at certain times and the like, but understand this, the Lord is able to save out of death. He's able to do the one thing that mankind can't do. Doctors can't keep it from happening, industry can't keep this from happening, but here you have one who's got the ability to make sure that a person will be saved from death. He can do this. He's great in His ability to save, but it's that He just doesn't save everyone. He saves those, in verse 18, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His mercy. This idea of fearing Him is not the shaking and the quaking and fear, this is what you have, commanded in the Psalms and the Proverbs throughout, of fearing the Lord. Have an awe of the Lord. Act as if He really does exist. That you live your life as the fact that there is a God and He really does rule and reign. And He is my only hope, my only confidence. The Lord looks to individuals like that and is able to save and rescue them. These are people who realize armies can't save us, nations can't save us, none of those things can save us, and they're humbled because they realize that's not the case, and they go to the one who can, as James talks about, that God is able to take the humble and to do what with them? To exalt them, to lift them up, to rescue them, that this Lord is able to save. People who rely on strength, might, and cavalry do not find rescue because the key to rescue lies in that watching eye, expressive of divine commitment. On the human side, the key to rescue lies not in the accumulation of those resources, but in an attitude of revering and trusting the Lord. And so as you think about these middle statements that the Lord is the starter of everything, The Lord is sovereign over all the nations in that He is the Savior. That then calls for a response. You go, what's the response? Well, you find it, as we said, on the outside edges. Verse 1-3, we see this, that the Lord is worthy of all our praise. And I might define it this way as you begin to look at this, that the praise of the Lord is loud. I mean, look at that statement. Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. Praise the Lord with harp. Sing unto Him with psaltery an instrument of ten strings. Sing unto Him a new song. Play skillfully with a loud noise. If you've got a God that is like this, that is magnificent and great and incredible, What kind of praise is he deserving? Just a word. No, there ought to be from us a boldness and a loudness that there's a God that's like this. I mean, these instruments here make it very clear that there is a noise that goes along with this. And as you have this word in verse number one that says rejoice, the word rejoice there is almost in the Hebrew there a word for shout. is this statement that you rejoice loudly, you sing loudly, you shout loudly. The emphasis is on the sound in this section, that it's loud. God's worthy of praise, and it's not that we should hold back on this. It's something that should be fervent and loud. It is also something, as you see, is something that's energetic. This is something people give their energy to. It takes some effort to put music on stringed instruments, psaltery, things that you would perhaps beat as far as music and the like, along with singing. There's a fervency, an energy given to this. And so when you have a Lord who's involved in everything and He's your God, there ought to be an energy and a boldness in praising Him. You say, well, no one wants to hear me sing. Well, you can certainly talk. You can certainly communicate. And you can do this with a boldness that is called for here. You say, what's this new song that's called for there in verse number 3? It's just simply this. A new song is a new song in relation to God's new acts of deliverance. As you have new things happen time and time again, there ought to be a new song. As you see God and you know all these things about Him, but then you see Him act in your life, there ought to be a new response of praise, a new testimony of the goodness and greatness of God. And so the Lord, as you see in verses one through three, if we've got this right, is worthy of our praise. But you go to the end of the chapter and you have this, the Lord is worthy of our confidence. that we settle on Him and be stable because of what He's like and what we previously read. Verse 20, our soul waiteth for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. You know what a shield does? It's not active, it just protects. I mean, in the generic sense, you can sit behind it and be okay. So it is, when you think about the Lord, it's okay to rest behind who He is as Him being your protection, that He will take care of you. You're safe. You just have that confidence to be behind Him. That you have, as you find in verse 21, for our hearts shall rejoice in Him because we have trusted in His holy name. Okay, you go, well, what am I supposed to do? Go around and march around and say his name over and over again as some protective statement that'll keep me safe? No, the idea is there that you've trusted his name is that his name is what he's like. It's his character, who he is, what he's like. I mean, the character of the Lord is the basis of the confidence. His name reveals his character. We did a study last spring on Exodus chapter 34, verses six and seven, where God goes through and proclaims his glory. And he starts it this way, the Lord, the Lord God. This Jehovah God, who God is the idea of being the creator, here's what He's like when you have that name. He is one who is merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will Well, on the other side, he doesn't let sin go. He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children under the third and the fourth generation. When you say, I've got confidence in his name, what you're saying is, I've got confidence in all that he is, what he's like. I just have confidence in that. And you've had a whole section that talks about what he's capable of doing, what his character displays for us. Now I did not hit what is the center of this whole section, this whole psalm. I skipped a verse. I read it, but I didn't talk about it. But this is really what David was trying to get across to these people. Here's the characteristics of God. Here's how you respond. But here's the real thing in the center that you need to pay attention to. Verse 12, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance. What he is writing here, the psalmist, whoever it was, was simply saying this, I've got a nation that I've put my, affection on. You go, what was that? It's the nation of Israel. You'll see this sometimes. People will quote this and go, this is a great passage for the United States. You're going, okay. But in the context that we have here, what you understand is this, that God had chosen the nation of Israel to be the nation to reflect who he was to the rest of the world. This is why he's calling for loud praise to come from them and that they would have his confidence that they would be ones that represented God to all the other nations. And they had experienced time and time again that the Lord should have been their trust because he did much to protect him. I mean, they're told here to wait at the end upon the Lord, to have confidence in him, this people that God has chosen as an inheritance. I've thought about this, and the nation of Israel, the one story that sticks in my mind about the Lord having chosen the nation of Israel and protecting them is the story that you find in Exodus chapter 14. Nation of Israel to that point has seen all the deliverance of God through the ten plagues, ending with the defeating of a ruler, which was the son of Pharaoh, considered to be a god to the people of Egypt. God defeated that individual along with the whole nation of Egypt. Israel was able to march out of the land and they went across that Sinai Peninsula. And as they did, they realized soon afterwards that Pharaoh was chasing after them and they got mad. Because they realized, wait a second, We thought we were delivered, we thought God did this, and they got upset. You have the story in Exodus chapter 14, 10. It says this, when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. And they were sore afraid, and the children cried out unto the Lord. And they said unto Moses, because there were no graves in Egypt, which I can kind of laugh at this, because you had massive graves in Egypt. He had the pyramids that were already there for 500 years, which were massive graves. So this is, you know, kind of an ironic question. Were there no graves in Egypt? Yeah, there's graves in Egypt. "'Were there no graves in Egypt that thou hast taken us away "'to die in the wilderness, "'wherefore hast thou dealt with us thus "'to carry us forth out of Egypt? "'Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, "'saying, let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? "'For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians "'than that we should die in the wilderness.'" And Moses is the man who is the leader here, but he's being called upon by these people and going, this is all your fault. You brought us here. And I find the statement in verse 13 that Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, the rescue of the Lord that He can do this. which he will show to you today. For the Egyptians who you have seen today, you shall see them again no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace." And you go, what happened after that? Well, here you have this cloud that goes between the nation of Israel. and Egypt. And suddenly you have what we've had even described here that God can define the boundaries of water and suddenly you have this boundary of water that is put up and you have a wall on one side and a wall on the other for the nation of Israel to walk through this. that God can do the one, as he says here, he can make boundaries of water wherever he wants. And he marched the nation through that, and you had the mightiest nation in the world, the nation of Egypt, that goes charging through to go after the nation of Israel, and in just a single instant, no more army. God had saved Israel. And this is a nation, as you see here, that is being challenged. You are a blessed nation, Israel, because God has set his affection upon you, and the response that they should have to him because he is protecting them is one of faith, of waiting on him. And as you will see as you go throughout history, that the nation of Israel has time and time again failed God, but God is going to come to their rescue in the end. He's gonna take care of them. But for us, we glean the benefit of this is just seeing this, this is our God too. We're not a nation of people in the sense of being of the Jewish race, but we are followers of Him. And all these things said about the nation of Israel, His protection and His care for us is exactly the same. So we ought to just wait on Him. It may seem like the nations are raging. And as you look around, the nations seem to be raging, including ours. but we have a God who's in control. He's sovereign over the nations. He's the one who started everything, and He is your Savior. You ought to trust in Him. You ought to praise Him loudly, and then just simply, when the times come, wait and trust in Him. So look back at the Psalm this week. If you get afraid, if you get frustrated with what's going on, your God is in charge. Nothing goes by his mind, nothing goes by his eye. He is one who will take care of you. Lord, we thank you. You are a great God. Help us not to forget passages like this, that you are one that is involved in everything. Nothing goes by your attention, nothing goes by your care, nothing is outside your realm of being able to take care of, and no one's outside of the ability for you to save. And so we thank you for that, we praise you for that. May we be individuals that are not shaken by world events, shaken by things that go on around us in our own personal lives, but focus on who you are and give you the praise that you're deserving of as you do this new things in our life daily. May we sing, as David calls individuals here to do, a new song, a new song of praise declaring what you're like and what you've done for us. So we thank you, Lord. We thank you for your abundant goodness to us, that you are in charge of everything, involved in everything, that this world is under your control, this universe is under your hand, and we thank you that you've allowed us to be called your people and to be able to be trusting in you and find salvation in you. We thank you in the name of your son, amen.