May God use this message. As you turn, we're now coming to the last four Psalms in our series in the Psalms, 150 of them, and today is 147, 1 through 20. I want to read just the last few verses out of verses 15 through 20. Notice the commanding voice of the Lord in the response of all creation. What should be our response? He sends out his command to the earth. His word runs swiftly. He gives snow like wool. He scatters frost like ashes. He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs. Who can stand before his cold? He sends out his word and melts them. He makes His wind blow and the waters flow. He declares His Word to Jacob, His statutes and rules to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any other nation. They do not know His rules. Praise the Lord. Now Father, speak through Your servant, speak through Your Word. Let us today hear the Word of the Lord. and apply it in our hearts. For Jesus' sake we pray, Amen. Embedded in Psalm 147 is one of the strongest illustrations I know of the sending out of God's commands to creation and for that matter to us. Verse 15, He sends out His command to the earth, His word runs swiftly. One thing our children learned growing up, and it was something my dad taught me, and that is obedience is not obedience unless it is prompt. Obedience. And here is a picture of it in the Word. He sends out His command to the earth. His Word runs swiftly. The living Word of God is Jesus, and the written Word of God is the Bible. And the Bible is our authority as believers. There are millions of evangelicals and fundamentalists all across America and around the world that profess to believe in the authority and in the sufficiency of the Word of God in matters of faith and practice. But I would say many, if not most, deny the authority of the Bible in their lives. They claim to believe in it, though. A leader in the emerging church recently spoke to a fellow by the name of T.A. McMahon, and T.A. wanted to be a blessing to this man. He was out of alignment with the Word in his practice, and T.A. began the discussion by saying, I think it would be helpful as we share if we acknowledged to what spiritual authority each of us is submitting. And then pointing to the Bible, T.A. said, this book is my authority. What's your authority? The man looked around and he searched for a response. Finally he said, my God is bigger than that book. Isn't it interesting? Shocking. what we'll do to get around and do an end around. God is the author of this book as if he can't follow his own book. Strange and yet it happens all the time. It's easy for believers to hang on to a belief in the authority of the Word of God and yet to functionally bail out. If we go anywhere else for answers, if we go to our own understanding, and lean on our own understanding. Or if we go to our favorite authors, or if we go to our favorite radio preacher, our favorite television preacher, or to our favorite blog, and there we find our answers. What are we doing? What we're doing is we're looking for another authority. We're denying the sufficiency of the clear teaching of God's Word. When a position that we follow or a decision we make contradicts the clear teaching of the Word of God, we're like a person who is working offline. Have you ever seen that on your computer? You are now working offline. It's kind of troubling. You need a little IT help. How can we get back online? I want to be online. We may use the Word of God to bolster our position. We may garner scores of verses to support our point, but in the end, if we deny one clear teaching of Scripture on any point, it is dangerous to our spiritual walk. It is dangerous to our physical health. It is dangerous to our future. None of us who name the name of Jesus Christ can claim total freedom or total autonomy. We like to think of ourselves as a congregational governed church, and we are, but we're not totally free. We may be evangelical free, but we're not totally free. Because I'm a man or because I'm a woman, I can do whatever I want to do. Oh, no. Christ is our head. Christ is our covering. We are all Christ's bride. We're answerable to him. Each of us is under authority. We must all answer to a hierarchy. You say, well, what's a hierarchy? A hierarchy is an order that runs with prescribed alignments. How many of you came in a vehicle to get to church this morning? That's a good part of us, I'd say. I hope you didn't have to walk. If your car is not properly aligned, you're not fit to be on the road. If that car is shimmying all over, or if it's moving to the right, moving to the left, it's not aligned properly. God is telling us today, sometimes we're unfit. to serve Him and to serve His commands because we're not properly aligned. Paul explains to us the chain of command God has given us in 1 Corinthians 11 3. He says, but I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ and the head of a wife is her husband and the head of Christ is God. even in the Godhead. Some of you are in zero hour and I'm sure you've heard about economic subordination. Economic subordination, which means that there's a chain of command even in the Trinity. The Son is subservient and he humbles himself to do the Father's will. That's why in the garden when Jesus says, not my will but thine be done, he was subordinate to his Father's will to die for you and for me. God works through a chain of command. Even within Himself, there's a chain of command. We automatically, however, when we get out of our chain of command, we lose the fullness of God's blessing in our life. I don't know if we know how dangerous that is, to lose the fullness of the blessing of God in our lives because we've come out from under our covering, whatever that covering is. Children, you have a covering in your parents. And to you as wives, so it's not a popular thing, it's true. You have a covering, it's your husband. And husbands, you are to mutually submit one to another in the fear of Christ. And men, we must submit to Christ and love our wife as Christ loves the church. Lucifer, son of the morning, what did he do? He rebelled. He came out from under God's covering. He took a third of the angels with him and he was cast out of heaven because God could not bless him because he wanted to be number one in the chain of command. He wanted to be his God. If you want to have the blessings of heaven open up on you, get in your chain of command and stay there and his blessings will flow down. Every believing disciple of Jesus Christ, at one time or another, has come out of the chain of command. Anyone here that hasn't come out of the chain of command, stand up, and I know there's no one that can stand up. We've all, all we like sheep, have gone astray. And so we act hypocritically. We stand for the full authority of scripture. We say we obey the commands of the Lord, and yet, at times, we do not. One common hypocrisy, and it's far easier to accuse others of hypocrisy than to admit it in ourselves, but one common hypocrisy is accusing one of our pastors of preaching falsely. Why? Because the teaching that they taught is in a direct confrontation of a sin within one of us. Leonard Sweet, and I've heard him preach a number of times, I enjoy him, he's a professor, but he wrote a book called Faithquakes. He told of a minister in France with little education, and that minister, his ministry was very irritatingly convicting. He stepped on the toes of his congregants all the time, and a group of the church got out of the chain of command. And they decided they'd get him out of there now. And so they circulated a petition there in France, and they began to circulate it to get rid of the minister. And all you had to do to get rid of him was to sign this petition. They're out. They're out of God's favor. The interesting thing about it as it was being circulated, they got anybody who could to go anywhere in the neighborhood to get anyone to sign, even if they never went to the church, to sign that this man shouldn't hold his post. Interestingly, one of the guys that took up going out and getting signatures didn't even know who the minister was, but he was collecting signatures. And he went to the pastor's house. And he showed him, he showed him the petition, asked him if he would sign it. He said, absolutely. And he signed. And if such a petition were brought to me, I would sign it too. There is no man, there is no man, no matter who he is, who takes up a call of God who can say, I am totally without sin. Each one of us have been hypocritical. Each one of us at times have stood for something that we didn't functionally stand for. No pastor, no person can say, I have perfectly fulfilled my calling. We sang it this morning. We are weak and frail. help us in the storm. Moses was no perfect man and yet he was God's choice and he had a right-hand man Aaron and as you know there were three men that were probably all better speakers than Moses or Aaron. Three men, Korah, Dathan and Abiram and the scripture says in Psalm 106 verse 16 that they began to oppose Moses. They got out of the chain of God's command. And they led 3,000 Israelites to oppose God's chain of command. Numbers 16.3 says that they said these words as they were jealous. They wanted His post. Then why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord? For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them. They didn't exalt himself. God put him in that place. That was his chain of command. And what did God do? Would he put up with it? No, it's kind of a strange thing. All of a sudden, Moses said, step away from Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and those that stand with them. And everyone stepped back. And the earth opened up and swallowed them all up. It may not be popular to preach God's chain of command, but I'll tell you what, if the blessing of God is to fall on you and on your marriage and on your family, you must follow God's chain of command. In the church, the chain of command is Hebrews 13, 17. It's very clear. Obey your leaders and submit to them for they're keeping watch over your souls. as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you." Now I want to just stop and say to you, I want you to think of this question, I want you to think of it very carefully before you answer it in your mind. How many of us, and that includes me, regarding our boss at work or our pastor in church or whoever it may be that's over us in the Lord, our parents. How many of us have rolled our eyes, chuckled under our breath, grumbled under our breath at the idea of submitting to one of our pastors or our boss? What if every time that a believer secretly met in a home and talked about he's just man and wife or with others in their home and they had a plan to dump their pastor or to undermine him or secretly replace him? What if the ground would open up and they would be swallowed up? Now here's the question. How many of us in the Second Service would be here? How many of us right here would be here in church if we've spoken against those that are over us? You see, it's interesting to say the winds and the waves obey His will. It's another thing for us to obey the command of the Lord. Many, many times we are functionally not believing what we've said we believe in our minds. I believe in the authority of Scripture unless it's against what I want. One other great hypocrisy is finding a tradition or a teaching that fits our selfish purpose and thus we connive away to do an end around. If you know anything about football you know there's end arounds. We can do an end around God. We can do an end around our boss. We can do an end around our pastors. and deny the clear teaching of scripture. Jesus faced it in his day. In Matthew 15, 1 to 9, the Pharisees did an end around the Ten Commandments. Number four, honor your father and mother. Listen to how it happened. The Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? Why do they not wash their hands when they eat? And Jesus answered them and said, and why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. But you say, if anyone tells his father or his mother what you would have gained from me, You know, anything you would have gained for me has been given to God, need not honor his Father. He says, so for the sake of your tradition you have made void the Word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. I want us to examine Probably one of the most powerful passages in the Word talking about the command of the Lord and the chain of command. And I could have just made the three points start with R and just made it the three R's, like reading, writing, and arithmetic. But the three R's I want to talk about is when we obey the Lord and we are under His chain of command, there are three great blessings that start with R. There's restoration, there is refreshment, And thirdly, there is the revealing of His Majesty. I've made them a little longer, so you'll understand what I am getting at, but it's really restoration, refreshment, and the revealing of His Majesty. Number one. What is the first? When God commands and we obey, a song of praise is fitting because He restores His people. Notice verses 1 to 6. Praise the Lord. For it's good to sing praises to our God, for it's pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting. The Lord builds up Jerusalem. He gathers the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars. He gives to all of them their names. Great is the Lord and abundant in power. His understanding is beyond measure. The Lord, our Lord. lifts up the humble. He casts the wicked to the ground. Now the timing of this psalm is doubtless an interesting thing. It's written after the exiles of Judah. They've gone off to Babylon. Now Babylon has been taken over by Medo-Persia and now they come back to Jerusalem over a hundred years later. It's an interesting thing. By now the walls of Jerusalem have been built. The gates have been restored. The people have been resettled. The psalmist is speaking now of the dedication of the new temple, the post-exilic temple. And you'll read in verse 2, He gathers the outcasts of Israel, and the verb is kanach, K-A-N-A-C, which means regather, collect, enfold, assemble, whistle and call forth together by command." By the command of the Lord God brought them back. Now how did He do this? Ezekiel in 587, over a hundred years before it happened, prophesied. He said in Ezekiel 39-28, then they shall know that I am the Lord their God because I sent them into exile among the nations because they got out of the chain of command. They worshiped other idols, not just me. You shall have no other gods before me." They disobeyed that rule, that command. So they went into exile. But then I canocked them. I assembled them into their own land. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations anymore. Now who did God get to get them back from Medo-Persia? Did He pick a great prophet or a great prophetess? No. You know who he picked? He picked a man that he thought would obey his command even though he was a pagan. His name was Cyrus the Persian. A king! A pagan! And he writes a decree because of the word of the Lord that he heard. God stirred up his heart and it says this, Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord the God of Israel. He is the God who is in Jerusalem. God told Cyrus, a pagan king, send the people back home. How many went back home? How many came under the chain of command? Very few. The scripture says What the number is, the number that went into captivity was amazing. They had many more kids since then. Only a few went back. They were told by God Almighty, they were told by King Cyrus, a pagan king, to go back. Many of them stayed right there in the homes they had. We'll do okay right here in Medieval Persia. Can you imagine it? Believers today get out of God's chain of command. Believers refuse to obey Him. They refuse to follow His promptings. But God commands this pagan king and he unswervingly obeyed. Now as we look at this passage together, it's good to sing praises to the Lord. It's pleasant. A song of praise is fitting. The word nava means beautifully at home, beautifully suitable. As I was growing up, every time we went to my grandma's house on dad's side, I'll never forget it. Every time we'd get there, we'd start to come in the house and Hilda would come out and she'd say, come in, make yourself at home where you ought to be. I really liked that. Come on in, make yourself at home where you ought to be. You ought to be at home. And right here is home. And I want you to know when you get in this house and you start to worship and we have a song that we sing, a song of praise, you ought to be the most at home of any place in all the world as you suitably and fittingly give praise to God. We sing praises. Why? The first R, what did I tell you it was? Restoration. That's right. It ought to warm our hearts like chicken soup on a cold, snowy day, or turkey soup this time of year. Notice the way God commands our restoration. In verses 3 to 6, there are nine participles. Nine participles that are all restorative verbs, all restorative things that God does. If you want to know what restoration is, here are nine ways that He restores. Eight of them are positive. One's negative, and that's the clearinghouse for the other eight. The number one on is building up. It says in verse two, the Lord builds up Jerusalem. The Hebrew word is banah, B-A-N-A-H. It means to make or fashion and when it's used of God it goes back to the first time it was used and that is when God said I'm going to make a helpmeet for man it's not good that he be alone and he did a surgery on Adam and he took a rib from Adam's side and from it he Bonad he fashioned a woman and he Adam said this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh husbands every time you look at your wife you ought to remember the restoration of a lonely man in the Garden of Eden poor guy all alone. Nobody's with Him. And God says, I have a restoration! Here she is! One word from God and a rib out of Adam's side became a helpmate beside Him. And here in Psalm 147.2, He says, the Lord bond us, just like He fashioned Eve, the Lord fashioned Jerusalem. What did He have to work with? Just rubble! Rubble! From what the Babylonians had done, but He refashioned it! The second participle is gathering. We've already talked about gathering. It's kanak. It's the Hebrew word to gather back, to assemble, to call forth by command, to whistle. Cyrus gave a command that was to be obeyed. The third participle is healing. I'm sure ladies upstairs, if you haven't already, you'll be hearing about one of the names of God is the Lord, our healer, Rapha. Jehovah Rapha. The Lord is our healer. Rapha means to mend by stitching. Sounds like darning socks like I used to do when I was a kid with a light bulb. I don't know if any of you ever put a... Well, that's something I've done a lot of. I've stitched a lot of them. I don't say you will feel good wearing them, but I can tell you I've darned a lot of socks. It means to mend by stitching. It also means to restore to normal, to make whole. Jesus often would just speak a word. And when he would speak a word, the healing would come way, a long way away. You say, is that true? Matthew 8, 7 to 13, the centurion came to Jesus. He had a servant who was paralyzed and he said, Lord, you know about authority. I tell people to go and they go. I'm not worthy to even enter your house. Would you just speak the word and my servant will be healed. He won't be paralyzed anymore. And Jesus' response was to him, go, let it be done as you have believed. And the servant was healed at that very moment. He spoke the word and there was healing. Now here what we have is the Lord heals the broken hearted. How many of you know anybody that's broken hearted? Would you pray with me that God will just speak the word? Speak the word, speak the word Lord. Just say it, you can just say it. If you'll just say it, it'll be done. Pray with me. that that restoration will occur. The fourth participle is binding. The Hebrew word is Chabash. It means to wrap firmly, to heal, to stop a wound from bleeding. It means to rule and it means to overrule. I want you to hear this one. We need to hear it in our day. We go to the doctor, we find out we have some disease. He gives us so many days or months or years to live. Have any of us heard that? want you to know restoration includes binding. The word means to rule or to overrule. Did you know that the last word on how long you live and how long I live doesn't have the last word in the doctor? Jesus is the great physician. He can rule and he can overrule. What seems inevitable is not inevitable. If God says, no, I bind this up, He is able to do that. I want you to believe in the binding of God, the building up, the gathering, the healing, the binding, and then Fifthly, the participle is determining. It's an interesting thing, determining the number of the stars. And the Hebrew word is mana. It means to appoint a number by telling or speaking the word, speaking them into existence. Now remember, you say, well, what needed restored here? Let me tell you what needed restored. The Bible says in Genesis 1-2 that the earth was without form or void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters, And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. That wasn't sun either. That was the first day. He made the sun on the fourth day. There's plenty of light with God. But then on the fourth day, He made the sun and the moon, and verse 16 says, And He also made the stars. And here it says, He determines the number of stars. He determines. He just says it. And that determines it. Can you imagine speaking a star into existence that is larger than our earth? Oh, the power and the restorative power of the Word and the command of God that He can determine. That's part of His restoration. He determines. It's up to Him. Whatever we're praying, say, Lord, I submit to your direction. I submit to your determining. Number six is giving. I love this. He gives to all of them their names. Some of you don't like your name. Get used to it. God determined it. You say, no, it was my mom and dad. No, it wasn't your mom and dad. It was God working through your mom and dad. Because he knew your name before the foundation of the earth. He did. He did. He knew my name was Richard Paul Carlson. He knows your name. He knows your middle name. Some of you have three or four names. He gives to all of them, the stars, their names. The Hebrew word is kara, Q-A-R-A. It means to call out and proclaim. Part of restoration is just coming to grips with liking your name rather than fighting it. Get used to it. That's part of restoration. Number seven is understanding. It says, great is our Lord and abundant in power, verse five. His understanding is beyond measure. The word there is tabun. It means to bring discernment by instruction. Think of it, think of it. Pray with me that God would bring his understanding and command it into areas where all of us are broken. He can, he has, and believe with me that he will. He can just speak it. He can speak his understanding into our hearts. Number eight, lifting. It says, the Lord lifts up the humble. The Hebrew word is ud, U-W-D, it means to bear witness, to testify, to admonish, and to assure protection. You can claim it, that the Lord testifies that he will lift up the humble, and I told you one was negative. To do all those eight positives, there is this ninth participle, casting. He casts the wicked to the ground. One thing I can tell you about the wicked is they don't accept God's chain of command. Think of it. The word for casting is shafel. It means to debase, to humiliate, to cause to sink, to bring low those in rebellion to Him. Think of it! A song of praise is beautifully suitable as our God by His command is always restoring, which is building up, gathering, healing, binding, determining, giving, understanding, lifting, and then casting the wicked to the ground. If you want to start to sink and be brought low, Get out of your chain of command. Number two, when God commands and we obey, it's not just restoration, it's refreshment. A melody of thanks is needed on strings. Somehow, God says, don't just sing it. I know some churches tell you, you can't sing in church, that's not for us. You can't use stringed instruments. Well, I'm just going to tell you. Here's one more place where it says you can. Here's one more place where you can. In fact, He commands it. Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving. Make melody to our God on the lyre, on strings. When you hear the piano, It's both wind and strings. It's an incredible thing. It's percussion. It's all kinds of things all together, mixed together. It's an incredible thing. When you heard the French horn, the wind, thank God for all the different instruments. Why? Because He refreshes us. Restoration isn't all. Once we're restored, God wants us to be refreshed day by day. His mercies are new every morning. Listen to verses 7 to 11. Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving. Make melody to our God on the harp of the lyre. He covers the heavens with clouds. He prepares rain for the earth. He makes grass grow on the hills. He gives to the beasts their food and to the young ravens that cry. His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love." The psalmist now wants accompaniment. He says, let's not just sing this, let's have accompaniment. Why does God command not just restoration but refreshment? He refreshes us. He demonstrates it. He demonstrated it this past week. I don't know how many of you have seen this much snow in Sweetwater County for a while. God decided to cover up all the junk. He did. Is that right, Richard? And He gave Richard a little extra business. But let me tell you, He covered it up. He covered it up. He covered the heavens and the sky dumped snow and it's supposed to start doing it again for the next three days. It's an amazing thing. But some of you struggle with winter. Don't despair. God promises as long as there is a God in the heaven there will be summer and winter and seed time and harvest. There is going to be spring and the temperatures will rise and the snow will melt and the rain will come by God's decree and rain and grass again will grow on the hills. And you see those deer out there around our house. Boy, they're around our place. Had a dozen of them yesterday, all over, big ones, little ones. They're kicking at the snow. They're trying to get to the tops of the sage. God takes care of them. But scavenger ravens? Does He care about scavenger ravens? I don't know. I know He cares for rabbits, but when we drive over one of those rabbits, there's something for the ravens. Isn't that something, in the buzzards? It's kind of a crazy thing, God's economy, how it all works. But he even cares about when he's going to bring meals on wheels or meals on wings. He doesn't pick a bluebird or a dove. He picks ravens, of all things. He said, I wouldn't eat anything a raven brought to me. If I was Elijah, I'd eat it right up and be thankful. God fed Elijah through young ravens. And when those little young ravens cry and beg for food, God speaks and commands a meal for them too. And high up in the alpine tundra above the tree line, God takes naked rocks and He allows a very thick lichen to grow on those naked rocks above the tree line. And those mountain goats, they can't even get down sometimes to a pasture quick enough. They can find a thin covering of lichen over those naked rocks. And the mountain sheep and the goats browse there. Why? Because God takes care of His beasts. He gives to the beasts their food, verse 9. Now this crazy verse in verse 10. His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the legs of a man. Have any of you here ever been to a horse pull? Anybody? Okay. Zach, you know what it is. Emily, you know what it is. I love horse pulls. Those animals are so strong, and they just pull that thing. You'd think God would say, man, is that something else. Or you think about these great weightlifters and they're muscled up. They have these huge muscles. Why? Why their legs sometimes are as big around as my stomach. And they're just muscled up and they grab this thing and they bring it up. And they mostly do it with their legs. You say, boy, I bet God's amazed at that. Well, I think it's probably okay. But it's not what he takes pleasure in. That's not his delight or his pleasure, the legs of a man or the strength of a horse. Notice what his pleasure is in, verse 11. But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, to those who hope in his steadfast love. What does that word fear mean? Strong's Concordance says yare means to do what He commands us to do. It means to revere with submission, rendering proper respect and obedience to be in the chain of command. What God delights in is when we do what He says. You remember when He told Abraham to do the most unthinkable thing in all the world, what did He tell him to do? To slay his son. And Abraham went up there on the mountain and he took a knife and he tied him down and he started to bring him down and the angel of the Lord cried, Then Genesis 2.20, 22.15, 22.12 first starts out, now I know that you reverence God. Now I know that you are a God. By myself have I sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son from me, your only son, I will surely bless you. I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that's on the seashore. If you want the blessings of heaven, do what God says." Jesus adds in John 15, 14, how many of you here would like to be a friend of God? Anybody want to be a friend? A couple of you. I was getting more. You are my friends if you do what I command you. If you stay within the chain of command, when nature obeys God, it's marvelous. But when we obey God as His children, the Lord stands back and takes pleasure. Look at that. Look at that! Look at that! Born in sin and yet they're obeying me with my spirit in them. They fear me, they hope in my steadfast love, thirdly and lastly. We go from restoration. to refreshment and now to the revealing of the majesty of God. When God commands and we obey, praises are in order because His powerful word is revealed in its majesty. Verses 12 to 20 say so poignantly, praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Praise your God, O Zion, for He strengthens the bars of your gates. He blesses your children within you. He makes peace in your borders. He fills you with the finest of the wheat. He sends out His command to the earth. His word runs swiftly. He gives snow like wool. He scatters frost like ashes. He hurls down His crystals of ice like crumbs. Who can stand before His cold? He sends out His word and melts them. He makes His wind blow and the waters flow. He declares His word to Jacob, His statutes and rules to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any other nation. They do not know His rules. Praise the Lord. Now, talk about a little of this as we close. Just the power of God's word when we obey Him can unleash protection of our national security. How many of you pray that we'll be safe and have peace? Just praying and obeying God's command to pray for those that rule over us, praying for our soldiers, praying for our president, we can open the door to national security. How many of you believe That one of the things we can do is just believe God if we're barren as a couple. Could God open the womb? God's the one that opens the womb. I did that in Bloomington one time. I asked people if they would be baptized, and it just passed out of my mouth. I think it was sort of prophetic. God just let me say it. I said, there may be barren women here who haven't been baptized. You need to be baptized and do what God says, and you'll have barren children. I just said it. Five women that year in our church were all baptized who haven't been. Five women that year were expecting children and had children. You say, that's crazy. That is the blessing of God when we obey. That's the majesty of His will. He blesses our children within our home. Obeying His commands can end war and strife, and God will say, peace, be still. He'll make peace in our borders, in our home, in our greater borders, verse 14. Obeying God will bring greater crops. He fills us up with the finest of wheat. And now we come to these last verses, 15 to 20. There, there the psalmist waxing eloquent. He's already been eloquent. But he gets more eloquent. He sends out his command to the earth. His word runs swiftly. And then what happens when it runs swiftly? Nature obeys him. The disciples said, even the winds and the waves obey him. The winds and the waves shall obey my will. Peace, be still. Whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea or billows or waves or whatever will be, no water can swallow the ship where it lies. The master of ocean and earth and skies, they all shall sweetly obey my will. Peace, be still. Peace, be still. They all shall sweetly obey my will. Peace, peace, be still. Verse 16, he speaks and the snow comes down like wool. Boy, it's been doing that. He scatters hoarfrost like he did Friday morning. Verse 17, he hurls his crystals of ice like crumbs. It was 39 below Friday morning. Who can stand before his cold? I couldn't yesterday. I had to come in. I spent four hours trying to dig out my driveway. It's too cold. My hands were like blocks, my fingers. Who can stand before his cold? And just about the time you say, I don't know what's gonna happen here, so cold, he's gonna send out his voice. Verse 18, and melt the snow, make the wind blow, and make the waters flow. And we'll have spring. He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules, his laws, his commands to Israel, and to us. He has not dealt thus with any other nation. They do not know his rules. Praise the Lord. I want you to know that that was written before the New Testament, before Peter said in 1 Peter 2, verse 9, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We are a nation, all of us as believers all over the world. We're a holy nation, His own possession. We have His rules too. He has given them from His lips. He has given them in His word. Will we get back in line? Will we obey His commands? The majesty of God is on the line when we either obey or disobey, when we submit or when we rebel against God's chain of command. I close with two things. I want to read part of a short devotional. Pastor Larry reminded me of it and then I have a Super Bowl story for you in closing. That should help some of you men and some of you women with your life-size TVs. First of all, Thoughts from the Diary of a Desperate Man. December 28th, if you happen to have one, I do. I know you have one, don't you, Karen? And some other people have it. He's going to tell us the difference in agreement and submission. It's based on Romans 15.6, which says that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here's what he says. And listen up all of you right now. I'm just getting ready to close. Agreement and submission are frequently confused in the relationships of our life where one is under the authority of the other. For example, a wife says, I submit to my husband most of the time. What she means is most of the time they're in agreement. And the infrequent occasion when they are not in agreement, she finds cause not to submit. You test submission by doing what you don't want to do, not by doing what you agree needs to be done. Many know how to pretend to submit when in fact they're only agreeing. Few know how to cooperate in the spirit of submission. Many know how to rebel. You can easily yield to your authority in an act of perfunctory manner with no heart to make it work properly. When told you must do so, you do it, but you're dragging your feet. And last of all, here's my last story. How many of you have ever heard, if you can think back to 1971, does anybody old enough to think back to 1971? Roger Staubach, have you ever heard of Roger Staubach? They won the Super Bowl that year. Roger Staubach, admitted he had one of the toughest positions to ever be played in history. He said, well, he was a quarterback, and a lot of other people are quarterbacks, yes, but no one else had to put up with what he had to put up with. Does anyone know that he couldn't guide his own team? Coach Tom Landry sent in every play he could not call his own signals. He told him when to pass, he told him when to run, and he told him if for some reason you see you have to make a change, it better be the right one. And Roger Staubach said, Coach Landry had a genius mind when it came to football strategy, but my own pride was that I should be able to run my own team. It was my team. I'm the quarterback. What's a quarterback supposed to do? And Roger Staubach later said, I finally had to face up to the issue of submission, chain of command, obedience. And once I learned to obey Tom Landry, my coach, there was harmony, and there was fulfillment, and there was majestic victory in a Super Bowl win. I wanna tell you in closing, as I close today, God is saying, you want to see the revelation of His majesty in your life, get back under the chain of command. You want to see refreshment in your life, get back under the chain of command. You want to see restoration, get back under the chain of command. He commands the winds and the waves, they do it. He commands the stars to be in place, they do it. He says, would you do this for me? And we say, I'll take it under advisement. Think about it. Which really means, I'm not going to do it. Would you bow your heads? As your heads are bowed and your eyes are closed, how many of you would honestly say, I struggle with doing the will of God sometimes. I struggle with the chain of command in my home, in my marriage, the chain of command at work. I struggle with it. It's a struggle all over. But you'd be honest enough to just say, pray for me. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. All over. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. Dear Jesus, you know our hearts. Yes, sir. You know our hearts. Father, we raise our hands because all of us could raise our hands. Because we all struggle in one way or another. But I pray in Jesus' name, Father, right now, that you would speak to our hearts and tell us afresh. The revelation of my majesty is at stake. I want to pour out my majesty on you. I want to refresh you. I want to restore you. All you have to do is that simple thing of just obey my will. Obey my will. May we do it. And now, before we go home, is there anyone here that would say, I just need to first of all get in line with the Lord. I need to be saved. I need to repent, believe, and receive Him. and I'll share a prayer and Christ will come into your life. How many of you right now would just say, I need Christ in my life. I need to receive Jesus. If you'll raise your hand right now, I'll share a prayer with you. Christ will come into your life. Is there anyone just raise a hand and say, I need Jesus. I want him to come into my life. Slip up your hand right now. Long enough for me to see it. Yes, sir. Praise God. Anyone else? Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. For this one that's raised a hand, I just want to tell you, I love you. Jesus loves you so much more. He died for you. Just mean this prayer, and with your whole heart, give your life now to him. You don't have to say the words out loud. You just say them in your heart. But he can hear from heaven. He can see your heart. Just say, dear God, I want to be yours. You died for me. I'm a sinner. I repent of my sins. I give my life to you. Please come into my life. Be my Savior and my Lord. I receive you by faith. I'll live for you the rest of my life with your Holy Spirit in me. In Jesus' name I thank you, Father. Amen. I thank you for this one. You've written this man's name down in your Lamb's Book of Life. You promised you would do so. You know the first name, the middle initial name. You know the last name. You know everything about us, Lord, and you've written that name down in your eternal book. Now help this one to live for Jesus. And Lord, help us all to be in line with you. Go with us to our homes. Bring us back tonight for the Christmas pageant we're having late from the Hispanics. And then a word about the treasure hidden in the field from Pastor Larry. Make this a day of joy for all of us. I pray that Jesus would come first in our lives on this special day. And we thank you in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. I love you.