I want us to read the scriptures first of all from the Old Testament and then from the New. You may wonder why I take two readings. It's very much my belief that the testimony of the Old Testament is found in the full revelation of the New, and that we read from the New Testament to see what really has been taught us in the Old. Let us look then at the Word of God as it's found in Psalm 92. and it's called a song for the Sabbath day and that's why I chose to preach from it this evening because it's a song for today. Let us hear God's infallible and authoritative word. It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to your name, O Most High. to declare your loving-kindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night, on an instrument of ten strings, on the lute and on the harp, with harmonious sound. For you, Lord, have made me glad through your work. I will triumph in the works of your hands. O Lord, how great are your works! Your thoughts are very deep. A senseless man does not know nor does a fool understand this. When the wicked spring up like grass, and when all the workers of iniquity flourish, it is that they may be destroyed forever. But you, Lord, are on high forevermore. For behold your enemies, O Lord, for behold your enemies shall perish, and all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. But my horn you have exalted like a wild ox, I have been anointed with fresh oil. My eye also has seen my desire on my enemies. My ears hear my desire on the wicked who rise up against me. The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age, They shall be fresh and flourishing to declare that the Lord is upright. He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him. And then I want to read from Luke's gospel in chapter 6 and verses 1 through 11. Now this is a part of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ and we would do well to listen to what he has to tell us. Now, it happened on the second Sabbath after the first that he went through the grain fields, and his disciples plucked the heads of grain and ate them, rubbing them in their hands. And some of the Pharisees said to them, Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath? And Jesus answering them said, Have you not even read this, what David did when he was hungry? He and those who were with him how he went into the house of God, took and ate the showbread, and also gave some to those who were with him, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat. And he said to them, The Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath. Now it happened on another Sabbath also that he entered the synagogue and taught, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. So the scribes and the Pharisees watched him closely, whether he would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against him. But he knew their thoughts and said to the man who had the withered hand, Arise and stand here. And he arose and stood. Then Jesus said to them, I will ask you one thing. Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy? And when he had looked around at them all, he said to the man, Stretch out your hand. And he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. But they were filled with rage and disgust with one another what they might do to Jesus. And thus far in God's word. Let us pray together. Heavenly Father, as we come to hear your word expounded and explained, We pray that it might really touch our hearts, that every one of us here may say, it was good for us to be here, for I understand things I never saw before, and that in so doing, O Lord, you might strengthen your preacher and strengthen our hearing, that we might believe what we are taught. Bless us now we pray for Jesus' sake. Amen. that were compiled by Dr. Sinclair Ferguson but this was prior to that time it had been written by Ian Murray and in that there is a narrative or there is a letter that Ian Murray had collected from David Cummings now David Cummings is the name both of a son and of a father and this was a letter from the father telling how Professor Murray and Professor Woolley and Professor Young used to meet in their home on the Lord's Day to have lunch together and then to spend some time fellowshipping and then preparing for evening worship. And one particular evening, the Philadelphia baseball team was playing in Philadelphia on the Saturday and Professor Woolley was a great enthusiast of baseball. And so he turned to Professor Young. These were eminent reformed men back in the 30s and the 40s. And he turned to Professor Young and said, what do you think of those fillies yesterday? And they looked at each other and they turned to Professor Murray and said, what did you think of them? And Professor Murray in his droll Scottish accent said, I never speak about sport on the Lord's Day. Now, of course, they were suitably chastened and humbled and felt sorry that they'd mentioned it and believed that he would probably bring charges against them. But that's a whole other story. The way it illustrates is that for this man, and he was eminently a godly man, Professor Murray had his failures and his drawbacks, but one of them was not that he was not a godly man. He believed that God's day was meant to speak about God's things. Now I wonder how many of us believe that. We talk about everything on the Lord's day, don't we? We talk about our events of the past week. You know, the things that have happened to us and what we've done. And even if we don't talk about them, we think about them. We talk about sport, like Professor Woolley and Professor Young were doing. They were godly men. They were early professors in Westminster Theological Seminary. They were men who had been prepared to stand for the truth. But they would talk about sport. There are so many things we do on a Sunday. Very often the last thing we do on a Sunday is to talk about God. We talk about the sermon, and that's fine, and you'd say, well, that's talking about God. Not always. Sometimes people have roast preacher for lunch. You know, what the sermon has said and how it would be much better if he'd said it like this or like that or the other, and so on. I know I've actually heard myself being roasted on a Sunday. People talk about so many things But what we talk about tells us what our interest is. Isn't that the case? None of you here, or maybe none of you here, would want to talk about golf. Because very few, if any of you, as far as I'm aware, are interested in golf. You wouldn't want to know about the drive, or about the putt, or about chipping, or about any of those things. You wouldn't be interested. And if I called you at the door and said, what do you think of that remarkable drive that so-and-so had made? It would be meaningless to you. It wouldn't be meaningless to me, but it would be meaningless to you, because you're not interested. But you'd have other interests. And what are your interests? Well, in this psalm, David tells us what he is interested in on the Lord's Day. Now, the psalm doesn't have a title in terms of an author. It's a psalm, a song for the Sabbath day. Some people have suggested that it was written by Moses. Moses had written some of the earlier Psalms. He'd written the Psalm, was it Psalm 91? And so it's assumed that maybe he wrote Psalm 92. But it doesn't matter. The point is that it gives to us some of the things that we should talk about, think about, and even sing about, since it's called a song. on the Lord's Day. And there are four things in this psalm which should provide us with material to think about on the Lord's Day. The first is this. We must look at the world in which we live. Has it ever crossed your mind to do that? that the world in which we live, today has been a pretty grey and gloomy day. What one of my daughters would call a clumsy day. It's not bright sunshine or driving rain, it's a sort of clumsy day. It wants to rain and it doesn't want to. But how many of you talk about the Lord's day? You talk about this day as God's creation. But this is what the psalmist does. It is good to give thanks to the Lord and sing praises to your name almost high, to declare your loving kindness in the morning. and your faithfulness every night. God has been faithful to us today. He's guarded us and kept us. We've traveled. Many of you have traveled to church this morning and then this evening. Those of us who went with Doug and Rhonda Stevens out to Longstreet really traveled this morning. We went out into the boondocks and then further into the boondocks and ultimately into the boondocks. It was a world which God had made. And we weren't half grateful enough, it seems to me, of that day, of that journey, this day. How many of us are grateful for God's works? When I look at the heavens, the work of your hands, what is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you visit him? We are nothing compared with the world which God has made. As we stood out there in the burial ground at Longstreet Presbyterian Church, there were bodies in the ground. They'd been there 200 years. We'll be in the ground 200 years. This world will go still, plowing along, despite what people say about global warming, global cooling, global whatever, whatever, whatever. As long as sunshine and harvest will come, this world will go on. And we should be grateful that we have that continuity. How many of us are grateful for the world in which we live? Moment by moment we are kept in His love. God has this world in His eye. And not only this world, you see, He has the whole universe. I was telling somebody today, or maybe today as well, somebody I know worked for NASA back in the 60s and the 70s when they were launching men to land on the moon and there was great fear in NASA that when those modules landed on the moon that they would vanish in the dust, you know, billions and trillions of years have elapsed and there was moon dust and Mars dust and Jupiter dust and all that kind of dust were landed on the moon and these landing modules would just vanish in the dust and when they landed there do you know how many vanished? not a single one but a couple of inches why was that? well God made the universe And he made it at such a way in such a time that there wasn't time for that amount of dust to land on the moon. God has the whole universe in his hand. Mars, Jupiter, Venus, they're all in his hand. God made them. Every star that twinkles in the sky, God made them. And we should think on that. It is an amazing thing to see the world around us. We tend to be so complacent about it and so matter-of-fact about it. But this is what this song tells us. We are to, for you, Lord, have made me glad through your work. Is that true for you? Are you glad because God has made these things? I will triumph in the works of your hand. So that's the first thing that we need to do on God's day. to thank Him for the world which He has made, the creation in which we live. The second thing we see here in verses 5 through 7 is we need to consider the consequences of ignoring God. Look, O Lord, how great are Your works! Your thoughts are very deep. You may say, I don't know what God is doing. Tell me, who knows what God is doing? Only God knows what God is doing. Your thoughts are very deep. A senseless man does not know, nor does a fool understand this. When the wicked spring up like grass, and when all the workers of iniquity flourish, it is that they may be destroyed forever. This is the consequence of ignoring God. Now, I want you to remember that. You may say, well, it doesn't matter if I ignore God. you know, God will remember me in his own time and that'll be fine and I've made my profession of faith and I can live as I like. Ignoring God is the prescription for ultimate destruction. You see, whatever the subject matter is, God is to be honored. We have to remember God at all times. And because we don't keep him at mind at all times, the consequence is bad. The ungodly don't think about God at all. They say, well, I'm not ungodly. Really? Stop for a moment. Are you ungodly? No. So you pray every day? Are you godly or ungodly? I read my Bible whenever I can. Are you godly or ungodly? I speak to people when I can about Jesus Christ and his love. Are you godly or ungodly? What are you like? Because you see, there are terrible consequences for ignoring God. We see them here. A senseless man. Now then, you say, you know, we use the word senseless very loosely, you know. He knocked me senseless or I was knocked senseless, which means we're unconscious. Look, there is an unconsciousness even though we're perfectly conscious. We can go around and ignore things. I've done it myself. I was driving up Ramsey Street a couple of months ago and I was thinking about something so important. I can't remember what it was. And I was driving along and suddenly I realized I was the middle of an intersection and the lights for me were on red. I was senseless. I wasn't thinking. I'd gone blithely through them. My mind was a million miles away. That's being senseless. Well, what he means here is a person who doesn't think about God. That God is not in all his thoughts. That God doesn't exist as far as he's concerned. And he or she is therefore quite senseless about what's going on around them. You know, God doesn't matter. It's not an issue for me, you say. That's a senseless man or woman. A fool. That's what he calls a person like that. A fool. A fool doesn't understand this. He doesn't realize that we must always be aware of God. You may say, well, I can't do that. I mean, I have a business to do and I'm doing my business and... So you don't need to think about God in the work you do? You don't need to think about God in the conversations you have. You don't need to think about God in the business you conduct. Really? That's a senseless man. It's like me driving up Ramsey Street and not realizing the lights are turned red. Now, it was fortunate that the other people were also senseless and they weren't thinking of a day turned green. And so I was able to get through with the skin of my teeth. But I'm telling you, we can be very senseless about God. And there is a consequence to ignoring God. What does he tell us here? When the wicked spring up like grass and when all the workers of iniquity flourish, it is that they may be destroyed forever. Grass flourishes everywhere, doesn't it? And sometimes in places we don't want it to be. Well, you know, the workers of iniquity flourish like grass. Doesn't mean to say that there's a drought or whatever, they grow. And why do they grow? For destruction. It is that they may be destroyed forever. That's the purpose. You may say, well, I'm not wicked, so it's not going to affect me. Are you wicked? Are you a fool? Are you senseless? Or you always have God's honor uppermost in your mind? All of you here have made a profession of faith, pretty much. Some of you youngsters, maybe you ought to be making professions of faith. And if you haven't made a profession of faith, then you are included in what I'm going to say. But you all are in danger of judgment. And those of you maybe made a profession of faith, what kind of life of faith do you live? Is it a life that is always conscious of God in everything you do? You see, having made a profession of faith, having come to the Lord's table, doesn't mean for one minute, of course, that you are a guaranteed believer. I'm sorry to disappoint you. But you can't say, well, I've made my profession a faith. I've been received by the session. I've come to the Lord's table. That means I'm a Christian. You know, being a Christian is the way you live your life and not the things that you do. Of course, it's important to belong to the church. I'm not undermining that for one minute, but I am saying that it's the way you live your life. It's the way that you think about God. and the way you acknowledge him day by day. And if you don't do that, I know that some of you will be insulted when I say this, but you're a fool. You're a fool. And I've got no better guarantee of that and a recommendation of that than this psalm. Nor does a fool understand. You're a foolish person and nothing could be more dangerous in this world in which we live than being senseless and foolish. So that's the second thing that he wants to talk about on the Lord's Day. You say, well, should we talk about in the Lord's Day? Yes, it is. It's a proper thing to consider on the Lord's Day that people can be foolish and senseless. And unless they get their act together, Unless they come and beg God for mercy, they are going to endure the dire consequences of having ignored God. The third thing he tells us here is that we should meditate on the vindication of the godly. Verses 8 through 11. But you, O Lord, are on high. Notice he says the same thing as in verse 5. O Lord, how great are your works! Here but you, O Lord, are on high forevermore. The same thing is true for the ungodly as for the godly. For behold, your enemies, O Lord, for behold, your enemies shall perish. All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. But my horn you have exalted like a wild ox. I have been anointed with fresh oil. My eye also has seen my desire on my enemies. My ears hear my desire on the wicked who rise up against me. Now, these two verses, verse 10 and 11, really are like the Lord Jesus Christ. He was one whose horn was exalted. The horn was a picture of defiant power, of great energy and great strength. And the Lord Jesus Christ, even though he was crucified, he was anointed with fresh oil. He was anointed with great blessings. And he saw his desire on his enemies. His enemies were destroyed. His enemy was destroyed at Judas. His enemies were destroyed in the destruction of Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus Christ saw the destruction of his enemies and by the destruction of Jerusalem I mean that old system which had crucified him and brought him to the cross. But really we see here a vindication of godliness. Your enemy shall perish. All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. This is what is going to happen to the ungodly. We have vindicated because God will certainly judge the wicked. all their plans will be destroyed and come to nothing. And only because God is sovereign can we rest comfortably in the victory of the Savior. It's only because God is sovereign are we vindicated. We're not vindicated because of any good in us. You won't be vindicated in the last day because you're a good person. Bill Legg is very fond of telling you to apply the good person test. But you want to apply it to yourself first before you apply it to anybody else. And the good person test tells you that you're not a good person. I could take the good person test and I would fail it miserably because I'm not a good person. Are you a good person? Well, I'm sure that most of you think, well, you know, I'm not bad. I'm not bad. I could take a vote. And I know it would be a false vote because everybody would put their hands up when I said, how many of you are bad people? And I'm sure that every one of you would put your hand up. But I would have to ask you person to person, are you a bad person? Why do you think you're a bad person? Are you a good person? Well, maybe I'm not as bad as some people say I am. Maybe I'm not as bad as I think I am. I am every bit as bad as I think I am. But God saves sinners. And this is why we vindicate it. I have been anointed with fresh oil. And the last thing that is in this psalm is the serious blessing. that comes upon followers of God. The righteous will flourish like a palm tree. I don't know much about horticulture. My wife will tell you that for me to go out in the garden is a sacrifice. And to do any work in the garden is a work of supererogation. I'm doing it in order to give credit to somebody else. I'm of no value at all in the garden. Now, if you put me on a tractor, and give me a farm, I'd be fine. And put a plough on the back or a mower, I'd be great. But don't ask me to go in the garden, that's such a drag. And yet, because I know nothing about these things, it doesn't mean to say I can't appreciate what's being said here. Palm trees, as far as I am aware, grow normally in sandy soil, in fairly inhospitable circumstances. You know, they're not growing in lush green fields. They're around Oasis. I remember a few years ago, 10, 12, 14 years ago, they opened some new gas stations close to where we lived in Grove City, and they brought palm trees there. They wanted to make it look like an exotic palm tree gas station in northern western Pennsylvania. And you know the soil was great, it was good soil, really good soil. They planted these trees, you know, within three months they didn't look like palm trees at all. They just looked like hairy stumps stuck in the middle. They didn't like the cold weather, they certainly didn't like the soil. but you go to Florida and the soil is sandy and it looks pretty open and there you find palm trees you go to the desert and you find oases and around them grow palm trees palm trees grow in inhospitable circumstances and yet he says they shall flourish like a palm tree will bear fruit coconuts or whatever in difficult circumstances will grow like a cedar Cedars were the trees of which they built the temple. Cedars are powerful, big trees, straight trunks. When they're sown, they're planks of the first order. Well, he says, this is what happens to the godly. They flourish in inhospitable circumstances. They grow strong like cedars in Lebanon. These are the blessings that are involved in growth in unlikely surroundings. And usefulness and beauty is the result. God's house is a fertile site for all those who are planted there. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. This is the result of being godly. You flourish, you grow, you bear fruit. You will be seen to be godly. There will be certain blessings that will flow from it. People will recognize you for being different. We don't like being different, do we? In this alien world, we don't like being different. We don't like people to point us out and say, you know, that that person is different. Or you teenagers, if you go to school, you don't like being different. I mean, you want everybody to think that you're the same as they are. Because being different means that people will laugh at you, won't they? You know, you're different. You don't have your hair cut the same way as they do. You don't wear makeup. Those of you who are girls, I mean, boys too, I suppose, nowadays, but not in my day. Not in my day. Not in my day. If you did that and got on the rugby pitch, that would be the end of you. But, I mean, you want to be fashionable and you want to be acceptable and you want everybody to like you and you don't want to be different. And so when you have here being righteous, flourishing like a palm tree and like a cedar and those who are planted in the house of the Lord, flourishing in the courts of our God, that's not what you want. And yet that is what happens if you're a believer. If you say you're a Christian, this is what will happen to you. You will flourish, and you will grow in blessings to the house of God. The people of God will value you, and you will grow in grace as a result of worship, that you come to listen to God's word Sunday by Sunday, and you'll grow. You'll grow to be gracious. You'll grow to be different. People will recognize in you, not that you have a scholar, that you're clever, that you've been to the best colleges or universities, but that you've been in the house of God, and you'll be different. Oh, my friends, young and old, you need to be different. In this world in which we live, we need to be different. And age will not hinder spiritual maturity. He goes on to say, they still bear fruit in old age. That's a great comfort for me as I read this psalm and as I was preparing it, I thought to myself, well that's a comfort. I'm old and yet I'm told I will bear fruit in old age. They shall still be fresh and flourishing. Isn't that wonderful? That no matter how old you are, you can be fruitful and a blessing in the house of God. And why is that? To declare Both the young and the old alike declare something to the world in which we live, that the Lord is upright, that He is a rock, and there's no righteousness in Him. We bear testimony. Some people tend to think that you've got to say something to be a testimony. Well, yes you do, but you have to be something as well to bear a testimony. that people must see in you that you're a testimony. I take my car to garage and it's not only when they repair it that I know they're good. It's where they look at the car and say, oh yes, that's your problem. That's your difficulty. Okay. I know what I can do about this. That gives me great confidence. If a person says to me, I know what's wrong with your car and I will repair it, I'm filled with horror. But when they just look and they say, yeah, I think that I know what's wrong with this. Just leave it with me for a couple of hours. You come back, it'll be fixed. That fills me with great confidence. Well, so it is for us that we declare the righteousness of God. We tell people that God is upright. and that we stand on him, he's a rock, he's unchanging, and that we believe and trust in him. Let me say some things by way of application. God's day will be a joyous day when we spend it profitably. Sunday will be a misery to you if you don't spend it properly. It'll be just a pain. You know, why can't I do this? Why can't I do that? Older people say, well, you know, I'd like to, I'd like to do this. I'd like to do that. But I know that if somebody from the church sees me, you know, they judge me. And our church is a judgmental church anyway. I mean, we judge everybody without fail. And so if they see that I'm not, I'm not doing this or doing that, or if I've gone out and dug my garden and they judge me. Look, if you spend God's day the way this psalm suggests to us, it doesn't matter what people say. You will have honored God. You will have placed Him at the very center of your day. You will have made Him and all His works just your joy and your comfort. And you will see how glorious God is. And it doesn't matter what people say. It matters what God will say about you. And He will surely say good things about you. Because He only wants people to honor and to glorify His matchless and glorious name. The second thing I want you to learn is this. that the plight of those whose thoughts are not of God is terrible to consider. Those whose thoughts are not of God, terrible to consider. It's frightening. It's really frightening. It chills me when I think about people who do not honor God and I don't tell them. Doesn't it chill you? Will you say, I mean, I don't have the opportunity. Yes, you do. None of us are without opportunity. And we should tell people of the love of Jesus Christ because their plight is terrible. They will go to a godless eternity. Or to put it in another way, they'll go to hell. That's what you need to know. And if you are not a Christian tonight, you will go to hell. If you die without Christ, you will go to hell. there's nothing more sure you won't be able to plead that you listen to me preaching you won't be able to plead that and say oh i heard pastor hughes preaching and what did you do about it says the devil did you listen to him well i didn't think it was necessary at the time he's not our pastor anyway so i i don't need to Look, the plight of the ungodly is terrible, and if your thoughts are not of God in everything you do, then you can expect the most terrible consequence. Third thing is this, that God's blessing in all areas reminds us of the salvation Christ has purchased for us. God's blessing in all areas, in the area of creation, and the area of Providence. Last week, as you know, I wasn't here. I was addressing a church retreat up mid-Pennsylvania, and there was a man there that I got to talk to and meet with, and he's in charge of... He's obviously a very clever man, a lot cleverer than I've met in a long time, and not only was he a wonderful pianist, but he was a scientist. I don't know quite what branch of science, physical science of some kind, but he was in charge of a group of men who had discovered water on Mercury. Now, they've discovered water on Mars, and I believe they're going to put in a pipeline from there to here. But he'd discovered water in Mercury. He was a very clever man. He'd worked in Los Alamos in the research there, a place where they discovered the fusion of the atom bomb. And he wasn't there then. He was a much younger man than that. But he was a very clever man. And I said to him, so what Do you do? Why do you want to discover water on Mercury? Well, he said, I didn't want to discover it. I just found it there. But but he said, I just admire God's creation. Now, he said, I don't say that too loudly to my fellow scientists, because, of course, they think I'm stupid. But he said, that's what it's all about. Discovering the glory of God. Well, you know, that's something that we need to see. These are the blessings, the world in which we live, the planets that circle in the universe, that we circle the sun, that we're out here, the moon goes around us and so on and so forth. What are we seeing? Well, we're seeing God at work. We're seeing the hand of God. And then, of course, we see the most wonderful thing of all. that God sent his son to die for us, that he purchased us with his own blood. He overcomes his enemies and ours, and he opens the door to heaven by the resurrection of Jesus. These are the blessings that come upon us, and they all remind us of the salvation that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the last thing I want to say is this. All our blessings should promote an urgent enjoyment of his day. God gives us one day in seven. Pastor Webb is often telling us that it is the fair day or the merchant day of the soul, and that's true. But it's given for another reason, for us to contemplate the greatness, the goodness, and the glory of God. That's why it's given to us. And we are privileged to see us. We're privileged to see it in all its majesty and power. And to contemplate, most of all, his great salvation through the one who he's anointed. Jesus Christ to save us from our sins. Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, let us use each day profitably. Let us use each Lord's Day superfluously profitably. That every Lord's Day should be a day spent contemplating your goodness, your providence, and your grace. And we pray now that you would come near to us each one And may we, this night as we go to bed, consider your providential care over us and your gracious love toward us. Most of all, may we make our peace with you and call you our Lord and our God. Pray this for Jesus' sake. Amen.