I invite you to take your Bible and turn with me to Psalms 97. 97th Psalm. Brother Wayne, can you turn it up just a little bit? I'm not as loud as Brother Fair. Psalms 97. Psalms 97. So this will be our last message from the 97th Psalm. We're just gonna look at the last two verses this evening. Verse one starts out with, The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice, let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. Clouds and darkness are round about him. Righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne. A fire goeth before him and burneth up his enemies round about. His lightnings enlightened the world. The earth saw and trembled. The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory. Confounded be all they that serve raven images, that boast themselves of idols. Worship him, all ye gods. Zion heard and was glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoiced because of thy judgments, O Lord. For thou, Lord, art high above all the earth. Thou art exalted far above all gods. Ye that love the Lord hate evil. He preserveth the souls of his saints. He delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous. Give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. Now we've mentioned to you a little bit already, a couple of times, I think, that this psalm It has no title, has no title. The Septuagint translations of the Psalms, I think it's actually Psalms 96 in the Septuagint, give it the title Psalm of David after he's returned to the throne after being banished by his son Absalom. And most of the commentators, Spurgeon for instance, he takes this as an eschatological psalm of the Christians and Christ the Lord being in the kingdom and proclaiming these things. And so two ways to look at it. Mr. Spurgeon, when he mentions verse number 11, I'll read you his comments on verse number 11. I thought they were worth just reading on their own. He says about verse number 11, about the phrase, light is sown for the righteous all along their pathway, the pathway of the righteous, it is strewn. Their night is almost over. Their day is coming. The morning already advancing with rosy steps is sowing the earth with orient pearls. The full harvest of the light is not yet ours, but it is sown for us. It is springing. It will yet appear in fullness. This is only for those who are right before the Lord in his own righteousness. For all others, the blackness of darkness is reserved. There is light. There is hope. for a better future, a certainty of a better future that's in store for those persons who know Christ the Lord, who know Christ the Lord. And verse number 11, it says, light is sown for the righteous. Remember David, he's been living through this terrible episode of his life. As he's lived through the nighttime, the darkness of the trial was not diminished. For some reason, sometimes we Christians get into our mind that because we are Christians, that we are exempted from difficulties and darkness, but we're not. We have to go through these times. David had to live through his night seasons just like you and I do, and we have to live through them in the most frustrating kind of time imaginable, real time, real time. Sometimes people call in the order they want to get one of Brother Keener's preaching tapes. And the first thing I say is, well, it costs $100 a tape. I don't know if they're willing to pay that price. I say, we have to burn that into a digital format now. And it takes a long time. It's real time. If it's a 40-minute sermon, it takes 40 minutes to convert it to a digital format. Real time. Brothers and sisters, the trials of life that we go through, there's no fast forward, there's no skip in there. We have to go through them in real time, real hours, real minutes, real days, real weeks, real months, real years. David, our brother, he lived through these dark times just like we did. The days that he lived were just as long as our days and nights, just as long. The burden is just as heavy. Now, in the Christian experience, we've got to get used to the fact that we're going to have to live in the dark. Live in the dark. We mentioned maybe two Sundays ago how that Joseph, when he entered that season of life, when he was a prisoner in Potiphar's house, that one of the commentators called it dark providence, that God was with him. God ordained he go through this dark phase, but that he did not go through it alone. Now in Joseph's life as he lived through a dark season of being betrayed by his brothers, sold to slave traders, indentured to Potiphar, lied about by Potiphar's wife and cast into prison for a crime he did not commit. In Joseph's life he lived in the dark not knowing what God was doing, not knowing what God's plan was. But as he lived in the darkness within him, there was light, light and gladness, because he knew the Lord was with him. And so two questions maybe we'll answer tonight. What is light and what is gladness? Notice our text says, light is song for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart. What is light and what is gladness? Well, light is hope. And hope makes us glad. Hope makes us glad. Hope is a wonderful word. And the Bible is full of hope, but it's also full of the word hope. 121 times the word hope appears on its own. Without hopefully or hopeful, just the word hope appears 121 times. It's interesting, if you look at the Hebrew way it's used, Especially in Ruth, I think the first time hope appears might be in Ruth chapter one, and it's the word tikvah, which is a, it means a rope. A rope. Can a rope give hope? It can if you're sinking, can't it? If you're down in a pit, down in a hole, and you're stuck, and all of a sudden a rope hits you on the head, happy day. Happy day. You're swimming in a river, swimming in a pond, and you're about to drown, and a rope comes out to you, You're happy, gives you hope. It's interesting that the word, the scarlet thread, remember Rahab the harlot, she tied the little scarlet thread to the window. The Hebrew word there for thread is guess what word? Tikvah, hope. She tied that little ribbon in the window saying, I have hope. I have confidence in the promises of God. I have the guarantee of a better future. I am certain of a brighter tomorrow because the Lord is there. Hope is a wonderful word and the Bible is full of hope. You see, hope is the certainty of a better future. That's its definition. And when you and I are in a bad spot, when we are in a rough season of life, we hope that tomorrow will be better. How many times you said that to somebody? Just wait till tomorrow and what? Maybe it'll be better tomorrow. Maybe it'll be better tomorrow. I don't know how many times I've said it to people. I don't know how many times I had to say it to myself because sometimes you have a bad day and you hope tomorrow's better. Now is tomorrow always better? Must be the next tomorrow, right, Debbie? Maybe four or five tomorrows down the road. But we're looking for a better tomorrow. We're hoping it will be better. We're hoping in that sense, it's not the same as certainty, but we're looking forward to better tomorrows. When we are experiencing a season of woe in our life, we look forward to the light at the end of the tunnel. That's not a literal thing, this light in the tunnel. But it's still very real, nonetheless. Right now, the kids who are in school, they're looking down the dark halls of school days, looking forward to the light. What's the light for them? What's the light for the children and school teachers? Summertime. Summer's coming, man. 40 degrees Celsius, amen? Summer's coming, there'll be a reprieve. Those of us who are working jobs and we're laboring, we look down the dark halls of the work week. We're in the chasm, in the valley, the shadow of death, and we're looking forward to what day? Friday. Friday. You're off. If you get a four-day work week, you're looking forward to Thursday. You look down the work week and you say, I just gotta keep making, what's Wednesday known in the world, I guess in America, what's Wednesday called? pump day. We'll get over Wednesday and then we've got Thursday, Friday and we're free. We're free for what seems like a few moments. Well, we all know how to look down the path for light and we look for these things. Now, our hope, our hope for tomorrow, our hope for the future comes from the gospel itself. You see, it's the gospel that guarantees for us a better and brighter future. The gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The gospel is the light that is sown for us in our hearts. Listen to what it says in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 verse number 4. It calls it, the Apostle calls it the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. The glorious gospel light shining in our hearts showing us that Christ is the Savior. 2nd Timothy chapter one, verses nine to 10, talks about this God, this savior who had saved us and called us with an holy calling. I love this part. Not according to our works, but according to his purpose. Get that down in your mind. Called not according to our works, called not according to our merit, but called according to his purposes in grace. which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of this same person, by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. First Peter chapter two, verse number nine. The apostle says, that ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. The light of the gospel. The gospel's a pretty good light. Pretty good light, pretty wonderful. When I was a kid, we lived in Virginia. We'd go hunting out behind the church. We lived way out in the boondocks. You Oklahoma people know what boondocks are? Out in the sticks, out in the woods, way out there. And at the church, there was a pole light. Me and my brother, we'd get out there, way out there in the hills behind the church, and we'd get turned around. We didn't want to admit we were lost because we were men. Men don't get lost, do they? I have no sense of direction, so I get lost pretty easily. So me and my brother, we start looking for that light. And once we saw that light, we are pretty, pretty happy. Pretty happy. That light is a good thing. It brings comfort to our soul. And the gospel is a light for our soul. In our darkest night, in the darkest moments of your life, All the other lights may be extinguished, the light of good health, the light of prosperity, the light of familial love, family relations, the light of a good job, the light of a house and a warm place to sleep, but the light that can never be taken away from you in your darkest moments is the gospel. is Christ the Lord our Savior. You see, the gospel is a wonderful thing because it's a light, because what this light does, the light reveals our sin to us, but it doesn't just reveal us to our sin, it also reveals to us our Redeemer, our Redeemer, that Christ has come and redeemed us from our sins. He has paid the price. He has delivered us, you see. The gospel also ruins the power of sin. and runs off darkness. When sin is pressing in on us and calling for our condemnation, it is the light of the gospel that shines abroad and shows us Christ, that He is our Savior, and the darkness flees, because the light is present. The gospel also refreshes our hope and rekindles our love for Christ. Refreshes our hope, because sometimes we wonder about tomorrow. If you have a whole string of bad days, You begin to wonder if you're gonna have a good day, don't you? Everything's going south, south, south, south. You begin to wonder, is it ever gonna pick up? Is it ever gonna perk up? And yet you look to something. Look for the gospel. The gospel refreshes our hope that no matter what happens, there will be a day of betterness. There will be a day of blessedness when we will be with him. And it's interesting, when we enter eternity, when we're with the Lord in the lightness of eternal day, how long does that light last? How long does that day last? Forever? It never ends. There's no night in heaven. That's why all Christians should live in fear of the dark. Maybe not, maybe not. The gospel rekindles our love for Christ. And as we hear the gospel preached, as we've studied the gospel, we realize what he has done for us, for us. I was watching the missionaries slide on Sunday, and there's those Japanese people, you know, and they've never heard the gospel. They've been in the dark, in the dark. And seeing Brother Smith, remember that lady he baptized? The old Japanese lady he showed the picture? Little bitty old Japanese gal? 83 years old? 83 years old. 83 years worth of sinning. 83 years of actions and behaviors and thoughts that only led to her condemnation until the glorious light of the gospel shined in her. And she saw Christ the Lord and was saved by His grace. You see, the gospel rekindles our love for Christ, showing us what we were and how He came and died for us and saved us. Now, gladness is the result of the gospel. The gospel is the light, the light is the gospel, and gladness is the result of the gospel, because gladness is a pleasure that is always caused by something, something that makes us glad. Have you ever driven up on a calamity or an accident and said, whew, glad it, what? Glad it wasn't me. Have you ever found any money laying on the ground? Not like a penny, not like a quarter, but like serious money. like 50 bucks or 20 or a $1 bill. One of my friends, he told me, he was going into a baseball game in Cincinnati. Just a neighborhood, I think it was a softball game. He went down to watch. It was a high school baseball game. And there was a guy walking around in circles. And he walked up to him and said, hey, what are you looking for? He said, I cashed my paycheck, and I was getting money out to pay the ticket. And a gust of wind came up and blew my money all away. He said, about $400. And my friend said, wow, you want me to help you look for it? He said, yeah, yeah. So they said, we scratched your ass, and we found about $200. He said, and I gave it to him. And I told the guy, I said, I'll come back tomorrow, and I'll look some more, and I'll call you if you want. And the guy said, don't worry about it. It's gone. It's never going to be here. My friend went back the next morning, walked around for an hour and a half, found $200. How do you think he felt every time he walked up on a 20 or a 50? Felt pretty glad. Gladness is a pleasure that's caused by something. Let's look at a few verses that maybe help us with this. Look at Psalms 16. Psalm 16. Verse seven. I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel. My reigns also instruct me in the night seasons. I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand. I shall not be moved. Therefore, my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope, for thou will not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path. of life in thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand are pleasures evermore, a gladness that is caused by God's instruction, by God's teaching, by God's presence. Look at Psalms 21.6, 21.6. Thou hast made him most blessed forever, for thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance." God looking on us, God showing himself to us. Psalms 126, verse number three. This is just a few of the glad verses, the glad verses. I didn't think about it until just now. I think that was one of the themes of the Pollyanna show, the movie, was all the glad verses in the Bible. The Lord hath done great things. 126.3, I hope you can all turn there and find it. It's a pretty good text. The Lord hath done great things for whom? us, whereof we are glad." We're glad because of what He has done for us. It's a pleasure that's caused by something. God has done something for us. We hear the gospel preached, we know that Christ has come and saved us, that God has saved us without any works on our part, saved us by His mercy, and this knowledge of the gospel makes us glad. Makes us glad. Look at Acts chapter 13, verse number 48. Acts 13, 48. Let's see. Maybe we'll start at 44. 44. Acts 13, 44. And the next day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said, it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you. But seeing ye put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord hath commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a, what's that next word? light to the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation at the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad. They were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." These Gentiles, they heard the message, the gospel, and it was intended for them, that this was their good news, and it made them glad, glad to hear it. You see, the gospel causes us to be glad. Causes us to be glad about what? Causes us to be glad that we are saved. When's the last time you just thought about, I'm glad to be saved. I'm happy to be saved. Think about that sometimes. Are you glad to be an American? That's pretty cool. Pretty cool thing, isn't it, to be an American? You glad to be an Oklahoman? That's pretty cool, too. You'd be glad you're not from some godforsaken place like Arkansas. It's bad. Glad. I'm just glad to be saved. Glad because God has saved me. Save me. Now something can happen to your gladness. Something can happen to it. You could, in your Christian life, you could become unhappy about being saved. You could become unhappy about being saved. Listen to what it says in the Psalms. Psalms 51. Psalms 51. This is that Psalm that David composed when he's been confronted about his sin by the prophet Nathan. And in Psalms 51 verse number 12, listen to what David's prayer is. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. Restore unto me the joy. You see, David is sinned against the Lord. And I want to say this to you, just as plain as I can. If you're not glad about being saved, it could be because you're backslidden. Backslid. You've slid back away from the Lord. Your heart and your love have grown cold towards Him. Towards Him. You see, backsliding ruins your joy. Let's talk about backsliding in terms of something everybody understands. Dieting. Dieting. Have you ever been on a diet? You know what Garfield the cat said about dieting? He said, a diet is die with a T at the end of it. And if you adhere to your diet, what are you on weigh-in day? There's nobody there. If you cheat on your diet on weigh-in day, what are you? Sad. Disappointed. Because you did what? You've been backslided. backsliding on your diet. But if you follow your diet and you apply yourself to it assiduously, on weigh-in day, what happens? Joy. Happy. Backsliding ruins your joy. Think of it in this terms. When you backslide on the Lord, when a believer gets away from God, it takes away their joy. When you spend days and days without reading the Bible, when you spend days and days without praying, when you spend days and days with the steady input of the world's entertainment in your mind, without anything from the Lord, from the Bible, from prayer, You get miserable, miserable, miserable. Sin robs you of your joy. Sin robs you of joy. And I'll say this, willful sin is like an atomic bomb to your joy. It really wrecks you. See, I've lived not as long as some of you good people. But I've backslidden, gotten away from the Lord. And sometimes my backsliding was big time backsliding. But most of my backsliding is pretty small. You know what, preachers, we can't stay backslidden very long, you know why? Sunday and Wednesday come every week. You think about trying to prepare a sermon backslidden away from the Lord, it ain't no fun. It isn't any fun. You know Wednesday's coming, you know Sunday's coming. Maybe you should all become preachers. You all stay right with God. Someday it'll Wednesday. Well, when you backslide away from the Lord, when I've done it, you get down. When I was a teenager, I spent years in a backsliding condition. I was down in the dumps. But when I came to my father who had saved me, when I came to God in repentance and I said, Lord, I am wrong. God, please forgive me. I get, He makes me glad. He makes me glad because forgiveness is available. Forgiveness is there. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins because the sins have already been paid for. But even though they've been paid for, there still is a confession that's good for our soul when you come to Him. When you come to the Lord in repentance, what's His response to you? Is it go away? Is it not today? No. It's forgiveness. It's restoration. It's a joy that is almost palpable. It's a fabulous kind of joy. It is a sublime experience to experience the forgiveness of the Heavenly Father. And if you're here tonight and you're backslid away from the Lord, and I don't mean you're off in all kinds of stuff, but if your heart is away from Him, get right with Him tonight. Come and confess and say, I've been away from you. I've let other things come between you and me. Get right with the Lord. Get right with him. 1 John 1 9. Go there and read it sometime. And you say, well, I never have any sins that I need to confess. Well, 1 John 1 8 is for you. It says, if we say that we have no sin, that we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. The truth is not in you, so chew on that until Sunday. Verse number 12, verse number 12 of the 97th Psalm. We're back to where we started. Verse number one, the psalmist says, the Lord reigneth, rejoice. As he comes to the end of verse number 12, he says, rejoice, rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous. Mr. Spurgeon on verse 12 says this, the psalmist has bidden the earth to rejoice and here he turns to the excellent ones of the earth and bids them to lead the song the righteous. If all others fail to praise the Lord, the godly, the saved must not fail to praise him. Because to them, to the righteous, God has been peculiarly revealed. And by them, he should be especially adored. Adored because of what he has revealed To them the psalmist says rejoice and in verses 2 to 11 He is just given reason after reason after reason for rejoicing in the Lord Rejoice because God reigns. Rejoice because our God is terrifying in His power. Rejoice because our God is superior to all other gods. Rejoice because our God preserves His saints. Rejoice because our God makes us glad. In light of these things, in light of what we know about Him, rejoice, sing His praises, exalt Him, lift Him up. Then in verse 12, the last phrase of that verse, in Psalms 97, give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness. His holiness. And what this signifies to us in this passage, it would seem, is this is showing to us at the remembrance of His faithfulness to us. Faithfulness to us. You see, God has chosen His people. He's given Himself to these people. These are my people. made a promise to him. Covenant people would say, okay? How's the Lord do on keeping his word? How do you do on keeping your word? I try to keep my word. Do you try to keep your word? You make a promise to somebody, you try to keep it up. I think we all do. Are you perfect at it? No. Oh, Lauren, bless your heart. I get her paycheck from the church every week, and she'll say, Dad, can I have some money for my paycheck? And I say, what do I say? Sure. No problem. How many days does it take sometimes? It could take a long time before I finally deliver. I don't mean to be that way. I forget. I'm imperfect. I'm not like you guys. I mess, I fail. But in the Lord's promises to us, He's faithful to us. He's faithful to us even when we are unfaithful to Him. If our salvation was contingent upon our faithfulness at any level whatsoever, we'd be lost in a minute. Lost in a minute. This idea of give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness is telling us to give thanks to him for his faithfulness in the discharge of his work. Be thankful to him as he faithfully conducts himself in the office of mediator and in the fulfillment of the promises to his people. God is holy. There is no failure in him. There is no wavering. There is only steadfastness, steadfastness towards his people, towards his people. Rejoice in the Lord always again. I say rejoice. Let's pray together. I'll be dismissed. We got a card here from Liz Smith and his family says thanks for the thank you so much for your prayers and giving we're thankful to be able to We're thankful to be able to present the work back to you and be with you. Thank you for the nice hotel room provided for us. God is so good to us. We're praying for your needs here as well. Keep reaching out for souls and seeking to walk with the Lord all because of Jesus. The Smiths, I'll put that on the bulletin board back there for you. Let's pray together. Father, I pray that you'll bless these words to our hearts this evening. I pray, Lord, if there is a person here tonight who doesn't know Christ, the Lord is their Savior, that you would visit them.