Now some movies and songs are just quotable. There might be multiple catchy one-liners or particular turn of phrase, or perhaps there's even lengthy dialogues that we discuss and quote back and forth with one another. But these types of media, that's songs and film, they have a way of capturing our attention and of resonating with the cry of the human heart and our longings, our urgings, We all have our favorite films, our favorite songs. We have our favorite musical artists or books that we just keep going back to. It seems that sometimes we're just continually referencing the same artist, the same song, the same film, whatever it is. We just keep going back to that. Well, Psalm 118 is such a psalm in the Scripture. It is a highly quotable psalm. In fact, this psalm, alongside of Psalm 110, it has the distinction of being the psalm that is most frequently quoted in the New Testament. MacArthur Study Bible references 12 different places where this psalm is quoted. There's nine quotations from all four of the Gospels. There's once in the Book of Acts, once in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and once in 1 Peter. On top of these, though, there is a particular sentence within Psalm 118 that is found verbatim in the books of Exodus and Isaiah. So in this sense, we can perhaps say that the truth that is presented to us in this psalm is found to be centrally witnessed to by the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. So it's pervasive. It's spread throughout all of Scripture, the truth that's here. And Psalm 118 is also a highly repetitive psalm. In the Hebrew language and in that poetry, repetition is the primary means of emphasis. It's like when we embolden the text, or we highlight it, or we circle it, or draw arrows, or stars, or whatever. It's like adding an exclamation point to what's being stated. And this would be something like the difference between help and HELP! That's kind of the idea, the sense that's going on here. And one extremely notable thing about the repetition here is, especially in the original, in the Hebrew, as far as I can tell, only verses 23 and 24 are not repeated, either in this psalm or elsewhere in the Bible. So all the other stanzas or words or the idea is repeated somewhere, except for those two verses. And that in itself is a very artistic way of making these two verses stand out to an even greater extent than all the rest. It's like intentionally inserting a quiet, somber, soft-spoken lyric into the middle of a raucous and rollicking rock song. It just, everything stops, You read that and then it continues on. So Psalm 118 is also uniquely located within this altar and in the Bible as a whole. Many have pointed out that verse 8, if you're looking at it, is the center verse of the Bible. And depending on your English Protestant translation, that's accurate, that's true. But beyond this, perhaps, don't know, perhaps novelty to that, this psalm is situated between the shortest and the longest psalms, Psalm 117 and Psalm 119 respectively. So it's squarely in the center between those two. In addition to this, this psalm is placed at the end of a group of psalms, which is 113-118, which has become known as the Egyptian Hallel. And that Hallel part means to praise, to worship. The Hallelujah to praise the Lord, praise Yahweh. So the Egyptian Hallel, and the emphasis there in this section of this grouping of Psalms is to praise the Lord for His deliverance of His people out of Egypt. That's why it's called the Egyptian Hallel. And as such, this group of Psalms and songs, it was and it is traditionally sung during the Passover. Psalm 118 would have been sung at the very end of the Passover meal. So that means that the 118th Psalm would very likely have been sung by Christ before He went out to Gethsemane when it says, This is probably that hymn or that psalm. So on this note, I'd like to read a quote which I recently found regarding this particular psalm. It says, It is the only time in the historical records in the Gospels where we find our Lord singing. In Matthew, we find Him preaching and teaching. In Mark, He's serving. And in Luke, we see Him praying. But here only do we have Him singing. It is intensely interesting to study carefully the words and sentiments in the concluding paragraph of this psalm. It gives us an insight into the thoughts in the mind and the heart of our Lord just before He went out of the lighted upper room to Gethsemane and the cross. So in addition to these things, we should also recognize that Psalm 118 is a messianic psalm. That is, it primarily and specifically looks forward to the coming Messiah. And the psalmist is able to look forward to future deliverance, and to look forward to it with joyful anticipation because of God's character, and because of his proven track record of past deliverance. So as we look at the Psalm today, let's recognize that, as is often the case with one-liners or highly quoted material, that when it's removed from its context, that the words and the thoughts can kind of become meaningless or trite, or the teeth are removed from it. It's just kind of, it's so common that we lose its depth and its meaning. Perhaps, though, the worst thing is using the phrase so absentmindedly that we use it in a way in which we make ourselves appear intelligent. or educated, but we really have no idea what we are saying. In the words of Inigo Montoyo, you keep using that word. I do not think that it means what you think it means. That's what we do. And this type of biblical quotation is rampant. among modern evangelicalism. It's the kind of phrases that are plastered all over this tchotchke stuff throughout your house. You know, it's put on calendars and stickers and t-shirts and whatever. And these are the catchphrases that the merchants use in the market to sell their mass-produced wares to uninformed Christians. And we've got some of these things in our homes. I know we do. And they are, in and of themselves, wrong. But I wonder, do we know what we are saying? Or as it regards this psalm, do we know what we are singing? And this evening I hope to look at this psalm under that title. Do we know what we are singing? And under these headings, Thanksgiving, Testimony, and Teaching. So, the psalmist opens up with us here with, "...give thanks to the Lord, for He is good." Now, this statement is a common introduction. It opens up the final psalm of Book 4 and the first one in Book 5 of the Psalter. That's Psalms 106 and 107. And this is a statement here which David planned for the worship service to begin when he brought the Ark of God back into Jerusalem. As it re-entered the city, this was how the service was to begin with this statement. Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. And this command of praise and thanksgiving, it brackets this psalm. We see it at the beginning and we see it at the end. And that is itself a very common trait within the Psalms to show unity, to show completeness, comprehensiveness, that it ties it all together with bookends. So you will notice though that the command to give thanks to the Lord is given to Israel, to the house of Aaron, and to those who fear the Lord. These are common divisions that we see in the Scripture, divisions of peoples. And together, they also present a comprehensive view, how God's people are categorized, so to speak. You've got those chosen by God without distinction. This is Jew and Gentile. This is rich and poor, educated, uneducated, male, female, laborer, or priest. And yet, all of us, All of God's people, whoever you are, wherever you are, which class or category you fall into, all have the same command to give thanks to the Lord. And we all have the same reason to give thanks to the Lord. Why? For His loving kindness is everlasting, just like we prayed. Unless anyone at any time think otherwise, This universal call and universal message of God's grace is emphatically given preeminence. It's like the sign over the doorway of the psalm that all who would go enter into this room, that all who would read this psalm would acknowledge this truth, that God is good and that His love and kindness is everlasting. And it's a truth which exalts the Lord, it lifts Him up, and it humbles man because we recognize we need His lovingkindness. We need His mercy. God is good. That is a consistent confession of the church. It reminds us and it guides us back to God. It reminds us and guides us that His lovingkindness is everlasting. So it's the first and the last, in the beginning, God and the grace of the Lord Jesus. Grace overcomes guilt. Grace outlasts performance. Grace, grace, God's grace. Grace that is greater than all my sin. The distinctive message of the gospel is that by grace you have been saved. But how did we get here? This state of grace was not something into which we were born, even for the sons of Aaron, even for the sons of Israel, the house of Aaron, the priesthood, not even them. So moving from thanksgiving in verse 5, the psalmist begins to give his testimony there. Just kind of as an aside to this, this psalm is anonymous, but it's possible that Moses wrote the psalm. And as a just homework or whatever, go and check out Exodus 15 and kind of read it alongside this psalm just to see some of the similarities and the parallels. So maybe I just, y'all chew on it. But the fact that this is anonymously pinned and that it has a broad audience, any one of us can have this same testimony. For indeed, the text says, from my distress, I called upon the Lord. And our nature is such that we really only call out for help when you're in trouble. When everything's good, when we've got it all handled, we're not really asking for help, are we? Some of us seem to be in trouble or in distress more frequently than others. Or some of us consider some things to be more distressing than others do. But in our distress is where we get to see God at work most poignantly, most clearly. And so whenever we find ourselves in this place of stress or multiple stresses, we need to first, first call upon the Lord, and foremost call upon the Lord. Being in distress ought to remind us that we don't have the power, the money, the energy, the resources, the knowledge, the skill, the good looks, or the talents to extricate ourselves from that distress. But we do have plenty of those things to get ourselves into the distress. Now I want you to think of distress as a wedged bear in a great tightness. Or perhaps you like the picture of Hans and Chewie and Luke and Leia as they find themselves in the suddenly-closing-in trash compactor. Think of those things. They're stuck and doom is impending. Dieting? Sorry, don't feed the bear. Instead of just waiting, let's give it some time. Instead of calling upon a robot, this kind of distress that's pictured here in our text is something that's more akin to something that Jonathan Edwards would say, such as the verbiage that we find in his Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God. It is a dire situation in which the lost exists. And that is kind of the distress that's being pictured here. There is an intensity that is here that's not found elsewhere. In fact, this word, distress, the Hebrew word, is only used three times in the Old Testament. In the other two places, it is rendered as such. In Psalm 116, just a couple earlier, it says, The pains of hell got a hold of me. Okay? And then the other place is in Lamentations where it says, Judah has gone into captivity. Her persecutors have overtaken her between the straits. All right? So the pains of hell got a hold of me. And then the distress, the persecutors, they've overtaken her when she is between the straits. So in all three of these places, there is this connotation of compression, of squeezing, of increasing pressure, of being funneled to a place of capture. The enemies are funneling you in right for the kill, right for the ambush, right where they want you. There's a place here where there is no escape, being totally surrounded, no way out. And it is a painful truth, dear ones, that when walking in sin, that's us, when we walk in sin, we never call upon God until He turns up the pressure. This is one of those scenes that we find in the book of Judges, that the sons of Israel cried to the Lord, and the Lord raised up a deliverer for them. But sadly, the even more humiliating truth about this is that we often think that we can handle the pressure. We can handle the machine being turned up to 50, but we can't. The testimony here of the one whom the Lord saves is that this stress, this distress, it causes him to call upon the Lord. And the consistent testimony of Scripture is that whoever calls upon the Lord will be saved. The testimony of the psalmist here is the exact same, that the Lord's faithfulness, the Lord's grace is what caused God to answer this call, this plea, this cry for help, and to remove the providentially applied pressure. to take away the guilt, to remove the sin, and to set him in liberty. He set him in a wide open space, is what the text tells us there. There's no more claustrophobia. Have any of you ever felt claustrophobic? If there is this enclosing, ominous, pressure, you're surrounded, there's no way out, it's just increasing, it's like being in a cave, it's like being in a small box or a bag where your brother's wrapped you in a blanket and covered your head with a pillow and you can't move and you can't get out. You ever been tightly squeezed and pressed? Not in a safe, secure way, like your favorite uncle who comes and gives you a bear hug. Not like you wrap up the baby in a swaddling cloth to make them feel safe and secure, but in a way that you are afraid, that you're anxious, and that you want to get out, but you feel trapped and you can't get out. But that's exactly how the psalmist felt here when he's talking about that. He says that the Lord was faithful. And he answered him, and he set him in a large place. This is a place where you can, okay, I can stretch out now. I'm not being wrapped up and held tightly. I've got freedom of movement. No more claustrophobia. Why? Because he delighted in me. God loves to give liberty and freedom. to take away the chains and the burdens. He delights in you. And if the Lord is for you, if the Lord is for me, then I will not fear. " You see, this application of God's grace by God's Spirit through the means of faith, it removes the controlling fear of death. It removes the encompassing and the enslaving fear of man. And this, too, is the testimony of the psalmist. In this, too, does he remind himself of God's mercy and of His goodness. And this is that great teaching of the Apostle Paul when he references and leads us to this in Romans 8, 31, where he writes that if God be for us, who can be against us? Now, you might be looking there at verse 6, where it says, what can man do to me? And you may be saying, well, man can do a lot to me. And man certainly is evil. And he does treat his fellow man very evilly. He does evil things to his fellow man. But man by himself does not work in the spirit realm. If it was only the physical that we had to be concerned with, then perhaps, maybe we would fear man. But again, we aren't dealing simply in gluttony. because Pooh Bear ate too much and he got stuck in the hole. We aren't dealing with a simple misstep in trying to get away from the stormtroopers and a jump down the wrong escape hatch. We're dealing with the damning reality of sin before a holy God. We're in distress. But God is gracious. and God saves. So much so that His Holy Spirit is known by the name Helper. He helps us. And as I looked at verses 6 and 7, I had to ask myself the question, what does it look like for God to be for me? 7 says, the Lord is for me among those who help me. What does it look like for God to be for me, for Him to help me? And as I kind of followed the text, read through the psalm, these were my conclusions. It doesn't mean that you aren't feeling some pressure to conform, that you aren't feeling pressure to recant, to deny Christ, or to disobey. It doesn't mean that the appearances of things, that your circumstances won't tempt your heart to fear. It doesn't mean you won't have enemies. In fact, it probably is a guarantee that you will have enemies. But God being for you, God helping you, it means that His deliverance of you will mean He will get the glory. He will help you by means of His Holy Spirit. He is your strength and your song. but we don't worship the power and the joy. Instead, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He becomes your salvation. It also means you will have peace and joy if God is for you, if God is helping you. You can talk about what the Lord did, not what you did. If the Lord is for you, He will discipline you. He won't give you up. If the Lord is for you, He will open the door for you and say, Hey, this is the way. Walk there and go in there. He will answer you when you cry out to Him. That's what it means for the Lord to help you, to be for you. And because of all these things, the people of God can achieve satisfaction and they can stand in triumph even in the presence of their enemies, just like sitting down to a feast in the middle of a battlefield, like Psalm 23 tells us. He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies. And perhaps the psalmist recognized that the best place of refuge through trial through trial and error, through danger. Maybe he recognized and realized this through the fact that he had to go through it a couple times, through trial and error, through on-the-job training. Perhaps the Spirit is simply speaking in his heart with groanings too deep for words. But the conclusion and the testimony of the psalmist and of all the people of God, is that it is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in man." So the psalmist continues his testimony of confidence and of victory. As we look down through verses 10 and 12, we find him surrounded by all nations. So potentially, this was set in the context of war. but all nations, really? What about the challenge that we see, let's see, in, what verse is it? Surrounded, they are surrounded, but they will be cut off. Yeah, so verse 10. and 11, and 12. There's this challenge between past and future tenses, that they surrounded me, past tense, but I will cut them off. And I think this is one clue here that what we are dealing with is a piece of prophetic literature, not just poetic literature. Because there's several items that line up to known and recorded history, but there's also some things that are incomplete, or some oddities that we find. And as I see it, this has an eschatological element to it. that shall be fulfilled there, just kind of like we find in Psalm 2, with Christ receiving the nations as His inheritance, and as we see in Revelation 16 and 19, with the nations gathered together against Christ. But perhaps also there's a spiritual element to this, as both Jews and Romans were opposed to Him, and they were condemning Him to the cross. But in both of these, we still see Christ here, whether that's at this crucifixion or whether that is at His return, where there is this cutting off that is spoken of several times in these verses. And this verbiage, cutting off, is used 37 times in the Old Testament. But only in the Psalms, five times, only in the Psalms is it used in this particular fashion to mean to destroy, to obliterate, to cut in pieces. All the other times, the other 32 times in which this cutting off is used, it's used to mean circumcise. So think about it. If you are surrounded by enemies, you're in the middle of them, okay? And if you are cutting off your enemies, all of them, then it's like you are the hub of a wheel, the axle, and you've got a blade, and you're just spinning around, cutting off all of your enemies. You're like on an axis, like an automatic apple peeler, or a veneer lathe on a log. You are cutting in a circle. And it makes me wonder here if David wrote the psalm. Or at least it makes me wonder if the author was thinking about David and when he fetched those 200 foreskins of the Philistines. Or maybe even David and Goliath where he came before Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 And he said, let me get there, Then David said to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. and I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hands." What did David say about Goliath? that he was an uncircumcised Philistine. He was going to cut him off. Well, built into this language of cutting off is this concept of the removal of uncleanness or unholiness, the destruction of those saturated and surrounded by sin. Embedded into this is a zeal for the Lord. And a point of application here is that faith in the Lord is the source of courage, even in the face of unbelievable odds. I mean, no one is going to stand against Goliath, but David's faith was in God. And if you were doing the Lord's work, if you were fighting the Lord's battles for the sake of His name and His glory, not your own, then you're going to be given the courage, you're going to be given the fortitude to do whatever the task is that is set before you. And this was how Christ was able to walk straight towards the cross. This was how He was able to endure it, because His prayer was bracketed by, not my will, but Thine. Your will be done, Father. Well, before we move into the final section here that begins in verse 15, we've got a hidden surprise. We've got a hidden repetition in verse 13 where it says, In the Hebrew, the repetition is more readily apparent, but it's not so in the English. Again, mostly this is rendered something like pushed violently or pushed hard. But as I learned from Barnes' notes, literally, thrusting, thou hast thrust at me. And this is very similar language to the emphasis that we saw in our Genesis study on eating you shall eat, or dying you shall die. Now if you've ever shot a semi-automatic weapon, or an automatic weapon, especially a rifle or a shotgun, You know the feeling of the recoil when you are standing there and you are engaging targets in rapid succession, one after another, not really a pause between them, just as fast as you can pull the trigger or as fast as the rounds leave the barrel. Because the energy that comes out of the end of the muzzle is so great and is so fast, in its succession and repetition that if your feet are not firmly planted, if your stance is not correct, you will be destabilized. Eventually, you're going to get pushed backward to such an extent that you have to move your feet and reposition yourself in order to keep from falling over. And the kind of pushing in this psalm is not just like that. It is way more intense than that. The pushing by the enemy here is not just enough to make you lose your balance, but it is so much that it will knock you to the ground. It is so strong you will fall. You will crumble before it. It'd be like the shockwave from an explosion. You can't stand before that. You feel it. It will knock you over. And by the way, this is why Jesus instructs us to pray, Lord, lead me not into temptation. Why? Well, because you're going to fall. You will succumb to the temptation. And that's why Christ's victory over sin in general, in the wilderness temptation, and in His being tempted in all points as we are yet without sin, His victory was so much more impressive because the pressure never subsided for Him. It just kept coming and He kept resisting it. Christ never yielded. So it is that with the indwelling Spirit, you, I, you are enabled to resist the devil to the extent that he will flee from you through the power of the Spirit. All right, so verse 14 closes out this section. And this is the verse, the Lord is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation. This is the verse that appears verbatim in Exodus 15-2 and Isaiah 12-2. In Exodus, it's in regards to the salvation from Pharaoh. There's an eschatological element to it in that there is the drying up of the Euphrates River in order to create a highway for the remnant of God's people. And then we have this same drying up of the Euphrates, spoken of again in the Book of Revelation, and it says there, so that the way would be prepared for the kings from the east. And as I see it here in Psalm 118, there is also an end times element of spiritual deliverance. So in all three of these cases of the Lord delivering His people, it is written that He has become my salvation. And if we can even literally today watch this river drying up, So as we watch it dry up, let's remind ourselves that God's enemies will be cut off, and that we can sing in the face of adversity. We can straighten up, lift up our heads, because our redemption is drawing nigh. So we've moved through Thanksgiving, we've moved through testimony, and now we come through teaching. So building off this statement that the Lord is my strength and my song, verse 15 picks up with, the sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tents of the righteous. So if the Lord is my song and my salvation, and the sound of salvation is in the tents of the righteous, then that means that the Lord Himself dwells with those whom He saves. He's there with them. And contextually, yes, He's talking about salvation, but the psalmist is discussing music. It's a song after all, right? So is this right hand that we read about in verses 15 and 16, this right hand of the Lord, is this right hand, is it talking about a military cutting off? Or is it the worshipful conducting and performing of music? Or perhaps it's the disciplining that we see in verse 18. The Lord has disciplined me severely. But what if I said yes? What if I said it's probably all of them? And I think there's another threefold emphasis here, that although this is anthropomorphic, that we are ascribing human features to God, that the right hand of the Lord is a way of marking authority and prestige. We've got Benjamin, the son of my right hand. He received a double portion, did he not? And it's said repeatedly in the Scripture that Christ ascended to where? The right hand of the Father. And here in Psalm 118, there is this right hand being given as a mark of honor and of courage, of mighty exploits, of valor. And then there is the renown and prominence and superiority of the exaltation of the right hand. It's lifted up. It's the hand that holds the scepter. Very easily do all these things point us to Christ. He's done what none other could do. And as a result, that none other receives. It's Christ alone who's worthy to receive the title deed to the earth. It's Christ alone who sits at the Father's right hand. It's Christ alone who marries His bride. It's Christ alone who rules the kingdom. And because of Christ alone, I will not die, but live. No longer am I subject to this dying you shall die, But because He died in my place, I therefore have the privilege and the honor of eating, you shall eat. And even though disciplining, I am disciplined, as verse 18 tells us, yet I shall not die. Instead of the yawning gates of hell, I receive the open gates of heaven. So everything in this psalm is answered in this final section here. the reason that Israel, that the house of Aaron, the reason that those who fear the Lord can rejoice, the reason that the Lord answers our calling, how we can satisfactorily look upon our enemies, even in the midst of apparent defeat and of being surrounded, why it's better for us to trust in the Lord than man, How it is that the nations and the gods of the nations are just completely cut off. Just how it is that God becomes our strength and our song. Why there is singing and shouting in the tents of the righteous. This is the valiant acts of God's right hand. This is why the psalmist can say that He will live and not die. This is how the gates of righteousness have been opened up. It's all because the Lord's actions are incomprehensible. They are marvelous, or maybe we'll say inconceivable. All right, let's just consider a few final thoughts here. That the person and work of Christ is the central message of the Scripture. Everything points to Him. In your life, though it is very brief, your life ought to be summarized by the message of Psalm 117 with its two verses. And when viewed in relationship to eternity, your life, It's similar to the contrast between the length of Psalm 117 and the length of 119. Like, there's no comparison between the two. Psalm 119 is pages, pages long. But in order to get there, you've got to go through 118. You, in 117, cannot get to 119 without going through 18. So if you recall from the introduction, I said that verses 23 and 24 are the only verses that are unrepeated in this psalm. And that's not accidental. Because if you look at these two verses where it says, This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. These verses speak of the sacrifice of Christ. upon the cross. The Day of Atonement, the Day of Christ's Death, is that once for all time, non-repeatable, single sacrifice of Christ on behalf of His people. And the uniqueness of that day stands out in stark contrast to all other days within history. This is the gate through which the righteous must enter. There's no other doorway. There's no other sacrifice. And perhaps you see this gate standing wide open today. We need to remember, you're gonna be surprised at this quote, but sometimes opportunity knocks once in a lifetime. So you better lose yourself. For Christ said, whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it. So it's this day of sacrifice in which we are commanded to rejoice and celebrate in. That's why the psalmist ends with a festival. He ends with a festival. So what do you do at a festival? We kind of had one the other night, didn't we? It's a time of rejoicing, of celebrating. We didn't have music. Oh, we did have music. We didn't have dancing. There's music and dancing, typically, at a festival. There's food. There's fellowship. It's a party. But I mean, somebody's still got to foot the bill for the party, right? Festivals don't pay for themselves. God throws a party, but there's still a sacrifice involved. There's a festival sacrifice. He says, bind the festival sacrifice to the horns of the altar. There is a call. There's an anticipatory call. A call to bring out the bull. And this is not a desire for death. It's not a desire for blood and violence. No, this is rather a desire for a party. Like we are ready to start celebrating. And this desire is something that's found in all of us. We see it and we hear it all around us. It's buried within the heart of man. Men and women will work all week, and they will spend much, or most of, or perhaps even all of their paycheck on one night of partying because everybody's working for the weekend, and let's get this party started. So in this sense, the psalmist, he is echoing the cry and the longing of man's heart. for celebration, for rejoicing. But the difference here is that instead of man footing the bill and singing songs of revelry and emptiness in a vain attempt to be a part of something, the Lord Himself is the sacrifice. He provides the sacrifice on behalf of His people. and the Lord is the song which His people sing. Because of Him, we are ushered into the wedding feast, and we're given a place at the table. Come eat. Come rejoice. And as we sit there, we gather around the table. There we stand, and we raise our glasses, and we raise our hands and we cast our crowns to Him, to Him who for the joy set before Him endured the cross. This is what we are singing when we sing Psalm 118. This is what we are saying when we say, this is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.