Well, good evening, everyone. We're glad you're here tonight. We're going to be in Psalm 138. Psalm 138. You can open your Bibles there, please. And here's what this Psalm says. It's a Psalm of David, and you'll notice that in the superscription. And then the text says, I will give you thanks with all my heart. I will sing praises to you before the gods. I will bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your loving kindness and your truth, for you have magnified your word according to all your name. On the day I called, you answered me. You made me bold with strength in my soul. All the kings of the earth will give thanks to you, O Lord, when they have heard the words of your mouth, and they will sing of the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord. For though the Lord is exalted, yet he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me. You will stretch forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand will save me. The Lord will accomplish what concerns me. Your loving kindness, O Lord, is everlasting. Do not forsake the works of your hands. Let's pray. Thank you so much for your word. Thank you for this tremendous psalm. What a wonderful joy it is to open the scriptures to this wonderful psalm that you've inspired. There's just a lot of valuable information in it, and I pray we glean some of that tonight. And we'll thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, as we began, as we said from the superscription, Psalm 138 is a psalm that's written by David, In fact, the next eight psalms, Psalm 138 to Psalm 135, are all psalms written by David. And in this particular psalm, David promises that he will continually thank and praise God. That's really the essence of it. Now, when you think about David and you think through his life, we know that his life was anything but smooth sailing. It was a life that was marked by Many very threatening obstacles. It was marked by wars. It was marked by failures and setbacks. I mean, that was the life of David. There were times when David was hated. There were times when David was hounded simply for doing the will of God. Oftentimes David found himself pursued and persecuted. He was chased up to tops of mountains. We know that he hid in caves and he also was chased down into deep valleys. He was chased actually into foreign countries. I mean, that's his life. And many times, as we've actually seen in these Psalms, his life was afraid and alone. The thing that is so impressive about him is that through all of that, he never lost his focus on the Lord, and he never lost his passion to want to praise God and thank God. Now, the kind of praise that David gave to God is what we would expect that you see there in verse one. It's not half-hearted praise. You wouldn't expect that of David. In fact, you'll notice how verse one opens, I will give you thanks with all my heart. That's how David praised God. That's how David thanked God with all of his heart. And that's so like David. Threats, trouble hanging around him all the time did not affect his heart. He had a heart that loved the Lord. And you could not in any way stop that through anything. And if you're going to worship God with all your heart, there are three requirements. If you're going to worship God with all your heart. First of all, you have to have no doubts about God. If you're going to worship God with all your heart, you must have implicit faith in the Lord. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. And that would certainly lend itself to the fact that you would have to believe in the scriptures that reveal the truth about God. So we would say this, if you're going to have a thankfulness and praise to God with all your heart, you would have to have a heart that really believes the scriptures and really believes God. So there would be criteria number one for worshiping God with all of our heart. The second requirement would be no sins before God. We know that if we hide iniquity in our hearts, He will not hear us. You certainly are in no position to praise the Lord and thank God if a life is filled with sin. So you can't have sin in your life and iniquity in your life and actually praise God with all your heart. The third ingredient would be nothing first other than God. In other words, to praise God with all of one's heart, God would need to be number one of the heart. God's a jealous God. He will not share his glory with another. Now David says, I will give you thanks with all my heart, and I will sing praises to you before the gods. And the word that's used there is Elohim. That particular noun, of course, is a critical noun that is used for God, but it's also used in the Old Testament to refer to other things. For example, David used it concerning the angels. the sons of God, he used that noun pertaining to them. It's also used of political leaders who were ministering for the Lord. There are a couple of occasions where that noun is used for them because they're actually ambassadors for God's political work. But specifically, I think also what David is promising God here is I don't care how many false gods there are in the world. I don't care how many gods and religions there are in the world. I am going to continually praise the God of the Bible. I'm going to continually thank the God of the Bible in a world in which people worship all kinds of false things and false deities. Now there were times when he could not be in Jerusalem to worship the Lord. But what's so impressive is he says in verse 2, I'll bow down toward your holy temple. I will bow down toward your holy temple and I will praise God and I will thank God in the direction of where that temple is going to be. Now that's reverence. I mean, that's reverence. When you go into or when you're thinking about God and you're bowing down before the Lord, that is reverence. What I find interesting in what David says there in verse 2, I'll bow down toward your holy temple, the temple wasn't even built. Fact of the matter is the tabernacle was standing, but the temple wasn't built. The temple wouldn't be built until Solomon would build it after David was gone. Now David certainly was involved in getting things ready for the construction of the temple, but he so reverenced this place of worship that would exist. He saw the value of it that he would literally go to this place and bow down toward it. You know, that's what church should be. It should be a place of reverent worship and people should have that perspective of it when they're going into the place of the Lord. And apparently sometimes when David was on the run in some of these foreign countries where they're worshiping all of these false idols and all of these false gods and he couldn't help as you're slamming through those mountainous areas to come across those those false things. He would sing praises to the Lord. He would literally bow down, turn his back on all those false things and turn toward where that temple would be and he would worship the one true God. That's the heart of David. Now the believer who will see God do wonderful things is one who will have a heart that's like that. The believer who will see God do wonderful things will worship God no matter what the opposition. we may live in a world where people are just worshipping all kinds of things, they're worshipping all kinds of false religion, dominates this world, but people right with God won't give in to that. They won't concede that for one second. They'll take a stand for truth. And also, he says, I will give thanks to your name in verse two there, so no matter what this world's gonna do, I'm gonna stick to the name of God, and what that would literally mean in the Old Testament is these people can make up their names about God all they want, Allah, they can make up the Mormon, Moroni, they can make up their false deities, Buddha, whatever it is, but I'll tell you what I'll be dedicated to. I'll be dedicated to Elohim, the sovereign creator God, Jehovah, the sovereign covenant God, and Adonai, the sovereign controller God, I'll also, in the New Testament economy, I won't buckle one bit from the Lord Jesus Christ, who's God. I will continue with all of my heart to defend Him and worship Him. I don't care if this world's gone crazy. David was the kind of guy who sang that. I am going to worship the true God, no matter what is going on in the world, and that is what this psalm is all about. So what we see here is no matter where we are, no matter what we're experiencing in life, those that are going to see God do some great things will be those who praise God and thank God. Now God wants that from his people. God wants his people to reverently worship him. He wants his people reverently worshipping him in a world that's filled with idolatry. That's what he wants. He wants us dedicated to him and his word and his truth. That's what he wanted in the face of the Babylonians. That's what he wants in the face of the Muslims. That's what he wants in the face of the Mormons. They can worship anything they want to worship, But peoples whose whose heart are right with God are not going to fall for that And they're going to stay dedicated to the god of the bible and that's david worshiping god with all of his heart now There are 11 reasons That david suggests as why he's going to thank god and praise god why he's going to worship god at this level first of all because of his Loving kindness or you could put mercy or you could put grace verse two I will bow down toward your holy temple, give thanks to your name for, now let's start listing some reasons, your loving kindness. Let's stop right there. Let's begin there. What a great place to begin. Is it not true that you can always thank God on any day for his grace and mercy and loving kindness to you? Isn't that something for which we can always thank God? That's something we can thank God for every day of our life. That's something that we can praise God for at any time. He is the sovereign, holy, almighty God who can do whatever He wants to do. That's what His name would reveal. And this sovereign, holy, majestic, mighty God has been merciful to us. He's been gracious to us. Actually, we don't even need any other reason to praise and worship God. He could stop right there. He could just say, there's the reason, right there. And we would have enough there to worship the Lord. That's a great reason. Reason number two, we can thankfully praise God with all of our hearts for His truth. Verse two says, give thanks to your name for your loving kindness and your truth. Man, we live in a world of liars. just liars. They take half things. They don't even tell the whole truth. You see it in these debates. They're taking half things that are said. They're not even putting it in the context of what it's said. We're just a world filled with lies. And where we turn, we're confronted with that which is false. But there's one truth. There's one constant. It's the truth of God. And it's the God who inspired the truth. He's always a God who will tell the truth. His Word will always tell the truth. So if you're in a situation where it comes down to what the Bible actually says versus what some teacher says or what some professor says or what some religious leader says, you stick with the truth. Stick with the Word of God. The Word of God's the truth. And thank God we have our Bibles. If you can open up your Bible and you can begin to read it and begin to understand some of the things, you can thank God that you have a love for truth. And I must say from a personal note, almost every morning I do that. I actually most times are on my knees and thank God for the privilege of Studying the scriptures opening up the Word of God and studying the scriptures. This is a marvelous blessing of God We can praise God that we get out of this world for his truth The third reason we can praise God with all of our hearts is because of his word He says that there also and he says for you have magnified your word according to all your name Oh, I I just love that And I'll tell you what most people don't get that God has magnified his word according to all his name. Those who worship God, those who are right with God, those that actually are praising God are people who magnify the word of God. You cannot magnify the word of God too much in your life, and we certainly can't in the church. The truth of the matter is, God is a God who is to be magnified and His Word is to be magnified at the same level of His name. Now think about those names that we just went over. God is a God who has revealed everything about Himself in the Word and we're to hold that Word up and we're to magnify that Word. And notice, since God so magnifies His Word, The only people who are in a position to praise God and thank God at this level are people who magnify the Word of God. That is so, so significant. Because most people who are going to their churches have what they call their praise worship. That's what they call it. But it's anything but that. Because unless you're in a place that magnifies the Word I mean that holds the word up high, that elevates and magnifies the word of God. It's anything but praise worship. You can do whatever you want religiously, but it isn't praise worship from God's perspective. Because God says here, I am to be praised and I am to be thanked because I've magnified my word according to all of my name. And that's how David saw it. He saw the word of God as the most important thing in existence that was tangible. And that's the way we should view it. And that's the way the church should always view it. Don't settle for anything less than a place of worship that magnifies the word of God. Which brings us to the fourth reason. We can thankfully praise God with all of our hearts for his answers to our prayers. Verse three, on the day I called you, you answered me. David was in trouble a lot. I mean, His life was always in some type of crisis. And there was often, he would cry to the Lord. That's why we keep seeing in the Davidic Psalms that we've come through in these last months, he's always, I cried to the Lord, I cried out to the Lord. I mean, a lot of those Psalms are prayers, and you remember that. I mean, he's crying out to the Lord, because he's always surrounded by something. And in some of those occasions, when he cried out to the Lord, he got instant answers. Not always, but there were some times when he got instant answers. Now God answers sometimes instantly. He doesn't answer all the time that way. In fact, I would have to say most of the time it isn't rattle off the prayer and get the answer. Although There are some times when it does happen that way. In my own personal illustration of this, there was a particular person that I had been praying for that I asked to be in church last Sunday, and there they were. And you're thinking, well, there's one that specifically prayed and asked the Lord for, and there they were. I think that there are times when God does do that. And one of the great reasons that we all have for praising the Lord is answered prayer. And I think most of us can testify of a time when we called out to God and He answered us. We know He did for salvation. That was instantly answered. I mean, the moment that any of us cried out to the Lord Jesus Christ to save us from our sins, instantly He answered that. And that's something we can always thank and praise Him for for the rest of our lives. But also, along life's way, When we are praying and asking the Lord for some things, He answers them at times instantly, and that's something for which we should thank the Lord. And that's critical. When God answers prayer, don't forget to go back and thank Him. Don't forget to go back and say, thank you, Lord, because you'll know that illustration of the Lord when He healed the people and people just walked away, didn't even say thank you. We want to be the kind of people who go to the Lord and thank you. Now the fifth reason that we can thankfully praise the Lord is because of the strength he gives us. You'll notice in verse 3, you made me bold with strength in my soul. Now notice where boldness in the soul comes from. It comes from the Lord. And that's where it's produced, by the way, in the soul. The strength that David found was never in circumstances or in people. The strength that he found was strength of his soul, and it was God who produced that strength in his soul. And again, I want to observe the fact that God produces this, and he's producing it in one, who has a reverence for him, who bows down before him, he's producing it in one who magnifies the Word of God. This is the, you have to put this in the whole context. So it's not just anybody who's getting this strength in their soul. This is one who literally bowed down before the Lord. This was one who prayed to God. And this is one who magnified the word of God. And in that context, God gave strength to that soul. And that's where it comes from. It comes from the Lord. people who are praying people and people who are in the word and people who are Reverent in their worship for the Lord. They'll have strength in their soul. God will produce that Now the sixth reason that we can praise God with all of our hearts is because what he's going to do in the future for world leaders now carefully notice verses four and five all the kings of the earth will give thanks to you, O Lord, when they've heard the words of your mouth, and they will sing of the ways of the Lord." Now, I want you to notice what David is praising God for. He had never seen this in his life, and we've never seen it in ours. But what he's praising God for is all the kings of the earth will, not might, give thanks to the Lord. He's basically saying there will come a day when all political leaders of the world will one day be singing praises reverently to the true God of the Bible. And it will happen when they've actually heard the words coming from the mouth of the Lord. Look carefully at verse 4. When they've heard the words of your mouth, So the prediction here is there's coming a time when God will actually be here on earth speaking. Of course, we know it's in the person of Jesus Christ. And he will be on this earth speaking and all the political leaders of the world will be in harmony and in worshiping God. Worshiping God. And that will occur during the millennium. Now there's a great description that we get of this in Revelation chapter 21. Go over to Revelation chapter 21. And I want to draw your attention to verse 22. We're talking about a time now. There's a time in existence, a new heaven, a new earth, a new Jerusalem that's in existence, and I want you to notice the description of what is seen beginning at verse 22. I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb are its temple. So God's there in person. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth, that's what we're talking about in Psalms, the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it in the daytime, for there will be no night there, its gates will never be closed. And they will bring the glory and honor of the nations into it, and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life." So there is a description here of a time when only people whose names have been in the books of life are living with God reigning, And all the kings of the earth are actually traveling to where God is reigning in Jerusalem to be involved in worship, and they're singing the praises of God. Now, David never saw that in his lifetime. We've never seen it in our lifetime. But I tell you this, that's what he's worshiping God for right there. He knows eschatology. He knew it at a level in which he was going to praise God for what he was going to do in the future. And so when he says, I'm praising God and giving thanks to God that all the kings of the earth are going to give thanks to you, he was looking into the future to that moment when it will actually literally happen. See, that's something that we can praise God for. He's in charge of the future. We get a little jumpy sometimes and tend to forget that, but God is in charge of the future. And we can praise God for that. We can worship God for that. Which brings us to the seventh reason. We can thankfully praise God with all of our hearts because he regards the humble, not the haughty. I want to begin at verse five, the middle of verse five. For great is the glory of the Lord. For though the Lord is exalted, yet he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar. I just, I just love that. Now first of all, it's critical that we recognize how awesome God is. So David basically says, great's the glory of God. He's exalted. So David wants us to realize that God is the sovereign, majestic God. He's great and glorious. He's exalted in his person. The amazing thing is, he's willing to have a relationship with people who are lowly, not haughty. In other words, this is so foreign. to the world in which we live that exalts the proud and the haughty, not God. Proud, arrogant people don't push God around. Proud, arrogant people will never be exalted by God. In fact, proud, arrogant people will never see God do much of anything. The people who truly see the Lord do things, the people who have God work in great ways are people who are humble and contrite. And frankly, many of today's unknowns will be those that eternity will honor. There will be many people, humble people, who magnified the word, who trusted in the Lord, who prayed, who bowed down their knees literally before God. There will come a day when they will be highly honored and God will honor them for that. Which brings us to the eighth reason we can thankfully praise God with our hearts for the fact that He revives us in times of trouble. Verse 7 says, though I walk in the midst of trouble, you'll revive me. Really, when do we need reviving? When we're in trouble. When you're low. When you've blown it. When you've failed. Who's the one who can revive you? God. God. And David knew that. David had walked right in the middle of sometimes disastrous messes and troubles and distresses. I mean, he in his own lifetime went into the middle of that and every single time God revived him. God revived him even after he walked straight into sin. And we don't need to go back and relive that whole sin episode in David's life, but God revived him. And aren't we able to testify the same thing? Isn't that something for which we can all thank the Lord and praise God? That He has revived us, even when we've done things that have not pleased Him, and we've been low and miserable, and here comes God in His grace, and we bow down before Him, and we confess it, and we're revived. That's the grace of God. That's something for which we can always thank the Lord. The ninth reason we can thank God is because he protects us and defends us from our enemies. At the end of verse seven, you will stretch forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies and your right hand will save me. God knew David's enemies. They weren't sneaking around behind the scenes unknown by God. And David said, you know, I've come to realize that God at times actually stretched out his personal hand He took a personal interest in my welfare and he protected me. I'll bet you he's done that for all of us many times. We can be certain that God has rescued us multiple times, probably more times than we can even think of tonight. He's probably rescued us from physical enemies, emotional enemies, demonic enemies, spiritual enemies. catastrophes he's prevented. God has has had his hand on his people all the way through life. Which brings us to the 10th reason we can thankfully praise the Lord because his right hand saves us. I love that in verse 7. And your right hand will save me. You see who it is that saves. We don't save ourselves. God saves us. God delivers us. That's what God's people need to realize. God's people need to realize when I find myself in trouble, I need to bow down to God. I need to magnify the Word of God. This is what's so foreign to people who get themselves in trouble or they get themselves into depression. They stop going to the one place they ought to go. They ought to go to church. That should be the first place they would go, but they don't. They set home in their stinking rut, and it's a shame. Because if they would go to the place where the Word of God is magnified, and if they would bow down their knees before the Lord, they would see God do wonderful things for them. That's the one place where God does powerfully work, when people are honoring Him and worshiping Him. Which brings us to the 11th reason, which is an amazing reason. We can thank God because he will accomplish everything he intends to with us. Now look at verse 8. The Lord will accomplish what concerns me. Now that's a very encouraging verse. Those who praise God and thank God will see God accomplish everything that concerns them. Put it in its context. In order for us to see everything that concerns us, in order for God to do that, we must be people who worship Him with all of our hearts. We must be people who bow down before Him in reverence. We must be people who pray to Him. And we must be people who magnify His Word. God says to my people who do that, I want you to know something. I will accomplish everything that I want to accomplish concerning you. Now keep in mind who's writing this. This is being written by David. He's not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination. So how in the world could God accomplish everything with David when he, at times, was not perfect? The end of verse 8. Because your mercy, your loving kindness, O Lord, is everlasting. See, it's not the intention of God to quit something once he begins something. Man does that all the time. I mean, man starts something and quits all the time. God doesn't do that. It's not the intention of God to give up on someone once he's made them his property. So when you take a child of God like David was, And you take an attitude that says, I'm going to keep bowing down toward your holy temple. I'm going to keep going to the place of worship. I'm going to magnify your word. I'm going to be about learning everything I can learn from your truth. I'm going to praise you, and I'm going to worship you. God says, I want you to know something. I'll accomplish with you everything I intend to accomplish. I'll see that you do end up doing my will. But the people for whom he'll do that will be humble, trusting, praying people who are very serious about God's Word. Those are the people he'll revive. Those are the people he'll greatly use. And that is exactly what David is teaching in Psalm 138. Well, our time is gone tonight. I want to thank you for coming out.