Well, good evening to you all. I hope you had a blessed Lord's Day afternoon. We did. It was restful and blessed and peaceful and we are thankful and hope that we have a time of rest in the Lord Jesus Christ this evening as we worship him together. So it's good to be back with you again and to open God's word with you. Would you please turn with me to the end of the Psalter, Psalm 150. And I said, if you were with us this morning, I said that we are considering the bookends of the Psalter today. And we saw the introduction of the Psalter looking at the Lord Jesus Christ. And this evening, as we consider Psalm 150, you might be wondering, well, where do we see the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, Let us consider that and give attention to Psalm 150, verses 1 through 6. And I'd remind us that this is the Word of the Lord. It is holy. It is perfect. And let's give our due attention to our God's Word. Praise the Lord. Praise God and His sanctuary. Praise Him and His mighty firmament. Praise Him for His mighty acts. Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet. Praise Him with the lute and the harp. Praise Him with the timbrel and dance. Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes. Praise Him with loud cymbals. Praise Him with clanging cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. And let's pray. Father in heaven, You have summoned us to praise you. You have summoned us out of darkness. And as the Lord Jesus called to Lazarus, Lazarus come forth, we like dead men and women have come forth at the call, that call that we cannot resist, that call that we even delight to hear and our souls thrilled that we have been called out of the kingdom of wickedness and wretchedness and misery. And we've been called into the kingdom of your beloved son. And Lord, you have called us, you have summoned us tonight to praise you. And your word calls upon us to do just that. And Lord, we might wonder, how do we praise you by sitting and listening? And Lord, may we praise you in our attentiveness tonight. May we praise you in our being changed tonight. May we praise you in our hearts, thrilling to hear of the Lord Jesus, that our souls might burn within us as it were, that we hear of him. revealed from the Old Testament. And Lord, may you reveal to us more from this psalm that we so often sing and so often conclude our worship services with. Lord, may we hear a fresh, a new, and deeper, more deeply of the Lord Jesus. Even this evening, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Familiar words in Psalm 150, aren't they? I want you to listen to other familiar words and see if you can place where they're from. I'm sure you'll place it right away. Listen to these familiar words. Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Hallelujah, the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. And He shall reign forever and ever. King of kings and Lord of lords. King of kings and Lord of lords. And He shall reign forever and ever. King of kings forever and ever. Lord of lords. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Familiar words, you know them. You know them well, right? Handel's Messiah written in the 1700s, perhaps one of the best known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music. As you hear those words, are the sounds ringing in your minds? Can you picture it? Can you picture the chorus, the four-part harmonies beautifully singing and blending their voices together? Have you seen it performed by even hundreds of people? You see in such a sight, beautiful in its unity and the cacophony of musical instruments. It's not formal worship, so we can talk about that, right? The cacophony of musical instruments thunderously coming in at precisely the right time as the chorus sings Handel's Messiah, the Hallelujah Chorus. It's a spectacle of beauty, isn't it? But friends, that might be familiar to us, familiar words, a familiar sight, and we can recall that to our minds, and that might be referred to as the Hallelujah Chorus, but I assure you that is not the first Hallelujah Chorus, and it's definitely not the last Hallelujah Chorus. The first and last Hallelujah Chorus is recorded in Psalm 146 to Psalm 150. It's the Hallelujah Chorus of the Psalter. And it comes to crescendo not in Handel's Messiah, not in Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, right? It comes to crescendo in the Messianic Psalm of Psalm 150. when all saints from all times everywhere sing of everything that God has done, every living being on the earth giving glory and praise and adoration to their God. That is the hallelujah chorus of the scriptures recorded here in its finality in Psalm 150. But as we sing of Psalm 150, as we hear it read, as we hear it preached, we must remember it in its context of the whole psalter and remember it in its context of what we heard this morning. That by the time we get to the end of the psalter, we only arrive at Psalm 150 after the success of the one who is depicted in Psalm 1. It goes from that lone righteous man to all saints everywhere and every living being giving glory and honor to the Lord. So as we consider Psalm 150 in its context tonight, I trust that you will see that your lone righteous Savior has succeeded in ushering you into eternal worldwide praise. Well, it hasn't happened yet, right? It's already not yet. He has succeeded. Your lone righteous Savior has succeeded and is ushering you into eternal worldwide praise. Well, in six short verses, we're going to consider questions that the psalm raises and answers, and those questions are who, where, why, when, and what? Who is to praise? Where are we to praise? Why are we to praise? When are we to praise? And what are we to do? Ah yes, praise the Lord. So we begin by answering the question, who is to praise the Lord? And the answer is everyone. Psalm 1 verse 1 in the English doesn't carry with it the same force that you would hear in the Hebrew. It's a universal call. Praise the Lord. We hear that and we think, well, who's to praise the Lord? Just us here in this room? Or I'm reading it to one person and just this one person is to praise the Lord? Or is it It's everyone, everyone on the face of the earth, all who would hear this call. The phrase in the Hebrew is all y'all. Well, that's not Hebrew, that's Southern, right? But all y'all, praise the Lord. Anyone who hears this word, anyone alive on the earth, anyone who is able to, praise the Lord. It's a command. Praise the Lord. Now, if you recall our sermon from this morning, or if you think back to what I just mentioned about Psalm 1, to go from the lone righteous man, lonely, isolated, and in a garden, in a wilderness of sorts, to all on the earth being called to praise the Lord, that's a dramatic shift. Right? We go from a lonely image of Psalm 1. Is there anyone righteous on the earth? There is one, only one righteous man, and he's utterly surrounded by wicked, tempting him on every side to disobey. And there is but one who is faithful, singularly in his righteousness, alone in a garden. But by the time we reach Psalm 150, everyone, praise the Lord, no more evil is present. And in fact, it's not in a wilderness, it's not in a garden, it's not in isolation, it's in community. There's a picture here of an urban environment. Buildings are present. The sanctuary of the Lord is mentioned and there's culture present. The trumpets and the parties and celebration, it's a picture of a populace praising the Lord in different cultures are represented and they're all subsumed under the banner of Christ as they've been brought into the church, into this culture of praise. and all are praising the Lord. That is a dramatic shift, and in fact, that's where the book of Revelation ends as well. John is mentioning that he sees this multitude, this innumerable multitude, and it says, after this I looked, John is speaking, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, and they were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. You go from Psalm 1, one righteous man, to all tribes, every nation, every tongue, every people group that you can't even count, from the singular seed of the woman, to many sons, thousands and millions and billions and trillions of people who've been brought to glory. He's done it. He's succeeded. And this idea is even more proven by the fact that Psalm 150 follows Psalm 149. That's a very profound observation, isn't it? We're here tonight for very profound observations. Psalm 150 follows Psalm 149. Well, the reason we just sang from Psalm 149 is not just because it's from one of the Hallelujah choruses here at the end of the Psalter, but what we just finished singing praises to the Lord about is actually the final judgment. Praising the Lord for the final judgment. That's how Psalm 149 speaks. Verses 1 through 4 is, let's strike up the party and the celebration. Let us rejoice for the Lord's care of His people. Let's dance and celebrate. Why? Verses 5 through 9 indicates why we are to praise the Lord. All the saints are to be joyful and they're to sing aloud on their beds. Why? They have been given a two-edged sword in their hand to execute vengeance on the nations and punishments on the peoples, to bind their kings with chains. and their nobles with fetters of iron to execute them. The written judgment, this honor have all his saints." So we have the white throne judgment as it were, the judgment of the end come in Psalm 149 and then immediately after that we have the praises of Psalm 150. And so the picture is this, friends, do you not know that you will judge angels, Paul says that. You will execute judgment upon the nations, you will be given a double-edged sword to slay the oppressors, the wicked who are silenced to the uttermost, who are thrown alive into the lake of fire, and then the end, and we praise the Lord for a time where there is no more sin, no more wickedness, No more sorrow. No longer sinning against one another. No longer being sinned against. Oh, can't you long for that day right now just to hear that? No more sinning against each other. No more being sinned against. No more hurt. No more sorrow and pain. Nothing but peace and glory and rejoicing. And so we sing Psalm 150 looking forward to that time because we don't experience that time yet. That time has not arrived yet, but we are singing of our true reality because we have been seated in the heavenlies. So as we sing Psalm 150, there are several things that should be on our minds. First, Christ is successful. He does it. He succeeds. He will bring you to this place. But also, this is your end in the sense that your name has been written in heaven. Jesus says, don't rejoice that the demons bow down to you, right? Rejoice that your name is written in the Lamb's book of life. Also, as we sing Psalm 150, we should note that we have not been saved to be alone. You've been saved to a community. You've not been brought into the church as a Lone Ranger individual Christian, but you have been brought into a holy community now. And you are being taken to a time of perfect holy communion. This is your end with one another. And if, friends, if we don't delight in the holy community now, If we resist the holy communion of one another and the delights that we have on the Lord's day and other times just gathering and being with one another, if we resist that and we dislike that, then that is to chafe at what the Lord is making us into. This is our end. This is where he is taking us. This is his design for your life and for your eternity to build you into this holy community more and more. So we have answered the first question. Who is to worship the Lord? We all are. But where are we to worship the Lord is the second question and the answer is everywhere. Verse one goes on. Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in his mighty firmament. This is a parallelism, a Hebrew parallelism, stating a similar idea in two different ways. And there is a mingling of praise on earth, praise God in his earthly sanctuary, and praise him in the mighty firmaments, his heavenly sanctuary. And the idea here in Psalm 1 is the same picture that we would see in Hebrews chapter 2 or Hebrews chapter 12. that as we gather together on the Lord's Day, friends, do you realize what Christ is doing? Christ is bringing us into the heavenly praise, as it were, and we are joining with the ongoing eternal praise that's already begun. And just like Hebrews 2 says, Christ is taking us by the hand, as it were, and bringing us to the Father and saying, here I am with your children you've given to me. Or Hebrews chapter 12, that we are coming to worship at the heavenly Zion. And so the praise of earth, and heaven are being mingled together. And yet the Hebrew parallelism of verse one is stronger than that. There's a more ultimate fulfillment in focus here in verse one. It's focused on a time when earth's praise and heaven's praise are truly one. When heaven and earth have become one in the new heavens and the new earth. When we are fully perfected and God has finally been successful in what he has been bringing about from the very beginning. I will be your God and you will be my people and I will make my dwelling with you. And he finally brings his dwelling with us, one and the same location in our praise of heaven and earth in the new heavens and the new earth. are together, this is a great expanse being crossed by the success of Christ. And that's really the nature of Hebrew parallelism, expressing the same idea in two different ways. You see, in our rhyming, in our poetry, in our day and age, we rhyme sounds, right? We don't rhyme concepts, we rhyme sounds. Roses are red, violets are blue, I think you're great and I love you. That's terrible poetry, but it rhymes, right? It has that cadence that we're used to. That's not how Hebrew poetry works. They rhyme in concept. Let me just illustrate it from Psalm 149. If you just turn over to verses 2 and 3 real quick of Psalm 149, listen to this. This is parallelism. Same idea said two different ways. Rejoice in God. All right? Verse 3, let them praise his name with the dance, let them sing praises to him with the timbrel and harp. Praise God with celebration. It's just phrased two different ways. They rhyme concepts. That's what's going on in verse 1 of Psalm 150. Praise God in the earthly sanctuary and in the heavenly firmament. They're one in the same location in the new heavens and the new earth. And friends, we don't experience this yet. God's name is not praised perfectly in all the earth. Instead, his name is cursed. His name is reviled in the earth. His kingdom is opposed. But one day. The Lord's prayer that you so faithfully and diligently and patiently pray. will be perfectly answered. And you will receive the answer to your prayers that have been on the saints' lips for thousands of years. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And one day that will be perfectly answered. And what a sweet, sweet day that will be. So we have answered two questions. who is to praise, where we are to praise. We are to praise him everywhere and look forward to the new heavens and the new earth. But why are we to praise him? Verse two, why are we to praise him? And the answer is for everything. The two primary reasons given in verse two is praise him for his mighty acts and praise him according to his excellent greatness. Mighty acts we get. We praise him for the things he does for us all the time. It's very easy to remember those things and see those things. And we thank him for our daily bread and we thank him for the blessings that we have experienced this day. It's very easy to thank him for what he has done. It's harder to remember to praise Him for who He is, to praise Him according to His excellent greatness. But the Lord is owed praise for both of these reasons, not only for what He does. but for who he is. And that second idea there, praise him for who he is, is expressed in a really cool way in the Hebrew. It's not as cool in the English. It is cool in the Hebrew. It says, praise him according to his excellent greatness in the English, but the Hebrew says, for the muchness of his greatness. Isn't that cool? Why do we have to anglicize that? Praise Him for the muchness of His greatness. He is immense, immortal, eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-excellent, and only God. Praise Him for the muchness of His greatness. But this psalm doesn't expound the muchness of His greatness. All we would have to do, though, is flip back to Psalm 145. If we were walking through the Psalter one by one, we would have recently come upon Psalm 145, and Psalm 145 recounts the muchness of His greatness. Let me just summarize one single psalm for you, very quickly, to explain the muchness of His greatness. This is what Psalm 145 praises God for. He's unsearchable, mighty, glorious in splendor, majestic, good, righteous, gracious, compassionate, patient, merciful, tender, worthy, powerful, everlasting. He upholds the weak, raises up the humble, provides food, satisfies every living thing. He's near to us, He saves us, He preserves us, He opposes wickedness, and He is the holy and eternal God. And that's just one Psalm. Praise Him for the muchness of His greatness. And that's just one Psalm. So by the time we get to Psalm 150, it doesn't have to recount the muchness of His greatness or for His mighty acts because that's what we've just done from Psalm 1 to 149. We know how to praise Him. for these things. He's given us a book to show us how to do so. It's as though God is saying, do you want to know how to praise me for my mighty acts and the muchness of my greatness? Well, here it is. I've given you my Psalter. Use the Psalms and you come to this end of the book and you look back on all of these wonderful, rich things that he has given us. to praise him for his mighty acts and the muchness of his greatness. Praise him for everything, for who he is and for what he's done. Well, when are we to praise him then? And the answer of verses three through five is on every occasion. Praise him on every occasion. When we read this section, verses three through five, and we hear all the musical instruments, I know we're a little bit embarrassed and a little bit sheepish, RPs, right? We don't use musical instruments and oh, Can we sing this portion? And we think that maybe the Old Testament saint, the Jew, would hear this and understand this as being instructed to use these instruments in public worship. And that's not how the Jew would hear this section of the psalm at all. Because if the Jew rightly understands how God instructed each one of these instruments in the Old Testament, there are some of these that are not used in public worship. They are not used for temple or tabernacle worship. For instance, timbrel and dancing is only celebration and party. So the Jew would not hear this and say, oh, these things are used in temple worship. No, no, no. That's not the point. The Jew would hear this and understand that all aspects of life are being spoken about. When are we to praise him? Well, when are the trumpets used? They're used for corporate gatherings, gathering people. Well, when would the lute and the harp and the flute be used? These are not the corporate gatherings. These are more of like the, you're in the field or you're with your family, the smaller gatherings. When are we to praise him? In the large settings and the small settings. The lute and the harp are kind of like the, harmonica of old, if you will, right? The wandering person who would just pull out the harmonica by himself and to play some contemplative music in a smaller gathering, right? The image here is praise him in the large gathering, praise him in the small gathering. And when was Timberland dancing commanded again for parties and for celebration throughout the scriptures? Just, if you want an interesting study, trace those words through the Old Testament, and it's only in relation to parties that are entirely separate from public worship. When would symbols be used? Again, for going off and returning from war, this idea of celebration or for merrymaking. The psalm is saying, all facets of merrymaking before the Lord, every aspect of life, praise You see, the psalm isn't saying, bring these musical instruments into worship. It's saying, praise God in every setting, everywhere and every way. Now, we could make personal application to our present lives, that we are called to be merry before the Lord, regardless of our circumstances and regardless of our settings. We could make that application. Live for his glory, live for his praise, no matter what you do. But I want us to instead consider a different application of this section. And I especially want the children in our midst to hear this. Children, if I could have your attention for just a moment, really clearly. I hope I've had your attention more than for just a moment. But children, I especially want you to hear this. Heaven is going to be an awesome place. It is going to be blessed. And if I can use this phrase, it is going to be a ton of fun. Because God describes heaven and the new heavens and the new earth like a party. Not a raucous party like the world, that's not what I mean. But He sees fit to use the image and the illustration of a party to describe how heaven is going to be. I know that we think that heaven's going to be like sitting on clouds and playing harps sleepily and lazily, like tinkling away at the sounds of the harp or something, or a perpetually boring worship service that just drags on and on and on for all of eternity. I hope we don't actually think that. But that image creeps into our mind. And that's not the image that our God uses here. It will be a place of gladness and continual happiness and eternal joy in our God. And God says it will be forever a place of merriment where everyone will want to be. Whether in a large setting or in a small setting, whether in the fields or in our homes, I'm not trying to speculate. I'm simply saying that it will be a place of constant enjoyment and delight in our God. Every facet of life is represented here in verses 3 through 5. The solemn and the jubilant. The percussion and the melodic, the gentle and the jarring. All of it is brought into glad submission to Christ. And it's really interesting in the book of Revelation, musical instruments are spoken of in that book. And there is a place where musical instruments will not be heard any longer. It's a striking image in Revelation chapter eight. And it speaks about the city of evil, the populace of the wicked. Those who devote themselves to culture making and the arts and worship the arts as an idol and are able to pursue those things with all their lives and all their hearts to the exclusion of pursuing and calling upon the name of the Lord. And it says in Revelation 18, 22, the sound of the harpist and musicians and flutes and trumpeters shall not be heard in you anymore. Why will the evil city not have musical instruments for all of eternity? Because they have received their reward now. And you saints are the ones that get joy and gladness for all of eternity. That joy and gladness is reserved exclusively for the righteous and the blessed in the day of judgment forever and ever and ever. So what are we to do then? What does the psalm say? What are we to do? We are to praise the Lord. Verse 6, is the Amen of this Psalm. May it be so. Let it be so. You know that's what the word Amen means. May it be so, right? This is the Amen of Psalm 150 and it's the Amen of the Psalter. Everything that we have sung prior to this point in Psalm 1 to 150, may it be so. Let everyone, everywhere, from all times, praise the Lord for everything that He has done. Let all those who are alive on the earth at all times, at the time of the consummation, praise the Lord. And it's as though Psalm 150 is saying, OK, we're standing right at the edge of eternity. We're there. The final judgment is behind us. It's happened. And now, Praise the Lord. May it be so for all of eternity. Let it begin. Let all that has breath praise the Lord. And that's how Revelation speaks, right? John says, and I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all therein saying to him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. Amen. calling upon every living creature to praise the Lord. And that's actually what we see the Psalter calling upon as well. If we were to take the time to go back to Psalm 148 and unpack that, we would see that that Psalm doesn't just call on people to praise the Lord, but every living creature, all land creatures and sea creatures and air creatures, everything that's alive Give praise to the Lord. Everything that has the breath of life in it, use that breath to praise the Lord. Do you see what the end of the Psalter is saying? We've gone from the lone righteous man lonely and surrounded by the wicked, tempting him to sin, but he's never stumbling, never failing, going from that lone righteous man. And we see throughout the Psalter that he's also opposed by wild animals, that that lone righteous man is sought after by jackals to make him his prey. And now what has happened in Psalm 150? Every living person and every living being in the new heavens and the new earth is praising along with that lone righteous man because he has succeeded. Christ has succeeded through the Psalter of bringing every son of his, every son of the Father to glory. Do you see what the Psalter is singing about, friends? Do you see what we're singing about every time we take it upon our lips? The success of Christ. This is what he has done and is in the process of doing. And as we think about that, that image of Christ bringing us to this point and us singing these Psalms again and again, I want you to think of tuning an instrument. Have you ever seen someone tune a musical instrument, specifically a stringed instrument? Have you seen someone plucking a string, a particular note and listening and paying attention to hear if it's sharp or if it's flat and adjusting it a little bit and then playing that note again and again and again and listening? and fine-tuning it, and then after he gets that one string right, he moves on to the next string, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, and listens, and adjusts it appropriately, and he moves up and down and back to find that instrument perfectly in tune, playing every note that he desires it to play. And that is what the Lord Jesus Christ is doing with you and me, friends, as we sing the Psalter. He is playing that one note again and again as we sing that portion of God's word that he is using to conform us to the image of the Lord Jesus himself, conform us to righteousness and holiness. He's playing that tune as we sing that Psalm, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, and he's adjusting what's sharp or what's flat and he's bringing you into perfect harmony so that by the time we get to glory, You are perfectly in tune." And he says, okay, play. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise Him more, the Psalter is saying, in your everyday life. Praise Him more in your private life. and in your public life. Praise him more in your families. Praise him more in your hearts that he'd be king over all things in your life. Praise him until you are brought to that day, that end, when you are a perfectly tuned instrument of praise and you are ready for the concert of heaven for all of eternity. And Jesus comes to his Father at the very end. And he presents his finished work to the Father and he says, here is the kingdom that you have given to me, Father. And he puts all things under the feet of God, that God has made all in all. And friends, when we see that day, When God is all in all and Christ is fully, finally, completely, in every detail, successful in accomplishing what He is to do, what will be your response when you see that day? Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Why? Because the lone righteous man has done it. He's finally done it in ushering sinful people like me and you into perfect, eternal, worldwide praise. He's done it. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. And friends, we don't have to wait until then to do so. We've already begun. That's what we do when we sing the Psalter. And that's what Christ is about. And that's what we're going to do in just a moment when we sing Psalm 150. But let us not forget it when we sing Psalm 150 at the close of our worship services and just think it's dismissing us back to our week. No. The lone righteous man, the Lord Jesus Christ, is successful in ushering you into eternal worldwide praise. Amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, how we thank you for Christ, whom we sing about in his Psalter. the words of Christ dwelling in us richly as we speak to one another, as we admonish one another and sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Father, how we thank you that we sing of him and he's done it. It is finished. And yet, Lord, we're still asking that your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We're still asking, come Lord Jesus, come. But until that day, how we thank you that you are more and more tuning us into your perfect instruments of praise. That we can all join in with that perfect hallelujah choir on that day. But Lord, would you continue to perfect us even now? I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.