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All right, let's dig right in
to Psalm 81. If you look down in your Bibles there, verse number
one, the Bible reads, sing aloud unto God our strength. Make a
joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. Of course, a psalm is
a song, and it starts off with praise to the Lord. Verse two
says, take a psalm and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant
harp with the psaltery. Blow up the trumpet in the new
moon in the time appointed on our solemn feast day. For this
was a statute for Israel and a law of the God of Jacob. Now, verses two through four. there's a lot of reference to
musical instruments. And I like the sermon that Brother
Devin just preached recently about learning to play a musical
instrument. I think it was a great sermon
and I, you know, would to God more people will choose to pick
up that skill and learn how to play an instrument. And I can't
recall if he made any reference to this or not in the sermon.
I honestly don't remember, but, One thing that I would just stress
is when it comes to talent and things
with musical instruments, The more I've been learning and
understanding how people work and how things work, when it
comes to talent, I'm not saying it doesn't exist. There's definitely
people who are really good at playing instruments and stuff
like that, and some people it seems to come a little bit easier
for than others. But the people that we deem to
be really great musicians, they don't just play that way without
having to work at it and having to work tremendously hard at
it too. Like the best musicians out there
really spend a lot of time invested in that craft, in that practicing
of their music. So it's easy for someone who
is, not involved in that and doesn't even know necessarily
how much time people are spending doing stuff and you just hear
him be like oh wow you know it's like like brother josh is just
fantastic on the piano and he is he's a very good uh piano
player as well as mrs rogers but you don't see the the the
the practice that goes on outside of church right you don't get
to see how much time has been spent and even just in in their
lifetimes up to this point you know of of the the amount of
time it just goes into it goes into it so they make it look
really easy and people who are really good at something always
are able to make it look really easy right it's just kind of
like oh wow yeah it looks so great and then you try to do it it's
like man you know i don't know how to do this you kind of throw
up your hands easy get frustrated with it and you're going to be
like well that that's just something for them but Anybody can learn
how to do these things. And I am a strong believer in
that. And while there may be some more
aptitude in general with some people over others in different
areas, and maybe musical ability is one of those, anyone is capable
of being good at playing an instrument. But it does require work, and
it requires effort, and it requires time. I mean, you have to want
to do it. So I'm not saying everyone has to want to play an instrument
either. But the reason I'm even bringing
this up is so that you wouldn't just automatically put these
things out of your mind as something that like, well, that's just
not for me because I'm just no good at it. I don't have the
talent that so-and-so has. but you don't know that. How
do you know how much talent you really have? Oh, just because
you don't get it immediately? You know what I mean? I tried
doing it once and I don't know. No, work at it, give it some
time. You might be excellent at playing some instrument, you
don't even realize it. So, I would just say this as encouragement. It's not you almost learn how
to play musical instruments. If you like it at all, right,
if you enjoy music, if you enjoy the sounds of music and things,
just give it a go. Give it some try. Whatever type
of instrument you like kind of the most and see what it's like
and maybe put some effort into it for a while too before you
just dismiss it. It's good, if nothing else, to
have just more education and wisdom, you know, you learn more
about music theory, you understand, you could read the notes, you
could know more about what goes into songs and music, and maybe
that would lead you down a path of composition. Maybe you're
not great at playing, you know, there's so many avenues to go
down, and I just, just as a word of encouragement, and, you know,
this goes with languages, this goes with other things that people
have a tendency to just kind of brush off as going, well,
I don't have that talent, I'm not very good at that. But I
think the talent might get a little overstated because it really
mostly boils down to a lot of effort and a lot of work, and
people who are more passionate about those things are going
to excel because they enjoy putting in the time doing the things
that they like doing. I mean, that makes sense. So,
if it's not something you like at all, then yeah, maybe it's
not for you. It's not like you have to play
an instrument to be godly. But we are seeing here, and my
next point, and what I want to point out here, is we see all
these instruments. And one of the most silly things
I've ever heard as a doctrine that a New Testament Christian
church has is, there's some people out there that are against having
instruments in their church services. Sorry, it makes me kind of laugh
a little bit because the whole point, or at least the best argument
that I've heard for this, is an argument based off of omission,
meaning, well, we don't see anyone using instruments in the New
Testament. Therefore, we shouldn't use them. It's kind of like,
do you really have to see that to just make the claim of like,
well, we shouldn't do this? That's kind of silly if you ask
me, especially when the New Testament tells us that we're supposed
to sing the Psalms, that we're supposed to be speaking unto
each other in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, right? And
then we go to the Psalms, and we also know that the Psalms
are the word of God, and we know that all scripture is profitable
to us, and it's profitable for instruction, right? It's given
by inspiration of God. It is profitable for us to learn
things from, and it's not just to learn how they did things
in the Old Testament. Like, there's a lot of great
truth in the Word of God in the Old Testament. We look at these
Psalms, and he's saying here, sing aloud. And it's like, well,
should we not sing then? Because that's an Old Testament
thing. Oh, but we can find people singing, yeah, they sung a hymn
with Jesus at the Last Supper or something. And they weren't
carrying instruments around with them. Otherwise, they might have
been playing music, too, you know, like, whatever. It's not
a reason to not have musical instruments. But we see here,
clearly, take a psalm and bring hither the timbrel, which is
an instrument, the pleasant harp, which is an instrument, with
the psaltery, which is another instrument. And then it says,
blow up the trumpet in the new moon. in the time appointed on
our solemn feast day. And that says, for this was a
statute for Israel. So this was actually a commandment
given in the law of God. Now, if you just look for, well,
the new moon, you hear about this, it's really interesting.
If you've ever tried to look into this before, and I looked
into this while I was preparing for the sermon specifically,
You hear it in the major prophets more frequently about the new
moons and your feasts and God talking about the new moons and
bringing that up. But when you actually go back
to the law, you won't find the new moon. You'll find the Feast
of Tabernacles. You'll find the Feast of Unleavened
Bread. You'll find the Feast of the Ingathering. You'll find
these other holy days. You'll find other times. But then it's like, well, where
is the new moon? the new moon still exists in the scripture
and this is why the psalmist isn't wrong saying it was a law
of the God of Jacob. Keep your place here in Psalm
81 and turn back if you would to Numbers chapter 10. And here's
why it makes sense to blow the trumpet in the new moon and that
this was part of the law of God. Numbers 10, verse number 10. The Bible says this, also in
the day of your gladness and in your solemn days, And in the
beginnings of your months, you shall blow with the trumpets
over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace
offerings, that they may be to you for a memorial before your
God. I am the Lord, your God. Now,
every day they're having their burnt offerings, their peace
offerings, the evening sacrifice, the morning sacrifice. They have
all of these things laid out in the law. But then it says
here in this verse, though, that in the beginnings of your months,
now, If you know anything about the Hebrew calendar, you'll know
that it was a lunar calendar. and they didn't operate, like
we're used to the Gregorian calendar, we're used to the solar calendar,
where our years are based on the sun and the 365 days in a
year, but their months were based off of the lunar calendar, which
we know the lunar cycle isn't a full 30 or 31 days like we
have for each of our months, it's a little bit less than that.
So I don't want to get super in depth tonight on all the math
behind the days and how they calculated their years because
they have to have like we have a leap year and there's a leap
year coming up right next year. So 2024 is going to be a leap
year and we add one day. Why? Because our days last or
our years are 365 and a quarter days roughly right that's that's
approximately how much time is spent so every year or every
four years you got to tack on a day because if you don't slowly
over time right like we're in we're at the end of november
now after enough time you know it's cold outside in november
now it could get to get down to freezing Well, over enough
time it'll be summer, right? And then we're November and it
kind of screws things up with the way we're doing our months.
So it's easier just to say, well, let's just throw an extra day in there
to make sure that we could keep everything still in tune with
the seasons. And. Back in ancient times, especially
with the Hebrews, they operated on a lunar cycle and according
to the season. So they still kept track of year.
They weren't getting all out of whack, but they just had to
insert more days over the year. And they would do it in terms
of months or maybe another cycle or something like that and use
literally another month instead of just doing it for a day. Okay,
but this is how they would keep track of their time. And when
you look into this, it's really fascinating. And it starts to
make a little bit more sense. And this is why it's good to
have just a little bit more education about these things, right? It
helps just a little bit to get a good, clear understanding.
So when you come across something like this, you go, well, when
you really decide to study and dig into it and go, well, what
do you mean blow up the trumpet in the new moon? I've seen that
before, but I didn't see that in the law. But it says this
was a statute for Israel and a law for the God of Jacob. So
how does this make sense? Well, it makes perfect sense
when you understand that, oh, the blowing of the trumpets,
it happens at the beginnings of the month. And when we see
everything is based on these different feasts that have to
do with the agriculture, With the harvest, there's a lot of
stress and emphasis on these things. It was a much more agrarian
culture and relied on these things. Big deal. So they kept their
time accordingly. And similarly, or along the same
mindset, and turn if you would to Numbers chapter 28, When you're talking about your
days with the children of Israel, the days start in the evening.
They go evening to evening, which really isn't that much different
than what we do here because we use midnight as the time when
the calendar switches to the next day. So theirs is essentially
roughly six hours earlier than that. So it's a little bit earlier.
It's when the sun goes down. Evening time would start the
next day. And then it goes all the way
next day. And the reason why they chose that is because the Bible
says in Genesis 1, in the evening and the morning were the first
day, in the evening and morning were the second day, in the evening
and the morning. So you're getting this concept of starting with
the evening, going through to the next. That's the way that
they did the time. Now, are we just wicked heathens
that are terrible because we're not using the lunar calendar?
No. Doesn't matter, right? It literally doesn't matter,
but it does help. When we're looking at this stuff to have
that understanding, OK, that's how they did things, great. It
also helps a little bit when you're doing some of the figuring
on prophecies and just sort of understanding a little bit, and
that might help you when you find some nice little gems of
truth in scripture when you're looking at the time frames of
things yet to come, especially. All right, you're in Numbers
28, look at verse number 11. The Bible says, and in the beginnings
of your months, you shall offer a burnt offering unto the Lord,
two young bullocks and one ram, seven lambs of the first year
without spot, and three-tenth deals of flour for meat offering,
mingled with oil, for one bullock, and two tenth deals of flour
for meat offering, mingled with oil for one ram, and a several
tenth deal of flour mingled with oil for meat offering unto one
lamb, for a burnt offering of a sweet savor, a sacrifice made
by fire unto the Lord, and their drink offering shall be half
an hen of wine unto a bullock, and a third part of an hen unto
a ram, and a fourth part of an hen unto a lamb. This is the
burnt offering of every month throughout the months of the
year. and one kid of the goats for a sin offering unto the Lord
shall be offered beside the continual burnt offering and his drink
offering. So in Numbers 10, we saw that the blowing of the trumpets
was included in the offering at the first of the month. And
this just goes into a little bit more detail about these special
offerings that are taking place at the beginning of their months. And it's good just to understand
that we're going to learn more over time going through the various
sacrifices that the children of Israel will make. And even
at the beginning of their month was a special time where they
had specific sacrifices to be made. So let's go back to Psalm
81. And also, to make the point then,
this is going back to the law of God. David introduced a lot
of instruments, right? King David seemed to be a man
that loved music. He played music, he played well,
you remember he was brought in for Saul when Saul was plagued
by that evil spirit from the Lord and he would play and then
the evil spirit would depart and he was cunning by playing
music and he also introduced the priests and the Levites and
having other servants of the Lord playing instruments in their
service to the Lord. We kind of see him bringing a
lot of that in, but he didn't bring in all musical instruments.
It's not like there wasn't any music being played prior to that
because they had these trumpets going all the way back to the
Law of Moses and having a part in the aspect of the service
to the Lord. You don't want to have a false
understanding of like, oh, all these instruments just started
with David. No, they didn't all just start with David. God had
already had music involved and these trumpets involved in his
service going all the way back to the Law of Moses, at least.
So there's no reason, again, to say Well, I mean, you don't
see all of it. Yeah, you don't have to see a
lot of it, doesn't mean it's not there. New Testament, hey,
let's praise the Lord with instruments and sing praises unto his name
and make a beautiful sound unto the Lord. Yes, with our voice,
but also with other instruments as well. It gives honor and glory
unto the Lord. Look down there in verse number
five of Psalm 81, the Bible says, this he ordained in Joseph for
a testimony. when he went out through the
land of Egypt, where I heard a language that I understood
not. I removed his shoulder from the
burden. His hands were delivered from the pots. Thou callest in
trouble, and I delivered thee. I answered thee in the secret
place of thunder. I proved thee at the waters of
Meribah, Sila. So now in the Psalm here, we
start off with the praising to the Lord
and using the instruments. And then. covering the good things
that God had done for Israel when he brought them out of Egypt
and being, you know, removing the burden and delivering their
hands and freeing them from their slavery, essentially. And they
called on the Lord and I answered and I was there to save you.
And it says, I answered thee in the secret place of thunder
And if you're wondering what that might be, you could remember
when Moses went up to receive the commandments from the Lord,
there was a cloud and there was thunderings. And when all the
people came onto the Mount, they could hear the thunderings. And
Moses was allowed up there. Everyone wasn't allowed up there,
but he was able to go into there. And at the presence of the Lord,
there was that place of thunder where he was there communing
with the Lord and giving them what they needed, giving them
their direction, giving them their commandments, giving them
the instruction to Moses. And then he says, I proved thee
at the waters of Meribah. So it's taking some events here
that happened. and kind of condensing them into a few verses and including
this in the song here as we continue on, we're gonna see kind of getting
more to the point of the psalm. This is giving a little bit of
a backstory of how good God was to them. And if you would just
turn to Numbers chapter 20, we're gonna revisit here when it talks
about I prove thee at the waters of
Meribah. With that phrase, it kind of
starts a shift in the psalm a little bit. And it's getting us to the
direction that the psalm is taking. So it starts off with praising
the Lord, singing unto him, using instruments. God's been really
good to Israel. God's been good to his people.
But, right, and then we're gonna see, but they didn't listen to
me, but this and this happened. And it starts here with proving
the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah. Let's look
at Numbers chapter 20, and we start reading in verse number
one. This is that incident at the waters of Meribah. Then came
the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, into
the desert of Zin in the first month. And the people abode in
Kadesh. And Miriam died there and was
buried there. And there was no water for the congregation. And
they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people chode with Moses
and spake, saying, would God that we had died when our brethren
died before the Lord? And why have ye brought up the
congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and
our cattle should die there? And wherefore have ye made us
to come up out of Egypt, to bring us unto this evil place? It is
no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates,
neither is there any water to drink. So notice all the complaining. And they haven't even been freed
from Egypt that long. and they just keep complaining. And this is even after people
died because of their complaining, now they're just complaining
even further. Verse six, And Moses and Aaron
went from the presence of the assembly unto the door of the
tabernacle of the congregation. They fell upon their faces, and
the glory of the Lord appeared unto them. And the Lord spake
unto Moses, saying, Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly
together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the
rock before their eyes. And it shall give forth his water,
and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock. So
thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink. They
don't have any water to drink, and God knows this. And God's
already promised to supply their needs. God's gonna feed them,
and God's gonna give them the water that they need to survive.
He's gonna sustain the children of Israel, because He's the one
who's led them out. He's gonna care for them, and
He knows that this is a need. Now, they're complaining about
a whole host of other things. He's not giving them all of that
stuff, but he is gonna give them the water, and he's proving them
here, and he's proving the children of Israel, they need to have
the faith, they need to trust the Lord, and that even in these
impossible seeming situations, God will take care of them. It
was an impossible situation being enslaved in Egypt, but God delivered
them. It was an impossible situation
fleeing from Pharaoh and his army, and they're, trapped by
nature, by a big sea. But God delivered them through
the sea. And God brought the sea back
down upon those that were chasing them. And God defended them.
And God protected them. And then they go into the wilderness.
And they need water. And God brings them the water.
And they need food. And God rains manna down from
heaven. And they need these things. And God is taking care of their
needs over and over and over again. And he's proving himself. And he's proving them. and he's
proving himself to them through his miracles. But what did he
command Moses here? And this is important. Because
what happens here is literally the reason why Moses and Aaron
do not end up going into the Promised Land. It is a result
of this event right here at the waters of Meribah, where Moses
was no longer allowed to actually complete the mission of leading
the children of Israel into the Promised Land, which is why Joshua
took over and then crossed over and of course then they fight
against Jericho and Ai and then continue on going into and inheriting
the land. And Moses only gets to get a
glimpse of it and God shows it to him, miraculously shows him
all the land before he dies, but he never crosses his foot
over into the promised land because of this event. And when you want
to understand why, well we have to look at the details of what
God specifically said Because what God specifically says to
do matters. And would to God we can all as
Christians look to what God says and not try to spin it our own
way or well God just said this so I'm just gonna go ahead and
do, God said X I'm gonna do Y, but it's close enough. No. No. If you're going to learn
anything about the Lord, about the Creator, about God Almighty,
you know, read the Bible and see when people just decide to
do things their own way. After God has already specifically
said that it ought to be done. Now look, if God didn't specifically
spell something out, great. God loves receiving praise and
the thoughts of your heart that are good towards him. But when
God tells you to do something a certain way, you do it that
way. And God told Moses to do what in verse eight? Take the
rod, gather the assembly together. Pretty simple instruction so
far. And Aaron, thy brother, And what do you say? And speak
unto the rock before their eyes. So they're going to this rock
and they're supposed to talk to the rock. And it shall give
forth his water. You say, hey rock, we're thirsty,
give us water, right? And the rock's gonna listen and
obey. And look, the people are gonna see that. And it's amazing, right? It's
a miracle. and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the
rock, so thou shalt give the congregation their beastly drink.
Look at verse nine, and Moses took the rod from before the
Lord as he commanded him, takes the rod, that was number one,
and Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation, okay, he's
doing good, Aaron's with him, they get the congregation together
before the rock. So far he's doing everything
exactly like the Lord said. And he said unto them, hear now,
ye rebels, Must we fetch you water out of this rock? Hold on a second, Moses. First
of all, you're supposed to be showing how God is providing
for them, not you and Aaron. Must we fetch you water out of
this rock? Like you've got this special
way of now being able to get water out of this rock, Moses?
about the lord is gonna provide for you from water out of this
rock and moses lifted up his hand
look at this and with his ride he smote the rock twice now where
did god ever tell me hit the rock you tell me so what's the
big deal pastor persons will cut and say to do that in what
matters is because We don't always understand why God wants to do
things a certain way, but God has a reason for why he wants
it done a certain way. And for us, at our vantage point
with the Word of God and being able to have so much luxury of
having information and having so many other books of the Bible
delivered unto us, it's not that hard to see the representation
of the rock and the living water and being able to speak unto
the rock to provide that living water for you, right? Like this
is a great illustration of Jesus Christ, the rock of our salvation,
and the Holy Spirit, and that living water is going forth abundantly,
the waters of life being able to bring you and keep you and
sustain you coming out of Jesus, right? And all you gotta do is
call on the rock to provide you that life. It's a great example,
it's a great illustration, but what did Moses do? He added his
own work to it. He added his own work. But it
wasn't that much work, I mean, really, really, it doesn't matter.
He added his own work to it. And that's not what God told
him to do. So that has significant consequences for Moses. God was
trying to show him something, and all Moses had to do was just
do it the way that God said. And everything's great. But instead,
he added his own spin to it. He added his own thing. And he
gets himself in trouble. So water came out. And the water
then did come out. He smote the rock. God still
provided for him with the water. And the congregation drank. And
the beast also. He physically provided for him. But now the
symbolism's kind of screwed up here. And the Lord spake unto
Moses and Aaron, because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the
eyes of the children of Israel. See, who was supposed to get
the glory and honor? I mean, God was, not do we have to fetch
out this water for you out of the rock. No, sanctify the Lord,
not yourselves, not how great leaders you are and, oh, you
need water? Well, we'll get this water for you. No, God's providing
it for you. sanctify the Lord. Because ye believe me not, to
sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore
ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given
them. This is the water of Meribah, because the children of Israel
strove with the Lord, and he was sanctified in them. So this
is that event, and this is the proving grounds at the waters
of Meribah, and God doing all these great things for him, as
the Psalm says, let's go back to Psalm 81. And this is the beginning of
a turning point. They're still listening to the
Lord, but it just gets a little skewed. Doesn't it? And this
is how things go historically. Human beings, human nature doesn't
change until we get new bodies. We have this sinful flesh. And
everything has a life cycle. And even God-fearing churches
and believers and movements and groups and generations of people
who serve the Lord all seem to go through these cycles. And it starts off with people
being really zealous and listening to Lord and wanting to follow
and obey the Lord. And then after a little bit of
time, you might get a little too comfortable and you start
feeling like you can start doing things maybe a little bit different
and tweaking things your own way. And then after enough time
and more comfort and the blessings come and God's blessing for being
faithful to him and everything, then people just start to forget
about the Lord altogether. and not really wanting to have
anything to do with his word. Things have shifted so far from
just, hey, listen to my word and follow what I have to say,
and I'll guide you and I'll lead you, to we're gonna do what we
wanna do. And how many Christian churches
that I'm sure at one point they have a name that they lived,
and did great works for the Lord and making a difference in ministering
to people with the word of God, have just completely turned to
where now you barely hear the word of God preached. No one
is using the word of God and converting souls to Christ, but
they have all kinds of activities going on. Maybe they're feeding
the homeless. Maybe they're doing all kinds
of other stuff. right, and doing plenty of good
works in general, but have just completely kind of stopped their
ears and looking to, hey, what is the Bible just saying to do?
And we learn the lesson from God, it's better to obey than
to give sacrifice. God is not as impressed with
all the sacrifices that you can bring forward as much as he really
just wants you to say, what did the Lord tell me to do? That's
what I'm going to do. So living by the word of God
every day is much more pleasing to God then whatever great thing
and money and whatever else you could spend and give to something
that, you know, that's not really what he's looking for. And it
doesn't mean that God's not pleased with a free will offering, of
course he is, you know, there's a time and a place for that,
but What he wants more than anything is just listen to him, just respect
him and his word and receive it and treat it with the respect
it deserves and the importance of saying, hey, I'm gonna listen
to what the Lord said and I'm really gonna pay attention and
study and do what he said, literally. That's what he wants from us
and that has a much higher priority than anything else. So in Psalm
81, Verse number eight, the Bible says, hear all my people and
I will testify unto thee, O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me.
So note, this is coming right after the statement about the
waters of Meribah. You've gotta listen, if you're
gonna listen to me. There shall no strange God be
in thee, neither shalt thou worship any strange God. And this is
a big deal for the Lord. It's the first two commandments
of the 10 commandments, right? They're kind of the symbol of
the old covenant. Verse 10, I am the Lord thy God.
I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land
of Egypt. Which is, again, understating, don't go after other gods. Don't
go worshiping anyone else. I'm the one that brought you
out. I am the Lord, your God. You stay faithful to me. And
the rest of that verse, verse 10, open thy mouth wide and I
will fill it. And how good of a God is our
God? I will take care of you, just
listen to me. And it's so simple and it's so
basic and it's almost mind boggling. We got this awesome infinite
book of wisdom from the Lord our God that has been preserved
through the ages. And there's so much great truth
in here. And there's nuance. There's depth. There's so much. It's amazing. It's fantastic.
But at the same time, when you just really get the high level,
it's also just so simplistic. It is so easy. And over and over
and over again, we see these concepts of like, look, here. Here are some do's and don'ts.
I want you to follow me. I want you to listen to me. Just
obey me. Receive my word. Receive my word. Follow it. Do it. Just do what I'm telling
you to do. That's it. Just do it. And you know what? I'll bless
you. And I'll cause your crops to grow. And I'll build a hedge
about you. And your enemies are going to
run from you. Just obey me and listen to me. That's it. That's
it. Obey my word. Follow my commands. I will keep you safe. I will
bless you. I will do many great things for
you. But if you choose to turn your
back on me, and you choose to just be disobedient, and stubborn,
and stiff-necked, and you don't want to hear, now we've got a problem. And
now you're going to have all kinds of bad things happening
to you, right? I mean, this is the simplicity. in the scripture,
and it's stated over and over and over and over again, it's
stated in the law, it's stated in the prophets, it's even stated
in the New Testament. Be not deceived, God is not mocked,
for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. I mean,
it's these simple truths. Why do we make it so complicated?
Why is it so hard? It shouldn't be. Well, we got
this flesh, that's what makes it hard. That is the problem,
is our flesh. But it's not complicated, we
know this. We know this. We have to stay
faithful. But let's keep reading here in
Psalm 81. So it's still showing, like look, if you'll listen to
me, don't go after these other gods. I'm your Lord, I saved
you, I brought you out. Open your mouth wide, I'll fill
it. I will provide for you in abundance. Just look to me. Verse 11, but my people would
not hearken to my voice. They wouldn't listen to me. Wouldn't
listen. And Israel would not to me. So
as a result, verse 12, so I gave them up unto their own hearts'
lust, and they walked in their own counsels. And what a foolish
thing. You wanna walk after your own
counsels? Well, I think I know better. I'm gonna give you advice. How about we go to God for the
advice? How about we get the counsel from the Lord who knows
everything and made everything and knows you better than you.
I'm gonna get my advice from God. I'm not gonna worry about
just coming up with my own advice for people. It's a foolish thing. And turn if you would to Acts
chapter seven. God is so willing to give and
provide. God's heart and His love is there,
and His long-suffering and mercy is there too, and He really wants
what's best for His people, absolutely. He wants people to open up their
mouth so He can fill it. He wants that, just people looking
to Him and relying on Him and asking, hey, just ask, you'll
receive, right? then we change things. And in
Acts 7, this great portion of scripture, we have Stephen, the
martyr Stephen, who's preaching this great sermon against the
Jews there and kind of gives us this big history of things
that happen. It does a good job of summarizing
kind of what Psalm 81 has summarized for us already. Look at verse
number 37. In Acts chapter 7, the Bible
reads, This is that Moses which said unto the children of Israel,
Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren
like unto me. Him shall ye hear. This is he
that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which
spake to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers who received
the lively oracles to give unto us. to whom our fathers would
not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned
back again into Egypt. So he's saying, remember in the
secret place of the thunders in Mount Sinai, he received the
word of the Lord, the lively oracles to give unto the people. God is giving him good things,
but what did the people do? They wouldn't obey. They thrust
them, and in their hearts, they turned back to Egypt, saying
unto Aaron, make us gods to go before us. For as for this Moses,
which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we what not what is
become of him. And they made a calf in those days, and offered
sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their
own hands. And this is literally what God was saying in Psalm
81, not to do. There shall no strange God be
in thee, neither shalt thou worship any strange God. but so quickly
they go back to doing that. Verse 42, then God turned and
gave them up to worship the host of heaven. As it is written in
the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered
to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of 40 years in the
wilderness? Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the
star of your God, Rampham. figures which he made to worship
them, and I will carry you away beyond Babylon." When people
push things too far with God, even his own people, he says,
you know what? I'm just gonna give them up unto
their own heart's lust. I'm gonna give them up, and they're
gonna be taken captive. I'm gonna give them up, and they're
gonna, you know, these things are gonna happen. And obviously,
you know, there's some similarity, but God deals with nations a
little bit different than he deals with people, right? If
a nation's gonna be saved, you gotta have good works, but if
your soul's gonna be saved as an individual, you just need
to put your trust in the Lord. You need to put your trust in
Jesus Christ, right? But still, if you're a born-again
believer, and you just have a stiff neck and a hard heart to obeying
the Lord and doing the things He's gonna have for you to do,
you're also gonna be facing the consequences. And God's gonna
make you reap what you sow. And thankfully, right, you don't
ever lose your salvation that wasn't ever on the table. Once
He's saved you, you're saved forever. It's never based on
how good you are, but at the same time, you could find yourself
in a position where God's just done with you. I'm done with
them. And we see the heart of the Lord,
and I'll read this for you in Psalm 81. Turn, if you would,
to Matthew 23. Psalm 81, verse 13. So verse 12, I'll reread for
you. So the Lord is lamenting here in Psalm 81. Why didn't you just listen to
me? You could have just listened to me. Why didn't you just do
it? Why did you have to go after your own lust? Because now you're
forcing the Lord to do these things, right? We bring the destruction
upon ourselves, like just listen to God. It's all you gotta do. And we just have this tendency
to wanna blame everyone else. Take the responsibility for yourself. When you turn away from God and
start going after your own heart's lust and that's, you know, look,
you did it, you brought it on yourself. God didn't want that
for you. God is trying to instruct you.
God's trying to teach you through his word. Oh, that you would have hearkened
unto me. And this is the same lament that Jesus Christ had
for Jerusalem. Look at verse number 37 in Matthew
23. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets
and stonest them which are sent unto thee. How often would I
have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your house is left
unto you desolate. It's like how often I wanted
to just bring you into the fold. I just wanted to care for you.
I just wanted to love on you a little bit. I wanted to bless
you. I wanted to be there for you. I really wanted you to be
with me. but you would have nothing to do with it. I sent you the
prophets, I'm trying to reach you, I'm trying to teach you,
and what'd they do? They killed him. No, we won't
have this man to rule over us. Okay, now your house is left
unto you desolate, it's empty, you have nothing. Let's go back
to Psalm 81. God is good. God doesn't want
to have to bring this judgment on people. They bring it on themselves. Verse 14, I should soon have
subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries.
He's like, I should have just been able to defend them and
protect them. And when their enemies came,
I would have loved to, I should have just been able to just send
them away. because that's what God wanted to do. And that's
what he should have been able to do, but no, the people screwed
it up because they wouldn't listen. They wouldn't hearken to the
word of the Lord. Verse 15, the haters of the Lord
should have submitted themselves unto him, but their time should
have endured forever. So what's that saying? The haters
of the Lord, they should have submitted themselves unto him,
but they didn't. Right? That's not what happened. And
God's people should have endured forever. Because he promised
them that. Remember the old covenant, hey,
you listen to me, you obey my laws, I'm going to bless you
and all of your enemies, God's going to chase away. That's what
he promised them. So he's like, they should have been submitted
unto you. They should have been defeated. I would have loved
to do that. But you didn't listen. Verse 16, he should have fed
them also with the finest of the wheat and with honey out
of the rock should I have satisfied thee. The blessing should have come.
The defense should have come. All of the good things should
have happened, but they didn't. Because they gave themselves
over unto their own counsels, unto the lusts of their flesh,
and Therefore God had to give them up and turn if you would
to to Romans chapter 1 We're almost done. I Know many of you
understand this doctrine well, but if I still think this fits
in here because Psalm 81 15 mentions the haters of the Lord and At
the end of the day. This is kind of what ends up
happening when God's people just choose willfully to have nothing
to do with the Word of God. And honestly, that's it, because when you look back in history,
especially at these times that are being referenced of God's
people not hearkening, there's still in many cases offering
up the sacrifices, going through the traditions, and observing
the feasts, and doing these other things in the law. But one, their
heart isn't there. And two, they're still just not
really listening to the Lord. It's like they're going through
the motions on these things, and they're not hearkening to
what He really has to say. They're omitting the weightier
matters of judgment, just like He said to the Pharisees, right?
that Jesus was rebuking in Matthew 23, you know, you tithe mint
and rue and anise and cumin, like the smallest of herbs and
spices, and you get like these, this little bit of spice, and
you're tithing on it, you're giving 10% of that. Which, yeah,
I mean, you're supposed to do that on everything that you receive,
everything that you're increased with, but he's like, you get
so focused on these things and it's so small, but you completely
forgot about the way more important things. Right? The love of God
and God's judgment and, you know, like all these other things are
so much weightier than that. And that's what they care about.
And this is, you know, they end up in the situation they're in,
and God turns their back on them, just like the haters of the Lord.
The Bible says, in Romans chapter one, we'll start reading in just
a minute there, you know, when people listen to the Lord, obey
his commandments, God blesses and protects and brings judgment
and justice to the land. It's what he promised to do. But when the people turn, excuse
me, from listening to the Lord, and end up ignoring God's pleas,
when he sends his prophets, sends his people, God gets angry, and
he allows for the haters of God to rise. He allows it to happen. You could be like, well, these
people are so vile, how could you, there's no way God's gonna
stand for this. Yeah, when God's people, just
refuse to listen to what he has to say and won't be taking any
stands and don't actually give heed to what God is saying, then
yeah, you know what? God does just allow for the really
vile people that just absolutely hate God to just rise in the
land and to gain prominence and to end up being a plague and
a curse to God's own people. And this is what we're seeing
today. This wouldn't happen if God's
people didn't stop listening to the Lord. if in this land that God has
blessed with many people serving the Lord, could have remained
more true and faithful to the word of God and cared about the
word of God and wanted to hear the word of God, instead of shunning
it and shutting it down and watering it down and not really wanting
to offend anyone and not wanting to really hear what the Bible
has to say, but just kind of do out of the cares of their
heart, they're already been blessed with so much wealth and everything's
fine, don't be so negative, That attitude, that mindset, you're
just not wanting to hear what God has to say. And you're saying,
just listen to my word. Don't get off into these lusts
of your heart and the lusts of the flesh. But that's what God's
people have done. So he's saying, OK, well, you
know what? I should have. I should have been submitting
these haters of God before you. Should have been doing it. God
wanted to do that. And now we're in a position where
we see today, because that's not happening. They're not being
submitted under the authority of righteous Christians as they
absolutely ought to be. Look at Romans 1 verse 26. The
Bible says, for this cause God gave them up unto vile affections,
for even their women did change the natural use into that which
is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural
use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men
with men, working that which is unseemly, and receiving in
themselves that recompense of their error, which was meat.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,
God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which
are not convenient. Now isn't this a little ironic?
When God's people don't want to hear God's word, he uses the
people that didn't even want to retain God in their knowledge
at all as a judgment on his own people that just don't want to
hear his word. He's taking now the people that
just completely rejected God altogether and hate God to bring
the judgment on God's people who just got a little offended
and don't want to hear the word of the Lord. Does that make sense?
I mean, I can see the irony there. Look at verse number 29. Being
filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness,
maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity,
whispers, backbiters, haters of God. And this is where we
get that phrase, because it doesn't happen that often in scripture.
You're seeing people just being referenced as haters of God.
It's in there enough, but it's not just all over the place.
and just going through all these characteristics of these people
that are haters of God, the spiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of
evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant
breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, who knowing
the judgment of God that they which commit such things are
worthy of death, not only do the same but have pleasure in
them that do them. This is a wicked people being
described. This is an extremely wicked, reprobate people being
described here. And these are the people where
God's saying, look, the haters of the Lord, they should have
submitted themselves unto him. But you didn't want to listen.
But my people didn't hearken. My people didn't listen to me.
So now these people that flat out rejected me are going to
be not submitted to God's own people. And, you know, in a righteous
society, they absolutely are. Absolutely. They're in the closet.
They don't want to be known when you've got a righteous society
because people know how wicked this is and they'll have nothing
to do with it. And it's shamed and condemned and not tolerated
in society. But when you get weak on the
word of God and people don't really wanna hear the word of
God, let's just not get into the Bible that much. You lose
wisdom, you lose discernment, you bring judgment upon yourselves,
because God just wants you to obey. He just wants you to listen.
It's so simple. Let's learn to uncomplicate our
lives with the simplicity in the word of God. Day in, day
out. Wake up in the morning, decide
to live your life going, you know what? I'm gonna hear from
God today and every day. I am gonna hear from the Lord. I am gonna read his word and
I'm gonna open up my heart and my mind to receive what God has
for me. Not just some tradition of reading,
I'm going to want to hear from God every day and do everything
I can to walk in the way that I'm hearing from the Lord. And
even if the entire world around us goes to hell in a handbasket,
we can be right with the Lord. And God knows how to save His
people out of trouble. and God will have respect unto
you for, you know, being faithful in what you do, the same way
that God had respect unto other people of God throughout history
and was able to just be there for them in the midst of a crooked,
perverse nation, what have you, you know, we need to be those
lights shining unto the world. And at the end of the day, too,
let's not just throw up our hands in despair going, well, I mean,
is God just gonna burn up? Yeah, he is, but you know, we
don't know when that's gonna happen. And what's really funny,
I was just literally thinking about this this week, quite a while back, I think I
had this conversation with Pastor Anderson in like, maybe 2008
or something-ish, of we're just talking about, man, things are
getting so crazy, right? We're looking at the events going
on around us and just going, you can start, you see how things
can come together and how the Antichrist could set up his system
and, you know, the mark of the beast and there's this technology
and you're just kind of like, like your mind's racing going
like, man, I could see how all this stuff can happen and how
it could all go down like really, really soon. Like, like everything
seems to be there and there's so much turmoil in the world
and stuff. It's like, and that was already 15 years ago. I never thought that we were
going to get to where we're at now. And it still feels like, man,
we're like right around the corner, right? I mean, doesn't it? It's
kind of like, I mean, when is the Antichrist going to be revealed?
Because things are crazy. But the truth is, we don't know.
We don't know. We don't know until the things
literally are happening that we've already been warned about.
We can't, we don't give up any hope. I mean, we still have children.
There's still more generations to come until who knows when,
we don't know exactly. So we need to do what we can
and fight just as hard as ever, knowing, yeah, the time is short
overall, but hey, that's, I mean, you never know. You can get a
King Josiah, That gives you another generation, right? Before, God
just comes and, okay, now they're going into captivity, now I'm
gonna pour out my wrath, now all these really bad things are
gonna happen. He extended that judgment for Josiah's generation. Amen, right? So we don't know
what God has in store, and we know ultimately what's gonna
happen, but we don't know all the timing of it. Have a good
attitude. Look to the Lord to guide your
path. Don't overcomplicate things,
right? Seek the Lord and His wisdom
and you won't be steered wrong.
Psalm 81 - My People Would Not Hearken
Series Psalms
| Sermon ID | 12102332885148 |
| Duration | 59:56 |
| Date | |
| Category | Bible Study |
| Bible Text | Psalm 81 |
| Language | English |
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