I'm turning this evening to Psalm 134. Psalm 134. these songs of degrees or songs for pilgrims to sing. We read here, Behold, bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord, the Lord that made heaven and earth. Bless thee out of Zion. Amen. When we come to the New Testament and when we look at the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, in that last week before he went to Calvary, he entered into Jerusalem as the king riding on that donkey. and in Mark chapter 11 it's recorded after the triumphal entry is now over, the crowd had dispersed, it was now late, and you see there that Jesus visited the temple And that was why pilgrims went to Jerusalem, to observe and to commemorate the feasts. So Jesus was there at the time of the Passover, and so the whole purpose of pilgrims going was to go to the temple. Now while the temple may not have been open for business it was still open for worship and there was always worship going on at the temple. And so Jesus visited the temple at night and interestingly when you look at Psalm 134 you see that this is a night time or an evening psalm. It is revealed to us about those which stand by night, who are in the house of the Lord. And so the priests and the Levites, they're still offering up praise and worship to God. And as we look back at Psalm 113, and verse number three, we see there, From the rising of the sun until the going down in the same, the Lord's name is to be praised. So there in the temple, the name of God is continuing to be praised by these servants of God at the nighttime. Well, this is the final psalm in this collection, and it's as if now we've reached the summit, we've reached the top, we've reached the final destination. And the whole purpose of coming here, the whole purpose of being with God and coming up to meet him, is to come and to worship him and to be blessed of him. And really that's what Psalm 134 and those three verses is really all about. It's about coming to praise God and then coming away with the blessing from God. So the psalm begins, like it did in Psalm 133, with that word behold. Take note. Look at this. Observe it. Take notice of the great things that are before us. And so we have this direction in the first place to bless the Lord. Now the word bless could be translated praise and you could have these words used interchangeably but the word bless literally means to kneel or to bow down so when the patriarchs would bless their children, they would have knelt down to then receive that blessing. So how is it that we could bless God? He doesn't bow down to us, he doesn't kneel down to us, we don't take worship from him, so how can we bless God? Well, we bless God When we worship him, when we praise him, we are the ones bowing down, we are the ones coming in that position of humility to give him the honour, the praise, the worth that is due to his name. And when God blesses us, we are receiving the blessing from him, in other words, the provision, the supply, the care, the love, the nurture, and all the things that we have in our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. So the psalm could really be summarised in quite a short sentence. We are to bless the Lord, and may we know the blessing of God as well. Well, who is it that is to bless or to praise the Lord? Verse one, bless you, the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. The first way in which that would be applied is the priests and the Levites. There were various tiers or various responsibilities the Levites had. They had particular jobs, but all of the servants of God, all of the Levites and the priests, they were there to contribute and to take part in the worship of Jehovah. But when we think about that, that also has a further application to all of God's people at all times and in all ages are to praise him. 1 Peter 2 verse 9 reminds us that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We are kings and priests unto God by virtue of being saved and being united to Christ. And so we have this direction to us and to all believers to praise God. And not only that, it is the way in which God should be worshipped and praised at all times. We find that when you go through the Psalms, particularly this collection, we've already looked at Psalm 126 and verse 5, about those that sow in tears will reap with joy. And now we come to Psalm 134, and the tone has changed, the attitude has moved, and so the people of God are now no longer weeping, but now the night is filled with praises. So God's people should praise him and all God's people should praise him at all times. We then have a direction here to lift up our hands or to lift up your hands in the sanctuary and to bless the Lord. Now some people would take that to be a direction that we are to wave our arms around, lift our arms up, hold them high whilst we pray and to have these different gestures in prayer. Certainly when you look at the Old Testament, the idea of lifting your hands up to pray was quite a common feature. It was something that God would expect and God would receive. There is that idea of lifting our hands up in worship. but we are to see perhaps the more spiritual attitude that is here as well. Now when we think about life we often will express our emotions with gestures. If you watch some sports, you will see sports people, if they go and score a goal or if they go and score the winning runs, they're exuberant, they make gestures with their hands. Well, when we think about worshipping God, we find that it takes up the whole of the being at times. When you think about a child, if they want something from its parents, they will often put their hands up in expectancy that they're going to receive something, or they want to be picked up to be cared for and to have love shown toward them. And so using the hands is a picture here of lifting us up to God and looking to him with anticipation. When you look back at Psalm 24, I was reading this just a little while ago, it talks about who is it that can ascend to the house of God. And there it speaks about those who have clean hands and pure hearts. And you might be thinking, and the pilgrims here may be thinking, well, how could I come to God when my hands aren't clean? Spiritually speaking, I've sinned against God, how could I lift up my hands before him? But that's the wonder and the beauty of the gospel, that's what we've already discovered as we've gone through this psalm, or these psalms, is that though we are sinful, though we have broken God's commands, though by nature we are corrupted, There is mercy with God. Psalm 130, out of the depths. Have I cried unto thee, O Lord? Lord, hear my voice, let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? It doesn't stop there. But there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord, and my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning. I say more than they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy, with him is plenteous redemption, and he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities. So Psalm 130 has given us the answers to how we can come to God, how we can lift up our hands to God in prayer and worship. It is by virtue of what Christ has done for us, that forgiveness and that cleansing that comes. We are able therefore, by faith, to enter into the holy place of God because of what Christ has done and we can come with that full assurance of faith. Now, in the Old Testament, only the high priest could enter the most holy place, and that was only once a year on the Day of Atonement. But now, because of what Christ has accomplished, that death on the cross, that way has been established, that we come through him. And so the Lord's people here in verses one and two are told, bless the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord. So that is the first part of the psalm, it's looking at praising God, bowing down in worship and adoration toward him and giving him the honour and glory that is due to him. But now the scene changes in verse three and now the blessing is going to be coming our way, that blessing from God. And so the Lord is going to bless us, the Lord that made heaven and earth, bless thee out of Zion. Well, it is possible that when this psalm would have been sung or spoken in the Old Testament and the pilgrims coming up, that there would have been this kind of call and response. The people coming up would have read out or spoken out verses one and two, and then the priests and the Levites who were in the temple may well have given out that call, that the Lord bless you, that made heaven and earth out of Zion. So it may have been a call and response that may have come, a kind of benediction that is given, similar to what we have in Numbers 6 and verse 23 and verse 24. But it's quite appropriate and quite remarkable that the end of this collection of Psalms, we're left with the blessing of God being upon us. In fact, God is having the final words. We've come up, we've journeyed, we've gone through the difficult times, the hard times. We've gone through the struggles of life and the oppression of the world. We've gone through all of this and now we come. to the end of our journey and the blessing of God is to be announced and given to us. So it is God, the maker of heaven and earth, that gives this blessing. This description of God being the maker of heaven and earth has twice already been spoken of in this collection of Psalms. Psalm 121, verse two, my help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. And again, in Psalm 124, verse eight, our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. and here in Psalm 134 verse 3, the Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion. So when we think about this we're being reminded who it is that is blessing us and it's none other than God the maker of heaven and earth and that's a wonderful encouragement Because so often in life we can become downcast, we can become depressed, we can forget the power, the might and the care of our God and we're reminded that our help comes from God and the blessing comes from God as well. But also we see where this blessing is found, it is found in Zion. The Lord bless you, or that made heaven and earth bless thee, out of Zion. And when we think about Zion here, we are thinking about the place where God meets with his people. We've seen how Zion has a major theme in these psalms. Zion represents Mount Zion, which represents Jerusalem. It's also a synonym of the temple, and it's the place where God meets with his people. You may think, well there is no temple today, so where does God meet with us? It's in Christ, it's in the church, and we're looking forward to that day when Christ will appear and that new heavenly Jerusalem will be revealed. Let me read a few verses from Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 22. But here come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels. To the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men, made perfect. And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of evil." So Zion is ultimately representing where we meet with God in glory forever. We find that in the book of Hebrews also it speaks about Jesus ascending to heaven where he sits down at the right hand of God and now intercedes on behalf of his people. And so we have this great high priest who now intercedes and represents us. Jesus has ascended first so that he can pray for us and bless us from that heavenly Zion. And because Jesus has ascended, because we're in him, we can ascend to God as well. And we do that through prayer and worship during our time on earth. And then eventually, faith will give way to sight and we shall behold him with our own eyes. So God's blessing starts from Zion, but then it goes wherever we go, because he is the maker of heaven and earth. The Lord is the one that blesses. When we think about Psalm 134 as we draw these thoughts to a close, It's teaching us really that blessing God, praising God is really a blessing in itself. It's almost like a circular activity that takes place. We come to bless and praise God, and we come and we are blessed. And then we have more fuel to bless God because of what he has done. We're reminded of his power, or we're reminded of his love, or we're reminded of his mercy, and we're then blessed. And then we bless God because we discover more and more. And so when we get to heaven and when we get to see him, that blessing will continue for all eternity. Well, the Psalmist has made quite a journey. Just cast your eye back to Psalm 120. In my distress I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me. He then said, deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue. What shall be given unto thee, or what shall be done unto thee, thou false tongue? And he goes on. He says, I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war. He then recognized where his help comes from. Oh, it's from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. that's joined with other pilgrims. I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. And then there's a sense in which we're back in the doldrums, we're back in the difficulties. Oh Lord, have mercy on us. Have mercy, for we're exceedingly filled with contempt. Psalm 124 speaks about the way in which we could have so easily been swept away, destroyed, swallowed up, but our help is in the name of the Lord. And the psalmist in Psalm 125 speaks about the confidence that the pilgrim has. Oh, we're unmovable, unshakable, because the Lord will protect. then there's that coming back and returning. Joy is mixed with sorrow because now joy erupts out after the time of sadness and difficulty. Again, Psalm 127 speaks about the idea of, if it hadn't been for the Lord, except the Lord had built the house, we labour in vain. And so it continues till we get to Psalm 134, where we now reach the end of the journey, and God has been with his people every step of the way. Not once have they been abandoned, not once have they been forsaken, not once have they not had their needs met, not once have they been overwhelmed or overtaken by the enemy. They have been supplied by God throughout all of this. Yes, there have been lessons to learn about trust, dependence, perseverance, faith, forgiveness, humility, unity, blessing, but as we come to this last psalm, We now see how God is the one that's been blessing all that time and then will continue for all eternity. No wonder the hymn writer could write, praise God from whom all blessings flow. Well this psalm is about blessing God or praising God and then it concludes with being blessed of God.